Sunday in the city

I was in the centre of Warsaw today to address a climate-change awareness picnic held on Nowy Swiat, along with a number of diplomats, government officials and representatives of business. Climate change is an issue where Polish awareness lags (literally years) behind western Europe. Poland is to host the international climate change conference in Poznań in December, putting the host city on the world stage. Lots to do beforehand in terms of changing attitudes in a country where if your flat's too hot in mid-winter, open the windows.

En route, I passed through Plac Trzech Krzyzy which was being readied for the ten-kilometer fun run that would take place this afternoon. Above: St Alexander's Church looks particularly splendid in the strong August sunlight.

Warsaw's famous palm tree, in the centre of Rondo de Gaulle'a, on the crossroads of Al. Jerozolimskie and Nowy Swiat. Standing there since 2002, it's become a symbol of the new, open, youthful, creative capital city. Click here for its history.

Arriving on Nowy Swiat early (the giełda fotograficzna being so disappointing - see post below), I sat down at a cafe and watched the morning strollers along Warsaw's most prestigious street. I observed the following. Warsaw's getting cosmopolitan. People who visually I'd took for tourists from Scandinavia, America, France or Italy passed me by speaking perfect Polish. Once you could spot a Polish man a mile off due to his clumsy dress sense - today, in Warsaw at least - this is not the case. Indigenous young couples, old couples, families were walking in the city centre, like they do in Spain (el paseo). Walking, not shopping. This is so un-English! Who'd take their family into central London on a sunny Sunday morning?

Above: the stretch of Nowy Swiat between ul. Smolna and Foksal has been paved with grass for the day, for the Piknik z Klimatem event at which I was speaking. Giant blocks of ice were melting in the summer sun, symbolic of what's happening in the Arctic (the ice cap will have mostly gone by the summer of 2013). I was particularly impressed by the speeches from the Danish ambassador and the Swedish commercial counsellor - those countries are so far ahead of Poland in terms of energy use best practice. Sweden, for instance, gets 48% of its energy from renewable sources. Poland - a mere 5%. Climate change is something we must all address ourselves to. No more ifs or buts.

Shadow of its former self

The giełda fotograficzna at Stodoła, the Warsaw Polytechnic students' club on ul. Batorego, was once the largest weekly camera fair in Europe. Who knows, it still may be, but compared to its glory days in the late 1990s, it's fading fast. Gone are all the stands upstairs and along the side corridors, gone are the long queues of punters waiting to get in.

Stodoła itself is legendary. Earlier this summer, Bob Dylan played on the very stage from which I took this photo. Just about any famous Polish musician, and a fair number of British and American stars, have played here. But on Sunday mornings, this is where Warsaw's photographers gather to buy and sell.

In the glory days of the giełda. I'd queue for ten minutes to get in, push through jostling crowds - in the main arena, then upstairs, then the side corridors - to see where the interesting stuff was,. Then I'd rest a bit over a beer before throwing myself back into the fray for some energetic haggling. This is where to come to to get rid of redundant kit and replace it with that new zoom lens or some collectible classic camera. Collectors would flock from across Europe in search of rare items at bargain prices.

Three things have done for the camera fair; the strong zloty (camera and lens prices are some 10%-15% more expensive than in the UK high street, even though prices here are cheaper than in Warsaw's photography shops); online shopping and - the main factor - digital photography. Consumables are now memory cards rather than film, chemicals or paper. Old-school photographers who've not converted to digital, however, will find this place heaven. There's loads of codgers selling their Zenits, Zorkis, Kievs, FEDs, lenses and all the accessories to go with - enlargers, developing tanks, trays, etc. etc. Yet the one thing I came for - a 35mm digital film scanner to turn decades of memory into something that I can manipulate and display on my computer - I could not find. Ah well, in a few weeks time I'll be back in London, so I'll buy one at Jessops or Dixons Tax Free at the airport.

Tuwim's Lokomotywa, in English

Ever since I mentioned Julian Tuwim's verse Lokomotywa last December, and its emotional impact on me as a child (especially the version illustrated by Jan Lenica), I noticed that a fair amount of traffic coming to my blogsite has been referred from people googling the poem in English. I've not come across a good translation of it (click here or here or here for the original in Polish), so I translated it myself.

So here it is. I've worked hard to keep sense, rhyme and rhythm as close to the sense of Tuwim's original; it was not easy. Let me know what you think!

Locomotive
The locomotive’s standing at the station,
Huge, heavy, it drips perspiration –
Oily lubrication.

It stands and wheezes, it groans and gnashes
Its boiling belly stuffed with hot ashes:
Arrrgh, what torture!
Phew, what a scorcher!
Panting and puffing!
Hissing and huffing!
It’s barely gasping, it’s barely breathing,
And still its fireman more coal keeps on heaping.

To it were coupled wagons of iron and steel
Massive and heavy, they weighed a great deal
And crowds of people in each one of these,
And one’s full of cows, another of – horsies,
A third one with passengers, every one fat,
Sitting and eating sausagey snacks.
The fourth was packed with crates of bananas.
The fifth one contained – six large grand pianos.
In the sixth a large cannon, cor! what a whopper!
Each of its wheels chocked up right proper!
The seventh, oaken wardrobes and chairs.
The eighth an elephant, giraffe and two bears.
The ninth, fattened pigs – no spare spaces,
The tenth full of trunks, baggage and cases,
Wagons like these – another forty remain,
Not even I could tell you what they contain.
But if a thousand strongmen gathered right here,
And each one would eat a thousand burgers a year,
And each one of them strained with all of his might,
They couldn’t shift this colossal weight.

Suddenly – WHISTLE!
Suddenly – bustle!
Steam – eruption!
Wheels – in motion!

Slowly at first, like a tortoise just waking
Strains the engine, every single joint aching.
But it jerks at the wagons and pulls with great zeal,
It turns, and it turns, wheel after wheel.
It gathers momentum and takes up the chase
As it thunders and hammers and speeds up the pace.

And where to? And where to? And where to? Straight on!
By rail, by rail, by bridge, now it’s gone –
Through mountains and tunnels, through meadows and woods
It’s rushing, it’s rushing to bring on the goods,
It’s knocking out rhythms like banging a drum
DUM-buDUM, DUM-buDUM DUM-buDUM-DUM!

It’s gliding so smoothly – no effort at all,
No engine of steel, just a little toy ball,
No massive machine, all panting and puffing
But a plaything of tin, that weighs next to nothing.

From where does it, how does it, why does it rush?
And what is it, who is it, gives it a push?
That makes it go faster, all thrashing and hissing?
It’s steam’s scalding power that keeps the train moving.
It’s steam, piped from boiler to a piston that glides
Back and forth pushing rods that turn wheels on both sides,
They’re striving and driving, the train keeps on bumping,
‘Cause steam keeps the pistons a-pumping and pumping,
Producing a rhythm so pleasing to some:
DUM-buDUM, DUM-buDUM DUM-buDUM-DUM!

(Translation copyright Michael Dembinski 2008)

So what was all that about, then?

Warsaw ground to a halt today as 18,000 (police estimate) or 30,000 (Solidarity claim) trade unionists gathered to protest... about what precisely? With their whistles and smoke bombs and firecrackers, marching - why? Jus' talkin' loud an' sayin' nothing, that's what they were doing.

These guys want to retire even earlier. (Poland already has the lowest average retirement ages in the EU). The trade unionists want the rest of us to fund them a cushy life while the rest of us have to work and pay taxes to cover their pensions. Only 28% of Poles aged 55-64 are at work, compared to 48% in feather-bed socialist France and 58% in free-market Britain. Again, the lowest indicator in the entire EU. (My father worked until he was nearly 70, my father-in-law until he was 71. They got on with it.)

It's not as if Poland's number one macroeconomic problem is unemployment - far from it. Poland's unemployment has fallen faster than any other EU member state. Unemployment is officially 1.7% in Poznan, 2.0% in Katowice, 2.2% in Warsaw and the Tri-City. (London's, by contrast, is 6.8%). Employers can't find people. Average wages in Poland have soared from 320 quid in May 2004 to 785 quid today - the effect of a booming economy, plummetting unemployment and a strong zloty. There still are pockets of deprivation in Poland, but they are mostly in rural parts (45% of Poland's registered jobless live in villages). Poland's biggest macroeconomic problem is inflation, stoked by high wage settlements, and an unreformed public budget.

"What do we want?" "Early retirement!"
"When do we want it?" "NOW!"

Poland's trade unions are dinosaurs. Their strongholds continue to be Poland's large, over-manned, uncompetitive, poorly-run state owned "enterprises" that should have been privatised long ago. They have hijacked the Solidarity brand (a political movement instrumental in overturning communism), and are run by populists who stir up discontent based on economic illiteracy.

Privatise the lot of them. Bureaucrats make poor managers. Throw the entire Polish state sector into the free market. Let it thrive like the rest of the Polish economy. The GDP figures for the second quarter of 2008 were released today. 5.8% growth year-on-year (compared to the UK's 1.6% or the Eurozone's sluggish 1.5% Q2 y-o-y GDP growth).

Monday morning, Plac na Rozdrozu: "The parade has passed, the clowns have gone"

This time last year:
Greenhouse sunset
I got those "woke up this mornin', someone done chopped down the wood" blues

Supersized invertebrates this summer

Well I never! This is the biggest slug I've seen in my life! I caught this fellow on the pavement on ul. Górnośląska on my way to work the other day. This is a Great Grey Slug, limax maximus, which can grow up to eight inches (200mm). So this one's still got a bit of growing to do. The two zloty coin, by the way, has a diameter of 21.5mm.

The same evening, returning home, I found this spider in the middle of its web outside our front door. It's the largest garden spider I've seen around our house. The next morning the spider was gone, but its web was filled with the little flies that appear at this time of year in large numbers.

This time last year:
Full moon over Jeziorki

Of castles, dams and brass bands

Returning into Poland from Slovakia, Eddie and I continued on foot towards the castle on the lake (now dammed) at Czorsztyn.

Rather than walk alongside the main road, we walked along the edge of the reservoir. As we neared the dam, we could here quite clearly the sound of brass bands playing. Some kind of a congregation had gathered along the top.

Above: A dramatic view of the dam's sluice gates and slipways. It turns out that the local voluntary fire brigades (OSPs) had organised a brass band parade this day, with the bands playing on a promontory between the sluice gates. There was a goodly crowd of families, friends and brass band afficionados, and a very pleasant, easy going festival mood.

No chance of the Dam Busters March, then?

Michael Palin was right

About Slovakia, that is. Eddie persuaded me to drive down from Dobra to the Slovak border, and given that we're all in Schengen now, to cross over to see the place. Now, unlike my well-travelled children, I've not been to Slovakia (Czech Republic many a time, but never to Poland's south-eastern neighbour). The plan seemed like a good one, especially when linked to the chance to see other attractions on the Polish side of the border (see next post).

Above: We crossed into Slovakia without even knowing it (Lysa nad Dunajcem, the first village on the Slovak side, is so full of shops selling things to Poles that we were confused by the fact that nearly all signs were in Polish). The picture was taken from just inside the Slovak border, looking in. The customs shed is still there, the border checkpoints unmanned.

I like Schengen. I like being able to drift across national borders the way an Englishman can pop into Scotland or Wales. Extensions of personal freedom are to be welcomed! Slovakia will join the Eurozone on 1 January (not a good idea, but that's a personal macroeconomic view). Left: A post-communist (note PR - Polish Republic, not PRL - People's Republic of Poland) but pre-Schengen sign, a fading reminder that the once people would queue for hours to get from one country to the other.

Below: This sign is still valid, a reminder that, though passport controls are gone, this is border country. (Click here to see my visit to the Polish-Czech border)

After passing through Lysa nad Dunajcem, Eddie and I walked to the nearest town. Spisska Stara Ves is not a good advertisement for Slovakia, a country that took umbrage at Michael Palin's portrayal of the country in his New Europe series. The scenes of drunken excess at a village pig-slaughtering, yokels who could not remember the words of their own folk songs, provoked a strong letter to the BBC from the Slovak Ambassador to Britain. Slovakia appeared in the series to be a contrast between cultured, historic Poland and the cultured, historic Czech Republic.


Spisska Stara Ves reminded me of Victor Lewis-Smith's Ipswich. "Yes, there's plenty to do in Ipswich. You can pick your nose, or you can blink..." Compared to the villages we drove through in Poland, full of Sunday crowds going to church or socialising in the street, pursuing their hobbies or just shopping, Spisska was dead; the few people around seemed sullen, lacking purpose. It's difficult to make generalisations about a country from one small town, but this was so unlike what I'd chanced upon in the Czech Republic (a well-ordered, tidy place) that the idea of the two having ever being together in one state seems odd.

Above: What was this (evidently) state-owned building once used for? The local Higher School of Fashion and Design? Whatever is was, it's now dead. Unless you're looking for a film set to stand in for Chernobyl.

Above: another run-down institution, no doubt dating back to the days of 'Granny Austria'. Below: the bus stop advertises 'Non-Stop Taxi', presumably to get people out of here.

What else? "It's the little differences..." "Example." Traffic signs. Is this a slimline version of Alexei Sayle on his way to a Two-Tone party? Or Elwood Blues heading for the Palace Hotel Ballroom? What's the cultural significance of the pork pie hat?

We returned to Poland, stopping at Lysa nad Dunajcem to eat and do some obligatory shopping. For the equivalent of 12 quid, (50 zlotys) I bought nine half litre bottles of Zlaty Bazant, Slovakia's most famous beer (and excellent it is too - sharper and cleaner tasting than Polish beer), a plate of knedliki and goulash (knedliki are boiled dough balls), a portion of chips, two bags of crisps, four chocolate bars and a half-litre bottle of mineral water. Not bad, eh? But much of the rest has had its day - the old border trade in spirits is alive only because few Poles seem able or willing to do some hard-nosed price comparisons - international spirits brands are much the same price in Warsaw hypermarkets as they are here.

Back to Dobra, back to steam

Couldn't get enough of it! I returned on Friday evening to Dobra, and on Saturday morning Eddie and I set off for another go on the steam train to Chabówka. This time, accompanied by Eddie's friends Sabina and Alex, their cousins and grandparents. So eight return tickets, eight visitors to the museum. And hopefully, six new enthusiasts!

I learned the lessons for getting good pics on this line: back coach out, front coach home. This enables the photographer to get shots of the engine running forward from Dobra, with the curving rails offering many opportunities to catch the engine in three-quarter view. And occupying the same seats on the way home allows you to be right behind the engine, to hear it puffing and panting its way from Chabówka up the incline to Skrzydlna. Only four coaches this weekend, not the five we had last week, so couldn't quite get that 'bend' to work. Still, the engine's the right way round.

Right: An effective composition, if not one for the purist. Steam and electrical traction together at Chabówka. The first three stations are pod drutem ('under wire'), but after Rabka Zdrój, there's no sign of any post-war rail infrastructure other than the occasional signal lights (plenty of old semaphores and manual points still around).

The sound of a Kriegslok steam engine hard at work is awesome, especially when labouring up the steep inclines (2.9m rise in 100m horizontal). The frequent whistles, the whooshes of white steam from the pistons, and the dense black clouds from the chimney make travelling directly behind the engine an unforgettable experience. Soot blown out will speck your clothing, so beware; glasses or goggles will protect your eyes from the pain of something hot and dirty landing in them.

Left: Running down the hill to Dobra. From the summit at Skrzydlna, the engine uses minimal power, so less smoke, less steam, less puff, less drama. We heard a story (from the local media, just two weeks ago), of a less-than-sober mother and her hard-of-hearing six year-old daughter walking along this track, when the steam train came across them unexpectedly. The mother dived out of the way, the child laid flat on the track; the train passed over her and she escaped unharmed! The mother must have been well drunk not to have heard the repeated warning whistles. (Story here, in Polish.)

There's one more steam day this year, next Saturday (30 August), trips down to Zakopane continue into September. Definitely a recommended experience. Timetable in English here. Below: Ty2-953 runs around its train at Chabówka, passing Ty2-911.

This time last year:
Heron spotted over local pondAgricultural scenes in Jeziorki "cause flashbacks"Our garden spiders getting big and fat
Ul. Kórnicka loses dirt track status
Electrical storms continue