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BEING THERE: LIVING IN KRAKOW

MISCHIEF, MELANCHOLY AND VODKA | October 27th 2008

Ten years ago James Hopkin was one of only two dozen expats in Krakow. Since then he has witnessed a real-estate boom and a tourist explosion, but the city has never lost its shambolic beauty ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Autumn 2008

"If you want to see the real Poland, don't go to Krakow," I recently heard a Polish person say. What? Has my ten-year semi-emigration been in vain? Is Poland's former capital, where the country's kings and queens are buried in the vaults beneath Wawel Castle, no longer representative of that much-invaded, misunderstood nation? As for those bowls of purple borscht, the slices of sour cucumber that made me weep, the winters of 16 hours of darkness and 25 below when the gaps between my teeth froze over--was that not the real Poland either?

I feel sure it was. Of course, the city has changed, drastically so since Poland joined the European Union in 2004--a tourist explosion, a real-estate boom, street-by-street renovation and a huge influx of predatory expats, not to mention stag-nights (with the emphasis on the animal element)--but with a little perseverance and cunning, you can still savour the real Poland.

When I first came to Krakow in December 1998, I was enchanted. The main square, the Rynek, which is one of the biggest in Europe, was staging a Christmas market, festively lit. The steam of kielbasa (grilled country sausages) hovered in the freezing night air. Renaissance townhouses and gothic palaces crowded round, like so many faces trying to squeeze into a photograph. People were friendly, if bemused as to why a Westerner would want to visit their country: there were only two dozen expats in the city at that time. In the evenings, I returned to my room with a picture of the locally born Pope John Paul II above the bed. It lay in an outlying district of tower blocks, along streets of snow punctuated by piles of coal waiting to be shovelled through basement hatches. The spirit of the place appealed to me, with its old-fashioned charm, its shambolic beauty. It was cheap, bookshops were plentiful (well, you can browse in any language), and it was home to two contemporary Nobel prize-winners for literature, the poets Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska.

But how I suffered! And in true Polish fashion--with a blend of mischief, melancholy and vodka. This is a country known for its resistance, its grim survival through the Nazi occupation and the communist regime, and its disappearance off the map altogether for 123 years during the partitions of the Austro-Hungarian empire. My own internal migration started with the intestines. I soon grew tired of the plastic milk; the fresh stuff is hard to come by. The bread rolls--bulka--were white and coarse and fingered by all sorts of drunks in the 24-hour shop. Cheap milk-bars, crammed with students, vagrants and women in mohair berets, offered, among other belly-busters, a dish listed as "a piece of meat", which came soaked in gravy and fat. The delicious cakes wore roofs of sugar. The tap water was undrinkable, fresh salad unthinkable. Even today you'll be hard pushed to find anything you might recognise as lettuce. In most places, you're given surowka, which looks like a clown's dressing-table: bright orange grated carrot (raw), a lump of shredded purple cabbage and yellowy-white onion shavings.

I quickly learned to grumble into my bowl of zurek--a greasy soup made with lumps of kielbasa (sausage) and a boiled egg--because people here moan to each other but not to the authorities, a legacy of communism. Likewise many are still happy to queue endlessly and for the most mundane reasons: a free gadget, a new ice-cream parlour or just because everybody else is. Older shop assistants patronise you because before 1989 they were the gods. They had the goods and you were desperate--don't mention customer service. I discovered, too, that outward expressions of happiness--especially whistling--were not advisable. People were suspicious: what have you got to be so happy about? Similarly, when I started taking notes ten years ago, people would eye me cautiously, memories of the secret police still vivid. Worst of all, the bureaucracy is still infuriatingly slow. Forms demand details such as your parents' first names. In the past, this need for superfluous information (one of the many contradictions of communism) was a ruse to keep everyone in a job. Now it's just a waste of time, and it is changing only very slowly.

With this heavy food and strong drink (Zywiec beer and Zubrowka vodka are the local favourites) overloading my system, I visited the city's swimming pools, one of which had not been upgraded since it was built just after the war. The water was green, warm as a bath and sticky with chlorine. I could smell cooking from the canteen upstairs--more chicken cutlets--and smoke, for Poland is a defiantly smoking nation. As I swam, I wondered if there were ashtrays at either end of the pool.

But this is to mock, and I was not there for that. I was there to capture the city during its transition, to pit its endless examples of beauty, its churches and art nouveau tenements, its rich cultural heritage, and its grandmothers still selling shoe-brushes from a bucket against the ravages of real estate and the rapid onset of credit-cards, shopping malls and personal loans. I remember my dismay on meeting an expat who had come here specifically to set up an estate agency. I remember Polish suits in the streets trying to sell insurance to little old ladies and, yes, I remember seeing, with a sinking heart, one of the first stag-parties in the city.

Yet Krakow will always resist. Only those who come with good intentions will bother learning the language, and the locals are aware of this. The rest of the émigrés adopt what I call the phonetic-pathetic, where they press a Polish word into the shape of their own language. For example, przepraszam ("excuse me") can be whispered quickly as "push past them" and, lo and behold, people move aside--unless, of course, you are queuing. Learning a few phrases will help to distinguish you from the bargain-hunters and beer-boys. Both groups are beginning to incur the wrath of the locals.

There are other ways Krakow holds on to its identity, such as its conservatism, which is by turns quaint and frustrating. Stroll the wonderful chestnut groves of the Planty park and witness people in their Sunday best, old ladies in bonnets and ribbons, old men with hats and canes. There are also soldiers, art students, tramps, Romanian accordionists, cyclists, lovers, drunks, and numerous nuns and monks, a whole city promenading. Even the seasons are old-fashioned because clearly demarcated, from the austerity of winter to the sudden blossoming of spring, through the merciless heat of the summer (900km, or 560 miles, from the sea) to the traditional Golden Polish Autumn. Nowhere have I felt the transition from winter to spring so profoundly, or been so grateful. In the face of so much beauty, it is perhaps easier to believe in God, hence the church on every street, the nuns singing at 5am each morning opposite my flat.

Have I mentioned the women yet? They are tall, slender and feminine. It used to be all about delicate women and chivalrous men, very 1950s--a kiss, a rose, a commitment. Lately it has begun to change. Gender and sexuality are the new themes in this country where homosexuality is still denounced by the church.

So Krakow is a living paradox, caught between the legacies of communism and the rapid development of the free market, between a defiant provincialism and an emerging international outlook, between a fairy-tale naivety and the brutal realities of economic necessity. Talking of which, with the strengthening zloty and the ever-weakening pound, I was transformed from a prince to a pauper in little more than 18 months. Still, as the pre-war poet Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski once wrote, "Everyone in Krakow is penniless and clever."

WHERE TO STAY:

Hotel Copernicus Krakow's well-established upmarket hotel, named after the astronomer who studied here. On one of the prettiest streets in town.

ul. Kanonicza 16; +48 (0) 12 421 3400

Hotel Rubinstein Modern hotel in a delightful street in Kazimierz.

ul. Szeroka 12; +48 (0) 12 384 0000

www.antiqueapartments.com Family-run enterprise offering spacious, elegant flats. Highly recommended. There's a British contact number: + 44 (0) 20 8144 9943

www.sodispar.com Offers a good range of well-equipped apartments from low budget to luxurious, all near the centre. Friendly and reliable. +48 (0) 12 631 2631

WHERE TO EAT:

U Stasi Legendary courtyard milk-bar, family-run for over 80 years, serving standard but spirited Polish fare: soups, meat dishes and pierogi; popular with locals.

ul. Mikolajska 16; +48 (0) 12 421 5084

Momo The best of a small number of vegetarian places in Krakow, it prides itself on a menu devoid of eggs, fish, meat or chemically fiddled-with food.

ul. Dietla 49; +48 (0) 60 968 5775

Mleczarnia In the summer, relax in the garden beneath the white cherry-blossom or, in winter, huddle in this small, dark café--a former Jewish milk-bar--beside old radios, suitcases, and gloomy portraits of a bygone age.

ul. Meiselsa 20; +48 (0) 12 421 8532

Hawelka A little cubicle in front of this main-square restaurant selling cakes and biscuits. Bigger spenders can go to the restaurant itself: established in 1876, it retains the atmosphere and menu of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Rynek Glowny 34; +48 (0) 12 422 0631; www.hawelka.pl

STREETWISE:

Pedestrian crossings Don't step out! The cars don't have to stop, so they don't.

Cycling It's a wonderfully intimate city to cycle round, but be warned--even if motorists see you, they still pull out, and there are wheel-buckling potholes. If you need to rent or repair go to Artur at Art-bike (he loves to speak English).

ul. Starowislna 33a/12; +48 (0) 12 422 0425

WHAT TO SEE:

Tyniec Take a boat or cycle west along the River Wisla to this small settlement with the remains of an 11th-century monastery, and an existing 17th-century Baroque church.

Kazimierz This district includes the Jewish quarter around the main square of ul. Szeroka--cobbled streets, renaissance houses, synagogues, upmarket restaurants and plac Nowy, the student-bohemian zone of dark cafés and funky dives.

Podgorze The other side of the River Wisla, and once the site of the Jewish ghetto and Schindler's factory (now artists' studios). Also large squares, intriguing buildings, quiet side-streets and a pleasant cemetery. Krakow as it used to be, though moving up in the world.

Nowa Huta The communist-designed workers' town (1949) with huge Lenin steel works, churches and centrally planned residential zones. It gained world press attention when the Solidarity movement held regular demonstrations here.

Park Jordana Krakow has over 40 parks, this one little visited by tourists, but if you look hard among the hedges you'll find sculptures of Polish poets. Also visit the 1,020-acre Las Wolski forest to the west of the city.

Skalki Twardowski A quarry, 180 metres deep, which flooded when an underground reservoir was hit. Now popular with locals for swimming, sunbathing, and diving from the cliffs. It's said there are still construction vehicles on the quarry floor. Quarter of an hour by bus from the centre.

Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor This avant-garde director, painter and writer was pivotal to subversive Krakow art during the communist era.

ul. Kanoniczna 5; +48 (0) 12 422 8332

MARKETS:

Stary Kleparz A traditional market selling mouthwatering farm produce.

ul. Basztowa.

Hala Targowa fleamarket Central Europe's 20th century was given a good shake and this is what fell out.

ul. Dietla.

SHOPS:

Galeria AB A treasure-trove of handmade curios, housed in the magnificent yellow cloth-hall in the centre of the main square.

Rynek Glowny 1/3, Sukiennice; +48 (0) 12 429 2340

Massolit American-run English bookstore, a five-minute walk from the centre. Huge stock, regular readings, plus a useful noticeboard. Also coffee and cookies.

ul. Felicjanek 4; +48 (0) 12 432 4150

Picture credit: soylentgreen23/flickr, jurek d./flickr

(James Hopkin is the author of "Winter Under Water", a novel set in Poland. He has written for the Guardian and the Times. Our last "Being There" piece was about living in Beijing.)