This is PKP W-Wa Powiśle station, designed by Arseniusz Romanowicz in 1954 - a splendid and iconically Warsaw piece of architecture. This being my local station for work, I've blogged it before (notably here). The old low-level ticket office is now the hippest place in Warsaw, when the capital's hipsters meet up before taking on the town. Above: here's a long-exposure photo taken of a group of hipsters who've just got off an east-bound train on their way down the platform towards the klubokawiarnia.Moni (a hipster herself - for only true hipsters deny their hipsterness) points out that there's a Facebook page called Polska hipsterem narodów (Poland, hipster among nations). Quite right. An antidote to Państwo Smoleńskie.
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10 comments:
@Mike
The red and white wreck abandoned in the mud of Smoleńsk being a disease? One to which Warsaw's hipsters may prove a good antidote? Quite intersting.
Far indeed have you gone, my friend!
Obsessing about the wreck is a disease. Believing it was a conspiracy is a disease (rather than a series of errors and systemic faults on the Polish and Russian sides)
We should not wallow in the mire of Smolensk but push our nation forward - creative, innovative, talented - the young people who'll turn Poland into a world-class power need cheering on!
@Mike
"We should not wallow in the mire of Smolensk but push our nation forward - creative, innovative, talented - the young people who'll turn Poland into a world-class power need cheering on!"
How did I know you would say that? This is all you. Desperate to the bone.
@ Toyah:
Desperate? Optimistic and positive, I'd say :-)
@Mike
That's exactly what I mean. Desperately optimistic and positive. You are desperately trying to be optimistic and positive about Poland, like you didn't realize that Poland can still be loved even if it proves to have fucked up once in a while. I realize that it must be really painful for you to accept the fact that you have invested all your emotions into the project based on actual hatred - and here I mean hatred that kills.
And believe me - conspiracy has nothing to do with it. Conspiracy is bollocks. Hatred is what counts. And your hipster won't change it until this has been acknowledged.
Beware, I've had a bad day...
So who the hell a hipster is. I did a short reserch in the Internet and I still have no idea. I've read a few articles in which journalists tried to depict this subculture and I'm in square one. So Michael, if you're so think those young people are so wonderful tell me more about them. From what I've learnt hipsters don't have any distinguishing marks, their motto is to stand out by being totally ordinary, yet different that all the rest. Is that what it is?
How can you compare hipsters to Państwo Smoleńskie??? How can you compare another examplification of fun-having culture to a movement which derives from the biggest national tragedy after World War II? Acolytes of PiS, no matter how strongly I disagree with their vision of Poland have a solid plan for this country. And what do those young people have - they want an easy, problem-free life, fun, entertainment? In what way can they move Poland forward?
I'd say over-optimistic and over-positive and this approach might get you nowhere. Michael, truth be told more and more often I have an impression you're not only out of touch but that don't even know how it feels to have real problems. Life most of the time is a way uphill and if young generation is to push Poland forward, it should do it by sheer hard work, not by hanging around on a railway station and wearing old-school clothes. Culture counts and everything should be dosed within reason.
Toyah, this is not hatred. My diagnosis is far from yours. All those people who contempt PiS, Kaczyński, reject the idea of so-called IV RP do not develop a 'project' (I detest this word) on hatred. Their lives should be easy, problem free, full of fun. Live it up and devil may care.
All us three are worlds apart, I guess.
Best wishes Micheal!
Pozdrawiam Panie Krzysztofie!
@ Bartek
"Acolytes of PiS have a solid plan for the country" - please elucidate! How do they intend to finance the construction of a vast network of water treatment plants in a short period of time to avoid fines from the EU commission for pouring raw sewage into Poland's rivers?
Bartek - you've taken a financial hit and you're sore. Sit down, have a beer, it will pass.
What Poland needs is to unleash the creativity of its young people. In the UK, 7% of GDP is generated by the creative industries sector (film, music, games, fashion, TV, radio, internet etc). What is it in Poland? No one's even bothered to guess.
I can see a cultural renaissance afoot (in Warsaw at least). My last three trips to the theatre - every single seat taken.
I remain positive, despite localised gloom :-)
Michael, in terms of ideology they are the strongest, no matter how we disagree with their ideas, no other party in Poland can offer its voters such a clear message.
In terms of I'm most interested in, i.e. economic agenda (take the trouble to read it) they do have some ideas that either harmful (reviving the Rodzina na Swoim programme of subsidising banks and developers and send flat prices up), good but technically barely feasible (giving people the choice between ZUS and OFE), or simply prove their ignorance (proposed changes in regulation of banking industry). Plus the whole agenda does not lay out ways to solve problems, but is a bunch of grumblings over the current government, with some tinge of short memory, under- and overstatements.
Micheal - I got over it. After the US credit rating was downgraded this morning the tsunami is not over, but don't worry, I'll recover from losses... This is how the markets work - once I'm up, once down. It didn't affect my view. It passed, but I won't take back what I've said...
Now please elaborate how the hipsters can work out a plan to build these water treatments and avoid fines?
Micheal, I do know culture counts and can be a GDP contributor, I do appreciate it, but please don't tell me these people, if involvement in the subculture is not only their pastime activity, can solve Poland's structural problems. A man's life shouldn't be only bread and butter, at least for sake of mental balance, but life focused on entertainment only is not an alternative I'd commend. Or maybe I've seen too many youngsters who get money from their parents, show off and live carefreely. Maybe this is where it hurts...
@ Bartek - er... exactly where in this document does PiS set out its views on fiscal prudence, privatisation, financing infrastructure development - on indeed inspiring the creative industries sector?
Bit lost in the PiS programme for 2009-2011.
Politics aside, it's a cool place for a pub: was there last weekend in fact...
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