I know it's been a while since I've posted anything: getting a PhD at Caltech in chemistry tends to take up a lot of time! I graduated in June 2019, and the last six years have been full of stage plays, choral concerts, marriage....with the end of the year and decade upon us, I'm taking some time to look back on this year, and on the last 10. However, considering you are viewing a blog about a Fulbright Fellowship in Poland, you, dear reader, are probably more interested in how things have been going in Poland!
I first traveled to Krakow in 2011 with my then-girlfriend, who was herself be a Fulbright Fellow the in the country then called Macedonia (now North Macedonia, the formerly Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But don't tell anybody in Macedonia that you ever called it that, because they'll yell at you. And don't tell anybody in Greece you ever called it just regular Macedonia, because then they will yell at you. It's a long story). I was delighted by the visit, so much so that I decided to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship myself, to that same city. I lived in Krakow from 2012-2013, visited by myself in 2015, visited with my then-girlfriend-now-wife in 2016, and most recently, with my then-wife-now-wife in September 2019. The changes I saw over that almost 9-year span have been remarkable, but not granular, so I'm not going to go year-by-year but rather discuss some of the changes I've observed thematically rather than chronologically. I should also point out, I haven't gotten outside of Krakow much since 2013, so it's hard for me to talk about the whole country. But I'm going to try anyway. After all, it's my blog.
Economics and the obvious stuff
These are the changes that are the most obvious, in Krakow and other large cities in Poland. While Poland was not exactly poor in 2011 (and while it was by appearances anyway, a lot shinier than Macedonia-now-North Macedonia), there were little reminders that you weren't in Western Europe anymore. Sidewalks, particularly towards the outskirts of town, would look beaten up. You would occasionally see Maluchy (Communist-era clown-car looking things) being driven around unironically. Granted, this was infrequent, but it did happen. The Krakow Airport looked like a Greyhound Bus terminal (the domestic terminal looked like a converted warehouse), and all you saw around it was some junkyards and some beat-up farmhouses, some abandoned, some still holding on. The main square, the Rynek, was very shiny, but if you either looked in the courtyards behind those facades, or walked away from the central square a bit, you very quickly came upon buildings that were in bad repair, with metal gratings over the sides of buildings to catch falling masonry, for instance. There was also this kind of Eastern Bloc dinginess that hung over parts of the city. It's very hard to describe if you haven't seen it in person, but it's a kind of gray haze Instagram filter, a combination of graffiti, tired old paint, gray exhaust stains on gray buildings....and we're talking about buildings that were built before the communist era! Krakow also had a smell to it that was like that of Macedonia, but not as aggressive: a vague smell of mildew, cleaning solvent, diesel fumes, wet wool, and especially in the winter, the sharp tang of burning coal and whatever crap some Cracovians were shoveling into their furnaces. The smell would be more or less prevalent depending on where you were, but it was always kind of there.
You would see some buildings that were completely abandoned, one of them in particular even being in sight of Wawel Castle (the Cracovians reading this familiar with the Zwierzyniec distric will know the one I mean: you know, next to the Jubilat, behind the kebab stands). And of course, the tallest building in Krakow was known as "Szkieletor" (Skeletor), a 330-foot tall structure about a mile east of the main square that was entirely composed of steel girders, which you could look right through, and which had been in that state since the 1970's. Eventually they put a big tarp or bag over it, so it didn't look as obviously unfinished. I remember walking under one railroad viaduct in Kazimierz that had a spider's-web of wire underneath the crumbling concrete, with a sign prominently posted that said "Caution! Viaduct is in a poor technical state!" We weren't exactly sure what to do about that, but we certainly didn't want to cross under the viaduct when a train ran over it. The trains themselves were interesting: there was some more modern rolling-stock, but a lot of the wagons/cars looked vintage 1980's. My favorite feature was the toilet in the bathroom, which would flush and dump its contents directly onto the rails. There was a sign above the toilet asking you not to flush when the train was in a station.
Now, I'm reading back over this description, and realizing it sounds like a dystopian landscape, but it didn't really feel like it at the time. A lot of the old stuff worked reasonably well when it wasn't crumbling. Beyond the grayness, the buildings were historic and charming: while I saw four apartments I was not at all interested in living in (one of them hilarious, two alarming, one pretty nice except for the smell of cat pee), the one I ended up renting was very comfortable if a little on the older side. But the thing that made Poland a really cool place to live in 2012-2013 was this exciting feeling that things were changing, and on the move: new construction, old buildings getting facelifts, KFC....Aside from soccer hooligans, the streets were safe, and I would walk around at midnight without too much concern. The people you saw on the street looked pretty well-fed, well turned-out, and dare I say it, maybe even optimistic, or at least as optimistic as Poles ever get. And change did come, at a pace that would astonish most Americans. It certainly astonished me.
In broad strokes, every time I went back to Poland, that grayness got a little bit lighter, and the buildings looked a little newer and better-scrubbed. You started seeing fewer of those cement-catchers on buildings. The city doesn't quite smell the way it used to, (though in fairness I haven't been in winter), and where you once would notice the lifting of the smell, nowadays you tend to notice when it crops up. I've lost some of the old landmarks I used to recognize, because those landmarks were abandoned buildings that aren't there anymore.There are new businesses outside of the old city, sometimes in vacant lots, sometimes in refurbished buildings (food trucks, cafes, etc.) run by a set of young entrepreneurs. There are new business parks, and the prosperous district of Wola Justowska, which used to be semi-rural, has many new luxury houses and apartments.
The transformation of Poland can be seen in a nutshell in The Galeria Krakowska, a shopping mall just east of the main square. The Galeria was relatively new when I first visited in 2011. It's always been a very sleek and chic place, a high-end mall that would not look out of place if you set it down in an affluent part of Los Angeles or Chicago. What was remarkable about it in 2011 was, first, that it looked so sleek (and featured exhibits that were pretty classy, like replicas of stuff in Jules Verne novels), and second, in retrospect, that it looked so empty. Sure, people would go there to hang out or window-shop, but a fair number of the shoppers looked like befuddled tourists, because they were.
By the time my wife and I visited in September 2019, you felt jostled and a little claustrophobic. Some of this increased traffic comes from the decision of the city to integrate the train station and, more importantly the train shed, with the Galeria Krakowska, meaning that you have to talk through the mall to catch a train. Previously, the train station was an Austrian-era building adjacent to the Galeria, which is now empty, and I think there are talks of turning it into a museum. But if you look closely at those rushing through the mall, they clearly aren't all travelers, and a lot of them are carrying shopping bags. Whereas Poles once came to the Galeria almost as tourists, today most of them come for business. And that business, for a lot of them, means shopping at H&M. This is perhaps the most visible evidence for increased prosperity in Poland, that people have disposable income not just to buy jeans, but to buy designer jeans.
Now, before this post sounds like "well, things used to really suck, and now it's like Disneyland", these changes have come at a price. First and foremost, things have become a little too much like Disneyland, particularly in the main square. The square was always bustling on weekends, as that's the bar, restaurant, and entertainment district, and the square would roar on a Saturday night in June or July. What was different in 2019 was that the square was packed, and loud, at 10:30PM on a Tuesday in September. What's also different is that most of the people on the square are speaking English these days, and you see fewer Poles hanging out. Go into a restaurant, and at one table you'll hear a bunch of Liverpudlians, at another, some New Yorkers, at yet another, Spaniards or Brazilians. This was really not the case in 2012-2013. Sure, there were tourists, but it didn't seem like they were the only people you saw. My friend Staszek also pointed out that none of the windows in apartments facing the square were lit at 10:30, because nobody lives in those apartments regularly. It used to be pretty normal to meet my friends in the square. Now, when I set up a meeting, they usually say something like "I haven't been there in years." In a sleazier turn of events, in 2012-2013 you'd certainly run into people passing out leaflets or hawking some bar or club or event, but never was I ever approached and asked if I wanted to go to a striptease club. In 2015 I was stunned when a young woman (who looked a little too young to be doing this kind of thing), approached and asked me if I wanted to go to a strip club. By 2019, any time I've walked into the square without my wife, I'm asked this question three or four times enroute, in English. In 2013 I distinctly remember thinking I was glad to see the square as it was then, because in 10-15 years it was all going to be a tourist trap. I underestimated the amount of time it would take.
Another problem is that a lot of the newer buildings were designed and built in a hurry, and/or the builders underestimated just how much the buildings were going to be used. We've already seen this effect at the Galeria Krakowska, but it is also evident at the Airport. The airport was brand spanking new in 2016, complete with that "new airport smell." I was stunned as I stepped off the plane, as it had gone from Greyhound Bus Terminal to Starship Enterprise, though the basic layout of the terminal was still recognizable (and for some reason, they still didn't believe in escalators, opting instead for a sloped moving walkway). By 2019, the building was already not aging well, the gate areas were crowded to the point of claustrophobia, and the circulation path in the gate area is very badly designed. Considering that this was a new building, there really shouldn't have been any excuse, though apparently this is just the first phase of a much larger expansion. What seems to be the problem is, there was a demand for more shop space, and the ability to fly more passengers out of more gates....without a corresponding increase in the square footage of the building.
This is the change in the economy of Poland that I saw in one city. But economic progress is never even, and it clearly wasn't even when I lived there in 2012-2013: while Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan and Wrocław (the capital, the second city, and two cities in Western Poland) seemed to be on the move, Radom, Lublin, and Łódź were still cleaning up damage from World War II, and didn't seem to be going anywhere. This economic inequality is affecting Polish politics, which also underwent upheaval and consolidation in the 2010's.
Politics
Poland is still a developing democracy, as the current Third Republic, with free elections and a free press, dates to the collapse of communism in 1990. The present Constitution was adopted in 1997. Unlike in Romania, the communist ruling class was not lined up against a wall and shot. Unlike East Germany, communist Poland was not swallowed up by a prosperous and democratic neighbor. And unlike in Russia, the economy, and political power, didn't end up in the hands of a connected oligarchy. And like many of the countries in Central Europe, but unlike Western Europe or the US, Poland was dismembered by its neighbors, Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary, and did not exist on the map for 123 years. It existed only as a nationalist idea. These are all things to keep in mind when trying to make sense of Polish politics today.
Communism fell after a series of semi-free, then free elections in Poland, which led to a government dominated by the activists of the Solidarity trade union. While the peaceful transition of power was certainly unexpected and worth celebrating, it created a couple of problems. First, the new government needed experts to run government departments, staff the supreme courts and the bureaucracy, and so forth. But Poland had been a one-party state. The only people who knew how to do any of those things had been loyal followers of the communist government. So, while the leadership at the top changed, the functionaries that ran the government stayed more or less put. Poland also made the decision to not really delve into the crimes of the previous government, or prosecute former police or secret police: there was a half-hearted effort to prosecute General Jaruzelski, who was effectively a military dictator from 1981-1989, but he died a free man.
The second problem the members of the new government had was, of course, how to differentiate themselves from other members of the new government. After all, what held Solidarity together was opposition to the communist government, but within its ranks were trade unionists, socialists, religious people, reactionaries, liberals....it was a very big tent with factions certain to fight amongst themselves for the spoils of power. And fight they did. From 1990 to about 2005-ish, Poland did its very best impression of Italy, with a succession of short-lived governments, a dizzying array of political parties that would appear and disappear suddenly. By the late 2000's, all of this had gradually settled down to a more-or-less two-party system. When I got to Poland in 2012, The left-wing was an impotent rump, leaving the country divided between the center-right Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform, or PO, which is classically liberal, argues for smaller government, and is pro-EU) and the right-wing Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, or PiS, which is socially conservative, nationalist, argues for an expanded welfare state, and is Euroskeptic). There were four other minor parties in the parliament, PO was in power and had been for some time, enough that it was kind of selling itself as "the natural party of government", even though it relied on a coalition for a majority, as all governments had up to that point. Yet for all that seeming sense of calm, the country was about to be hit by a political earthquake.
The country had already been hit by what would end up being the most important, and perhaps the defining, event of the 2010's in Poland: the Smolensk air disaster of 10 April 2010. I wrote an entire post about this back when, but in brief, Lech Kaczyński, the Polish president (a member of PiS, it's important to remember), was going to a commemoration of the Katyn Massacre, which is when the Soviet NKVD shot up to 40,000 Poles in the forests outside of Smolensk in 1940. Vladimir Putin was also supposed to be at the ceremony, and it looked like Poland and Russia would be headed for an era of improved relations. But the plane crashed near the runway in a fog, killing Lech Kaczyński and everyone else on board, including a number of other prominent Polish officials. The Polish government (a PO government, i.e. the opposing party to Kaczyński) seemed to drag its feet on the investigation, and let Russian officials handle most of the investigation.
Because the Russians were somewhat less than transparent about the investigation, the Smolensk Disaster quickly became a source of conspiracy theories. The most common was that the Russians had simply shot down the plane with a missile. Others were more outlandish, such as the theory that the Russians had set up an enormous fog machine, and switched it on as the plane came in to land. Essentially, it's the JFK assassination all over again, but with PiS actively pushing and promoting these conspiracy theories, saying that their political opponents, PO, were Russian stooges, or weak, or trying to damage PiS's chances at electoral victory by killing the president. Basically, it's "Barry Goldwater really shot JFK." Echoing for 10 years on repeat.
As you might imagine, this has ushered in an era of politics in Poland that is as nasty, if not nastier, than what we are experiencing in the US since the 2016 elections. In fact, there are a number of parallels. The party in power in 2010 (Democrats in the US, PO in Poland), pretty much saw their future dominance of political power as assured, which bred a certain complacency. Meanwhile, people living outside of the big cities felt like they were being ignored or taken for granted. While the benefits of economic growth accrued to the larger cities, other regions were being left behind. These same people didn't like the changes in culture that seemed to be imposed on them from on high, along with increasing diktats of what you can and cannot say in public (political correctness). Both parties previously in power underestimated the effect nationalism might have on their populations. And finally, both PiS and Trump Republicans have complained at length about the Deep State, i.e. government bureaucrats, and how this Deep State is holding back needed reforms, and/or trying to sabotage the country, often with a conspiracy theory twist to it.
PiS won a sweeping victory at the polls in 2015, giving them the first majority government in the history of the Third Republic. PiS repeated this feat in the recent elections of October 2019, and had the highest vote total of any party since 1990. PiS claims that since they won the elections, that means they should be able to do what they want, as they have a strong mandate for change, and a mandate to root out all the old communists in the Polish Deep State. And if that means packing the Supreme Court, or changing its composition, then so be it.
Now, there are a number of things that I think the Western/American press has failed to understand about PiS, and about politics in Poland in general. First and foremost, concerns about press freedom or freedom of speech in Poland I think are, so far, misplaced. While the state-owned media has become a mouthpiece of PiS in recent years, I remember the state-owned media under the PO government being definitely pro-PO, if a little less nakedly partisan. The independent press in Poland is as noisy and raucous as ever, both for and against the government. Unfortunately, that makes it harder to find a truly independent voice that will actually report the news without spin.
Second, there's the temptation to lump PiS in with the Republicans in the States, both as right-wing governments. That's not entirely accurate, as PiS has overseen a major expansion of the welfare state, and policies that supporters of PO have decried as socialist. The economic policies of PiS are actually closer to those of the Democrats, while their social policies (opposition to gay marriage, for instance) would be somewhere on the right wing of the Republican party. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats would be viable political parties in Poland. In the US, PiS would be led by Pat Buchanan, and PO would be led by.....uh......Paul Ryan? The ghost of John McCain? Maybe? And we both know how relevant those politicians are in our present day.
Third, "nationalism" is a handy, catch-all word, but it's a little different in Poland. I would argue that the appeal of nationalism is actually stronger in Poland than it is in the US, partly because "nationalism" has had a concrete meaning in Poland for a long time, namely, a Poland free of foreign influence, or at least, a Poland where Poles are calling the shots. Remember, that wasn't a thing at all from 1795-1918, and has only intermittently been a thing since then. I would further argue that almost all Poles, in general, are what we would call nationalists in the US. In the US, we've gotten used to a certain ritualized reflection on our nation's sins, such as slavery, Jim Crow, our mistreatment of Native Americans, and so forth. In Poland, I don't really hear anyone other than wacky left-wingers publicly decrying, say, Polish mistreatment of Ukrainians in the 17th century and at other times, or antisemitism. Just mentioning these things can get people to jump all over you as a traitor. So, when a party says that they are the guardians of true Polishness, and everybody who disagrees with them is likely a traitor in the pay of the Russians, or the European Union (read "Germans"), this kind of talk is going to find an audience, and not just on the fringes of society.
So in brief, Polish politics has gotten more consolidated over the last 10 years, the right wing has mounted a revival and returned to power, and above all, it's gotten nasty in a way very familiar to my American readers.
Social Habits
Grandmothers still occupy their place as the Police Auxiliary, and The Social Police. Older people, older women especially, will observe and report conditions to whoever is interested, and to many people who aren't interested. Breaches in social decorum are met with scoldings from older people, to an extent which is very unusual in large cities in the United States. What I have noticed, however, is that the grannies seem to look a lot less "grannyish." Fashion and trendiness looks like it's catching up to the older set. Now, I haven't been there in the winter, but I also saw fewer older women wearing berets. Unfortunately, that's the limit of my fashion acumen, both in Poland and in the US, really.
What was also notable in 2011 was how many people smoked, and how you see many fewer smokers today.
On the other hand, in 2011, while you didn't see people who were going hungry, you didn't really see overweight people. Last time I was in Poland, in 2019, it seemed like people in general, and young people in particular, have gotten larger. KFC has made inroads indeed.
So, thank you for reading! It's been a long post, but then again, it's been a long decade.
