How the other half lives

Taking my bike home by train yesterday, I travelled from Pilawa to W-wa Wschodnia and then changed for the Radom train, which would take me back to W-wa Jeziorki. Tired, hungry and thirsty after a 66km ride, I was looking forward to an uneventful journey through Warsaw and out to its southern suburbs. It was not to be.

For some reason, the rear compartment (now designated for cyclists) of the Radom train attracts a specific clientele. Sunday evening was no exception. Despite the no smoking and no drinking alcohol signs, the compartment fills up with men insisting they do both. A guy joins me in the empty compartment at W-wa Śródmieście, sitting on the bench next to me (the compartment has room for ten or so bikes but has seating for two).

He immediately cracks open a tin of Żubr beer and engages in unbidden conversation with me about the weather. Every other word is an expletive. It then transpires that he's heading back to Radom where he lives with his mother, a stroke victim in her seventies. On Wednesday she sent him out to buy (expletive) raspberries and he got his (expletive) shoes (expletive) wet (expletive) in the (expletive) rain. On Thursday, she sent him out to buy (expletive) plums. Again he got his (expletive) shoes (expletive) wet. Same thing happened on Friday. By Saturday all his (expletive) shoes were (expletive) soaked through.

His life is a catalogue of woe. Why does he live in Radom? Because he lives with his mother, who he has to look after. She's doubly incontinent. Why does he work in Warsaw? Because he can find work on building sites that pay cash in hand without too much effort. There's no work in Radom. To get to Warsaw, he has to take the train, which takes over two and half hours. And he has to get to the station, which takes another 40 minutes.

He wakes up at 4am to get to work in Warsaw for 8am, works till four or five in the evening, gets home after eight, well hammered on the train after consuming several tins of beer, to clean up after his mother who's dirtied the floor again after eating apples.

His mother gets no help from social services because he's meant to be her carer (which suggests he's paid by the state and instead of doing that, he's off in Warsaw working in the grey economy). Father probably dead, wife probably left him because of his drinking.

This guy, in his late-thirties or early-forties is trapped in a spiral of misfortune from which there is no way out. Other passengers join the compartment, at W-wa Służewiec and at W-wa Okęcie, also heading to Radom, also ready to crack open a beer and light up. One other cyclist gets on, clearly none too thrilled by his fellow travellers. Who launch into a diatribe about why there's nothing wrong with having two beers and getting into a car and driving. "Only in Poland," they opine, "does the police stop anyone who's even had one beer, and treat them like criminals." Nothing wrong with driving fast either. One can only guess in what technical state these guys cars are in.

The journey was to become much worse as the electric overhead power cable on the 'up' line had just come down between W-wa Dawidy and W-wa Jeziorki. Our train stood in a field, the S79 expressway to the right, rows of coal wagons at Okęcie sidings to the left. No means of getting out and cycling home. The train stood there for 50 minutes while two railway policemen (SOKists) set off on foot to investigate (below). Three town-bound 'up' trains were diverted onto the 'down' line while we waited.

The guard moved through the train explaining the situation after about ten minutes. He said there'd be a ten minute wait. But at least with him in the rear compartment, the beer-swilling and smoking ceased and the language moderated (the respect these Radomites have for authority surprised me). And we were kept informed up to the minute as to what was going on. Out in the distance, I could see a yellow power-line repair train inching forward, and the lights of oncoming 'up' trains changing tracks to avoid the damaged section.

I arrived home just before nine pm, grateful for just about everything. I reflected once again on the huge civilisational gulf between Warsaw and other major Polish cities and the rest of the country. Radom is a particular sad place. The town itself (pop. 220,000 - bigger than Newcastle-upon-Tyne or Portsmouth) suffers from unemployment of 21.7%, while the surrounding district's jobless rate is 28.8%. Warsaw's, by comparison, is a mere 4.6%. [Source: GUS, May 2014.]

While EU membership has done a lot to improve the lot of farmers working on the land in Poland's villages (CAP subsidies in particular), there is still glaring inequality between big cities and the second league cities, where joblessness continues to be a stubborn blight. Because Radom's in the same province (voivodship) as Warsaw (Mazowsze), it's not eligible for the extra EU money targeting the so-called 'eastern wall' provinces and their cities, Białystok, Lublin, Kielce and Rzeszów. I've advocated for ages separating Warsaw off from the much poorer rest of Mazowsze and targeting with the sort of measures that stimulate local enterprise.

This time last year:
On guard against complacency

This time two years ago:
Ready but not open - footbridge over Puławska

This time three years ago:
Dusk along the Vistula

This time four years ago:
Mediterranean Kraków

This time five years ago:
Around Wisełka, Most Łazienkowski, Wilanowska by night

This time six years ago:
Summer storms

This time seven years ago:
Golden time of day