Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

Day 5 – 18th July

My all too brief holiday was coming to a close; this evening we would all fly back to Stansted together and resume life in Brown’s Britain. However, the flight wasn’t until late evening, which left a large chunk of the day to pack in a bit more activity. We were due to meet up around 09:00 to go into town, Jaworzno, which in reality turned out to be around 11. I kept myself busy during the long wait playing with Viki the gorgeous Alsatian in the garden. Finally, the car rolled up and off we went into town.













Jaworzno was formerly a major industrial provincial town in southern Poland, with five coalmines, a power station and all the necessary industry that serves them. Now all but one of the mines has closed, and in my 2005 visit the neglect as a town slides into depression had been evident. Four years on, the change is incredible. Aided by a massive EU grant, the town is being regenerated, and all around the centre signs of the rebirth were in progress. It’s incredible; other EU countries manage to bag these massive cash handouts, while all that Blair and Brown came home with from their beanos to Brussels were stupid rules about cucumbers, which are then enforced to the point of death.

The building work began with demolishing the pits, and building a new bypass around the town on the old railway line. The picture above is the site of the former Town mine, but you'd never know that now. The streetlights mark where the access road into town will come from the new and completed bypass.

Then work began on the town itself. Honestly, they’ve got no idea. Here in Britain we dig up the town first, cause 3 years of congestion and chaos, and ten years later, belatedly put in a bypass once all the work is done. The main thoroughfares in Jaworzno have been dug up, and roads, pavements, streetlights and even the sewers are being replaced at the same time. This revolutionary idea means that as soon as the road is laid, the water board don’t need to come along and dig it up to build new sewers – like I said, they’ve got no idea. Gordon, get over there and show them how to make a real pig’s breakfast of Government projects! And don’t feel obliged to hurry home, either.

Apart from the construction work itself the biggest single difference in town is simply colour. Previously, the town centre apartments were all finished in an austere grey concrete, presenting a dowdy and bleak appearance. Work is now well underway to repaint these buildings with pleasant green and yellow shades that blend in well with the surrounding trees and greenery. It makes the town much more attractive and welcoming. Here's an example:

Above: 2005, and the grey flats look austere and forbidding from the exterior.
Below: 2009, and with complete reconstruction going on beneath
them, the same blocks are now colourful and contemporary.

I continued walking around town and saw it looking more vibrant and prosperous than my last visit, it's surprisng what a lick of paint and a tidy up can do to brighten a place up a bit.

Another street undergoes regeneration.

The sombre grey has been banished under colourful exterior paint.

This photo shows the before-and-after effect very clearly. What a difference!

Like so many European towns and cities, Poland devotes ample land to parks and open public spaces. Jaworzno has compact, but inviting parks with leafy green avenues down which numerous benches are provided for locals to meet and chat the day away. They are very quiet and restful, and with many riotous colours of the immaculately maintained flowerbeds to catch the eye. They are a great place to try and eat an ice cream cone before it melts and dribbles down your hand before dripping all over the ground in the +30°C heat. My hosts managed to eat their cones with quiet dignity and not a dribble to be seen; mine looked like I’d stuffed my face into it. I have no idea why this was; perhaps I had ultra-fast melting ice cream. I half expected an old lady to fish in her bag, bring out a hanky, lick it and then rub my face, as mothers are prone to do in order to embarrass you in your youth. This, is one of the worst memories I have of being 17.

Park Life

Fortunately, no old ladies took pity on me, and probably thought I was a tramp. I made it to the public toilets (remember those?) and cleaned myself up ready for a stroll around town. The northern end has not seen any redevelopment work, other than the building of a new library, and was much as I remembered it, with the large church dominating the triangular junction.




Just off this junction, my favourite tavern remains in business, calling itself simply Fart. I do hope that is a suggestion and not an instruction; I bet it gets lively on a Saturday night. If actions speak louder than words, I’ll give it a miss.

The biggest disappointment, although inevitable given the passage of time, was the virtual disappearance of quirky, classic East European cars and vehicles, and their replacement with standard Euro boxes. There was a time when you could be dropped into a city, and work out roughly where you were simply by observing the cars and buses. From Paris to Prague, or Manchester to Minsk, countries used vehicles that had as much national identity as the buildings and the food. Or do I just need to get out more?

In 2005, around every forth car was a delightful Fiat 126, built under licence and known as the Polski Fiat. These tiny, tinny cars were powered by a hairdryer on steroids, and came with such luxuries as … no, actually, they didn’t. Their introduction paved the way for mass-market transportation in Poland in the way that Lada’s did in Russia and buses did in Britain, unless you had all day to coax your Morris Marina down the street and back. Despite the flimsiness of the Polski Fiat – and we’re talking about the structural integrity of a yoghurt pot – the cars coped exceedingly well with Poland’s hot summers and bitterly cold winters, with temperatures regularly down to -30°C. That’s chilly enough for a monkey to re-evaluate where he places his spheres of brass. Basically, there was nothing to the Polski Fiat, so nothing could go wrong that couldn’t be fixed with an elastic band, a hammer and vodka. Not surprisingly, these cars outlasted their contemporaries by a couple of decades – not bad for a mobile food blender.

This was the best surviving Polski Fiat that I came across, in remarkable condition for its age.

Other stalwarts have all but vanished; I didn’t see a single Trabant, and even the homegrown Polonez has all but disappeared. Vintage buses with curtains at the windows have been replaced by large, modern, fast designs that look the same as everywhere else from Sweden to Spain. Of course, this kind of progress is as necessary as it is inevitable, but for the visitor, it is another example of encroaching standardisation that is chipping away at national characteristics across the continent.

The town tour ended up at the apartments of my hosts for a good pre-flight meal and drink to say goodbye. I really must say that despite some lethargic timekeeping and the odd strange decision, my hosts looked after me extremely well throughout my brief visit to their homeland, and I saw and experienced many new activities that I would otherwise have easily missed. Their families in Jaworzno were incredibly hospitable, warm and generous. Even after four years since my previous visit, I was received like a member of the family and greeted effusively on each occasion we met. Only my actual hosts spoke English, yet despite this, with a smattering of words and phrases plus sign language and facial expressions, it was possible to maintain an animated conversation.

Naturally, I wish to return, as there is still so much to explore, and so many places to visit, or even revisit. I would like to take some longer rail journeys while the older style trains are still running, as this is by far the best way to experience the passing scenery. I’d prefer to go out of season as the heat proved to be uncomfortable most of the time, and it would be great to see the country in a different season; say spring or autumn. So, with thoughts of a future visit already in my mind, I had to bid a reluctant goodbye to Poland; it was time to go home.