Wetlands in late spring

After the floods, the snow, the hard frost - the sun shines hard and bright upon the reed beds at the end of ul. Trombity. Below: The water level is sinking slowly, it's noticeable now (the browny-yellow line below the fresh greenery).


The frogs and bullfrogs are back and enjoying life. And above them in the food chain, the grey heron. The herons have moved back into the wetlands between ul. Trombity and Dumki in recent years and are readily identifiable in flight by the way they pull their long necks into a tight 'S' shape. This individual was perched on a broken concrete post, looking for signs of froggy movement below. When bored of this activity, he'd take off and lazily fly around the wetlands, soaring above the treetops in circuits.

While not as immediately charismatic as the stork - the very essence of summer in the Polish countryside - the heron is still an exciting neighbour with whom to share one's street.

This time last year:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time two years ago:
Another time, another place

Łódź Widzew

Łódź is the sort of place one only goes to on business. Sure, it has Manufaktura, one of the world's largest post-industrial retail and entertainment centres, and ul. Piotrkowska, one of the world's longest shopping streets. And then what? For a city of almost 800,000 inhabitants, occupying an area two-thirds that of Warsaw, it is surprisingly... er... uninteresting compared to other Polish cities of similar size. Today, I was in Łódź Widzew, a district to the west of the city centre which seemed to be notable for wide boulevards and blocks of flats. So then... here we are, Łódź Widzew. Along the main drag, ul. Rokicińska.

Above: having alighted at Łódź Widzew station and made my way to ul. Rokocińska, this is my first impression: garishly coloured blocks of flats set among greenery.

Above: as there are no street numbers prominently displayed on the blocks of flats, navigation along this 17km wylotówka (a road heading out of town) is not easy. I assumed, on the basis of studying Google Maps, that my journey from the station to Tulipan Park, a newly-opened industrial estate at ul. Rokicińska 168 would be a short walk. It turned out to be 40 minutes.

Sprayed on a flower shop on ul. Rokicińska - an anglophone alternative to HWDP. (For my Polish readers not in the know, it means 'all coppers are bastards'. Meanwhile the road goes on forever. And it was hot - about a thousand degrees. And me in a suit.

Widzew is thinning out (it's the largest district of Łódź by area, the least densely-populated) and I'm still walking.

I finally arrive to the official opening of Tulipan Park; among the more interesting discussions I had was one with two local real estate agents who were talking about the concept mooted to join Warsaw and Łódź into one mega-agglomeration of five million people. A key part of this idea would be a new airport, midway between the two cities; this was the lead story in today's Warsaw section of Gazeta Wyborcza.

Given that (as I wrote last week) trains from Warsaw to Łódź currently take over two hours to cover the measly 83 miles (130km) between the two cities, I think that such grands projets should be promptly forgotten. Below: map of the proposed locations of a Warsaw-Łódź airport

[Source: Gazeta Wyborcza article cited above. Link to artwork here.]

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

Rail travel chaos hits Warsaw

We had been warned. Yesterday, the suburban line between W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Wschodnia was shut while the new station at W-wa Stadion is completed. The line should re-open on 24 July. Until then - what? I have just acquired a new corporate client for English on ul. Kijowska, corner of ul. Targowa. Three times a week. The ideal way to get there is by train from Powiśle to Wschodnia. OK - no train. Alternatives? Tram? Sorry - the whole of Targowa is being dug up, no trams right now. Bus? 138 from the office... runs infrequently, will now be overcrowded. Bicycle seems to be the only way. But what a way - a round trip of 50km looks likely.

With the suburban line cut, one rail commuting option is to get to W-wa Centralna and take the double-decker Radom train. I tried this one last night. Centralna is changing quickly - in mid-remont - and still many inconveniences for travellers. I'm trying to get to Platform 4. I'm informed by the new, blue indicators that my train will depart at 19:07. But the main staircase is shut off. So I make my way along the re-opened passage along the northern side of the station to the stairs at the end of the platform. Below: the re-opened transversal passage at the east end of the station. The staircase is open, though the escalators are not working - and there's no signage.

No working signage at the platform either. Will the train (which the online timetable claims will depart at 19:00) arrive according to the displayed time, or the internet time? It leaves at 19:07. But then it waits at signals, makes a long stop at W-wa Al. Jerozolimskie, and finally arrives at W-wa Jeziorki 15 minutes later than the advertised time. Essentially - if you're going to be travelling from Centralna, give yourself plenty of time to get to the platform and take the online timetable with a pinch of salt.

What else is new at W-wa Centralna? Officially sanctioned graffiti. I mentioned what was going on earlier this week at W-wa Powiśle, the day before the station closed for eight weeks. Here at Centralna, a similar story. To spruce up the drab walls, selected graffiti artists have been given free rein on the basis that if not them, less-gifted individuals will cover the surface with something, well, less arty.

So then - what have we got here? "Przestrzeń jest tym co powstrzymuje wszystko od bycia w tym samym miejscu." "Space is that which stops everything being in the same place?" Good God Almighty! The spirit of the Master of Paddington is alive and well! He who painted "Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere", that enduring slogan painted on a wall outside Paddington station, beloved of the Daily Telegraph's Way of the World column.

Above: New platform, new carriages, old engine. The Radom-bound train enters Centralna's refurbished Platform 4. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the jury is still out regarding the graffiti. 'It's a scandal!' the headline cries.

This time last year:
Hurting and healing

This time three years ago:
The land where I was born

This time four years ago:
Night moves

A new lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle

The nearest railway station to my office, W-wa Powiśle, is a pearl of post-socialist-realist socialist architecture. Very moderne, very stylish. And its one of my favourite Polish railway stations - architecturally at least (I'll pass on a complete lack of signage, timetables at the entrance on ul. Kruczkowskiego and a working clock). But its all-white plaster finish had left it painfully vulnerable to anyone with a spray can and a vandalistic streak. Today I was delighted to see a new coat of paint being applied at the Kruczkowskiego end of the station (below) - and what an interesting scheme it is too!

The new paint extends up to platform level - I hope they manage to do the sides as well. It makes such a difference, especially in the bright sunlight of late-May. (Read about W-wa Powiśle architecture in this post about Warsaw railway architecture by Owen Hatherley)

Sadly, the vandalistic end of graffiti world, suffering from spray-can incontinence, will no doubt waste no time in daubing their tired, boring tags on top of the bright new street art, much as they did at W-wa Żwirki i Wigury and W-wa Rakowiec after artists set about improving the stations (for some reason the flamingo and stork cartoons at W-wa Al. Jerozolimskie were left largely untouched).

This time last year:
The ingredients of success

Now it can be told - how I almost saved Obama

About four weeks ago, a light-blue Mercedes truck with white cargo box was abandoned on the grassy stretch of ul. Kórnicka between ul. Trombity and the railway line. Since that day in late April, it stood just there. At the time I guessed it had broken down and been dumped. I'd pass it on my way to work, giving less and less thought to what it was doing or for how long it'd remain there. That is, until the day Barack Obama was due to fly into town. 

On Friday morning I drew open the curtains and saw the very same truck in the middle of the field behind our house. Overnight, someone had driven it - or towed it - 1.5 km south, snuck it between the two houses at No. 6 and No. 8, and unceremoniously left it in the field.

What ran through my mind as I looked at that truck from our balcony...? In less than ten hours' time, Barrack Obama's Air Force One will be passing overhead at a height of 300m. Left: you can see just how close the vehicle is to the flight path. A truck of this size would make a very convenient hide in which to store hand-held surface-to-air missiles, such as the Stinger, much used by the Taliban in Afghanistan against low-flying Soviet helicopters. A plot could have been hatched - days before Osama Bin Laden's demise - to bring down Air Force One as it was coming in to land at Okęcie. 

Keep the weapons in a truck abandoned on a quiet, semi-rural street near the airport, wait until the day of Obama's arrival, see which way the wind was blowing, which runway was being used... then move into place under the flight path.

Right: This is what flashed through my mind's eye on Friday morning. An arsenal of hand-held surface-to-air missiles hidden in a truck parked in the field behind our house, just waiting to be unleashed against the Leader of the Free World as he flew in to Warsaw. Better to take preventative action, or just let it be? 

My cognitive bias or Bayesian inference at work? The chances of coincidence (someone just decided to move the truck into a field under the Okęcie flight path on the very day of Obama's arrival) were probabilistically higher than the chances of a terrorist plot. Even so, aware of that, I thought it better to be safe than sorry. History what if: imagine the consequences for Poland of such an attack happening on its soil. 

The idea of Jeziorki becoming to Americans what Smolensk has become to Poles sprang to mind. Time to call the authorities. They were thankful. They checked. The van, they told me, was empty - but they kept it under surveillance anyhow.

POTUS over Jeziorki

I didn't hold out too much hope of seeing President of the United States and his retinue flying home aboard Air Force One (and/or Air Force Two) - the wind was in the west, and all air traffic inbound to land at Okęcie was coming in over our house and taking off to the north. I was alerted to the possibility that these two planes would be doing things differently by the presence of a Polish police helicopter flying low over Jeziorki. And indeed. Several minutes later, the mighty sound of four giant turbofans sucking in Jeziorki oxygen portended the appearance of Air Force One - a much-converted Boeing 747 - taking off from Runway 15. Quite something.


I grabbed these shots from my bedroom window. Sadly, the sky was heavily overcast - the sun shines from the right angle to illuminate aircraft taking off or landing this way at this time of day.

Below: Air Force Two, a converted Boeing 757. Last time I saw a US Presidential flight taking off over Jeziorki, George W. Bush and his entourage also flew in two planes, though Air Force Two back then was an elderly Boeing 707.

While I was uploading these pics, Eddie came charging in excitedly, telling me to grab my camera and come outside. It was a Lockheed C5A Galaxy - a huge transport plane that was flying in to pick up Obama's bits and pieces (the stuff that two large planes couldn't carry). I rushed out with camera - but sadly the memory card was in the computer so I missed the shot. So here's another photo of the same C5A, over the fence at Okęcie (photo from Lotnictwo.net.pl)

 

However, as I was writing these words I heard yet another unfamiliar sound above our house - and indeed, a C-17 Globemaster III flew by. And then, just minutes later - to cap it all! (what a day for spotters!) the Polish Air Force's remaining Tu-154 followed on (below). A rare sight these days.

The action didn't stop on Saturday - on Sunday morning, shortly after 7 am, I heard yet another loud aircraft approaching - and bingo! yet another C-17 approaching (below).

Supplementary: 'Air Force One' and 'Air Force Two' are often-misused terms; officially, 'Air Force One' is the name used for the aircraft currently flying the president, and Air Force Two for the aircraft currently flying the vice-president. As Joe Biden was not in Poland, the C-32 (military VIP version of the Boeing 757) shown above was not actually call-signed Air Force Two on the day.

This time two years ago:
Some anniversaries missed

This time three years ago:
Hissing of the summer lawns

Waiting for The Man

Ironic that when the Leader of the Free World visits Warsaw, the city's inhabitants have to face more restrictions on their movement than at any time since Martial Law. For a few days before Barack Obama's visit to Poland, anyone living in Warsaw could see that heavy stuff was coming down. No-go areas springing up, stepped-up police activity, military helicopters flying around.

Above: looking up Trasa Łazienkowska towards Aleje Ujazdowskie. The road further up has been closed - and Obama's not due to land for another 50 minutes. As it happens, he arrived at Okęcie 20 minutes early, so I did not manage to see his retinue sweeping past. Several minutes after this photo was taken, a veritable tidal wave of humanity started streaming down the Vistula Escarpment headed for the bridge and Praga beyond. Later, about an hour or so, buses were finally permitted to use this piece of road.

I appreciate that barely a month has gone by since the death of Osama Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda is in revenge mode, with Poland - perhaps - seen as a a country in which a terrorist attack could be mounted against the US President - but the reaction of most Varsovians faced with mammoth inconvenience is that the security operations were grossly over the top.

This time last year:
Poet's Corner

This time three years ago:
Twilight time in the garden

This time four years ago:
Late May reflections