Monday 20 August 2012

Evening walk along ul. Żmiejwska

A road that appears on maps of Warsaw, ul. Żmijewska is no more than a farm track that begins on ul. Pozytywki ('Music-box Street') and... and just peters out amid fields before reaching the site of the old Rampa na kruszywa (now a thankfully-abandoned residential development).

Above: looking west, where once the rampa stood proud, dominating Jeziorki's flat horizon. Today it's gone, it was a unique landmark, victim of developers' over-expansive plans laid low by the global financial crash. Ul. Żmijewska is just two parallel lines of earth, the width of a tractor. It's a hot evening, but rain clouds threaten.

Above: most of the land around here is lying fallow, and on this land grows goldenrod (nawłoć) and mugwort (wrotycz). Now in late-summer bloom, the yellow mugwort flowers (below) are characteristic of the fields of Jeziorki; in the background, goldenrod (the State Flower of Nebraska, incidentally).

Below: some fields are put to arable crop. Here's some equally-yellow rapeseed growing in a field between ul. Żmijewska and ul. Karczunkowska.


Left: to the south, along Warsaw's border with Mysiadło, a new development is slowly emerging. Indeed, zoning plans suggest wall-to-wall building across the way. In the foreground grows cabbage.

Whereas Mysiadło and Nowa Iwiczna to the south have rapidly turned from fields to intensive residential developments, the fields between ul. Karczunkowska and Warsaw's southern border maintain their rural character. Long may they do so. Jeziorki Południowe gain so much from the presence of agriculture here.
This time last year:
A stroll through Pole Mokotowskie

This time two years ago:
A Serious Man reviewed (still my favourite film)

This time three years ago:
Funny old cars, 1989

This time four years ago:
The Beskid Wyspowy

This time five years ago:
Another summer storm

3 comments:

toyah said...

@Mike
Long time no see.

Anonymous said...

Superb and evocative photographs that capture the Rus in Urbe with great skill.



Frater Shutterspeed

Sigismundo said...

"Mugwort" - what a lovely word. So apt and descriptive of the Polish condition. Useful for example in the phrase: "I once saw a drunk lumpen with a face like a mugwort."

But then I suppose drunk and lumpen are a tautology.