POLAND: A TRIP BACK FROM WIELKA BRYTANIA

LONDON Flying from London to Krakow, I expected to find Poland deserted. There are about million of Poles working and breeding their children in the British capital, and their numbers throughout the Isles are hard to calculate. Just add to that the Poles in Australia, America and Germany, and you’ll see that not much is left for their European country of origin. On our way to Gatwick we thought that had already reached our destination point. While we waited for our train a crowd of fans in red-and-white paint, all drunk, flooded the platform shouting ‘kurva’ and ‘Polska’. As predicted: Germany had won. But after the two-hour flight our impressions of the nation changed dramatically. Читать далее | More KRAKOW At the passport control the officer started talking to me in Russian and, having found my visa, explained, that he had “also been to the UK, in Birmingham, but ‘didn’t like it there in Britain and so is back [to Krakow] again”. For a reason, as I saw later, Krakow is not bad at all . Sun heats the green boulevards, on every corner you can buy a pretzel, the trams make a funny “ding” sound – and the streets and parks are surprisingly populated. Mostly with students: amazingly beautiful girls and guys of the same age with folios, drawing boards and notebooks. It seems that the average age of Krakow’s citizens is below thirty, and the only elderly people you notice are tourists. Krakow’s youth is explainable; since the Medieval Ages the town is known as a major Eastern European education centre, in the modern days being the home for humanities and polytechnic universities. Polsko jadlo Right at the start of our trip through the city we encountered a genuine local ‘pub’ — ‘Smak Bar’— where the waiter will not talk to you in any language except Polish. But the ‘point-with-the-finger’ method resolves the dish ordering issue in a couple of minutes. The local beer ‘Zhivjez’ (recently available in one of the Oxford St. pubs) will cost you about a pound, and plates — around two. The price defines the size: the portions turned out to be unusually small for big Polish standards, which largely exceed the British ones. The standard menu set usually consists of ‘bigus’ — chopped sausages fried in sauerkraut, pancakes with yoghurt, borsch and a huge meat croquette with sweet syrup. In a more serious chain of restaurants ‘Polsko jadlo’ I had a chance to impress my Greek friend (a quietly confident meat connoisseur,) with precision of meat choice. While the beer foam was still high, the waiter brought two giant pieces of brown bread on a wooden plate, ‘smalez’ (pork lard processed with garlic) and a huge knife to spread it. That was only a PRE-starter! The starter was young potatoes with cold yoghurt in a clay jar, followed by the main dish which really made my friend struggle: the black sausage. Organoletpic ( I don’t recognise this word but I’m sure you know what it is!) analysis proved: the black colour of this product is due to the large quantities of black pepper in it. My friend lost the black-sausage-battle. In the meantime I conquered a fried pork leg, and we ended up filling ourselves to guts for 7-8 pounds. Die Sehenswurdigkeiten The central square of Krakow is the most cared-after and genuinely beautiful place in town. The landmarks of the square are the main Krakow cathedral from the XVI century with asymmetrical towers and the market with its clever wooden toys, wooden chess, more wooden stuff, leather stuff, shirts, warm slippers and even leather whips,— and all this grandeur is surrounded by neat German-style cafes. A special part of town is Kaszmirez —the former jewish ghetto. Nowadays the story of this place is told through many tourist signs and route boards but it takes imagination to feel the life of the past. The only testimonials to it are signs in Hebrew and a synagogue. Now there are many restaurants here, dance-clubs and a small market, where kiosk holders fry sausages and the locals queue for them till late. Two streets ahead stands the medieval Catholic cathedral, and the signposted ‘jewish route’ follows ‘the route of Polish saints’ almost step in step. Beyond the boundaries of the old city the facades of the houses are dark and shaggy, and expose the shop signs of all sorts — from women’s tights to water filters, (very like Russian style by the way). On the south bank of Wisla dwells the industrial estate, one of the sights here is an enamel factory (Anglophones make fun of ‘Email Fabrik’) — which belonged to Schindler. The heart of the industrial area is a huge iron plant. This is exactly where we went to look at the Polish printing industry, once famous throughout the Eastern Block. Nationalism In the Liepo lithography I found: a couple of pallets with Royal Mail envelopes, paper stock from Finland (from ‘FSC’ Karelian forests?), and a printed issue of Kazakh ‘Mini’ magazine. A friend of mine form Athens was interested in their international cooperation and international clients, but the chief manager of the print house replied: ‘No, we have polish clients only’. Oh. Another example: take a polish ‘Newsweek’-type publication as ‘Polytika’ — and you won’t find anything on US, UK, Europe or China. Poland is the only thing on the agenda. Red-and-white tones are the necessity for all advertising in magazines and outdoor media. Krakow culture is aimed at European values, but has a remarkable Slavic hue. The West here is transformed, and eastern (Russian) influences are rejected through effort. To illustrate my point, take ‘Camelot’ — a new photo gallery very much resembling the House of Photography in Moscow, a very successful exhibition space which was just empty white-painted rooms and a lonely babushka selling tickets in the beginning of its existence. ‘Camelot’ is founded by young people, and I am pretty sure their project has a future. However, while describing one of the photos from Warsaw depicting soviet cultural heritage, the guys made so many references to their hate for the soviet regimes that I decided disclosing my Russian origin would be inappropriate. Just like many places in Poland, the hostility is still there. *** We journey on in the train, which very much resembles the Russian sleepers but with the sleeping shelves removed. Smoking is not prohibited on Polish trains —a fact which is taken advantage of by my fellow students. Warsaw lies ahead. WARSZAWA (WARSAW) By first impressions Warsaw resembles a Russian town where one of the Moscow ‘Stalin’s Skyscrapers’ has been dragged to. A closer look (2 days are quite enough) reveals more special layers in the urban liqueur of this city. The remains of a medieval town in Prague-Tallinn-Riga manner, Soviet-rebuilt centre and modern siblings of Canary Wharf are all blended under the leering arms of Warsaw — a mermaid swinging a sword. From USSR The Palace of Science and Culture is that much-spoken-about high Soviet building in the centre of the town. It evokes love and hatred in Poles here. They will not fail to quote the number of people dead while building it and will make fun of it in t-shirt designs and advertising. However, in more serious printed matter like travel guides and postcards it still remains the city symbol. This building, surrounded with 40-storey glass towers as Marriott, makes Warsaw unique for its cross-cultural blend. Unfortunately, the hatred shows itself — privately owned, the building is poorly maintained, and its surroundings don’t glitter either. From feudal times The story of the old city in Warsaw dates back to the XIV century. The heart of the town now is the brick-paved square with the statue of King Sigismund, the first King to bring Poland together. The square is surrounded by Catholic cathedrals with inevitable portraits of the Pope Johann Paul the 2nd in 20x20 meter size. Another landmark is the Holy Cross church - where Chopin (or, precisely, his heart, as the guides say) was buried. We went to the Old Town on 14th of June — in the Wedding Saturday. Family is a very big thing for Polish Catholics, so weddings are numerous and lavish. There were about three hundred guests near every church, and the newly-wed paraded in antique cars and carts. People were also swarming in the lower part of the city, universities and institutes had organized a ‘science fair’ on the Wisla’s bank. Here you could find everything; from a DIY gyroscope and tesla coil to mini-models of aeromechanics. The institute of modern history had organized a field kitchen on the World War II Soviet Army artillery spot and specialists in ancient history reconstructed a potter’s tent from the IX century. *** On the whole, the standard of living in Poland exceeded my expectations. From today’s perspective it is hard to understand why so many Polish people emigrated to foreign countries all over the place. Perhaps, as all immigrants, they were driven by human insatiable hunger for new impressions and the everlasting hope for the better. However, many of them are coming back. Dmitry Artyukhov Thanks for editing to Jane Ritchie На русском