Ząbkowska

Ząbkowska! The new, the trendy, the up-and-coming part of Praga - of Warsaw indeed. In my recent explorations of Praga, there's not been a post from here, street of a dozen hip bars, cafes and restaurants, with its cool, retro-style klimat. Below: the gates of Ząbkowska - helmeted and turreted, the building on the corner of Ząbkowska and Targowa gives a flavour of what's to come. At its feet, one of Warsaw's surviving bary mleczne - cheap food for the working proletariat.

Three cheers for Warsaw's konserwator zabytków (heritage building inspector) for insisting that Ząbkowska retains its cobbles and its tram tracks. Though trams no longer run here, the street's character is greatly enhanced by the original 19th century street surface. Look through the arch into the podwórko (courtyard); many have small chapels, traditional local places of prayer. Below: into a more down-at-heel podwórko for some characteristically Praga klimat.

O mother! Right: The Virgin Mary is ubiquitous in this part of Praga; statues and paintings of the Undefiled One adorn courtyards and porticos, street corners and façades. The image is becoming used ironically; devotional paintings are appearing in hipster art shops and t-shirts, referencing and referential - not so much as images of worship, nor even with sarcastic intent - more to say "these are my authentic roots, dude, this is where I'm, like, from - my babcia heavily was into this". Below: pre-war buildings maintaining that Praga atmosphere; this is deepest Szmulowizna, where until recently respectable Varsovians daren't linger after dark...

Below: composed into a modern block of flats, some original pre-war architecture on Ząbkowska 25-27. Architectural heritage is so important.

Below: irony, or what? Wallpaper in a courtyard - old copies of Trybuna Ludu, the communist daily newspaper (print-run 1.6 million) stuck to the wall. A real treat for Polish readers. The communists sure knew how to bore people. For such crimes (boring readers) the editors of this organ should have been brought to trial. (Click to enlarge - a real hoot.)

Below: view down Ząbkowska towards Stara Praga. All that's missing is the tram wires. And the clip-clip of horses' hooves as they draw drożki up and down the thoroughfare.

  Below: bar culture on Ząbkowska. Probably the hippest place (though the competition is fierce): W oparach absurdu ('In the Vapours of the Absurd' - ul. Ząbkowska 6). The title is Julian Tuwim's; it was from this work that came his famous satirical quote about "Jews, Masons and Cyclists" being to blame for Poland's woes.

  Below: interior of W oparach absurdu. Every other table has a Singer sewing machine on it. Takes up valuable space for your lorneta z meduzą (two x 50 ml shots of vodka served in a pair glasses looking like a pair of binoculars, with pig trotters in aspic, all for less than three quid), but what an atmosphere!

  Slightly rougher, but still extremely old school Praga: Po drugiej stronie lustra (ul. Ząbkowska 5) Note the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the middle of the podwórko, and the fact that Ukrainian brewers (Obolon, in this case) are starting to market their beer effectively in Poland. Also worth checking out on Ząbkowska: Czarny motyl, Mucha nie siada, Łysy Pingwin - and indeed several others.

If you're planning to visit Warsaw, make time for a trip to Praga and pop by Ząbkowska. Otherwise, if you stick to Old Town/Palace of Culture/Łazienki, you'll have failed to have captured the city's true essence. If you're looking to invest in Warsaw property, this is an up-an-coming area; a bit like Notting Hill in the early 1960s, just before London started to swing. 

This time two years ago: 

Catching the klimat 

This time four years ago: 

Road to Łuków - a road trip into the sublime

Late summer/early autumn moods

Above: seven am, ul. Karczunkowska, Jeziorki. Looking across the fields at the edge of Warsaw; the treeline in the distance marking the city's limits. The low morning sun casts shadows over a characteristically Polish strip-field of cabbages; whether they will ever be harvested will depend on the price of the crop. All too often, if the price is low, it's not worth the farmer's effort to gather it in, and so the cabbages, carrots or onions rot in the fields, catching the frost and snow first.

Above: five pm, ul. Kępna, Stara Praga. A courtyard chapel, something characteristic of left-bank Warsaw. Well-tended, with candle-lit statue of Mary.

Moni points out that Stara Praga is a like a watered-down version of Łódź.

This time last year:
Battle of Britain 70 years on

This time two years ago:
Who are these people?

This time three years ago:
This morning's car crashes

This time four years ago:
My favourite tree

From east to west and back again

The hackneyed phrase "X - a country of contrasts" or "Y - city of contrasts" forever crops up travel programmes or in travel magazines when jaded journalists fail to find a more original term. Having said that, Stara Praga, the heart of the left-bank part of Warsaw, contrasts dramatically with the capital's Old Town and modern central business district across the river.

Above: tenement on ul. Wrzesińska, as stereotypically Stara Praga as you can get. Exposed brickwork, prowizorka everywhere (a useful word!); yet only a kilometre or so away from some of Warsaw's swankiest addresses (Krakowskie Przedmieście is just across the river). So let us wander across... past Katedra Praska (Cathedral of St Florian - built 1897-1904, rebuilt 1952-1972); this view is from Sierakowskiego, across the road from the former communist internal security HQ for the Warsaw Voivodship.

And on to the river, along Al. Solidarności (which in communist days was called ul. Świerczewskiego after an unsavoury general, described 'an incompetent drunk').

Above: from the Śląsko-Dąbrowski bridge, which takes the Trasa W-Z (east-west route) from Praga across to the Old Town, you can see how untamed the Vistula is as it flows through Poland's capital. On the west side, you can see on the skyline, looking like an Easter Island statue or grain warehouse.

Above: tourist Warsaw, the Royal Castle, bathed in September evening sunlight. Tourist numbers are thinning, but a multiplicity of foreign voices is still to be heard in the castle's vicinity. Below: the new National Stadium is almost complete. Photographed from the top of the tunnel carrying Trasa W-Z down the Vistula escarpment, the Stadium is shown with the Świętokrzyski bridge in the foreground; the juxtaposition giving the the building a nautical air. The Stadium's location in Praga should do much to revitalise the run-down part of Warsaw between the river and Dw. Wschodni (the eastern railway station).

This time two years ago:
Late summer scenes, Warsaw

This time three years ago:
Commuting - there must be a better way

This time four years ago:
Roadworks and detours around Mysiadło

August storm, ul. Targowa

The trams are back on ul. Targowa. (Not so clever, though, trying to get from Al. Zieleniecka to Rondo Wiatraczna - the tracks are now being dug up on this stretch of ul Grochowska.) I arrive for my Lesson amidst a right proper storm. The wind is ripping umbrellas out of people's hands, the rain is falling with such vehemence that by the time I get to where I'm going, my suit (dry-cleaned just hours earlier) is completely sodden, all the carefully ironed creases in it gone.

July and August in Poland are Storm Months. Today was typical; a clear blue sky in the morning, the clouds would build up (piętrzyć się) over the afternoon, and by the early evening the sky would be prematurely dark, the wind would howl and the heavens would open. The temperature plunged from 31C to 17C in a few minutes, and five litres of water fell on every square metre of ground in the space of an hour.

Of course, it befits a Storyteller to be caught up in the perfect storm, survive it and tell the tale (it's nice to sit back and write about the experience now, but while I was caught up in the deluge, it was downright nasty)!

This time last year:
More revelations about the underground kebab factory

This time two years ago:
Cheap holidays in other people's miseries

This time three years ago:
Steam train welcomes me to Dobra (for the very first time)

This time four years ago:
New housing, near Zgorzała

Quiet afternoon in the Bazaar

Fourteen years in Warsaw and I've yet to have checked out this legendary place. Bazar Różyckiego in Praga, just off ul. Targowa (which regular readers will remember is named after the Russian General Targov). The bazaar's heyday was in communist days, when it was one of the only places in Poland where one could obtain highly sought-after items such as blue jeans, t-shirts, fashionable footwear, and other items of clothing that would distinguish Warsaw's hipper citizens (bikiniarze) from the drab proletariat. The klimaty of the place are referred to in Leopold Tyrmand's Zły, Dziennik 1954 r., and Janusz Głowacki's Z głowy.

The bazaar had a very important place in the life of the capital in communist days. Not just for consumers, starved of anything fashionable, colourful or distinguishing. But for the sellers. Many were, like my family in Warsaw, people with connections in the West. My parents would regularly send parcels to their families in Poland; parcels containing (typically) clothes from Marks & Spencer (the well regarded St Michael's brand in those days). Well do I remember driving with my parents and my brother after Polish Saturday school in Chiswick to a small shop on the Fulham Palace Road from where my parents would send knitwear wrapped in brown paper to Warsaw and to Bystrzyca Kłodzka.

Today, the bazaar's competition - regular high street stores and shopping malls like Centrum Handlowe Warszawa Wileńska - has made it a shadow of its former self (much like the dear old Giełda fotograficzna camera fair that takes place at Stodoła each Sunday)

The young men and women that were once duckin' an' divin', bobbin' an' weavin' to turn an honest zloty in Gierek's days are now in their advanced middle age, selling dresses for weddings and first holy communions; little three-piece suits for four year-old boys and footwear for the middle aged - but at least its all stuff that's not mainstream, not brand-name regular shopping mall fashion.

But does Warsaw want it? Like the camera fair, the bazaars are in decline, being killed off very slowly by the relentless march of globalised retail. Footfall here is a tiny fraction of what I witnessed just minutes later at Wileńska.

So visit it while you can, a legendary place in Warsaw's history, it's been around for 180 years; it's witnessed uprisings and invasions, it's kept Varsovians supplied with contraband goods during the hard times, it was a free market that survived the planned economy.

And linguistic conundrum of the day: If 'How dare you ...!' in English is Jak śmiesz...!, what's 'I dare you to...' in Polish?

This time last year:
Distracted by the Cross of Smolensk (warning: Smolensk-related content)

Szmulowizna

To right-thinking, left-bank-dwelling Varsovians, Szmulowizna (Praga Północ) is that stereotypical place across the river where respectable folk do not stray (especially after dark); it is a place of urban legend - of dingy drinking dens, three-card tricksters, pickpockets, gypsy beggars, burglars' hidey-holes, assorted ne'er-do-wells and muggers on dark street corners waiting for frajerzy from the more respectable parts of town.

Most Varsovians will only visit Szmulowizna - and then unwittingly - when changing to public transport while passing through W-wa Wschodnia railway station.

Above: The view of Szmulowizna that meets the eye when alighting at W-wa Wschodnia. A communist-era landscape that takes me back to the late 1970s.

The central feature here is the half kilometre-long block of flats built in the early '70s, a type of architectural style generically nicknamed Jamnik ('dachshund'), Tasiemiec ('tapeworm') or Mrówkowiec ('antheap'). It looks out over the approaches to the station - car park, tram loop and bus stops - and the station beyond. The entire block (all 430 flats) has one address; ul. Kijowska 11.


Of a sunny Friday morning, Szmulowizna itself does not seem a threatening place. The name comes from Shmuel Jacobovich Sonnenberg a.k.a Zbytkover, an 18th C. Jewish banker and protégé of King Stanislaus August Poniatowski, who was granted these lands by the King.

On westwards from Szmulowizna to Stara Praga, where the architecture is more traditional, more like the stereotype image that left-bank Varsovians have of Praga. Below: fragment of brick tenement building on ul. Brzeska.

A visit on a sleeting, windy night in late November would cast Szmulowizna and Stara Praga in a different complexion, a different klimat.

This time last year:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time three years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time four years ago:
Poppy fields