Lasopole, west of Chynów

"...find a new path. As you learn about where you are, new paths will take you further and further afield; the paths closer to home you will have trodden many times already." This advice, offered to me [see previous post], I followed.

"Learning where you are" - deep local topographical insight. Knowing instinctively each path, each field, each waypoint; knowing how to navigate even in the dead of night; intimate appreciation of the land upon which you tread. "Further and further afield" - constantly extending the boundaries of that deep knowledge.

And so, I walked to the nearest point from my działka beyond which I have not yet walked. This is the path running parallel to the DK 50, which then turned left into the village of Lasopole (population 84). I've not been here before - neither on foot nor by motorbike. Below, a view of Droga krajowa nr. 50, the southern part of Warsaw's de facto ring-road - as it rises above the embankment, just one lane in each direction. At the top of the hill, go down to to the next crossroads and turn left.

Below: having turned south away from the DK 50, a zig-zag road leads into Lasopole. There's a well-invested orchard to the right, complete with hailstorm netting. But as I'll come to see, the land between Lasopole and Drwalew, the next village to the west, is home to few orchards; the landscape is to take on an entirely different appearance...

Below: this wayside chapel stands at the centre of Lasopole. The road running off on the left soon loses its asphalt and turns into a footpath running through a field, ending up by the Czarna river. Sadly no convenient crossing over it to connect (even a small footbridge) to the centre of Chynów.

[Update 6 February 2024: I discover that though no online map, not even OpenStreetMap, shows this, there's a fallen concrete post placed across the Czarna, allowing pedestrians to cross in relative safety.]

Below: looking south from the centre of Lasopole, a long straight road leading to the old DK 50, that carried all the east-west traffic transiting central Poland before the bypass was opened in 2009. A different landscape beckons. 

Below: looking west towards Drwalew and the remaining buildings of the PGR (state farm). Large fields - not narrow strips; the corn crop has been partially harvested. The PGR works the land to a different scale than the local farmers' smallholdings. Hundred-hectare (250-acre) fields like this are rare in Mazovia, where, according to Poland's agriculture ministry, the average farm size is 8.9 hectares.

Below: medium-tension electricity lines leading towards the buildings of the PGR.

In the 1920s, this used to be a large estate belonging to one French landowner, aptly, a M. Longchamps (lit. 'Longfield' or 'Długopole'); he sold it in 1928 to a successful Polish pharmacist, Stanisław Klawe, who established a pharmaceutical plant on part of the property. After the war the pharma plant was nationalised to become Biowet, a manufacturer of veterinary medicines; the surrounding lands were collectivised as PGR Drwalew rather than be broken up into smallholdings. Below: the road from the wayside chapel at Lasopole to the old DK 50 forms the eastern boundary of the PGR.

Googling PGR Drwalew, I discover that the Polish state still has thousands of state-owned farms on its books - there are ten of them registered in Grójec poviat (county) alone! [Full list here for download as an Excel file.] Seven are state horticultural farms (Państwowe Gospodarstwa Ogrodnicze); two are state fish farms (Państwowe Gospodarstwa Rybackie); PGR Drwalew is the only classic arable farm in Grójec poviat in the Stalinist sense of agriculture - land owned and worked by the state.

Interestingly, three of the PGRs ('Danko HR') are part of a state-owned company, Danko Hodowla Roślin Sp. z o.o., belonging to the National Support Centre for Agriculture, of special importance for national agriculture, focused on breeding new varieties and the production of seeds. PGR Drwalew, however, has no such 'special importance' status. 

According to the Chynów gmina (commune) website, PGR Drwalew was connected to the town sewerage system in early 2019, and was at that time home to over 200 people (Drwalew's total population is around 900). Other than that, there's no mention of ths PGR online. Below: the gmina's official map, showing land ownership. PGR Drwalew is marked in pink, note how surrounding plots of land, privately owned, are far smaller...

Below: the old DK 50 between Drwalew and Chynów; since the bypass opened, it's very quiet here, only local traffic, which is good, as I have to walk this road all the way into Chynów (from the bottom right of the pink field in the map above). Cars were mercifully rare, and being local traffic, drivers tended to treat a pedestrian on the verge with due respect, slowing down and indicating.

Below: after the apple harvest, it's time to cut down old orchards before they become unproductive - typically nine growing seasons. Five rows of trees have been removed, roots and all (wykarczowanie) on the corner of ulica Działkowa and ul. Słoneczna, Chynów, yielding completely new vistas. It's a sudden shock, when a view that you've been used to for years changes. Old familiarity evaporates.

Below: back home, looking up the street towards my house, up the hill and into the trees. Solid fuel being burnt to warm homes.

I realise that it is six years since I bought my działka. Good to be far from the madding crowd, far from the hustle and bustle of a society hell-bent on sales and consumption. Scale back, withdraw, and slow down. De-materialise. 

Twelve kilometres walked today.

This time last year:
On etymology

This time two years ago:
Free will, determinism, and the supernatural

This time three years ago:
Hammer of Darkness cubed

This time five years ago:
Magic day, in and around Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
Warsaw-London-Ealing

This time eight years ago:
With my father and brother in Derbyshire

This time ten years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 13 years ago:
Setting sun in the mountains

This time 14 years ago:
That learning moment