Poland: Is there a crisis going on?

The media are going bonkers - is there really an economic crisis? Unemployment - surely the best measure of how an economy is delivering - has indeed nudged up, but from 8.8% to 9.5%.

But it's not the 20.4% it was back in 2004 - when the economy was growing by an annualised rate of 6%!

Much of the gloom is media generated.

This headline from last Tuesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza-cor-wot-a-scorcza really annoyed me: “POLACY KUPUJĄ MNIEJ” (”Poles are buying less”).

I read on. December’s consumer spending was 6.6% UP on December 2007. So in fact, Poles are buying MORE.

BUT, the article continues, consumer spending growth in the first half of 2008 was galloping along at 15% - 20% year on year.

So - the headline should not have been: POLES ARE BUYING LESS, but POLES ARE BUYING MORE, THOUGH AT A SLOWER RATE OF GROWTH THAN HITHERTO.

Economic illiteracy worthy of Gnash Dziennik’s chief leader-writer, and typical of media coverage of this so-called ‘economic crisis’.

Where are the good news stories? 1,000 new jobs from Hewlett Packard's shared service centre in Wrocław? The 1,700 new jobs from Thomson Reuters' research centre in Gdynia? Dell moving all of its European manufacturing from Limerick to Łódź? Associated British Foods building a second factory in Nowa Sól? Cadbury's opening Europe's largest chewing gum factory in Opolskie? Fiat's thrifty, trendy 500 (built in Tychy) selling so well the factory's output rose by 80% last year?

The USA shed 65,000 jobs in one day last week. Britain has seen registered unemployment rise by 212,000 in the third quarter of 2008. Poland has also seen unemployment rise during this same period (Oct-Dec). By 11,600. Some difference!

It took me over two hours to do the weekly shop this morning. The car park was packed solid at half past nine, the aisles were immobile with trolleys, the queues to the checkouts (all 63 of them) were almost as long as they were before Christmas.

Things may not be as rosy as they were a year ago. But this is not a kryzys.

Growth is slowing. That's it. Banks are not stopping clients from making withdrawals. Petrol stations are still delivering petrol. Staff are getting paid (public and private sector). Inflation in under control. So why are the media trying to scare everybody into a panic?

This time last year:
From the family archives
Taking off from Okęcie
Air-to-air photos from Europe's crowded skies

A pavement for ul. Karczunkowska?

Walking to the station this morning, I observed strange signs made in fluourescent pink paint and fat-nibbed marker pen made along the length of ul. Karczunkowska (above). I surmise that this means surveyors are marking out the road for widening or for putting down pavement. Having ruined a suit last November as I evaded a truck heading for me while walking along the roadway en route to the station, I can say this is an absolute priority. It may tempt more people from Jeziorki to walk up the road and catch a train. One less reason not to.

General Mud claims ul. Poloneza

On my way to Platan Park for my first meeting of the day, driving the direct route, from my house via the notorious ul. Poloneza. I got as far as ul. Ludwinowska and could go no further. Ahead of me were cars axle-deep in mud. Fortunately help was close at hand, as construction plant was in use just around the corner (Ludwinowska is being re-asphalted). The driver of the red Corolla above has just been hauled out of the morass by the digger. Two other vehicles in a similar predicament had just been freed (or had got themselves out). And remember - this is just over six miles from the very epicentre of Warsaw. Imagine such a scene in Chiswick, London W4.

I had to detour via ul. Puławska, less crowded because of the half-term holidays, but still an extra 20 minutes on my journey time! I fear Poloneza will be a no-go zone for several weeks yet.

Above: Friday morning - General Winter takes over from General Mud. A brief freeze and the mud is (just about) hard enough to drive over. By the evening, the snow was gone.

This time last year:
Similar weather - snow comes, snow goes
Similar weather - snow goes, snow comes

More questions than answers at the Rampa site

Another fascinating set of photos from fellow Jeziorki archivist Marcin Daniecki, taken on Monday 26 January on the Rampa site. It shows work in full swing, and prompts many questions.

For instance: What will happen at the south end of the site - the bit that's in Mysiadło, which is Gmina Lesznowola rather than Warsaw? The rampa site is like an upside-down letter 'h', the long thin bit pointed south. This part of the site (seen above), where the reversing track ran down to end at a set of buffers, is some 500m long and 40m wide. Is this an integral part of the site? Are any buildings planned here? As there's no earthwork screen, if there will be anything built here, it won't necessarily be housing. There's talk of a health centre, nursury school...

Plenty of hardware on site. To my untutored eye, the latticework structures in front of the crane look like those earth spreaders used to hold open trenches while pipes are being layed. Wide diameter waste water pipes leading to the main sewer completed two years ago running the length of ul. Karczunkowska?

The pointsman's hut. This is where the guy who set the points taking aggregate trains off the main line would hang out. Does it still belong to PKP? Or is it part of the site acquired by Spanish developer Sando Inmobiliaria? Will it be demolished?

Busy busy busy. In case you heard there's an economic crisis affecting the real estate sector. But wait! No less than seven trucks are at hand to remove soil from the site. How long before the cash runs out?

And what will happen to the west side of the site - to the west of the current scrap yard on ul. Karczunkowska? Has this part also been bought up? The tracks have gone - will they be replaced by tarmac?

This time last year:
Old-school shopping in Warsaw
Warsaw architecture: La Belle Epoque
Polish Air Force CASA plane crash in Mirosławiec

Dobra and The Road

As I wrote in summer, there's something about Dobra. The klimat immediately triggered flashbacks, familiar feelings of somewhere I knew well but where I've never been. The Droga Krakowa (national road) 28 gave me that feeling very strongly, whether walking along it or listening to the occasional vehicle on it as I lay awake in our guest house. Right: DK28 running through Dobra, looking east.

Skiing in the Beskid Wyspowy

Could one ask for a better slope for one's return to skiing after eight years, accompanied by two children aged 12 and 13? The photo above was taken just before midday on Friday, 23 January. Eddie is just about visible before the bend in the piste, Sabina a little way behind. No one else in view! The piste was perfectly prepared (just a touch icy on our first few runs), by the afternoon conditions were absolutely ideal. Very, very few people. This is the advantage of Poland's staggered half-term system, whereby only a quarter of Poland found itself on holiday this week.

The Beskid Wyspowy, being virtually unknown to Warsaw-based skiers, was the place to be (while Zakopane and surrounding resorts in the Tatras) were packed. By the way, the photo shows well why the region is so named (the Island Beskids) - the peaks stick out above the fog like islands out of the sea.

This one-run slope, for those interested, is at Kasina Wielka, and goes up Śnieżnica (just over 1,000m at the summit, though the run starts at 900m). The run is an easy red, 1.4km long, broad and evenly sloped. Click here for virtual 360 degree views of the piste (from bottom to top). Criticisms - well, only the one slope, so zero variety. The lift pass, 50 zlotys for five hours (around 11 quid) seems expensive compared to Alpine resorts with a multiplicity of runs. And height. Although the word 'mountain' suggests a steeply-sloped hill with a definable peak and a height of over 600m above sea level, I would add the following definition. "A mountain is land mass situated sufficiently high that any winter precipitation falls on it as snow, not as rain'.

There's nothing more miserable for skiers than skiing in rain. That's what we did on Wednesday afternoon, we came off the slope an hour early. It reminded me of my previous ski trip in Poland, to Szczyrk in 2000, when it rained so intensively that my ski-suit was sodden and my expensive Minolta TC-1 camera broke (and put me off Poland for skiing for years). However, the other days of excellent, uncrowded skiing on Śnieżyca more than made up for a few rainy runs on Wednesday. I recommend Śnieżyca for intermediate-level family skiing.

Right: Two happy young skiers - Sabina and Eddie. Photo taken at two pm - still the slope remains almost empty. Ideal to get one's form back. Remember: weight on ze down'eel ski, face ze bottom of ze slope wiz your shoulders, press ze shinbones on ze front of ze boots, bend ze knees, plant ze pole, pivot around eet, compression - extention, swing-swing-swing! By Friday I was doing it right, remembering all those lessons from years gone by.

This time last year:
Moni's milestone - 15th birthday

Roztopy - the big melt

Weather during our stay in the Beskid Wyspowy was a patchwork of sunshine and overcast. The latter was accompanied by low cloud, mist or rain. Temperatures were above zero, so the heavy snowfalls of the previous week were starting to melt. On Thursday I went for a 17km walk from Dobra to catch the atmosphere of mountain roztopy. The Nikon D80 withstood five hours' exposure to drizzle, light rain and temperatures of +1C to +5C, the battery level fell from 50% to 36% in that time.

My journey took me to the mountain pass at Gruszowiec (height 660m), between Ćwiliń and Śnieżnica (below). On either side, the peaks were shrouded in mist.

By the time I started climbing Śnieżnica and gaining altitude, the drizzle turned to light snow, which made for nicer walk. It would be this snow that we'd be skiing on the next day when the clouds parted to reveal ideal skiing conditions once again.

The building on the right is a truckstop restaurant (Bar Pod Cyckiem, which I won't bother translating!) For 8 złotys (less than two quid) I had a large bowl of sour cabbage soup thick with potatoes and kiełbasa (sausage), several slices of bread and half a litre of mulled beer (piwo grzane) which set me up for the 12km walk ahead of me.

Above: The river Łososina in Dobra. The river, which was mostly covered with ice when we arrived last Saturday, was now fully melting, the last slithers of ice visible near its swollen banks.

This time last year:
The year's most depressing day - official

Pieniny in winter

To the east of the high Tatra mountains are the Pieniny. (Pennines - Apenines - Pieniny - some common root word?) Driving back from Czorsztyn on Tuesday, we spotted this view, which merited a pop with the 80-400mm Nikkor. This is the peak of Trzy Korony (Three Crowns), one of the highest peaks on the Polish side of this range. And yes, there are people on the top. Some stunning views from the top on Google Earth, though not for vertigo sufferers.

The road back took us through some wintery wonderland, pine trees in snow, light frost, empty road. Zigzag, Oregon?

This time last year:
Wetlands in a wet winter
Jeziorki scarecrows
Halfway from Olsztyn to Kraków