The Old Poland and the New

This corresponds to my own memories of visiting Communist Poland:

I remember a bleak time in Poland when the economy was so maddeningly out of touch with the needs of its people that anyone lucky enough to own a car would remove their windshield wipers at night and take them inside. In their command economy — oblivious to the laws of supply and demand — some official forgot to order wipers and consequently, they weren’t for sale anywhere. Inspired by a hungry black market, thieves would work late into the night snapping them up.

Many Americans remember Poland as bleak and rundown — full of rusting factories and smoggy cities. I remember a time when the air was so polluted it turned my hanky black the day I entered the country. Glum locals used to stand patiently in line at a soda stand to sip a drink from the same tin cup tethered to the stand by a rusty chain.

I can’t vouch for the comments on the visit to a milk bar, but I can say that Poland has certainly changed!

Years ago I gave a lecture at the University of Lublin and invited the participants out to dinner. Over 40 people came, so we went to “the nicest restaurant in town,” at the state-owned Urania hotel, mainly famous among foreigners as a place where the state pimped Polish girls to visitors who could pay in hard currency. Dinner came to a little over a dollar a person (not counting the five dollars I gave the terrible “rock band” to stop playing and go home, so we could talk). Each participant was introduced and stood up and bowed. Many of the introductions were like this: “Professor So-and-So teaches linguistics/history/philosophy/etc. and was for 17 years in prison, first under the Nazis, then three times under the Communists.” When I asked the chair of the faculty if she came to the restaurant often, she blanched and informed me that, no, it was really very, very expensive and people like her would only go for special events, like weddings and fiftieth wedding anniversaries.

(I can’t help adding that on my first visit to Prague, I was offered a great treat — a glass of Coca Cola! I was not that enthusiastic, but I told my host, “Sure, that would be nice.” In the pub they dunked a dirty glass into much dirtier water, so it came out nasty and greasy, and then poured in the coke, which had little spots of oil floating on the surface. I somehow managed not to drink it. That was quite mild compared to Communist Albania, where I managed to throw up after almost every meal, an experience I had in some other socialist countries, as well, where the food was sometimes actually slippery from the bacteria.)