Łódź and Poznań

I have not had much of a chance to get out and around Poland, partly because I have a day job I have to go to and partly because Kraków takes a lot of exploring in its own right. However, during Holy Week the country slows down, and the Politechnika was no exception. It seemed like a good time to travel.

I was in Łódź (that's pronounced "woodge") for a theater performance staged by the Fabryka Sztuki (Art Factory). One of our Fulbright Fellows (Ms. Dara Weinberg) works with them extensively, and this was a performance of her original work To Die in Athens in Polish translation. I was there to provide part of the Greek chorus, including a couple of musical numbers with Greek lyrics by Sophocles himself. Following our performance, I decided to visit Poznań, in western Poland (so-called "Greater Poland"), seven hours by train from Kraków but only two and a half by bus from Łódź.

I found it remarkable that Dara was able to throw the production together with only 5 hours to rehearse an ensemble consisting half of those who had extensively prepared for the play and half of those who, like me, were there for the first time for the heck of it. There were also many disparate elements that went into the show, such as two different dance troupes, a choir, solo performers, and the piano stylings of Stan Breckenridge. The fact that all those elements gelled is a tribute to the professionalism of all of those performers. The Polish cast was quite capable, and I was very impressed in particular by a gentleman with a stutter who delivered his monologue flawlessly in performance despite some struggles in rehearsal. Unfortunately, speech impediments seem to be even more obvious in Polish than they are in English, particularly as Poles are expected to speak with one very standard accent. I found that actor very brave and I wish him all success.

Łódź is the Pittsburgh of Poland, or perhaps its Detroit or its Baltimore: a major industrial city with a reputation for being an eyesore, and whose major industry has largely collapsed. The major industry in Łódź was once textiles, but cheaper clothing from places like China and Bangladesh has essentially wiped that industry out. Ironically, Poland experiences outsourcing from all kinds of directions: labor-intensive manufacturing has largely left Poland while at the same time an increasing number of European firms have set up shop in the country and are bringing in work from Western Europe. Meanwhile, a large number of Poles have outsourced themselves, i.e. immigrated, to Ireland and Great Britain. In fact, I understand that Polish is now the second-most spoken language in the United Kingdom.

Łódź clearly is somewhat edgier than Kraków, as even the main tourist street, Piotrkowska, is a little shabby-looking in places. The city is also newer than most of its fellows in Poland, as it only truly began to develop during the Industrial Revolution, rather like Manchester in England. Piotrkowska is interesting, however, as it is where the guys who got fabulously rich by building textile factories built townhouses. Therefore, it is a fine example of 19th-century architectural decadence. I did not get a chance to see much of the city, but I am assured by our Fulbright fellows there that there are still places where damage is visible from World War II. Riding the trams was also a bit of an experience because the rails were old and not quite set right. Indeed, as a tram pulled up to a stop on one route I could see it waving from side to side about 15 degrees in each direction, which made me somewhat unwilling to step on. I should have worried instead about the fact that the rear door of the tram, which got stuck and required two people to bolt shut: without that bolting, the tram was unable to move, which made me rather nervous as I had already validated my 15-minute tram ticket. A word to the wise: don't validate your tram tickets until the tram begins to move.

Łódź definitely has a feeling of urban sprawl, much more so than most cities in Poland. If you ride a bicycle 10 miles from the Rynek in Kraków, you can be out in what are, in essence, the exurbs. In Łódź it took about 40 minutes for us to clear the agglomerated area of the city by intercity bus. While this does not seem like much by Chicago standards, in Poland where cities tend to be more compact this seemed like a long time.

Poznań, in contrast, felt a lot like Ann Arbor, Urbana, Bloomington, or other large Midwestern college town with the addition of a baroque-era square and other more Polish accoutrements. The look of the buildings was definitely more Germanic, which is not surprising as Poznań was under German management whilst Kraków was under Austrian and Lublin and Warsaw were under Russian. Poznań was also the site of a 1956 student uprising against Communist rule, and Adam Mickiewicz University is a major presence in the town. Shopping malls form another large presence in Poznań. One of them, located in an old brewery, is actually kind of neat, but the newest one's interior looks like an unfortunate combination between the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a car dealership, and a Chuck-e-Cheese's for grown-ups. By visiting this mall, I actually got to experience "new-mall smell." It smells a bit like a cross between, well, a car dealership and a Chuck-e-Cheese's.

The National Museum in Poznań is home to a number of great works of art, and others that are only so-so. Surprisingly, I actually liked a lot of the works in the abstract and contemporary galleries, and I'm increasingly surprised that Polish artists aren't better known in the West. The museum's focus was undoubtedly Polish art, though there was a gallery of Dutch masters painting portraits of Dutch people looking Dutch, a gallery of Spanish paintings of Jesus looking both badly scourged and Spanish, and a bunch of random Frenchmen who couldn't decide if they were impressionists or fully abstract or what.

My seven-hour ride home to Kraków was punctuated by a lengthy conversation with a gentleman who looked a little bit like John Wayne and was convinced that Darth Vader and the guys who dress up like Imperial Stormtroopers at Star Wars conventions were out to try to take over the world. He was also telling me that there's a new form of alternative medicine (discovered in Poland, no matter what others in Europe may claim) whereby by patting the top of your head with your palms in a special manner it is possible to cure almost any ailment. I think I can speak for many of you when I say I've never heard of anything like it before.


And so, enlightened by my travels I returned to Kraków, where I spent Easter with Prof. Kowal. But that's a story for another post.