When the end finally came for the Iron Curtain, it was not bulldozers or hammers that struck one of the first decisive blows, but a picnic
The organisers insist they had not banked on the arrival of hundreds of East Germans, who were allowed to holiday in Hungary but not to travel to the west. Still, tipped off by West German diplomats in the country, several hundred travelled to Sopron and burst through the border gate and into Austria. The guards on duty decided not to shoot, and although the border crossing was resealed a day later, the tide had turned. Overcoming worries of how Moscow would react, Hungary’s government opened the border properly on 11 September and tens of thousands of East Germans passed through.
How a pan European picnic brought down the iron curtain Hungarians AustriansThe architecture of postwar Polish churches.
Thirty years after the fall of communism, this is Europe's next boom destination
High Tatras: Warming to A Cold War Outpost Europe’s next boom destination
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If you lived through the 1980s, Poland probably isn't a destination you ever considered visiting. You probably (like I did) have outmoded notions of a dreary communist nation with a horrible history, full of medal-chested Soviet-led leaders and disgruntled shipyard workers. You likely have dim memories of Lech Walesa leading the Solidarity trade union movement that eventually cracked Poland's communist facade.
In the 30 years since the fall of communism in 1989, Poland's peaceful transition to democracy, membership of the European Union and steady economic growth has created few headlines. As a child of the Cold War, what I stored away in my mind about Poland were newsworthy images of the Iron Curtain, army tanks and workers' strikes. Such notions are hard to shake off. I concluded that here was a fringe country whose inhabitants drove tin-can Trabants, ate pickled cabbage and lived in cities of demoralising, disintegrating Soviet apartment blocks.
Warsaw has tree-lined streets and a remarkable abundance of urban parks. Its residents are polite and pleasant. Cultured too. Public benches play you Chopin nocturnes and sonatas as you sit in the sun. A statue of Copernicus sits proudly near the gracious university. No one is ignoring darker history, though. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews sits prominently downtown, a copper-and-concrete monolith that commemorates Poland's once thriving Jewish population.
Poland and High Tatras Destinations of note boom
KRAKOW
As a former royal capital and centre for Catholicism and intellectual life, Krakow never fared well under communism. Now it's rejuvenated and renovated, from its impressive hilltop castle-and-cathedral complex to its former Jewish quarter, and is Poland's only internationally known and (in places) crowded tourist destination. Sumptuous old-town architecture culminates in famous square Rynek Glowny. Nearby Wieliczka Salt Mines and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp are worthy excursions. See krakow.travel
V R B o V of High Tatra fame
Miracles happen in Vrbov on our grandfather's land where now hot springs cure all kinds of ailments ..
Miracles happen at Thermal Rivers and Poold at Vrbov
Vrbov is a village and municipality in the Kežmarok District in the Prešov Region of Slovakia. Wikipedia
If one is not allowed to get a Visa to visit Vrbov - there are always Irish villages travellers should invade via JamBori 2018
Miracles happen at Thermal Rivers and Poold at Vrbov
Vrbov is a village and municipality in the Kežmarok District in the Prešov Region of Slovakia. Wikipedia
If one is not allowed to get a Visa to visit Vrbov - there are always Irish villages travellers should invade via JamBori 2018
Cold War is like a Polish Casablanca – a beautiful, doomed love story between two
Warsaw notes:
I recommend a trip here. Imagine a European country with (roughly) a four percent growth rate and the streets full of young people. Dining out here is much better than it was in Milan, and cheaper too (eat in the serious Polish place on the left side of the food hall, Hala Kozyski, and get gelato afterwards). What seems to be the city’s second best hotel is less than half the price it would be in Western Europe. For better or worse, e-scooters and bike lanes are everywhere. The city has a lively concert life, even in August.
Poland’s baby bump
Warsaw notes:
I recommend a trip here. Imagine a European country with (roughly) a four percent growth rate and the streets full of young people. Dining out here is much better than it was in Milan, and cheaper too (eat in the serious Polish place on the left side of the food hall, Hala Kozyski, and get gelato afterwards). What seems to be the city’s second best hotel is less than half the price it would be in Western Europe. For better or worse, e-scooters and bike lanes are everywhere. The city has a lively concert life, even in August.
There aren’t many traditional tourist sites. Construction workers will look at you funny if you visit the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the memorial plaque isn’t exactly prominent. The city’s much-heralded Jewish Museum is as much a critique of the Jews during medieval times as anything else. I don’t consider those sites as focal for the Warsaw population as a whole, but the official side of life here has not exactly taken the German tack of ongoing apologies. It is now against the law to suggest that Poles were complicit in the Holocaust (now only a fine, the threat of imprisonment was removed).
These days the 1953 Stalin building downtown looks quite beautiful. Cross the river to see more of Warsaw’s residential districts, such as the Praga district, and stop by to see the architecture — both new and old — near the Neon Museum.
“Poland issued more first-time residence permits to non-EU citizens than any other EU nation in 2017, with 86% of them going to Ukrainians, in the latest available European migration statistics. Those Ukrainians accounted for 18.7% of all newcomers to the entire EU.” (WSJ link here).
Poland is a country where nationalism doesn’t seem to be going away. In fact, there seems to be a kind of intertemporal substitution into a new nationalism, a secure nationalism, finally safe from the bullying of larger neighbors. Polish flags are everywhere. So many Poles, even secular ones, view the Catholic Church as the central institution of Western civilization, and indeed they have a concept of Western civilization as having a central institution (though a minus for gay rights).
The country is not on the verge of becoming a “Western liberal’s dream,” at least not in terms of mood or rhetoric. Yet actual life here is fairly liberal, and is more prosperous every day. 2019 has been the best year in Polish history, ever, and you feel it palpably.
Do not be surprised if more and more of Western Europe sees Polish nationalism as a model to be copied.
In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation. Matthew Desmond, NYT (Re Šilc). “Around the world, there are many types of capitalist societies, ranging from liberating to exploitative, protective to abusive, democratic to unregulated.” Not sure how wage labor can ever be characterized as “liberating,” but liberals gotta liberal.A.I. Is Learning From Humans. Many Humans. NYT. Training our replacements on the grand scale.Every Penny a Vote LRB. “[T]he notion that neoliberals were, by and large, moderate in tone and inclined to compromise, only to lose their way in the 1970s and 1980s, is chimerical. The foundational intellectual work was radical, and took place before the Second World War.”
How Do You Actually Change Things?Current Affairs. First slowly. Then all at once.
Poland’s baby bump
