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.