the talking bear

Kraków Soup Festival - "Super Soup" etc...

Aired on Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy 22.5.2007. Link to report here. Audio (mp3) can be downloaded here.

On a Saturday in May, Kraków’s district of Kazimierz becomes full of visitors from around the world for the annual Soup Festival which is held on Plac Nowy in the heart of the old Jewish quarter. Last weekend provided food for thought for residents and visitors alike, giving warm refreshment after Friday’s ‘Night of Museums’ in Poland’s cultural capital. On a hot afternoon, things got hotter as more than twenty different soups were put on trial and the good citizens of Kraków and beyond were treated to soups made for the occasion by various restaurants from throughout the city. The festival, which is run by the KTO theatre company, is a celebration of what brings people together in a way that transcends quite possibly all cultures on earth. Soup is something that has managed to do that, and with soups from around the world and of varying tastes, the 6th edition of the Soup Festival was more than just a day out.
I met some soup revellers and they told of their culinary adventures:
We had tomato and banana soup, it was amazing, it was fantastic. These French women served it to us and they were lovely, and the soup was beautiful. I don’t think I could eat too much of it, because it’s very sweet, but it was the perfect amount, it was delicious.
What kind of soup did you have today?
This is kapuśniak, and it’s very good. It’s a fat soup, but I’m not afraid of getting fat…
Spirits were high, and as the jury decision was being made for the competition for the day’s best soup, others tried out more concoctions, although there was some criticism from orthodox soup lovers:
I ate Thai soup, with coconut and chicken, and it was really hot you know, but for me, it’s not a soup. I also ate soup with tomato and bananas, but also, it’s not a soup, because a soup for me needs meat, bones, eyes and brain I guess…
I met with Piotr Zajączkowski, co-owner of Edo Sushi Bar in Kazimierz, who was serving one of his soups to the eager crowds:
Can you tell me, what kind of soup are you preparing this year?
This time, we’re preparing soup from asparagus, with salmon, marinated in miso.
And last year, what kind of soup?
Last year was kimu-chi jige, it was a Korean soup.
It was this soup that won him second place in last year’s battle for the best brew, and his asparagus and salmon soup certainly got my vote. Other soups on offer included a nettle and pomegranate seed clear soup, an interesting taste; and a well-heeled red lentil broth, not its first outing at the festival it seemed:
And actually last year I remember trying the same, and it was very sophisticated soup. Yeah I liked it, I liked it actually.
The Soup Festival of 2007 was a heart-warming event, and bringing food to back to basics in the company of friends and strangers alike made for an amazing atmosphere, especially in the setting of a sun-drowned weekend afternoon in one of the most beautiful areas of town. Will this year’s winner, the Thai Galangal soup from the Horai restaurant, make a comeback next year?

Coffee Culture in Kraków - Link Update

Polskie Radio (current) link to report and mp3. Audio also here.

http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/gb/dokument.aspx?iid=49622

It's time for...

The following months are showing to be pretty full, not just from a personal point of view, but from a professional one also. Most changes will happen on the radio front, as I hope to be hosting my own show from July on the Polish Radio External Service, which (I have been told, at any rate) will also be broadcasting on FM in Warsaw and then throughout Poland in the near future (that means within a year or so probably...). Of course I shall be keeping you all up to date with that front. Also: teaching at TEU until the end of the semester, and then... Another year? Ah yes, and the translation business at Wagony Świdnica. Thank God for automobiles (even if they are quite agèd). I'm going to find out how much travelling around Poland I can take over the next few months. It should be exciting, and I'm looking forward to it, as long as I get paid (harshly materialistic I know, but...).

I think a redrafting of the CV will be in order before too long...

For now though, it's time for...

Missing Links...

Just to catch up on a couple of things:

Here's the Polish Radio link to Quadruple espresso from Kraków, my Around Poland report. Blog post here.

and also...

Logo of the Polish Days in Kuwait, November 2006

I did a report for the Polish Radio News Agency (IAR - Informacyjna Agencja Radiowa) about the sailing of the second-ever tanker of oil to Poland from the State of Kuwait, where I was sent for little under a week to report on the Polish Days event to get trade moving between the two countries. I can't find the link on the site, but you can download the mp3 here. It's the only recorded report done by me actually in Polish. Enjoy!

I also co-hosted a live radio show on RKFM Super Station 99.7 for the duration of the festivities. It was my first time actually presenting a live broadcast (I had been on Polskie Radio BIS before that...), and it was stressful, not least because of the censorship they have. I gained a lot of experience just from those four days, and working with Kuwaitis was actually quite a pleasant experience, plus they really enjoyed the cheesy Polish pop that I brought along with me for the shows, like Kayah, Blue Café, and other such groups...

That's all for now. More anon, most probably for Around Poland. Ciao.

Medical Tours in Kraków

This post goes quite a long way back. It was for a news item for Polish Radio (then Radio Polonia) back in September (?), and since the organisational changes at the station it is no longer in the archive.

I uploaded the MP3 in October last year, but never got round to doing the post for it. Many foreigners come to Poland now to get their teeth done, get plastic surgery, the amusingly-named Botox and all that lovely stuff. My mate Jurek, who lives round the corner, is in the tourist business and organises trips for you western types to come and get a facelift. Check it out!
His site is at www.jorgegroup.pl

Download the MP3 here. (ca. 3,6MB)

To read the article, continue reading below...

Since Poland’s entry into the European Union in 2004, there has been a growth in tourism in the country’s southern city of Kraków. Apart from stating the obvious though, the city’s medical trade has also taken advantage of the Union’s enlargement. Already a few years back there were stories in the British press that addressed the possibility of travelling within the EU to get specialist treatment without the queues and without having to spend too much well-earned cash for the priviledge. Polish doctors have started to make a reputation for themselves, and with the opening of the job market, Polish nurses are making increasing appearances in hospitals and clinics in western Europe, especially in the UK. And of course with the advent of cheap flights to Kraków, specialist treatment is now only a few hours away and costs a fraction of what it would cost in Britain.
Jerzy Postawka, a tourism specialist based in Kraków, is pioneering a new programme for tourists who want to take advantage of Poland’s jewel in the crown. He told me more:
“It’s a medical travel, and basically it’s travelling to get some treatment like, for example, dentists, opticians, and also plastic surgery. I’m insuring the accomodation, they can pick it from different standards and different types of accomodation, beginning from hotels, also with some apartments, then I’m organising the treatment, I’m making the schedule of visits and everything, and I also support them with some attractions, trips, and all the other things they can do during their stay in Kraków. For example, I’ve rented an apartment, quite comfortable, 60 m2 in the city centre for one week, and then I set up the visits during the whole week, to make one tooth and then to make Botox treatment, to remove wrinkles. Basically I’m aiming at all people who need such treatment, and who want to see something new or to visit Kraków, or to do it a different way than usual. Usually these are people who are over 30 years old, and they are just looking for good treatment.”
The cost of treatment is probably the most important factor for people who would want to come to Kraków. Jerzy explains the difference in price, and what you would get in Kraków for the same amount of money paid for specialist treatment in the UK:
“Definitely it’s a way of saving money. I would say it like this, that to come here, including the cost of travel, including the cost of accomodation, including the cost of the other attractions, I mean Auschwitz, Wieliczka, and all the things you want to do, and including the treatment, the amount is the same for treatment abroad, in western Europe, so I think it’s much cheaper and for the same price you get much more, and you visit something and have some attractions.”
I put the idea to Max, a Brit currently on a short holiday in Kraków:
“You know I think I would, because I know it’s a beautiful city, and if you can get the same treatment done for less money here then I think it’s definitely worth it.”
The opinion of Jerzy is to get western Europeans to come to Kraków, take in the atmosphere and relax while the specialists do their thing. Leave yourself in the hands of the professionals, while not paying through the nose for it. For information check the website at www.jorgegroup.pl

Coffee Culture in Kraków

My latest installment for Around Poland, Polish Radio's travel magazine, is about the savouring of coffee in Kraków. Not just that though: much like other towns in this part of Mitteleuropa, or more precisely, the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, coffeehouses are an intricate part of life. Vienna, Bratislava, Kraków, L'viv and all that. Come to Kraków and check out some of my regular haunts.

Broadcast on 12.3.2007 (link to follow...)

MP3 can be downloaded here. (ca. 7,1MB)

Text continued below...

Time for a coffee. The rumble of the Italian espresso machine is music to my ears, much as the silence that comes after it. Sit with me a while in a coffeehouse in the southern city of Kraków, home to some of the best coffee, not least one of the best places to drink it in.

The history of the European coffeehouse goes back to the legend of Kulczycki, a Polish-Ukrainian soldier who fought at the Battle of Vienna of 1683, when King Jan Sobieski drove back the Ottomans. It is said that this soldier found large sacks of coffee beans in an abandoned camp and with them decided to open the first coffeehouse in the city itself.

How romantic, you might say. And you wouldn’t be far off. Kraków has had its love affair with the black gold for a few centuries itself, and in that time the city has become filled with some extraordinary establishments on almost every street corner. One of the oldest coffeehouses still in business in Kraków is Jama Michalika, which is on Floriańska street. It was originally opened in 1895, and was the artistic hub of the city’s cultural crème-de-la-crème. The famous ‘Green Balloon’ cabaret was also formed there a few years later. This was just the beginning of the coffeehouse trend, though…

Times have changed since Jama Michalika opened, and the modern Kraków boasts coffeehouses to suit everyone’s taste. Décor can vary wildly: for instance, the Propaganda café on Miodowa street in the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz; a time warp to Poland’s previous era of Communism with a touch of retro on the dark side. This coffeehouse is a world away from, for example, Botanica, a café on Bracka street which has the air of an orangery, or a large glasshouse.

So I have mentioned but a few places for coffee. But why do people go these places? What is the need? Is it just caffeine? Tomek, an actor and barman in one of Kraków’s coffeehouses, explains the rituals behind the espresso…

… so you come in on a 5 minute break off work, drink an espresso, and then you leave. But you can also make it into a ritual. Throw some magic into the whole procedure. You could get a macchiato instead of an espresso, and when you meet with friends to find out what’s going on, coffee just makes that much more sense. It’s not just about the coffee or its taste, it’s about feeling as if in a far off place for those five minutes.

… from my observations, there are three stages. You can come in the morning, or at least before noon; you get a sandwich, drink some coffee with it,  or juice, or whatever. Then you have the afternoon, when you have what I’ve talking about all along: you come to meet someone, and the most natural way of doing it is over a coffee, without any pretexts. Then comes the evening, when people come to drink, to dance, or do any other multitude of activities…

There is much more to the Cracovian coffeehouse than meets the eye. Each ‘local’, from the Polish lokal, roughly meaning ‘establishment’, is its own very ecosystem. The coffee’s not always important when there’s much more going on around. I spoke to two coffee drinkers about what they thought about the coffeehouse atmosphere. Aeddan, my regular spokesman on such life matters and also currently a university lecturer, and Karolina, a Pole from Canada who is currently studying in Kraków.

Well I think it’s a chance to meet with other people, but it’s also a chance to get lost within a comfortable surrounding, you don’t necessarily have to go to a place where you everyone’s name, but just the fact that of going into the comfort zone of the Old Town, or the centre of the city, where you can sit down and be alone, but not be lonely…

Exactly. There is a difference. There are places where you can sit in Kraków, and you’ll be sat there for five minutes, and you’ll see everyone you know walk past. Think of Bracka or Stolarska. And you know you can go and sit in a café, you’ll meet someone that you know. You can’t just have a coffee somewhere without somebody dropping in…

Well, no…. But sure you can, right? You can go onto Bracka, you can go onto Stolarska, and you know when everyone has their office hours at certain cafés, but you can also go into the secret nooks, where perhaps you’ll see a familiar face, but not necessarily, there are a lot of places to hide within this very confined space…

So it’s kind of intimate and sociable at the same time, which I don’t think very many cities have to offer.

If you want to be seen sipping a smooth espresso on the fashionable Plac Nowy in Kazimerz, why not go to Alchemia. This is one of the most prominent coffeehouses in Kraków, and also doubles up as an art gallery and is a whole institution in its own right. Winter nights are welcoming, and lazy summer afternoons can also be whiled away all too easily. Back to Bracka street in the centre and to Prowincja, where you get an ambient old-time rustic feel, or perhaps conceal yourself in a cupboard at Café Szafé on Felicjanek street?

Whichever coffeehouse you decide to go to, you will always find, especially after a few days of musing over a blend of Colombian roast, that the same people will return. The city is a web of coffeehouses that intertwines with each other, each passing over information and local gossip. Newspapers are read in this city, but the word on the grapevine tends to move that much faster, making the printed press redundant. All coffeehouses are centres of talk. Two great places to go for a chat over an espresso are Manekin on Tomasza street, and also Pierwszy Lokal, the first local on Stolarska street, where much of this program was recorded…

There is no one philosophy behind the coffeehouses in Kraków. Maybe you’ll find a place to define yourself and your thoughts in this amazing city. Maybe you won’t. But it’ll happen over a cup of coffee. That’s for sure.

International Print Triennial - II

A longer package for the 'Focus' magazine on Radio Polonia. News on the IPT and also a discussion on new methods of graphic art and Polish print abroad. Aired Radio Polonia 21.09.2006.

Read on for the transcript, or if you're not feeling up to it, download the MP3 here. (7.9 MB)

The International Print Triennial has just kicked off in Poland’s southern city of Kraków. 4500 prints were submitted by 1191 artists for the competition, and out of those, 322 works by 229 artists qualified for the main exhibiton. This the 18th edition of the event, which also turns 40 years old this year.

There is more to this year’s Print Triennial than just the main exhibition though. Professor Witold Skulicz, the president of the International Print Triennial Society in Kraków, explains more:

The programme is huge: there are so many exhibitions that it's almost frightening, and I have to be present at all of them. Please imagine that apart from the main programme, we have created a seperate event, which is organised by the International Print Triennial. 20 galleries in Kraków are taking part in the Graphic Art Days, an event we would like to see becoming an annual fixture in the Cracovian cultural calendar.

Polish graphic art is currently living its great 5 minutes, and I believe that we shouldn't waste them.

Richard Noyce, British art critic, was president of the jury at this year’s Triennial. I asked him about the preparations for the event:

The fact of the matter is that the standard of works submitted this year was incredibly high. I was on the jury again in 2003, and I thought the standard was high then, but this year the standard has surpassed that, it is really an extraordinary high standard on an international scale, so the work of the jury was very difficult indeed. Very challenging, but ultimately very rewarding. The standard of conception is very high, the standard of execution is very high, there’s some amazingly original work, and underneath it all, it’s also very, very accesible.

Ingrid Ledent, an artist from Belgium, won the Grand Prix award this year. I caught up with her before the opening of the main exhibition:

I feel absolutely spoiled, because, well, if you see the quality of the works here, I think there are so many Grand Prix winners here, but it’s me who got it, so I feel absolutely spoiled, I’m so happy.

How are these prints made, are they digital, are they traditional, or is it a mixture of both?

Well, it’s a mixture of both, the main technique is lithography, but it’s combined with digital print. It’s a real traditional litho, even printed on the big stones, so I grain them and it’s the traditional way. But the thing is I make it in a traditional way, but I don’t use it in a traditional way. That’s the thing I try to do.

How do you see the future of graphic art?

Well, I’m very positive, I think with the influence of the new media people start to mix the things, so the traditional way still exists, while I think you can still do things using the traditional graphic methods, which you cannot do with the new media, and vice-versa.

Thank you very much, dank je wel, and many congratulations once again.

Do widzenia!

The International Print Triennial, or IPT, also acts as a forum for graphic art and the direction it is going in. Following on from the previous edition is the debate on digital print, which is becoming more popular as a medium for print-making. Davida Kidd, a Canadian artist who won the IPT Grand Prix award in 2003 and who is also exhibiting her new work this year, gives her opinion on the winner’s entry and on the new techniques being used today:

The standard of art is really high, and it’s interesting because in 2003 there was a lot of digital work and some of the work was very young that you knew there was going to be a change in years to come and that people would have a more sophisticated use for it.

I think it was a really excellent choice. It shows for example just what I was talking about that her work, at first view, it’s very minimal, and you’re not sure what it is, and you find out that underneath some very intricate handwork is a computer-generated image of skin, and the fact that it is computer-generated, or scanned, is really secondary to the fact that what the piece is really about is the traces of time that happen over a human being’s body with skin and scars and wrinkles. She’s taken a photograph of skin, a representation of time, and then she’s done these very very painfully intricate drawings of fine lines done by hand that superimpose over on top of the photograph. So, the drawing is a metaphor for time, the slowness of time passing and all of the traces and lines that happen over time.

It seems that digital print is becoming more important than ever before. But to what extent is it changing the art that is being produced? Richard Noyce again:

There was some controversy at the last Triennial about the gulf between digital work and traditional work, and I expressed that hope, and I have to say I am not a practising printmaking artist, I tend to write about art more than anything else, but I expressed a hope, then, that the gap between the digital world of print and the traditional world of print would disappear. Some people thought that was close to heresy, but now artists are able to choose whatever they like and Ingrid Ledent is a very good case in point, that you can use digital, or traditional lithography, or combine them. And that is the way it has to be. Digital, for me now, is just another technique, it sits with woodcut, wood engraving, etching and lithography, and all the others. It is just another technique, it’s available to artists.

Karen Kunc is a graphic artist from the state of Nebraska in the United States. She is having an exhibition as part of the International Print Triennial, and it seems that this isn’t the first time she’s been to Poland:

This isn’t your first time in Kraków, you’ve been involved with the Kraków Triennial for a while, what’s the history behind it?

Well, I do have a wonderful long relationship with Kraków from 20 years, when I visited the first time as a guest to give lectures in Poland, I was in Warsaw and Kraków, and did alecture about my work, and I was very young at the time, so it was a learning experience about how to explain my work and I met so many Polish artists that became life-long friends, but then it took 15 years before I came back for Triennial in 2000, and then I also came back to teach at the Academy (of Fine Arts) in 2002, I believe. It was wonderful to come back and continue meeting people, I’ve followed the development of so many of these Polish artists that I met, for all of this time, and had an exhibition in the United States that I organised of Polish artists, so that was very important too, so I think there’s an emotional connection from our long history together.

The International Print Triennial is truly a feast for lovers of graphic art and printmaking. There is so much on offer, that it looks as if every building in the Old Town of Kraków has turned into a gallery for the occasion. The IPT has also signed an agreement with two other galleries to turn the Triennial into a truly international affair. The Horst-Janssen Musuem in Oldenburg, Germany, and the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna, Austria, will be exhibiting works that were submitted, although chosen by their own juries.

International Print Biennial from 1966; International Print Triennial since 1991. Has the brainchild of Professor Skulicz finally come of age? With forty years at the helm of printmaking in Kraków, we shall see in three years time when the Triennial comes round again.

International Print Triennial - I

News item for the International Print Triennial in Kraków. Account of the opening of the IPT: amazing graphic art! Aired on Radio Polonia 18.09.2006.

Read on for the transcript. MP3 can be downloaded here. (3.3 MB)

The International Print Triennial has kicked off in Poland’s southern city of Kraków. Graphic artists sent 4500 prints to the jury for the event, and from that 322 prints by 229 artists have been selected for the main exhibition of the Print Triennial. The 18th edition of the International Print Triennial also marks the event’s 40th anniversary this year, and the public is being promised a spectacular array of exhibitions by printmakers and artists from around the globe. Professor Witold Skulicz, president of the International Print Triennial Society, has no time to rest on his laurels, though:

The programme is huge: there are so many exhibitions that it's almost frightening, and I have to be present at all of them. Please imagine that apart from the main programme, we have created a seperate event, which is organised by the International Print Triennial. 20 galleries in Kraków are taking part in the Graphic Art Days, an event we would like to see becoming an annual fixture in the Cracovian cultural calendar.

Polish graphic art is currently living its great 5 minutes, and I believe that we shouldn't waste them.

Richard Noyce, British art critic, was president of the jury at this year’s Triennial. I asked him about the preparations for the event:

The fact of the matter is that the standard of works submitted this year was incredibly high. I was on the jury again in 2003, and I thought the standard was high then, but this year the standard has surpassed that, it is really an extraordinary high standard on an international scale, so the work of the jury was very difficult indeed. Very challenging, but ultimately very rewarding. The standard of conception is very high, the standard of execution is very high, there’s some amazingly original work, and underneath it all, it’s also very, very accesible.

The Grand Prix was awarded to Ingrid Ledent, an artist from Belgium who has exhibited at the Triennial before. She won with a series entitled ‘A Self-accomplishing Fact’, which was produced using a hybrid technique of digital and lithography printing:

I feel absolutely spoiled, because, well, if you see the quality of the works here, I think there are so many Grand Prix winners here, but it’s me who got it, so I feel absolutely spoiled, I’m so happy.

One of the artists to get a statutory award was Iwona Abrams, a Polish artist who has been living in the UK for the past couple of decades:

I have graduated from printmaking in 1987 in Poland, then I moved to England, where I studied at the St. Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Print was always a very natural wasy of working for me. The Printmaking Triennial in Kraków is an absolute treat for us artists. It’s one of the few remaining… I would say it’s just a celebration of the links that people establish through this kind of event, incredibly important.

The International Print Triennial in Kraków invites you to see some of the most interesting graphic art that is being produced today, and has events running until the end of November, not only in Kraków, but also in other towns across Poland.

Crazy Tours of Nowa Huta

I spent a Sunday not so long ago by going to Nowa Huta for a tour in a Trabant. Stalinist architecture and east-German cars go really well together... Originally sent to Radio Polonia on 15.09.2006. Read further for original uploaded material and transcript. Also Flickr photoset here.

UPDATE: Since Radio Polonia is now the Polish Radio External Service, I can't find the link to the podcast. You can download my original version (with extra music) here (10.6 MB).

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, my dears, it’s one of Crazy Mike’s souped-up Trabants, and he’s going to be taking us around Nowa Huta. ‘Nowa who?’ I hear you say. Well, far from the crowds of tourists that pack into Kraków’s Old Town, Poland’s southern city also has a little-known secret, on an absolutely massive scale. Nowa Huta, or ‘New Steelworks’ in English, is a district that is located to the east of Kraków, mainly known for its socialist architecture and huge steelworks that polluted southern Poland for decades. Once our party managed to squeeze into the car, away we went, through the smog-filled haze that the Trabbie left in its wake.

On the way to Nowa Huta, our guide Michał Ostrowski, or ‘Crazy Mike’, gives the lowdown on Nowa Huta and where he will be taking us:

The first stop is the communist restaurant, it hasn't changed so much for the past twenty-five years. Now they have redecorated it a little bit, but they kept the '80s vibration, and it's not so smelly as it used to be, but still it's a really funny place. The time has stopped there, the waitresses, the owner, the decor, it's totally the same you know, but there's no competition here in Nowa Huta, not so many restaurants, and clients don't really care... I'll show you a map of the district, and show you some pictures, tell you where we are...

Once at the café of our destination, anecdotes and some history blend to create a local narrative that describes Nowa Huta. First, an introduction and an example of one of the many paradoxes that the Polish strain of communism had to offer:

The name of the restaurant is Stylish, and it's really in some way... stylish. As I told you, the '70s-'80s decor, not so many changes, maybe there is Coca-Cola and advertising. This was the only city without a church in Poland, but people from the south of Poland, they came, they are very religious, they wanted a church, generally twenty years of fights, riots, they put up the famous cross, the government wanted to remove it, you know. Big story with the church, finally in the late '70s a church is opened in Nowa Huta, a symbolic date that God is coming to Nowa Huta. Very interesting, because you build a modern socialist city, and the payments are extremely dirty capitalist, and the paradox, there's a struggle for the church in Nowa Huta, how the Church appears in '70s, everybody comes after work, helps for free, I can paint so I paint, he's a brick-layer, so he is laying bricks for free, and he is an engineer, so he is making some plans for free, because we are building a church, for us, for the community, so this is clean communism yeah, so this is the paradox that the anti-communist symbol of the church is built in a very communist way.

After taking a shot of vodka and tucking in to some szarlotka, or apple pie, the history lesson begins:

This is called New Steelworks, and it's a district of Kraków now, but it was planned after the War to be a separate city, a model socialist city, the example for the future, the most logical plan, the most perfect city, and of course the town was built for the residents and the workers and their families because they built a big steelworks here. After the War we needed a big steelworks, and we needed to produce. There were of twelve possible locations, and finally Kraków is chosen and there are two theories: a very popular theory is the politics (politicians) decided that the steelworks and the workers' city will be located close to Kraków, because Kraków was conservative, anti-communist, religious city, former capital with a lot of churches, in a way dangerous, they worried about anti-communist rebellion, and there are some facts to show that it can be dangerous for the Communists. Kraków was not destroyed in the War, people were really strong here, and now they write here that politics decided to build it here as a revenge of Communists for Kraków, you know, just to counterbalance Kraków, put it in the shadow, to make people forget about Kraków and think only about Nowa Huta. But it's not totally true, there were a lot of economical reasons, poor over-crowded villages in the neighbourhood, so plenty of labour-force that can come. Good place to locate a steelworks, a big river to supply water, quite close coal mines, so you need coal, and iron, we don't have iron, so we take it from the Ukraine. A really good economical decision to locate it here, actually. It was not only the revenge. In ten years, the government builds a city for 100,000 people, I mean these people built it, so there is propaganda, there are songs about Nowa Huta even, people are coming from different parts of Poland, not so much forced to come here, propaganda makes them come, it's like the Wild West, the place where you go, you get an apartment, you get a job, you get everything that you need.

The best Polish architects are planning the city, the cream of the crop, so it's a really good plan, not many collapsing constructions, quite well organised, and Nowa Huta appears, and as you can see it's based on a semicircle, with a main square, one, two, three, four, five avenues radiating from the square, precisely 45 degrees everywhere, four of the avenues are supplied with tramlines, the tram goes to the steelworks, around half of the steelworks, and goes to Kraków, so it's perfect public transportation. The steelworks is amazingly big, because if this is the city of 100,000 people, the steelworks looks a bit like this, six times bigger than the original city, it was the biggest steelworks in the world when they built it, it's around two and three thousand acres, so it's huge, it's like a big city, with a few hundred kilometres of rails, a few hundred kilometres of roads, so it's amazingly big.

They are fighting to get it on the UNESCO list, I don't know when, but it's the biggest example of socialist architecture, I mean the whole complex yeah, with not so much distribution of different types of architecture, so a local group is fighting for this.

A stroll around the huge Plac Centralny, or Central Square, shows how the city should have developed if it were not for lack of money, something that was all too common in the days of the Polish People’s Republic. Having admired the magnificent buildings and the net of wiring that powers the trams coming out of every corner of the square, it’s back to the Trabant and off to the steelworks for an inspection, before checking out an apartment which has retained its ‘80s style and décor.

The apartment has been left relatively unchanged, and gives you an idea of what living n such a place must have been like. Even the smell was, how to put it, stale… Mike explains, amongst other things, the problems of fruit and the troubles of young love in Communist Poland:

You used to wait like two months to get a fridge, this one's Russian, Minsk, so you had to wait for all the things, you don't go to the shop and buy, but you wait, you arrange, you have to really think, but finally you get everything. There were no fruits, no bananas, oranges, pineapples didn't exist, coconuts and mangoes, and all this stuff. Only Polish fruits. Western fruit was special stuff, families from the west were sending us food, I remember fruit packages. My father was in the States and he was sending us bananas, oranges, with the coconut we didn’t know what to do, and the pineapple, it was like really complicated stuff. When I split with one girl, when I was ten eleven years old, so she split with me because I was not responsible, and I gave her an orange as a splitting gift... You couldn't go the shop and by an orange, maybe during Christmas sometimes, you had to have a family approach (connection).

I like this washing machine it's called Francesca, and what's interesting is that the design is from the 50s, but they were producing Francescas until the end of Communist Poland, so until '89, and it also showed the type of development in Communist countries, that you have the design of something from the '50s, but you make it for as long as possible, because there's no demand from the market.

Crazy Mike has been taking rides to Nowa Huta for the past three years. How do you come up with such an idea though? He told me more after the tour:

I was working in the hotel as a receptionist, finishing my degree in law, so I had a contact with tourists, and once they called me from the hotel, 'there's a couple, they need two hours guiding, so I came with my little Polish Fiat, you know, old communist car, I wanted to take them to the castle, I just used the car as transportation to get to the Old Town , but they've already seen the Old Town, so I had to show them something else, so I took them to some off-the-beaten-path places, and they really enjoyed it, they really had a good time, very chilled out.

And do you have any plans for the future of your business, do you want to buy some more Trabants?

Yeah, I'll buy some more Trabants for sure, I'll extend the offer to some more freaky communist stuff like communist disco, you know, real Polish workers meeting. When we have groups we make a kind of little mayhem, Polish workers pour a little vodka, give pickles, and people get drunk and it's a lot of fun, so kitsch band playing and so we go in that direction, so there's less history, and more socialising, between tourists and Polish workers, that speak no English of course...

So it seems that Crazy Mike won’t be trading in his Trabant for a Ferrari just yet, although a tour around Nowa Huta is made that much more enjoyable when in the back of a genuine East-German motor that runs on two-stroke petrol and sounds like a lawnmower. Mike and his team can be checked out on the internet at www.crazyguides.com.

Live Music in Kraków...

Last Saturday in Kraków: 15,000 peeps go to see Jay-Z, including myself. Also got a look-in backstage and interviewed Tatiana Okupnik, of Blue Café fame. All-round blast. Check it out. Sent to Radio Polonia 11.09.2006.

Last Saturday Kraków hosted the Coke Live Music Festival, a new music event that is to put Poland’s southern city on the European event circuit. With the weather promising not to misbehave and a guaranteed audience of around 15000, it hopes to be one of the biggest festivals in the region, as a quick question to Mikołaj Ziółkowski, head of Alter Art, the event’s organiser, proved:

What does the Coke Festival mean for the music scene in Poland?

I think  it will be one of the biggest summer music festivals in Poland specialised in contemporary popular music, so this year it's Jay-Z, Sugababes and Shaggy, so for the first edition it's a great line-up, so for sure it will be one of the biggest and most important event in the country, and every year it will be closing the summer.

Unfortunately the Sugababes didn’t make it to the show, but Jamaican-born Shaggy gave a fine performance and American rapper Jay-Z electrified the crowd with his rhymes and beats. It was good to see that Polish bands also played at the festival. Tatiana Okupnik, famed singer of Blue Café, has recently come back from the United States, where she worked with a new line-up. She has now started her own solo career, and was one of the stars to get the crowd going. I caught up with her backstage after her set.

Tatiana, it was a great performance out there, how was it on the stage?

I felt great because I had a great band, wonderful musicians, and not only great musicians, but they are good people too.

You had great backing vocals...

Yeah, Keesha, Irene and Chris, who is actually singing with me on my record, he's got a beautiful voice, you heard it right?, and we have a collaboration on my album, and the rapper, he's also got a great rhyming style, and he also wrote a few songs for my album.

How do you feel playing on the same stage as Jay-Z later on?

Every artist has got to be proud of who you are, and it doesn't matter if you play with Jay-Z, with somebody who is not known, you've got to just love the music.

And your new album, 'I'm on my own', was that produced in the United States or in Poland?

Everything was done in the States, so, yeah, in the States!

The wildly-dressed Miss Okupnik is veering away from the style of her former band and has initiated a new kind of music that will hopefully get people rocking on both sides of the Atlantic: a mix of R&B, soul, funk and rhymes. She told me more:

They call me 'Euro-Soul', they said that this is my genre, so girls are singing, Tatiana is banging all around the world with a new style called Euro-Soul…

You got to love it though, and will the single come out first in the States or in Poland?

In Poland first...

Thank-you very much, dziękuję bardzo

Dziękuję, thank-you, merci, spasibo!

Miss Okupnik is shortly going to reveal when her new album will come out. Is Poland about to export a new star? Let us hope so.

The Coke Live Festival is planned to take place over two days next year, although the line up is not yet known. All in all, the concert was a great way to end the summer on a high note.