Wednesday 27 October 2010

Welcome to Warsaw

Returning home after a business mixer via Dworzec Centralny (Warsaw's central station), I notice that the refurbishment of the platforms is now underway, with Track 4, Platform 2 and Track 5, Platform 3 now closed off for building work. Across on Track 3, a night train to Moscow via Minsk is boarding. The entire station smells characteristically of coal smoke, as the Russian trains still use it for carriage heating.

Below: Some Russian graffiti on a column on Platform 3. I have no clue what it says; it may well be obscene, or existentialist, or love-lorn, or all three, and probably vodka-fuelled. Any reader care to have a stab at what the Master of Warsaw Central* has scrawled here?

I am reminded of a communist-era joke. A Parisian is heading by train to Moscow. A Muscovite is heading by train to Paris. By mistake both alight in Warsaw. The Muscovite looks around in delight: "Ah! Paris!" The Parisian looks around in disgust: "Urgh! Moscow!"

* A reference to The Master of Paddington, whose famous statement "Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere" was for many years daubed on a brick wall on the approaches to London Paddington station. Now long gone, immortalised by Peter Simple in his Way of the World column in the Daily Telegraph.

3 comments:

jan said...

My limited knowledge of russian allows me to decipher this graffitti as follows: "I was born as a sucker/boor/moron, I live a boorish life, and so I'll die as a boor. But I'm also a male and a boor/sucker/moron is only happy in his boorish way when the robbers rob his money." Sounds cryptic, but the word "лох" probably has multiple meanings...

adthelad said...

For anyone interested, one translation engine I tried out gave me 'wieśniak' for лох (pronounced 'loch' I guess) i.e. a hick.

Michael Dembinski said...

Thanks guys! Makes a lot of sense (I guess!)