Gość: kleofas
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03.02.04, 01:44
Ostatnie wydanie "The Guardian". Bardzo pozytywne o naszym wspaniałym mieście.
New kids from the bloc
Warsaw is now more Prada than Pravda as chic shopping and luxury hotels make
it one of Eastern Europe's hot spots, writes Liz Hoggard
Sunday January 25, 2004
The Observer
Liz Hoggard in the city of transition. Photo: Kate Hoggard.
Warsaw has got Botox and Prada. As yet there's little sign of the thong
(hardly surprising when Polish winters plunge below freezing). But it can
only be a matter of time before the micro-pant makes its appearance. Fifteen
years after the fall of communism, Warsaw is the hottest of east European hot
spots.
It's funny how the fashion barometer changes. Once seen as a gloomy Soviet
bloc city, full of terrible communist architecture, Warsaw is a pretty
exhilarating place to be right now. Skyscrapers, luxury hotels and smart
shopping centres are springing up everywhere. Stalin-era palaces are being
turned into business centres. Even that symbol of Soviet occupation, the
colossal Palace of Culture and Sciences - a 'gift' from Stalin to the people
of Warsaw - houses an art house cinema and club space with DJs.
If you've never thought of Poland as a destination for a romantic weekend
break, you really should. Warsaw is a city in transition (imagine Berlin or
Prague 10 years ago). There's a thriving cafe-bar culture and some very
groovy nightclubs. Public transport is fantastic and Warsaw is one of the
best - and cheapest - places to eat in central Europe. The cuisine is a mix
of Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, German and Jewish influences.
The only downside is being there in winter, when the city goes dark around
3pm, so even lazy tourists have to get up early. And the chill means that
everyone soon adopts the Polish 'old lady' uniform of floor-length fake fur
and zip-up boots. Though we drew the line at the henna mullet - still a
favourite among east European womanhood.
Warsaw really does repay the dedicated sightseer. Despite the Soviet legacy
there are many architectural gems. Arguably Warsaw's smartest boulevard is
Krakowskie Przedmiescie lined with baroque churches, grand old hotels and the
delightful warren of seventeenth-century palaces that makes up Warsaw's
university campus. While lively student hangouts - cafes, restaurants and
milk bars - create a mini Left Bank.
Art Deco was a major part of Warsaw's design history before Soviet
occupation. And last June the city welcomed its first boutique hotel, the Art
Deco-themed Hotel Rialto, one of the most exquisite and welcoming interiors I
have ever stayed in.
A refurbished 1920s cornerhouse, the hotel is decorated with original art and
furniture of the period (zebra-skin rugs, African masks, Secessionist
cabinets and a magnificent stained glass and mother of pearl lift). The rooms
themselves are deco heaven - with bent-wood Viennese furniture, Eileen Gray-
style lights and tables and Italian marble bathrooms. There is a fantastic
red leather and chrome bar-breakfast room - straight out of Edward Hopper -
and a cigar room, where you can sip whisky and borrow the latest DVDs. (The
Rialto was runner-up in the European Hotel Design Awards only five months
after opening.)
The hotel is on the corner of Emilii Plater street in the smart new business
district, within easy access of the shopping and entertainment areas and 15
minutes' walk from the old town. But look closely and bullet holes in the
buildings remind you that Emilii Plater was part of the Jewish quarter during
the Second World War.
I confess I knew little of Poland's complex wartime past before I arrived.
Arguably you have to be there to take in the enormity of what the city has
undergone. It's well worth visiting the Warsaw History Museum in the old town
where every afternoon they screen grainy wartime footage of the capital,
including a spine-tingling sequence of the Nazis entering the city.
Today, Western capital may be pouring into a city newly in love with designer
goods, but there's no denying the tragedy that pervades Warsaw. This is a
city that has suffered terribly - enduring invasions by a succession of
armies, the partition by foreign powers in the eighteenth century, and then
the Nazi assault of 1939. By the end of the Second World War, 80 per cent of
the city had been destroyed. General Eisenhower described Warsaw as the most
tragic thing he'd ever seen.
Of course it's hard to sense all this horror when you're hoovering up Zywiec
beer in Warsaw's bustling Stare Miasto (the old town square), watching horse-
drawn carriages clatter by. But actually the old town is a complete fake.
Everything from the Royal Castle to the old town walls was rebuilt from
scratch between 1945 and 1974. The merchants' houses with their multicoloured
facades look like they have been there for centuries, while shops and
restaurants are decorated with traditional symbols - gilded lions, reptiles,
even human figures. But it's a little like being on a giant film set.
And at the heart of Warsaw's rebuilding project, there is an eerie silence.
Poland still has problems acknowledging the terrible fate of its Jewish
community, and the complicity of its own police in their mass deportation,
first to the Warsaw ghetto in 1939 and then to the death camps.
Not that the Jews were passive victims. In April 1943, they instigated the
first open revolt against the Nazis, with the Ghetto Uprising, which resulted
in the destruction of Warsaw's vibrant, six-centuries-old Jewish community
(the subject of Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning film, The Piano).
Today you'll find a series of memorials commemorating the Jewish dead, but
frankly they are pretty low-key, tucked away in the city's sprawling housing
estates. So it becomes a matter of honour to visit them all - from the
memorial plaques, engraved in Polish and Hebrew, to the astonishing
Umschlagplatz, a minimalist white marble wall on the very spot where trains
departed for the camps.
Far more prominent is the city's 1989 Monument to the Warsaw Uprising
Fighters in Krasinski Square, a kitsch but moving slab of Soviet realist
architecture. It commemorates the moment in 1944 when virtually the whole
civilian population participated in the uprising to liberate the city. They
held out for 66 days but Western aid was woefully inadequate. In fact many
believe the Russians cynically waited for Hitler to destroy the city, so it
would be easier for Stalin to roll out his master plan later.
It's frustratingly hard to conjure up visions of pre-war Warsaw. But if you
want to see a medieval city that survived Nazi shells intact, it's well worth
taking the train to Krakow only two-and-a-half hours away.
Krakow is the cultural capital of Poland and listed as one of Unesco's 12
most significant historic sites. Landmarks include the fairytale palace on
Wawel Hill, where Polish monarchs and poets are buried; Rynek Glowny, the
largest square in medieval Europe; Jagiellonian University, founded in the
fourteenth century as the first university in the world; and St Mary's
Basilica. Even throughout Soviet occupation, Poland remained a devout
Catholic country. Stalin's verdict was that imposing communism on Poland was
like trying to saddle a cow.
The irony is that since the return of democracy in 1989, Poland has become
increasingly right wing. As a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, the
country was rewarded by a visit from President Bush last June (Dubya stayed
in Krakow's swanky new Hotel Copernicus). The arrival of designer capitalism
hasn't been good for everybody. The very people who worked to overthrow
communism - militant workers, anticommunist intellectuals - have found
themselves marginalised. In September, miners angry at pit closures
affiliated to
