The Vodka Project - in search of the spirit

Seventy years ago today, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering a world war. From the beginning, the conflict introduced an indiscriminate form of industrialised warfare, targeting military and civilians alike. In Warsaw, a huge banner adorns the façade of the Palace of Culture facing the Gallerie Centrum shopping centre. It features a painted image of a 1939 Polish soldier in heroic profile, with one blood red word above his head – HONOR. Red drips are splattered down the image.

National flags fly from the bumpers of trams and buses as they criss-cross the city. Large red and white banners are draped from tall buildings. Flags hang limply from the corners of many buildings. Only at Filtry waterworks, at the top of a redbrick tower, can you can see a flag fully catching the wind.

Outside the entrance to the central Metro, where there was recently a temporary shrine to Michael Jackson, men have worked through the night hours to weld together a structure for a temporary exhibition, large scale photographs and text with multimedia panels that chronicle those first weeks of the ‘blitzkreig’ on Polish soil, and the bravery of the defending soldiers. A stage managed attack by Nazi troops disguised as ‘Silesian rebels’ on a German radio station at Gliwice, a few kilometres from the then existing Polish border, gave Hitler the pretext to launch his attack. The radio station in Gliwice, which became part of Poland in 1945, is something of a tourist attraction. It is the only wooden radio tower left in the world (made of larch) and at 110 metres, is also said to be the tallest remaining wooden construction in the world.

The views and prejudices of my fathers’ generation were shaped by this single event. His older brother went into the British Army and fought in North Africa. He was left behind, in a Staffordshire coal-mining village with a younger sister and infirm mother to look after. He left school and worked in a shoe shop, and joined the Air Training Corps in preparation for what may come. He didn’t like the Germans and he didn’t like the Americans, though he was enamoured with both the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the films of John Ford. On the BBC, he liked to watch Dad’s Army, a 1960’s sitcom about the Home Guard and ‘Allo ‘Allo, a 1980’s comedy parody about the French Resistance. He collected hundreds and hundreds of books about the Second World War, and admired the romanticism and gallantry of the Polish airmen who helped win the Battle of Britain. In many ways, for him life became fixed at this point. There was little of interest afterwards.

Though long associated with the Anglo-Polish Society of the West Midlands, he never visited Poland, and I doubt he would like the heat of this day, with only a dull intermittent breeze drawing breath. Though he would enjoy looking at the tanks from the time period, on display up outside the Presidential Palace, and no doubt would pose for a photograph on this spot as many other people are. Then he would walk over to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, where his views of Polish heroism and stoicism in the face of impossible odds would be reinforced. And I expect he would have a vodka, which was always his drink of choice.

(More musings on Anglo-Polish connections in this short essay, We are not Polish – downloadable from this link.…)

The noise was driving her slowly mad. The apartment stands within a stone’s throw of the bridge and bears silent witness to the cacophony by day and night. The Trasa W-Z highway, running out from the tunnel and over the river, is being entirely resurfaced. New tram tracks are being laid down with much drilling, hammering, scraping, humming. The workers, tattooed and glistening, nut brown from labouring throughout the heat-soaked summer, begin their work at 7am, sometimes earlier, working shifts long into the night. It seems the whole public transport infrastructure of the city is being rebuilt, as the country looks forward to hosting the 2012 UEFA European Football Championships. The road and the bridge is due to reopen on September 1st.

She and her neighbours say to themselves, Why do they work so late into the night? Can you remember how it was better with the normal traffic? At least the noise was constant, without this intermittent screaming of vehicles reversing, Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! And these squealing and grinding noises.  They keep their windows closed, in a vain effort to keep out the sound and the dust.

Then there are the newly arrived students in the top apartment, who insist on playing death metal after dark, in a bizarre accompaniment to the bridge workers. Somewhere, someone is playing sounds from the mid-90’s, songs by Garbage (‘Stupid Girl’) and Evanescence (‘Bring Me To Life’), repeatedly. The new tram cables are being strung up between poles, the air clammy with the crackle and hiss of the arc welders. No-one is playing the old song by Lidia Korsakówna and Andrzej Stockinger – ‘Małe mieszkanko na Mariensztacie’ -where they sing of how they don’t want anything more than a small flat here in Mariensztat, and how both of them will look happily out of their window onto the Trasa W-Z.

Buses still emerge from this tunnel and turn off to the right, rumbling down the cobbled street toward the river bank, before making a loop under the reconstituted highway and back up the other side, to wait at temporary lights, engines rumbling. Only one lane is open across the bridge throughout the construction. When the sounds of work finally fade away – or on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a public holiday when all work in the city must halt – you might hear the sound of the clock tower of the Royal Castle chime the quarter hour, an old and comforting sound. For a long time, this clock lay dormant, unrepaired, like the clock at the University, where irritable Professors, for so long accustomed to a non-working mechanism, winced when the twelve chimes of midday boomed out to interrupt their glorious polemic.

In the morning, after disturbed sleep, the small details of verdant Mariensztat provide some comfort. As she leaves her apartment, she watches how the light reflects off the open windows in the hallway, casting flickering sensuous shadows down the stairwell. At the doorway to the building, there is a lingering smell of fried food from the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant next door. The best duck in Warsaw can be found here they say, and this passing thought makes her stomach rumble a little, as she has missed breakfast. She passes the solid and resilient statue on the corner. She calls it the Fish Wife, a figure of a women with a hen by Barbara Zbrożyna, but its official name is the Przekupka (the Hawker). She walks up the terraced steps past the willow trees, through a courtyard onto Bednarska Street.  She thinks of how this place has its stories, of hidden walled rooms, of collected art treasures lost, of bordellos and bare-knuckle boxing matches, of suspected drug dealers arrested, of mysterious creaking floors in the night, of the woman who helped Władysław Szpilman and who always wore lace gloves, of the cheap bar patronised by the university students, of the green window from which sounds of the 1970’s emerge, usually the Bee Gees of the Saturday Night Fever period.

Mariensztat was founded on a love story. In the 18th century, when Eustachy Potocki married Maria Kątska, this area by the Vistula was part of her dowry. He made a village here, under the walls of the city and named this after her – Maria’s town. Potocki today is more associated with the production of vodka than with aristocrats.

So Mariensztat lay outside the old city walls, between the river and the higher ground on which stands St Anne’s church and one of the oldest streets in the city, Krakowskie Przedmieście. It was the first part of the city to be reconstructed after the Second World War, rebuilt in 1948 to a new street design as a model socialist housing project. The reconstruction was a key element of the 1954 film ‘Adventure in Mariensztat’, the first Polish feature to be shot in color.

The film opens with scenes amidst the ruins, old walls tumbling into clouds of dust and a new city emerging, being rebuilt. Building materials by road, rail and water being transported to the ruined capital. Young people folk costume crowd onto a convoy of trucks, accompanied by accordionists. They are singing about how young hands will rebuild the city, and build young ideas – ‘Tomorrow we will be able to defend what we create today! It’s the youth coming, youth, youth, and they sing, for it’s the youth who creates the world!’

This music and dance troupe are en route to appear at a festival in the newly built square of Mariensztat. In the first part of the film they are taken on a tour of the magnificently rebuilt city. The main character Hanka, also played by the afore-mentioned Lidia Korsakówna, leaves the tour to wander by herself. She is deeply interested in the new modern monumental architecture of the new city, and not so much the rebuilding of the old town. She meets a bricklayer, Janek, and they spend a joyful evening in Mariensztat. She goes back to her village, but then decides to move to Warsaw, where one day she accidentally meets Janek again. He is a worker honored and rewarded for exceptional diligence in increasing production – ‘przodownik pracy’. Janek agrees that she can join his ‘masonry trio’ (trójka murarska). But master Ciepielewski’s aversion to working women causes conflicts between Hanka and Janek, so Hanka quits and joins a women brigade. The men and women brigades start to compete in work efficiency, increasing their productivity, and eventually Hanka and Janek make up and live happily ever after. The film shows the countryside (from whence the hard working workers come) as idealised in an anachronistic way. It is a place of the past, frozen in time like a picture by Józef Chełmoński, stuck in the 19th century and not the 20th, impossible to reform. And so, our heroine must leave behind the fields of potatoes and go to the city to join the project to physically build the pure socialist state. Here the young people are ripe for revolution, because they have the energy and, of course, because they have no memory. And the workers are building their own homes, so they will live contently in the new Mariensztat, or Muranów or Żoliborz.

You see, she tells me, to work one hundred per cent is not good enough, we must work three hundred per cent. This is the battle cry of the workers who reconstruct Mariensztat. I must have seen this film a hundred times. And now my beautiful building is falling apart.

Today, as she walks up to the centre to her place of work near the Ministry of Culture, she passes by a film crew on Bednarska, taking advantage of the picturesque steep cobblestoned street, with its slightly ramshackle buildings, as a backdrop for some TV soap. This is not a street for high heels, she thinks. At the top of the street, there is a busy new café bar, Skwer, alongside the freshly remodeled Herberta Hoovera Square. She points out how someone has already carefully graffitied the brand new street sign so it now reads: Herberta Hookera Square.

These blocks were built, so close to the city centre, for some of the key workers of the state. For example, he said, I have for a neighbour a former air stewardess and a postal worker. So there are a lot of people here now in their 60’s and 70’s, not many young people.

He is one of the young ones, involved in theatre in the city. He shares his 11th floor flat with an opera choral singer, and he is fortunately a fan of opera –  Strauss’s Salome in particular, performances of which he has seen in several different cities – as well as being interested in cynology and felinology.

We look out of his window on the city skyline.

I think there was a park here, he says, before these huge buildings, and before that of course here lay the ruins of the ghetto. Now, there is a big expensive hotel there, and they plan to build three new big skyscrapers, which will completely obscure the view of the Palace of Culture – which, though partially concealed, tonight glows with an ethereal yellow light.

One of these new skyscrapers will be a 54 storey tall glass structure designed by Daniel Libeskind. Złota 44, a luxury apartment tower in the shape of a tall thin sail, will stand 192 metres high – the third highest skyscraper in the city – with 251 luxury apartments. It now lies dormant, a skeletal fraction of its proposed size, all construction halted. The credit crunch seems to have crept upon this city, though across the river a dozen huge cranes or more encircle the site of the new national football stadium.

The view here, they like to call it Little Manhatten. I think this is exaggerating. It’s a little loud here sometimes, when the school kids are in the playground down there or there is a sports match. It was meant to be a quiet area, and a bit luxurious. They planned swimming pools on the roof. This didn’t happen. I guess the communist authorities ran out of money.

The flats are not so special. The kitchen has no window, the bathroom has no window, it is too hot here in the mornings. There isn’t even a balcony, just the impression of one, a door that opens to nowhere. There is a metal gate is across the doorway at waist height to stop you falling out. A large bottle of Smirnoff is on the table – 3 litres or more – and a bottle of home-made from Loomza, snacks and a tuna salad. This is maybe not such a good location for a wild vodka party.

I think there are too many monuments around here, he says. Yes, it’s important to have a memory of the ghetto, but even to buy a carton of milk I have to pass several monuments. There’s just no escaping it.

Somewhere on the Mazovian plain, a small town like any other. A few thousand people live here. I would call it a village, but my host insists a village has less than nine houses. On the outskirts, fields of corn ripening, a graveyard on a small incline, strips of woodland and farmland, then a few dusty streets with a secondary school, some council offices and police station, a library, a hairdresser, with two or three shops in cabins – a bakery, a clothes shop and one selling general foodstuffs and alcohol. There is an imposing church and a small park with a new children’s playground and picnic area and a small swampy lake. There is a tributary of a river nearby, which provides some fishing. A railway line runs to one side of the town, along a raised bank, cutting through the fields and woods in a straight line as far as the eye can see. The tracks are a little overgrown, and the old station has crumbled to ruin. It’s raining and we seek refuge in the library and talk to a man who has been labouring in the west of Ireland for two years. He likes to read Stephen King books. In Ireland, he explains that they have some books in Polish language in the library, which he has read twice over, but no Salem’s Lot or Dark Tower in his own language. He complains about the food in Ireland. I’ve lost weight, he says, look, my clothes don’t fit me anymore! The contractors feed us Indian food. How can this satisfy my appetite? He is filling up on kiełbasa and sernik while he is here visiting.

Most people living here commute to work in the larger town nearby, which has a wide slow river – which could be quite an attraction, but it is unkempt and unloved. Rubbish litters the muddy water and clogs the banks and gathers under the parapet of the bridge. Some farmers supplement their income with agro-tourism, letting out rooms to holiday guests, and often providing an excellent breakfast and dinner. The meats are home cured and delicious, and with freshly picked vegetables from the garden. For the evening I buy a bottle of Sobieski, just ‘golden Dankowski rye from the fields of Mazowse’ and pure water, and ask to put it in the freezer. Mr Farmer notices this and invites me to a special meeting. This is translated to me as: We’ll meet later. At midnight. In the woods. I’ll have a treat ready for you, wait and see.

The moon is full and yellow, hanging hugely above the treeline. We follow the path through the woods as instructed. We come to a clearing, where there are some farm buildings, mostly disused, some of their roofs collapsing inwards. I’m not sure about this, says J, but what the hell. There is a light in one of the buildings, which is used as a pig abattoir. The interior, with lurid lime-green walls and a concrete floor, is bathed in a flickering fluorescent light. There are various metal tables and electric callipers, hooks and chains and pulleys along the walls. For a moment feel like we have intruded on the den from a serial killer in an American road movie.

Mr Farmer is waiting for us, makes us welcome, and eagerly explains the process of slaughtering an animal and the uses of the different implements. We pass through this first room into the white tiled cold store, then into what looks like a broom cupboard. And here is the laboratory for producing his home-made vodka. There is barely room for the three of us, to stand in between the array of pipes and condensers, pots and pans. He explains the process, and his favourite recipes. A small pipe leads to an old tin pan (green on the outside with delicate daisy patterns) into which the precious liquid drips, drop by drop by drip. I find myself thinking about the infinitely slow formation of ancient continents from the break up of Pangaea. It will take till dawn to make half a litre, but he has prepared a mug full for us to taste. He checks the alcohol content. Over 85% proof. He seems pleased. He offers us a shot. Don’t do it, says J. I throw it back in one. Mr Farmer, who is impressively built and would make a good wrestler, looks at me intently for a moment, then slaps me hard on the back and says, Bronek, You true Polish hero! J takes the second glass, and gently sips the rocket fuel.

The evening unfolds. More is drunk. We find our way home. That wasn’t so bad, says J, we can walk in a straight line. It’s dark in the woods and I can’t tell. The next morning, near to afternoon, we wake up stiffly and find bruises on our back and legs. At some point, says J, I think we fell down those steps. I agree, though I can’t remember.

On August 1st, the city was in a holiday mood, ready to commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. 1944 is the year that defines this city. Not 1980, that belongs to the Gdansk shipyards and the strike that gave birth to the Solidarity trade union, or 1569, that belongs to Lublin and the establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Veterans of the Polish Home Army are welcomed at official ceremonies. Concerts and events are happening all across the city – across the city a mass bike ride was organised by the Warsaw Uprising Museum and Warsaw Critical Mass, a group of bicycle enthusiasts.

A few thousand Home army veterans are still alive today, spread across the world, and many of them are here today. Most of these old, proud survivors would have been about 20 years old at the time of the Uprising. You can see them slowly wandering the streets, in navy blue jackets, neatly pressed trousers or skirts, usually wearing a beret and an Armia Krajowa armband, and a few unostentatious metal pin badges. They carry, as do many of the people on the street, little plastic Polish flags.

At the University on Krakowskie Przedmieście, there is a concert. There are stalls with memorabilia on display, and some food vendors. At 5pm, sirens wail and the city falls silent for one minute at the exact time the Uprising began. At one of the food stalls, one man continues to make waffles, noisily enough that he is politely asked to stop and to pay attention. The minute silence in the hot sun passes. The band on the stage do not strike up. It appears there will be a delay. Electric guitars, keyboards, drums and bass continue the silence. Roadies with cables and leads shrug their shoulders and organisers run about the stage in heated discussion. Eventually, they decide to hand out free cds, featuring the bands who are supposed to play. These feature a series of patriotic songs that we used to sing in primary school, she says – now bizarrely married to reggae or Eighties style hard rock. Sample lyric: children of Warsaw we’re going to fight, for every stone we will spill blood.  Or every lad wants to be wounded because the nurses are such great girls….

Sorry, it’s a bad and very fast translation, she says, but I think you get
the idea.

Education in Polish under Nazi rule was banned and punishable by death. The University was turned into a fortification and despite heavy fighting, the Home Army never managed to break through and occupy it. By the end of the war, 63 of the university’s professors were dead, either in the Uprising or as a victim of Nazi policy of exterminating the Polish intelligentsia.

With this sober thought in mind, we retired across the road to the 24-hour bistro, Przekaski Zakaski – popular with university staff and students today – for a vodka and a beer. It is very crowded. Commemoration is a thirsty business.

There are some 1944 trams running, with young people dressed in period costume, also singing patriotic songs. Other young people are running about in various military apparel, with re-enactments happening in parts of the city. They like dressing up. I’m not sure if they think about it deeply. These days Germans are welcome. And indeed, there are many German tourists, young and old. For many, it was always the Russians who were to be feared the most.

The city swelters. Mosquitoes infest the parks near to the river and those with any expanse of water. Rain approaches. Tremendous rainstorms by day and night do not dissipate the heat. The Metro is closed due to flooding. A single line runs from Młociny in the north to Kabaty in the south. Some people say that while Warsaw has only one Metro line it cannot be considered to be a modern city. A second line is planned, bisecting the original line at Świętokrzyska station. There will be a new station under the surrounds of the Palace of Culture, along with the construction of a new Museum of Modern Art designed by Christian Kerez, in this open space whose primary purpose in communist times was to provide a stage for state organised parades and mass rallies.

The Metro itself was originally planned in the 1920’s, but initial construction work only began in 1938. The outbreak of war put an end to that, and after the war, with the city now under Soviet control, plans were made to create an underground transport system which could easily transport troops under the Vistula river from the east of the city to the west. Hundreds of metres of tunnels were built with this strategic purpose in mind, but eventually abandoned after the death of Stalin. Work on the north-south line was renewed in 1984, and the current Metro opened in 1995. The second line is proposed to open by 2014 – though everyone expects delays. The Museum of Modern Art, proposed to be open in 2010, also faces delays. No construction work has been undertaken to date on the site.

Here in the shadow of the Palace of Culture, was a huge indoor market (KDT), which the city decreed must close in order for these new developments to proceed. The traders were supposed to leave by the end of December, but they decided to continue trading, while attempting to take court action to dispute the directive. Various proposals for relocation made by the City Council were rejected, resulting in the forcible eviction of traders in July by riot police and security guards, using tear gas and water cannons. Now, politicians argue about the cost of this action…

As posted on one web forum: Jul 21, 09, 23:49 Battle at Warsaw 2009
Tear gas, water cannon, hundreds of policemen and security guards against a few hundred desperate traders who don`t want to give up their work place, a giant steel hall in the city center. They used stones, fire extinguishers, barricades and live shields (their children) to defend themselves. Simply speaking, Warsavians have guts!

In a club named (possibly) after the 1966 Antonioni film, Blow Up, a track by Joy Division – ‘These Days’ – blares out of the speakers above my head. The song was recorded in January 1980 at Pennine Studios, Oldham, before most of these people existed. It was released as a b-side to ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. These days, you can get it as a ringtone.

We should switch to vodka, she says, but I don’t know if my body would like it. Or my head. I won’t drink on my own, but if I did I’d get hammered pretty quickly. And people would laugh!

She explains how she has survived several months in Granada, avoiding the pitfalls of flamenco dancers and studying the local language with some finesse. Back in Warsaw, with a new job starting Monday, she found herself in a bar whose lower floors collected denizens of the freshly arrived in the city and trying very hard to be cool and hip variety. After a few drinks, they didn’t look so bad, or so hip. Sitting at the bar with her friend, she was approached by a man who introduced himself as a film director who has been busy in New York shooting a film. Have you heard of Faye Dunaway, by any chance? He offers to buy them drinks. They are not particularly impressed and later, after several drinks, she forgets his name, leaves the bar and gets caught up in a stag party on the loose. She evades their clutches    and congratulates herself with a few more vodkas. She was home, in Poland after all.

She remembers Tarifa, on the beach at night, here at the southern most point in Europe, with the wind coming from Africa, with bottles of wódka żołądkowa gorzka – what else! – and those English people were pulling faces as they knocked back shot after shot. They said, How can you drink it like that? She wondered why they seemed so surprised. This is what Polish girls do, she said.

But upon this particular night, on safe and familiar territory, this close acquaintance indeed proves to be her downfall. On an ordinary street, she misses a step, severely sprains an ankle, and ends up in the hospital. And, as a consequence, arrives at her first day at work on crutches. Uwaga! The perils of vodka drinking.

She said she was a Chechen Princess. I had no reason to believe otherwise. She had a particular style, striking in its own way, shiny and glittery surfaces, leopard skin patterns, long leather boots with the highest of high heels. Her eyes were as black as night. We drank some Wiśniówka cherry vodka. The bar was on Brzeska in Praga, on the right bank of the city. From the outside, it looked like a shed next to a large open patch of tarmac between higher old tenement houses. Inside, it was far more attractive. The barman was interspersing old Warsaw songs by Adam Aston with the Andrews Sisters. Everyone was smoking. She said she was married to a Dutch guy and made a poor living of sorts in Warsaw. She organised classes with young Chechen children, teaching them to remember the traditional dances of their homeland. Earlier that day she – and the kids – had performed on a pavement in front of a tiny stage put up by Łazienki Gardens. The stage was too small, she said, much too small for our choreography. It was sufficient for six musicians from the Tatra mountains who were dressed in their splendid traditional Góralski costume; they didn’t move about so much – their fine musicianship was not matched by their stagecraft. It was good enough for the man dressed as a robot in a silver foil outfit, silver sprayed skull cap and glasses that lit up (this was the highlight of his act). He did various slow robot dance moves to a mix of early Kraftwerk. This small stage provided the cultural and live element of No Smoking Day in the capital. Several stalls were spread along the pavement with health information or barbecued sausages. It was an odd location, given the proximity of the park with all that space and crowds of people enjoying the sunshine, just the other side of the fence. The narrow pavement here was a point of transit between two points; coaches dropped off tourists by Belveder (the old Presidential building) and the Piłsudski statue, who then rushed to see the Chopin monument in the park, barely pausing for a moment to take a snap or video of the guys in their Góralski costume. There were people walking around handing out how-to-stop smoking leaflets, who carried giant cigarettes in the shape of a Kalashnikov. For the performances, which were intermittent, there was an appreciative audience of five people and a dog. In this context, the Chechen children gave a spirited performance. The Chechen Princess also gave a display, which was marred by technical hitches (the CD of music kept sticking) and by her sudden and lengthy disappearance for an unscheduled costume change. The deep purple was replaced by black and she danced draped in her national flag. She said she was going to make a political statement but changed her mind.

Later, in this bar on Brzeska, she was supposed to give a short performance, but there was no audience here either and the bar owner kept filling our vodka glasses in commiseration. Another time perhaps? Na zdrowie! Instead, she talked about being a refugee from the Caucasus, where there is still conflict. Several years ago, in Suprasł, on the eastern borders of Poland, I came across an old hotel commandeered by the government for refugees. One group was there in spring, another in autumn – people were moved on, no-one knew where to. 90% refugees in Poland are Chechen. EU regulations state that a country where a refugee first arrives is where he or she must apply for residence. Poland, on the edge of the union, has been a conduit for a flood of refugees from the wars in the Caucasus, but only about 5% of those who apply get refugee status. They are in a kind of limbo, dispersed in small encampments. She has been in Poland nearly 10 years. It seems unlikely she will return home. She dances on the pavement and most people pass by oblivious to the reality of life for some on the fringes of Europe. We drink vodka, as there is nothing more to say.

First in Poland museum of moonshining has just been opened in Białystok Museum of the Countryside. Among mills and traditional village houses one may find – hidden in woods – all equipment necessary for production of pure and usually high quality homemade vodka.

The only thing that troubles organisers is Polish law that doesn’t allow to make exhibition more vivid – and to treat visitors to a sip or two.

More in the article Jak po bimber, to do… muzeum in “Gazeta Białystok”, a local supplement to “Gazeta Wyborcza”. Text in Polish, but short video available to all.

I receive text messages on a regular basis, updating me on what I am missing. So I reproduce one here.

Rye vodka with neighbours, talking about vodka making ingredients, including fermented strawberry syrup in cans thrown into the forest by a local factory. na zdrowie!

Later on she said, The illegally abandoned (in the forest, by a local fruit and vegetables processing plant) fermented strawberry jam barrels used by the villagers to make bimber is such a lovely and absurd image. Nothing can go unused, eh? Unfortunately, my travels have not taken me to the heart of vodka production in recent months (though they will soon enough). Instead, by way of sympathy, Polish friends bring me suitcases of Wódka Żołądkowa Gorzka Korzenna z Miodem (with honey). And sometimes I receive compensatory picture messages from my daughter, whether in Birmingham or Manchester, who seems to have forsaken wine for vodka. How time flies…

It’s still snowing in Warsaw and Lublin. It seems the spring has forgotten to arrive. Take a few steps outside into the cold, the alcohol still warming your bloodstream and breathe in the night. The city is quiet, though it is not that late. There are a few forlorn tracks in the snow. No-one is out and about, intent on violence or lunacy. I have learned that the last trams, while having a destination, may not be the destination I have in mind. They can deviate, swing away to the left when in the day they surely veer to the right. They can proceed north to Park Kaskada when I expect them to proceed east across Most Gdanski to Nowa Praga. Regardless, the tram rattles along with its drunkards and would be lovers locked in a late-night embrace, taking them somewhere. They look as confused as I am. Brows furrowed, we depart unsteadily at the next available stop and stand on the platform in the whirling snow, trying to make out a familiar landmark. Here are two skinny latte American women, dressed in business suits and not prepared for this weather, wavering on the platform and discussing whether to go to a club or find a taxi home to Żoliborz. Tonight, I distrust the direction of trams and trust to an inner compass.

Leaving the outskirts of Wola behind, a complex of railway junctions below me and in the shadow of a vast flyover, I pass by an old-fashioned vodka bar at the foot of a block of flats, still open for business, smoky and dark, a floodlight church opposite. Further on, old crumbling walls coloured by a yellow light, a splash of illegible graffiti here and there and bizarrely, a crude picture of a washing machine spray-painted onto the plaster.

I trudge on through the snow. The trees are black, patches of open derelict ground are fenced in with advertising hoardings promising new apartments. There are fragments of the older city here and there, a machine shop, a faded sign for a car repair yard, below it a brama, a stygian tunnel leading to a darker back yard. Huge illuminated billboards hang like guiding stars above me. The only human presence now, a lonely security guard one floor up, sealed in a glass box, in silhouette against a bank of computer monitors, surveying empty corridors, closed doorways and underground car parks. Or perhaps asleep – as the figure is unmoving, captured in a frozen chairbound pose. And so I head to the centre of the city. Tonight I drink to the mirror.

Walk from Park Szczęsliwice along Opaczewska to the crossroads of Banacha and Grójecka and you will experience two sides of the city, passing from the modern world of free enterprise to the older remnants of PRL and earlier. From one end of the street, you can see the park with the ski slope and the artificial lakes, and the gated housing complexes, some still under construction, and behind them the nearby dome of Blue City shopping mall. Beyond the park lies the ruin of a 19th century Russian fort, one of several that circle the city. Opaczewska itself is a wide avenue, the traffic separated by a central reservation of grass verges, flowerbeds, trees and a pathway for walkers. Within minutes, the newer fresher Ochota gives way to the older Ochota, the development of tall blocks and modern ‘designer’ apartments along the edge of the park in sharp contrast to the post-war communist blocks. Behind these older ‘brutalist’ blocks, in the courtyards, you may find a shrine to Maria, Mother of God, a few swings for children, a bench or two. And at the bottom of these predominantly grey and worn concrete blocks (some have recently been repainted in bright colours) are the traditional shops – a bakery, a shoe-repairer, a vegetable shop, a good butcher, a seamstress.

The inhabitants of one of these tower blocks are the subject of a new novel, by Sylwia Chutnik, Kieszonkowy atlas kobiet (Pocket Female Atlas) which tells of some of their lives. It is, I am told, neurotical fun, brave and well written. On one corner, a circular concrete and metal platform protrudes from the earth, all that remains of a post-war bomb shelter. In amongst these blocks, some of the older pre-war housing survives, though not much – as this was the scene of vicious fighting and devastation in 1939 and 1944.

On another corner, we pass a church with a façade of pebbledash and glass, with a rectangular tower at one end. Inset, running up the length of the tower is a thin cross of glass, which glows at night from the interior illumination. One wall of the church is an entire wall of dark glass, slabs of brick thick glass, hundreds of them making up a huge panoramic mosaic. So here is a beautiful church I never go to, she says, Well maybe not so beautiful. I admire this for a while, as my Grandfather and his Father before him made their living in Ireland making such vitreous tableaux and lovingly restoring dilapidated churches. A little further and we arrive at the junction with Grójecka, where there is an Empik store and a Vietnamese café-restaurant. We wait for the trams and cars to halt, and cross to the market on the opposite side.

Concrete memorials stand on either side of the road. One reads:
At this site soldiers of Polish Army and inhabitants of Warsaw fighting on the barricade stopped attacking Hitler units and in uneven battle heroically were defending access to Warsaw on days 8 –27 Sept 1939.

Barricades built here at the crossing of Opaczewska and Grójecka were vigorously defended by 4th company of the 40th ‘Children of Lwów’ Regiment. Over the first two days of the attack, the German army suffered heavy casualties, the 4th Panzer Division alone losing ‘approximately 80 tanks out of approximately 220 that took part in the assault.’ There are plaques with this poem by Jan Janiczek (1898-1944):

I am an angry street! Do not approach me,
Invader, you who bring a plane death…
My town I defend firmly and steadfastly
For a battle always eager and ready…

I am an angry street! I erect barricades
And spit with armadas, blaze with a rifle.
Your hail of bombs will not horrify me
And your reptile tanks I still seize impudently.

I am an angry street! But I love my children,
Of which more die every day on my bosom,
Whilst the gromnicę* of tenement houses shine brightly.

I am an angry street! But although the hunger importunes,
I will not let you into the city, you bloodthirsty violator!

Myself, Mrs Opaczewska, defends Warsaw today!

(* Gromnicę is a candle kept at the bedside of the dying. It is also lit at the time of baptism and first communion.)

Twilight has descended and the temperature dropped. For a moment you could taste spring in the air, despite the piles of dirty snow lying piled up on the roadsides. She notices it and says, I like this moment between winter and spring. People are tired of the winter and longing for spring. There is a change in the air. Her voice is so low, almost as if she is speaking to herself. We pass into Hala Banacha, penetrating a maze of market stalls. On the periphery, the clothes market is all but closed up for the day, though the shoe stalls are still piled high. The snow has turned to a light rain. Here there are a multitude of small metal sheds, alleyways covered with tarpaulins and layers of perspex sheeting. Plastic containers of all sizes lie on the ground, collecting drips from leaking roofs. The pavement is broken and uneven. We go deeper into the market, past the one-zloti shop and out onto the other side, where vans are parked, unloaded and loaded, and detritus of the days trading lies alongside a larger newer market hall. A few more paces and you are surrounded by a jumble of food stalls, still busy. The sky has completely darkened and naked light bulbs hang from the awnings, giving off a yellow light. Here it is likely you will find all you need; red peppers, purple beetroots, cauliflowers, potatoes, cheeses (including oscypek, a smoked cheese from the Tatra mountains, made with salted sheep’s milk, which makes an excellent breakfast when sliced and fried and served with a fresh baguette, garlic dip and zurawina, a cranberry preserve). You carry the bags, she says, Look how Polish men always carry the bags for the women. No matter if they beat them or sit and watch football while waiting for the meal to be put on the table, they always carry the bags… Back towards the road, through lines of small cabins packed with tinned goods, cakes, smoked fish and fresh fish (some still swimming around in a small glass tank), we pause to buy cat food. As we come out again on to the street, looming above these cabins is a huge illuminated billboard advertising an impossibly juicy Mcdonalds burger.

I know you like it, she says finally, but I don’t really see the fascination with Warsaw. It’s becoming Western without the standards of quality. And magical places like this are disappearing. It’s a cruel city. Everyone is too busy…

Remember Sideways by Alexander Payne?
There is always appropriate time for opening the bottle – like, let’s say, right now…

The kissing clarinet player got a little too close for comfort. Admittedly, the room was small and there was a crowd. He darted in and out of the tight-packed audience, charming the women, and this was a cellar like venue, but not cavernous. He caught her by surprise, leaning into her with a sinuous and practiced ease as he passed. His lips clung to the reed yet somehow seemed to run over her earlobe and across her cheek, the notes still ringing out – none were missed – and they were precariously balanced for a moment, on a precipice of intimacy, she leaning further away as he leaned closer into her body. She later said that he was her physical type until this moment of physical contact and that she preferred a serious man, the very opposite of a showman. He had a theatricality he clearly enjoyed demonstrating throughout each and every song. Perhaps he is a frustrated actor, she commented. She fixed her eyes on me. Why didn’t I take his hat off? And why didn’t you kick over a chair and punch him? Why didn’t you defend my honour?

She was, I think, now demonstrating her own talent for melodrama, and the atmosphere of the evening allowed for it. The snow lay outside the window, the room was candlelit, the food and wine – ordered in between performances – were delicious. There were drinking songs of course. The Hassids are drinking, they sang. The audience sang along.

She knew the accordion player. Our tickets were reserved, with a table at the front with the band half a metre distant. Their vodka glasses sat on the table alongside the wine, Krupnik and small jars of Slivovitz. After the show – and what a show – we continued to drink more Krupnik.  The accordian player joined us. He said he hadn’t drunk Krupnik in years, but he has good memories of it. When he was 19 and he first joined a band, they played for a documentary film, over five hours in studio and there was a bottle of Krupnik drunk for every hour. He enjoyed that experience.

The hours slipped away into the dark of morning. Come on, one last drink or two. Strzemiennego! (Which seems to translate as, Jump on the horse!) We walked through the empty streets to a gallery in another deep and warm basement. Ukrainian cognac made an appearance. At least, that’s what they called it. There would be, for sure, a hangover the next day, ameliorated by a walk through the snow and bright sunshine in Park Saski, and a deeply appreciated fresh carrot and apple juice in small bar. She said, I was very restrained and well-behaved, not a wild gypsy woman, but knowing me I knew this would break. And it did. Alcohol melted me.

In the darkness outside, snow falls. What do we talk about? We talk of yearning, of old loves, of new loves, of dead loves. It will usually start with politics, move to religion and then onto sex. This seems to be the pattern in Poland, whether in Warsaw or elsewhere. The 24 hour alcohol shop was reassuringly busy, full of shaven headed men with dogs, wrapped in big puffa jackets with only a few restrained tattoos on display. Some I recognised from previous nocturnal incursions.  We are stocked up for the long dark night ahead.

The temperature drops alarmingly low for English born blood, and I am truly grateful not to be at the Central Station at this moment, waiting for the stampede of night buses. They are now rolling out of the station en masse on the half hour, belching fumes into the air.

These blocks of flats are solid and warm enough, even when the radiators are not on. I suppose you might say this is a typical flat, about 50 square metres in size. Through the door into a hallway, a bedroom on the right, ahead a bathroom and toilet. Second right, a small kitchen, room enough for a table where four can sit and a work surface along one wall. A long room to the left of the hallway, the largest room, mostly wooden parquet floors throughout. Very comfortable for one person.  Or a couple.  But these were constructed at the beginning of the 1950′s, as part of the so-called Nowy Praga, under the regime of President, then Prime Minister, Bolesław Bierut. This was part of the socialist paradise of post-war reconstruction for workers, and often housed families of four and more. The policy of the communist enterprise was to limit domestic and personal space.  Private space was minimised, and social spaces were outside, in the public domain. In those times this particular flat may have even housed two families. The former owner was a worker in FSO, a car factory, producing cars like ‘Warszawa’ and ‘Syrena.’  Most of the older residents worked there. The others were the builders of the Palace of Culture, a monument completed in 1955, in the middle of a city centre that was still dust and rubble in all directions for many years after.

The spaces between these blocks are lined with trees, and I remember last autumn seeing an old woman carefully sweeping up huge piles of leaves. It seemed to be her job, to keep the public space in good order, maintaining the grounds. There is a children’s playground beneath the window (we are on the top and fourth floor but it feels much higher) and most days you can hear kindergarten kids at play there. Above them, dozens of birds wheel in the air, cavorting, playing their own effortless game.

Her life is a series of wonderful mishaps. She said, I made a mistake and went on holiday to Transylvania. It was the romantic promise of enchanting ruined castles. Count Dracula and all that. We booked a tour coach from Krakow and it was full of divorced middle-aged men who drank and sang all the time. We were the only women. My companion was a friend who teaches the theory of literature, but she is particularly analytical. She discussed Freud the whole time. It was enough therapy to last a lifetime for me.

Before that, she told me she had attended a writers retreat in the mountains of southern Poland, a dramatic enough scene which does not need much embellishment. The writers were of a particular persuasion called New Neurotics. As a literary critic, it was her job to facilitate the ensuing discussion about pessimism in Polish literature. Alienation and the crisis of modernity were no doubt touched upon.

Can you imagine such great fun? she said. Imagine a cottage in mountains, foggy landscape and 12 people talking about sadness and a lack of sense. Yes, I came back with running nose, but inspired.

These are writers such as Agnieszka Drotkiewicz, writers who wear their hearts on their sleeves, making lists of their favourite songs such as: Myslovitz ‘Długość Dżwięku Samotnósci’ or Joy Division ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ or Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow.’ And who note the little pleasures of life (Twoje ulubione małe przyjmności) as being:

Telewizja/TV
Kupowanie ubrań/Buying clothes
Brutalny ostry seks bez milości/ Brutal hard sex without love
Być nieprzytomnym/Being unsconscious
Siedzieć samenu (samej w domu)/Sitting alone at home

We decided to leave the New Neurotics alone and watch ‘Views of a Retired Night Porter,’ a 2005 documentary film by Andreas Horvath, which has some wintry scenes of Warsaw. In her work, my friend enjoys writing about those ‘despotic and paranoid individuals who persist in improving the world in their own mould,’ so this short film is particularly apt.

The film revisits the subject of a 1977 documentary short, ‘Night Porter’s Point of View,’ by Krzysztof Kieslowski. The porter had firm views about how things should be, how the system should run and how people should behave. A minor official in a uniform, he is rigorous in his checks on workers clocking in and out of work, making sure they stamp their cards correctly. He enjoys training dogs and in his spare time, binocular in hand, patrols the banks of the river checking that anglers had the necessary permits. He disapproves of boys and girls meeting in parks and is more than willing to put a stop to it. Thinking they have “too much freedom” and “the leash should be shortened,” he chases them off. The film acted as a ‘metaphor of totalitarian rule.’ Now, 30 years later, the world has changed, the regime of which he was an accomplice has vanished, but his views remain locked in this past place.

An English writer, writing in a book set in Poland, wrote: if you can’t travel with love and faith in your heart then why travel at all. The snow falls, much the same as it did in 1977, and my mind gently slips back to that frozen time, sitting in front of of a two-bar electric fire in a dull suburb of Birmingham, listening to the Pistols and The Clash and dreaming of some other place.

Just for Christmas – the best possible gift – we’ve got another edition of (in)famous book by great Polish poet Julian Tuwim: Polish dictionary of the drink (Polski słownik pijacki) – with modern supplement by Piotr Bikont.

Just in a case it was published in the series entitled For Fun of Writers (Zabawy literackie) – nobody should take it seriously. Nevertheless author believes that when someone loves something even mentioning the name of beloved thing/issue may be revitalizing – thus the dictionary containing 2000 entries naming people, liquors, practices, anything that could be associated with drinking.

Just to show Tuwim is a great – and serious poet:

The Dancing Socrates

I roast in the sun, old wretch… I lie, and yawn, I stretch.
Old am I, but full of pep:
When I take a slug from the cup
I sing.
My ancient bones bask in the sun’s glow,
And my curly, wise, grey head.
In that wise head, like woods in spring
Hums and hums a wiser wine.
Eternal thoughts flow and flow,
Like time.

Some hours after midnight, we walk down to the sea. The only illumination is a series of small blueish lights on the cliff above, and an occasional random rocket fired out over the water. The sand is remarkably soft and the sea calm.  When I first came to England, says Ania, and people said ‘We’re going to beach’ and all I could see were these little stones, I was asking myself, ‘What are they talking about? This is not a beach!’

This is a beach, stretching a far as the eye can see. To the west is Woliński National Park, noted for bird-watching opportunities,  and to the east is Kołobrzeg, a resort and health spa which attracts over a million visitors each year. In between are these smaller holiday villages amid pine forests and golden sands. We walk for miles and miles along the beach, past the abandoned water slide, along with many other bleary eyed revellers of the night before.  It is a time to be a little melancholic, in an out-of-season resort, a time when you think about things ending and of new beginnings. Finally, as dusk falls, we return to look for a fish restuarant for plaice, fries, źywiec and a vodka chaser. 

The Szczecin salsa dancers, along with members of an amateur football team called United Vampires, with a miscellaneous assortment of guests rented an apartment complex for New Year in Rewal, on the Baltic coast. And it was a splendid New Years Eve, with mountains of food and much vodka. Here it is commonly called Sylvester, as the last day of the year in the name day of this saint. It’s not exactly a hotel, as we all have small apartments, but there is a dining room on the ground floor where supper and breakfast is served.

It is not enough to have 12 dishes for Christmas Eve supper (representing the 12 apostles) but there seem to be an equal amount of courses for our New Years Eve supper. By course number 6, I’m feeling a little full and now set before me is a plate entirely covered by a large dumpling full of meat. I manage half of it. The owner of the establishment proudly explains how much work, love and devotion, has gone into the preparation of each particular instalment, and generally tells us to eat up everything. Nothing must be wasted! Most plates, I notice, are returned wiped clean. Empty plates are returned to a serving hatch in an annexe off the dining room. Any plate returned to the kitchen in any other state will receive a sustained spurt of vitriol from our hostess. The guests sprint into the annex with their plates pretty quickly and back to their places before they are noticed. I wait for the right moment to return my half-full plate. I slide my plate amongst several others, so I can pretend I placed the really empty one right there at the front. I turn to return to the table. Mission accomplished. Then a curtain is whipped back and she leaps out, fixes her eye on the offending plate and pinches my ear hard and marches me back into the dining room, gesticulating with her other hand and eloquently lambasting my lack of appetite and appreciation. (I am having a flashback to nuns and primary school.) The room falls silent. I don’t know exactly what she is saying but it goes on for what seems far too long. A summary is given me later: I can’t believe this guy hasn’t finished every scrap of the beautiful food I have prepared. And look, he’s such a skinny guy! What kind of mother brought him up? What did she feed him? he has no meat on him and yet he refuses to finish his food! What kind of man did you bring here? I’m surprised she didn’t say, ‘Sausage is not for dogs,’ a Polish way of saying ‘it’s too good for the likes of you.’

More glasses of vodka quickly anaesthetises any lingering embarrassment, before the fireworks, the compulsory discotheque, the lithe salsa dancing in corridors and the traditional drinking songs.

In the damp English winter, I find myself thinking back to New Year celebrations spent with friends in the north-western part of Poland. The biggest city in the region, Szczecin, was built on the banks of the river Oder and is the largest seaport in the country – even though it is some 60 kilometres inland, connected to the Baltic through a series of lakes and waterways. It is a city of contrasts. Heavily industrial, with many green spaces,  and surprisingly wide avenues lined with trees. Our hosts proudly tell us that the city was rebuilt in the 1880’s (when it was Stettin, a part of Germany) using an uban design by George-Eugene Haussemann, who was also responsible for the rebuilding of Paris in the 1860’s.

The centre of the city, docks and factories were destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944 and by fighting between the German and Soviet armies in 1945. As the city became part of the new Poland after the war, former inhabitants were expelled and the area resettled by Poles, many brought from the eastern areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The Old Town itself was only rebuilt in the 1990’s, and you can still see empty, ruined sections awaiting reconstruction.  

 
Arriving at the railway station in the middle of winter, at the end of the line and near to the river, the city has a weary look to it.  The station, unheated it seems, must have been in its prime in the 1930’s. The wooden roof used to be painted duck egg blue, but most of the paint has flaked off. There is a large post-war mosaic which mostly glorifies the march of electrication across the region and other industries. There are some military police, apparently on the look out for deserters from the army, though they seem to be more interested in looking at an exhibition of photographs of strikes and protests from the 70’s which hang a little forlornly on black boards by the ticket office. Compare this to a new shopping mall nearby, much like any other shopping mall, all bright colours and futuristic curves and a glass dome above. Here you can order a latte to go with your pasztecik. 

We drive off across Most Dlugi and onto the Gdansk highway and over one of the many waterways, Przekop Parnicki. Here the other side of the carriageway is cordoned off by police cars and puzzled policeman are standing about. An unknown driver has managed to catapult his or her car several metres into the air and land on top of the crash barriers, perfectly balanced over the water, facing the opposite way. The policeman keep a respectful distance, as if any sudden movement might topple the car. We marvel at the stunt driving and carry on to Zdroje, to the east of the river.

Do you have snow tires? I ask.
No, says Michał, Why?
Everyone seems to be to driving quite quickly…
He shrugs and floors the pedal, It’s no problem. 

We turn off Batalionów Chłopskich up a  steep hill road to Park Leśny Zdroje to walk round the Emerald Lake. The landscape here is shaped by decades of quarrying and mining for marls and limestones to supply a cement factory, established nearby in 1862, along with several hundred thousand cubic metres of spoil which help mould the hills and steep escarpments. Eventually, the mining reached down to the water-bearing sands, causing ‘an abrupt, catastrophic water outflow’ which buried workers and equipment. The mine flooded and the open pit  finally became the Emerald Lake - Jezioro Szmaragdowe. It is frozen today.

As we trudge up and down the snowy paths, Michał tells us that this was an excellent place to play truant from school. No-one would find you here. It’s good for mountain biking and in winter, the steep hills make good sledging. I haven’t seen snow like this in England for such a long time, snow that stays on the ground for more than two days. There is a viewpoint at the height of the park. A line of electricity pylons march through the woods, a railways line stretches before us, and beyond that the mass of the city in a grey twilight, barely visible in the mist.

Recipe for Zupa Migdalowa
Soak at least 150 g of almonds in boiling water, blanch and dry. Ground them up. Pour 1.5 litres of boiling milk over the almonds and cook gently on low heat for 15 minutes, adding 2 cups of previously cooked rice and some raisins or currants a little sugar. You can add almond extract if you wish,  then a raw egg yolk just before serving. Open a bottle of Wyborowa straight from the freezer.

It turns out she is an old school friend of Marcin. She trained as a nurse but now lives in Malta, working at a scuba diving school, and is visiting with her boyfriend for Christmas. Over the last three years, she says, we’ve seen the size of fish get smaller and smaller. The Mediterranean is being over-fished. I won’t eat fish anymore. I’ll eat meat, we can breed cows and pigs and chickens easily, but we’re raping the oeans. It’s the only way I can put it.

Her boyfriend, also a diver, says, We have been diving in the tuna pens, to see all these huge beautiful fish penned in, caught somewhere off the coast of Tunisia, using spotter planes and then they’re hemmed in with ships, penned and then moved to Malta, so the fish is fresh to send by 747 to Japan, driven by the demand for sushi and sashimi.

That reminds me, says Marcin, there is a nice sushi restuarant open nearby, over the tram tracks. We must go.

The diver continues his story, It’s amazing to dive into this vortex of tuna. You have to be a little careful, as they become blind on one side, swimming round and round in the same direction. they have sharp fins which can cut you. They don’t get spooked too easily, but you still have to be careful.

The  nurse turned diver smiles, Of course, I ate carp at Christmas Eve, as this is traditional.

We toast the carp and the tuna. We are now tasting Starka, which is a locally produced rye vodka aged for a minimum of 10 years in old barrels. In this sense it is compared with whisky, though it seemed more like a brandy than any other vodka I have tasted. But I also get confused between the sushi and sashimi situation.

Each time we see Marcin, he has a gift of some kind. Which usually involves alcohol, though the early morning apple cake from the bakery is also most welcome. Today he has a bottle of ‘special alcohol’ from Greece, where he recently visited. Greek vodka, he laughs, if you can believe in such a thing! This is in a mineral water bottle. Don’t leave it by the bedside at night, he says, in case you get very confused. He explains that it is some special kind of spirit made by young children as part of a festival. You know, it smells like the glue that I used to put together my Airfix plastic model kits. It is an acquired taste. We agree to stick to Patryk’s homemade, which may or may not be classified as vodka but has the taste of oranges and reminds me more of the Peloponnese than Pomerania. I ask if this is perhaps Nalewki? They raise their glasses and laugh and toast our health one more time. Drink, this is good for the legs. He is a fan of salsa and after sushi we will later go through empty streets  and icy fog to a rehearsal at Klub Contrasty. Sunday night was for pleasure, he says, Tonight is lesson.

Angela recommended we collect blackberries, and soak them in spiritus and sugar for a minimum of three weeks. She calls it, Woman’s Vodka, because it is sweet and syrupy. I asked her why she drank her vodka down in one. She said, I cannot explain but I know English people are wimps and can only sip at things. Stanyck then said, It dulls the taste if you don’t drink it down in one. He had a Pepsi chaser with each shot of vodka. I asked him if this didn’t also kill the taste? He shook his head and said, Have you heard how Russian people drink vodka? They take a shot and then smell bread. In Poland we take a little juice or Pepsi, this is the way we do it.

I ask them why always clink the glasses? They reply, almost in unison: You can see the vodka, you can smell the vodka, you can taste it, but you can’t hear it…

At last, the first snowfall of winter. There was a small flurry the day before, but by the time we finished our Indian meal (at a place called Mandala) it was melting in the darkness.

Plan A was to go to an art opening in Praga. Plan B was to find a warm and cosy bar. I have to be up early in the morning to go to Sejny, but this Saturday night seems to stretch out leisurely before us as we finally end up in a bar near Pl. Zbawiciela. Later, I find out this is described on one web site as follows: ‘Drunkenness is rife and encouraged, and it’s only fair to note this place has become a bit of a magnet for expat lads looking to tap up impressionable Polish girls.’

Tonight, I can only hear Polish speakers and my city-by-night guide is not so impressionable. She orders a particular vodka mix – żubrówka and wiśniówka, with pepper added.  She explains the name of this drink is ‘Spieprzaj Dziadu’ – which is intended as an insult against a particular politician.  I fail to pronounce effectively in Polish.

She explains: So the story of the President and drink… in 2002 during the campaign for the President of Warsaw, Kaczynski got involved in the short argument with some old git. The press was around because it was right after some public meeting. This guy accused Kaczyński that ‘You, politicians, change parties as rats, chasing from one to another, if you have some business in any’, and the response from Kaczyński was ‘spieprzaj dziadu’. This can be translated as: ‘Sod off, you old wanker’ or ‘Sod off, you old git’ or even ‘Bugger off, you old git.’ But none of these versions carries the meaning that can be connected to the drink. Why? Because the word ‘pieprzyć’ in Polish, from which derives an imperative form ‘spieprzaj’, means both ‘to add pepper’ and ‘to fuck’. You can ‘pieprzyć coś’ (add pepper to something) or ‘pieprzyć kogoś’ (‘fuck someone’, meaning to have sex or to aggressively offend). Then this story of swearing was picked up during the Presidential campaign in 2005 and somehow reversed, as it has become a key sentence for all that and for all those who were and are against Kaczyński, his way of conducting political affairs, his political allies and the so called Fourth RP (the projected ‘better’ Polish Republic in the vision of Kaczysnki, with new constitution etc., now we have Third RP).
 
This drink is very Polish, she finally says, Polish liquors with pepper added, I love the idea.
 
There is no equivalent to this drink in England, or no politician that merits such emotions. Normally my city-by-night guide might be sitting at home, listening to Satyricon (black metal Norwegian band). But we have several toasts with a glass of ‘Spieprzaj Dziadu’, and watch the snow fall. We walk back to the central station and miss the night buses, and go into the station to wait for the dawn ones. There is a big crowd in front of a TV monitor, watching the sports news. They disperse when the next programme comes on, which is about buying a flat in Ochota, in a newly built gated community. There isn’t much about the quality of the flat itself – the big selling feature appears to be the amount of CCTV and security guards. Is Ochota this dangerous? I look around me at the sleepers and the all night drinkers. There is a guy having an argument with a soft drinks machine. He kicks it until it disgorges its contents.  I have often seen an old guy here on the concourse, who has a small portable chess set, who sits next to you and asks you to play. As the game progresses, he suggests politely you put some money down on the outcome. It’s a gentle hustle. He’s not here tonight, or this morning as it surely now is.

My city-by-night guide, who might or might not also be a poet, concludes the conversation: But tonight if we haven’t missed the buses we wouldn’t have a chance to feel the snowflakes melting on our cheeks. I love the sound of snow cracking under my feet and the way the spinning snowflakes shine in the city lights. If we weren’t putting vodka into our projects or projecting vodka on to our lives we would be just unproductively asleep and the first snow would just pass unrecognised.

But sometimes I need some sleep.

It is particular kind of cold, seeping damp into my bones and fingers numb.
We are on a northern border near Lithuania, a mere lake away but I won’t be swimming today however tempting the clear calm inviting water looks. A house is being built on this gently rolling land, within walking distance of the old family home of the poet Czesław Miłosz, what was once the local Manor House. That particular wooden building is now ruinous, left empty during the decades of Soviet occupation, but it will be repaired and renewed over the next few years as part of an ongoing cultural project.

This house, on the other side of the woods, is currently a plan and a large hole dug in the ground. We gather here to mark the laying of the cornerstone, facing north-east, towards Mother Russia. A coin belonging to the Grandmother of the woman of the house-to-be will be laid on the cornerstone, for luck as tradition has it, and doused for further luck with a copious helping of vodka. The vodka is the best in Poland, says the man of the house with a gentle laugh. It is Finlandia. The coin, which has an image of a long-dead Tsar, is ceremoniously put in place, the vodka is poured, the mortar slapped on top and the first stone laid by the builder. Then, each and every person present, one by one, all down a shot of vodka to celebrate this moment. Then we eat a bowl of bigos, to warm our hands and bellies on this particularly cold morning. And a chill rain comes down, but no one is miserable. The builders go back to work, turning stiff sods of mud.
A bulldozer splutters to life and trundles forward to dig up another hole,
which one day will be a small domestic lake.

It feels both a gentle pleasure and a privilege to be here and witness this moment. After, we walk up the rise and down through the woods to the Manor House, its wet boards in need of some tender loving care.

Arriving in Warsaw, I receive a text from my friend: ‘Hi, I am in a pub/club at pl. zbawiciela… let me know when you land, if you want to meet there or at mine…’

I check the bus timetable. I’ve just missed the last bus but there is a night bus going to the centre of town in a short while. (God bless Warsaw night buses, you can almost get anywhere) Do you need help? asks a woman who was on the same plane. I explain that I’m wondering whether to go to Ochota or to pl. zbawiciela. You don’t want to go to Ochota, she says, it’s a very rough part of town. There are some great bars at pl. zbawiciela. This is a good place, I can show you.

She tells me that she just got back from Portugal, where the weather was good but her skin did not tan. Now I need to go to the Solarium tomorrow, she says, otherwise my friends will not believe I have been away.

I decide to get off the night bus at Banacha, thinking I might walk that way, but there’s a bus to Szczęśliwice. The end of the line, by the park. So I go to Ochota anyway and my friend is now at home, with a pot of soup ready.  Don’t ask questions, just eat it. It might seem peculiar because I made it and then decided there wasn’t enough if all the musicians came round who had promised to come round, so I added another base to it. But only Adam the guitarist came, and he doesn’t like it so there is a lot of soup. It has a sweet and sour taste, but I get used to it and eat it all. Sometime after 2 am we take a taxi to Praga to a musicians after hours party in a bar in a courtyard.

The musicians are in good spirits, playing in twos and threes. Others simply crowd the bar and consume the spirits. There are two guys at the bar who start talking to or at us as we wait to get served. Ignore them, they’re jerks, she says, they make me sick. They are making assumptions about us. They’re saying, ‘Is she with him? Bloody foreigners coming here and taking our women, he must be a fucking artist.’ One of them asks me what I do, while the other starts talking French and Russian to me. I tell them I’m an artist. What else can I say? I don’t encounter this attitude very often, this kind of soft antagonism mixed with national pride. It’s hard to be an independent woman in Poland, she says later, you always have to be in the possession of some man. This attitude really annoys her (for the next few days). I suggest we could get t-shirts saying ‘We’re not a couple’ or ‘Actually, we’re gay’ or ‘I should be so lucky…’ She is not amused.

We drink a Wisniowa cherry vodka poured over a large glass of ice. This Praga is sometimes usually described as the wild part of town (in the quality press, as in ‘take a walk on the wild side’…) The guitarist is here tonight in preference to a gig on the TV show ‘You’ve Got Talent.’ He could have provided the accompaniment to a post office worker, Pani Marianny, who will be singing a song about a little dove. She has wanted to be an actress for the last 30 years, and this is her big chance. The guitarist has chosen, perhaps wisely, to be here instead of in a TV studio, where he would have been obliged to wear a sombrero. He calls us on Saturday to remind us to watch the programme, and celebrate his missed opportunity. This time Pani Marianny does not win the sympathy of the audience or jury with her unusual vocalisations. She is beaten by a rather good acapella group covering a Red Hot Chili Pepper song and a blonde blind girl whose guide dog is very ill who performs a song about her deceased father. She looks like a saint and she’s bound to win the final.

If you ever are in Amsterdam with less than an hour to spend and find yourself at the central train station and it’s raining, and you are in the company of a Polish national, here’s something you can do. (You don’t have to have a Polish national with you, but in truth she encouraged me. I was in a lazy mood and would have just hung around the station waiting for the train to the airport, looking glum.)     In the five days previous, we did not visit the Van Gogh collection or the Heineken Museum or the “collection of coffins and funeral heirlooms” in the Dutch Funerary Museum to be found in the centre of Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats cemetery (though I was keen). We did not seek out a Dutch equivalant  of Les Egouts de Paris (quite a treat really) but we had seen a sign on the tram for a Vodka Museum, which is near the Sex Museum on Damrak, but we were never quite near enough, except for today, with nearly an hour to kill. One sign at the station tells us it’s just 500 metres away. I’m unusually reticent and need jollying along to go out again into the torrential bitter cold rain. But I am carried on a wave of Alicja’s enthusiasm across the tram tracks and traffic lights and construction sites to find the museum.

It is housed above a tourist shop, and indeed it is really an extension of this shop really, though you have to pay several euros for entrance. A sign outside says, Russian Spoken.  We ask for a ticket and the woman looks a bit perturbed. You want a ticket? Yes please. Ah, the guide isn’t here. Can you come back later? Sorry, no we can’t, our time is limited.  She calls someone on her mobile, speaking in Russian. She’s asking some guy to get down here now, explains Alicja, who has command of several languages.  Can you wait just five minutes, just five minutes? says the woman. A guy in a smart suit turns up to take our money but he finds the cash register doesn’t work. He climbs under the desk for a while, unplugging and plugging wires. We have a problem, he says with a shrug. The ticket machine doesn’t work. He handwrites a ticket for us and takes us upstairs for a whistlestop tour. We’re joined shortly by two other curious tourists from the United States. The museum seems like a personal collection of vodka memorabilia, beautifully housed in proper museum cases, along with a few hundred (empty) bottles.

Here the history of vodka is almost exclusively Russian, patriotically so. I’m a little disappointed,  I say, No Polish vodka in your Top Ten. Yes I know, he says, but we have some Swedish. He then agrees that Polish vodka is also good, particularly the one with bison grass.  I ask him if he has a personal favourite and he tells us a story about his father’s home made vodka, made with pears, in his childhood in Armenia.  We go through to the final part of the museum which has a neon lit mock bar, with interactive screens set in the bar top – here you can send a video message via email. Then our guide invites us to scroll through a series of vodka cocktail options. As part of the visit, you get a free cocktail! he explains excitedly. Please choose now! We both settle for the one called Russian Love. The Americans deliberate for a long time over which cocktail they want. They avoid Russian Love. We expect our guide will actually make the cocktail, but instead he reaches under the bar and pulls out a small miniature bottle of liquid. We don’t have a licence, he says, but please take this as a small memento of your visit. With a flourish, he then opens a large mirrored wall by the bar to reveal a secret room. He invites us to relax for a moment in the oval perspex chairs hanging from the ceiling – it’s like a scene from a 1960’s spy movie spoofed in the Austin Powers films. Is that really a glitterball?

Was it worth it? I do not subscribe to the school of thought that says: we can learn from every experience.  Some experiences should definitely be avoided. Yes, for kitsch entertainment value, it was worth it, but I need to find a real vodka museum. Any suggestions?

He said to us, Do you know this one? The Russians have made 300% proof vodka and decide to test it on the Polish. They find a guy who is stacking hay. They say, Would you like to try this vodka? They give him a bottle and a glass and of course he accepts it. Then they go behind some bushes to observe. They see that after drinking the vodka the Pole is collecting the hay with one hand, and holding the other behind him. The Russians ask him why he is doing this. The guy then says, This is because I am afraid if I fart I will set the hay on fire…

I have found a bar selling Żubrówka and cloudy apple juice. 
All is good.

Helena

Use milled rye. Pour hot  water over it to make it really sweet. Cool it to 27 degrees. Add yeast. Let it ferment for three or four days. Distill it. It is very easy to burn it, so distill it using steam. Get the water boiling hot and steam it through a pipe. The most important thing is what you distill and ferment it in. If you use a metal container, you can get iron particles. My Dad used glass, and stainless steel sometimes. Charcoal filters remove the impurities and carbon filters remove any smells.

This is his recipe:
1 kilo of sugar
3 litres of water
10 decagrammes of fresh yeast
26/27 degrees
7-9 days to ferment it
Cool it for a day or two
Distill it
Add fruit or jam for taste

You can use tomato puree because tomatoes have lots of potassium and yeast likes potassium.

The best one is when you just use rye, or the yeast for making wine. The wine yeast takes longer because it requires longer temperature.

Like to flavour your vodka? Put sugar onto a thin slice of bread skin, burn it and drip into the glass. (I have a bad memory of my daughter lighting a glass of absinthe and her friend burning her lip.)

The old manor house is crumbling into the earth. No-one has seen the owners, who are believed to live in America if they exist at all. The aristocrats sold up in the 1920’s, fled, left behind their debts. We climb through the brambles and overgrown foliage, like in a fairy tale. There is a chill in the air. There is hardly a sound. A carpet of plums lies undisturbed at our feet. There used to be an orchard here with apple, pear and cherry trees. Edible berries on the bushes remain untouched. You can still make out the shape of the grounds,  planted with Canadian redwood, spruce and pine, linden and czarny bez (black elder). The roof is collapsing, the once solid floors cracking apart. I hesitate to descend to the basement. Bits of wooden furniture are strewn about, some rusting keys, parts of a spinning loom. There are hardly any white tiles left in place on the floor to ceiling stove at the centre of the house. As a child she was scared to come here, thinking it was haunted. It is beyond repair, but must have been a fine home once upon a time.

Once upon a time, war came to these parts. There was a wooden house, built by her Grandfather. This was occupied by the Polish army, then the German Army, then the Red Army. Why, no-one knows. It does not seem a strategically important place. It is not like the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte at the battle of Waterloo.  It is not even the highest point, this being some ways away and despite being called the Big Hill, it looks like a small mound with a scattering of trees. Woods obscure some of the views. Perhaps it was just comfortable, this farmhouse of shaved logs, and that may have been sufficient reason for weary soldiers far from their own hearth. 

We drank vodka, his home made recipe. The Germans shot people like dogs, he said, they had no mercy. Not all Germans, you understand, to be more specific, I mean the SS troops. For a time we had to run away into the woods and we ate boiled flour with water, and boiled swede. The Russians were more friendly. They weren’t so bad. You know, they were sad to leave, singing an old song, “Why did we have to get to know each other, oh why did we part…?” They went back to Moscow and sent letters to the family, but this was a time when partisans were still active in the countryside and it was best not to reply. My Mother was killed in the yard in 1944 during an artillery bombardment, Russian shells or German shells, no-one really knew. I was ten years old. Two years prevously, I saw vodka being made for the first time by my Father and Uncle. I didn’t touch a drop until I was eighteen. Or smoke a cigarette.

This current house dates from 1972. You can still see the old foundation stones in a corner of the basement, alongside a store of local wine, coal, potatoes and the ancient accoutrements to make bimber. The essential equipment came from a man near Gdansk. They look like parts of a rusted car to me. These are dairy farms, producing milk for one of the biggest producers in Poland, and in particular for serek wiejski, a local cottage cheese. (I am not a fan of cottage cheese, but this is delicious at breakfast.) And, as is tradition, they produce their own vodka for home consumption.

She is drinking crème źołądkowa gorzka. Children’s vodka, her Father says quietly, though later she proves to be quite capable of matching him, homemade glass for glass. There is a bottle of Orzechówka Lubelska on the table at the beginning of the evening. I have to say this walnut vodka is one of my least favourite drinks, a little too smoky and like cough medicine for my palate.

We talk about how to make vodka. I feel like I am falling into the past, of my childhood visits to family in Ireland, to the bars in the back rooms and the potcheen stills. And something about the landscape reminds me of this too.

He tells me he used to make vodka without yeast, just with rye and some herbs and honey, and how it tasted just like cognac. But it was hard to make he said, it often failed.

In communist times there were great efforts made to stamp out home production.
I have seen numerous propaganda films about the evils of bimber.  I ask, What’s the situation like now?

He shrugs: It is not illegal to make it for your own consumption at home. It is not advertised that you make your own vodka, but since 1989 I don’t think people pay attention. There was a guy in the next village that died. Police came and investigated and asked, What were you drinking? Home-made of course. They took away a sample to the lab to test and the alcohol was fine. He was 27 years old and had a heart attack and cracked his head open on the ground, but it was not the quality of the alcohol that caused the problem. He concludes that alcohol is good for your heart. He says that most heart medicines are based on alcohol. (I resolve to invite Dr. Middleton for a drink to discuss this matter in further detail).

I text Iwona and ask her what are the rules about making home-made vodka. She replies, enigmatic as usual: Only one rule, when it is proposed one should not refuse.

What else did I learn from my evening? In these parts, the definition of an alcoholic is a man who drinks alone. And though he tells me that sleep is the best cure for a hangover, he rises every day at 5 am to milk the cows. I will try to milk the cows, but later in the day.

As I drift off to sleep, all I can hear is a gentle wind, rain and cows, cows, cows.

The last summer day passed. It was getting colder. A frost was promised for the morning but has not yet materialised. Maybe tomorrow. We walk to the fields to dig up red-skinned potatoes in a chill wind. The land is flat and open. Later, we go back to the house with a basket full of mushrooms from the woods. She tells me she doesn’t often get a cold, maybe once a year, and she never takes vitamins but today she isn’t feeling so well.

She speaks to her Mother, who has peeled the potatoes and is now carefully trimming the mushrooms for drying. She asks, Mamo, when is Dad putting on the central heating? Her Mother replies: Are you mad? It’s only September! Drink vodka and you’ll feel warmer. Vodka is cheaper than central heating!

Travel a few hundred kilometres out of Warsaw in any direction and the landscape of the Mazovian plain seems much the same. At the end of the summer, it has something of the American mid-west about it, small towns sitting astride railway tracks and road junctions, flatlands with scrub-like trees, seemingly deserted, a sense of quiet rural impoverishment as the nearby capital grows in power and wealth.  I half expect to see Gary Cooper striding down the dusty Polish street (as he once did, when the character he played in High Noon, Marshall Will Kane, was featured on an emblematic 1989 Solidarność election poster). Big and bigger new roads are being constructed for the 2012 European Football Championships, slicing through these hamlets in the straightest line possible from city to city. Large flyovers rise out of mountains of dirt, elaborate pedestrian bridges span solitary unused carriageways, on the one side an unkempt field and on the other an overgrown field. They lay plans for some possible future when these half a dozen old farm houses are razed and an another estate of apartment blocks will rise up on the fringe of the ravening megapolis.

Today, on the east bank of the Vistula, the bus station at Stadium is crowded as usual, hemmed in by hundreds of market stalls under their plastic canvases, a muddy haven in the heavy rain, a bazaar to easily get lost within. Buses, coaches and VW vans compete for space between the cramped avenues. Exhaust fumes fill the air. I search for the buses whose final destination is Suwałki, as I am heading towards a region with leisure-strewn Mazurian lakes to the North and industrial city of Białystok due East.

As the bus works its way out of the city, along waterlogged Radzyminkska and Piłsudskiego, past a huge retail park with Ikea, I notice a whole series of billboards inviting the inhabitants of Warsaw to visit other exciting parts of the country. Like Gdańsk , where you will find a lot of things to surprise you, involving gargoyles and pitchforks. Or Lublin, which is bidding to be a European City of Culture and has some scary face-painted folk on their poster which makes me think of New Zealand.  And there is even a poster promoting poor Kielce, which apparently no-one ever wanted to go to.

There is a poem by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz that Iwona directs me to,  called ‘To my snotty-nosed friends/Do przyjaciół gówniarzy‘, in which he writes:

Przeglądam w myśli wszystkich mych przyjaciół twarze
I myślę sobie, och, psiakrew! czyż wszyscy są gówniarze?
Ach, nie! Jest kilku wiernych, z tymi pojechałbym nawet do Kielc.

I looked through all my friends faces in my thoughts
And think to myself, Oh, sod it! Can they all be snots?
Yet no! Some of them are faithful, with those I would even go to Kielce.

As the journey progresses, I receive a text from Iwona: Welcome to the heart of conservative Poland, welcome to the heart of darkness. No billboard can be seem promoting this particular region, enticing me to visit the Heart of Darkness.

The woman next to me on the bus lived in New York from the early 80’s and only returned to Warsaw a few years ago, before 9/11, to be nearer her Grandchildren, whom she is going to visit today. We talk about how it was in America for her – hard work is the only way to sum up her life experience. She has only one recommendation for this region we are travelling towards – the gothic cathedral in Łomźa, which itself barely finds a mention in most guidebooks. That‘s about it, she says, it’s not like Brooklyn. She nods sadly as we pass through the pine woods near Brok, where the road is lined with lonely prostitutes with orange skin colour, smoking cigarettes under umbrellas. On the other side, teenagers and old people huddle around baskets piled high with freshly picked mushrooms. A spluttering camp fire gives off blue smoke, and bicycles are propped against tree trunks. The people of the woods. Capitalism or communism, what’s changed here, eh? We can’t stop time, she says.

A couple of hours later, I find myself in a village of less than a dozen houses. The sun is shining here. There seem to be more cows than people. No sign of any flyovers here though, only thin unpaved roads.  We are really off the map.

Where is Poland? asks Iwona, in response to reading an article at Forbes.com about European alcohol consumption. Perhaps all the heavy drinkers have moved abroad, suggested Brendan. Though it is unlikely they have moved to Croatia, Slovenia and Estonia – who occupy the top three places. The UK, surprisingly, only charted at number 15. Read the article and view results here.

There are what we might call pure vodkas, and there are others. The conflict is between purity and character. Vodka is filtered through charcoal to remove impurities and, of course, the purity increases with the number of times it is filtered. This rectification process removes those unwanted byproducts – solvents, fusil oil, methanol. They say that Żołądkowa Gorzka was ‘discovered’ by accident, that it was a sublime combination of leftover dregs in the bottom of a distillation unit with a distinct aromatic aura that drew some unknown worker to taste and think, ‘Hey, this has some possibilities…’ It was originally classed as a ‘bitter vodka digestive’ – or a flavoured vodka – made from a combination of herbal, spice and dried fruit nalewki (an infusion of herbs or plants steeped in alcohol).

Wódka Żołądkowa Gorzka was first concocted in the early 1950‘s. It is possibly my favourite vodka. It’s literal translation is ‘stomach vodka’ – as it believed to be a remedy for indigestion problems after a lavish meal. It’s colour comes from an addition of caramel to the mix. There are no artificial flavours or aromas. Today, it has a slightly more sweet flavour (though you can get a special edition of the original recipe).

I have had occasion to visit Lourdes, where I was first conceived, and to go to Monserrat to kiss the feet of the Black Madonna. I have climbed with pilgrims to the top of Crough Patrick (but not barefoot) and often lit candles in memory for lost ones at the shrine of Jeanne D’Arc, but this is a different kind of homage.

We take the long straight road from the railway station to the Polmos factory, past low walls, no high rise buildings, and a smattering of trees. Vodka has been produced here since 1906, when Lublin was part of a Kingdom of Poland under the sovereignty of the Russian Tsar.

We are met by Ireneusz Cymbala, a manager in charge of export, who takes us on a tour of the factory, which is clearly busy. Business is booming. This single factory, which has 500 employees, produced 3 million litres of vodka over the last 12 months. The production lines are running 24/7 and a new product – Czysta de Luxe Żołądkowa Gorzka, a clear vodka with six-phase distillation process and with the use of natural charcoal filters -  is selling one million a month. In terms of production, the factory is now third in the country. He tells us that Wódka źoładkwa gorska is now available in Asda. (I am particularly pleased to hear this and intend to email all my friends at the first opportunity.)

This factory, along with all the others in Poland, was nationalised in 1948 by the Communists. One big company with 25 factories, and all decisions – good or bad – made centrally in Warsaw. The Lublin factory then concentrated on spirits made from molasses. After the fall of communism, the factories became independent and it was at this time that Ireneusz worked on the shop floor for 10 years – the old assembly lines then produced 6000 bottles an hours, whereas the new ones can produce 18000 bottles an hour. If we could have done this then, he said, we would have been very happy workers. There are six bottling lines in operation, including two of the old ones.

Business was chaotic back then – trademarks were not established, so different factories could produce their own version of wódka źoładkowa gorska, and distributors could take a shipment from one producer, default on payment, and get a shipment of the same product (more or less) from another factory. It wasn’t until 1999 that Polmos Lublin was able to purchase the ‘brand rights’ to źoładkowa gorska. The factory itself was only privatised in 2001 – a number of the distilleries are still state-owned – and in 2002 they purchased the sole rights to the name.

There are two other versions of Żołądkowa Gorzka, one made with honey, and one with mint. I confess I am not fond of the latter. I say it tastes like mouthwash. Ah, we recommend you try it with a lot of ice and apple juice, he says, this make it a very refreshing drink. I will give it a try, but not today. Tonight, I will stay with tradition. With purity of thought, you might say, though I am not sure Saint Augustine would approve.

We drank wódka źoładkowa gorska mixed with Sprite and ice. She said, You know, I can’t ski now without a drink. I had a bad skiing accident and I was a little nervous after this but a small shot of Krupnik and then I am able to ski really well. Not while skiing you understand, but in between the stopping. She told me she liked to go skiing in the Czech Republic, on the far side of the Tatras, where she said the cavalier attitude of the coach drivers in these mountains made her more than a little nervous. She recommended a summer trip to ‘the land of a thousand lakes’ in the north eastern region. She told me of her sailing expedition on the Mazurian lakes, giving me the impression that the very waters of these lakes were in the process of fermentation. She said, This is the recipe for a successful sailing trip: in the morning, it was banana liquor with cornflakes. If it was cold it would be Amaretto in tea, and coffee with advocaat. In the afternoon, it was vodka all round.

In Poland I believe it is illegal to ride a bicycle while under the influence of alcohol.  I am not clear how the law stands with regard to piloting a boat. I make a mental note to explore these intoxicated waterways.

Go to the woods and pick one hundred flowers of lilac. Add eight or nine lemons and boil in four litres of water. Let the mixture settle for 48 hours, then squeeze it through a sieve. Add three and a half litres of sugar, 20 decagrammes of lemon acid, spiritus and leave for 10 days. The mix should be 40% spiritus and 60% essence. For stronger you put more, but I prefer this perfect mix.

When I was younger, my Mother made a syrup which could be used for a sore throat, but if you added alcohol it made a very fine drink. It was made from the upper branches of a fir tree, the Christmas tree.

The trees are not now in blossom, but we collect some leaves…

More on nalewki here…

As all the plumbing in her apartment block in Powiśle is being renewed,  Dr. Kurz reasons that it is a good thing to keep an eye on in case of some dreadful mishap (the majority of plumbers having relocated to England and France), so we convene here in for an impromptu vodka project meeting to eat a Chinese takeaway and watch a movie or two and listen to workmen bashing things, removing doors and showers. (Some flats seem to have had their entire contents stripped out and piled up in the corridors). After some PRL propaganda film shorts about the danger of drinking – which are legion and will be the subject of a future posting – she pulls out the main feature from her vast collection. Perfect for a warm summer day in Warsaw, it is a film set on New Year’s Eve in Russia, called ‘The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath’. Forget watching Jimmy Stewart in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, and enjoy this film which was a great blockbuster in Russia, released on December 31st 1975 and shown traditionally every New Year’s Eve thereafter. I try to remember what I was doing in this past time – I have a strong suspicion I was drinking Southern Comfort with a strawberry blonde girlfriend on the ramparts of some Iron Age fort in woods near Cheslyn Hay and debating the merits of the latest Roxy Music album with her friends… I am reminded of this because of the Polish actress cast in the role of Nadya, Barbara Brylska, was also a blonde. Iwona tells me she was a huge star in USSR and talks about this interesting historical phenomenon – the enormous popularity of Polish actors in Soviet Union. In 1976, Brylska was elected the most popular actress in Russia and she also won the State Prize of the USSR (1977). As a result she was not so popular back in Poland. She also appeared in an early episode of Zero Seven – as a mysterious blonde, what else?

In the Russian film, a comedy of errors, a group of male friends traditionally meet at a sauna on New Years Eve. The consumption of much vodka and beer makes two of them unconscious. Sasha has to leave that night for Leningrad but in the drunken confusion instead they put Zhenya on the plane. Zhenya wakes up at Leningrad airport, still utterly drunk, and thinks he is still in Moscow. He takes a taxi to what he thinks is his home. The joke here is that the street name is the same, the apartment block of flats is exactly the same, even his key fits because the locks are the same) -  an example of typical Soviet-type ‘economy’ architecture. He climbs into bed to be soon woken up by the return of the women who actually lives here, Nadya, whose fiancé is about to come round for a romantic New Year’s Eve… Last year a sequel to it was released, following what happened to the characters….

We take a bus from Lublin to Nałęczów, when a bus finally arrives (three of four or maybe five don’t bother to stop at our particular bus stop). We are standing in the heat on the side of a dual carriageway named after General Sikorski for a very long time and I think I am hallucinating and imagining I am in Kabul again. I didn’t bring a hat and she is ready to faint and getting more and more angry at the non-stopping buses (which are clearly not full). Last night, after the visit to Polmos, we wandered towards the Old Town, stopping to eat grilled vegetables, bruschetta and chicken salad in a quiet café on ul. Kościuszki that had a large plasma screen of Jamie Oliver running around London buying vegetables and hugging people (sound turned off). Then the drinking began in earnest under the parasols that ring the market square and the town hall that squats in the centre. The square is small and compact, lit by various coloured floodlights. There is a stage in one corner, with a trio of accordionists, who are followed by a ubiquitous reggae band. If you ever wondered what happened to Shaggy or Black Uhuru, you are likely to find them performing on a summer stage in the rynek of one Polish town or other. Old friends are meeting here. Excuse me, but I will speak English to you after two beers. I have not spoken English for two years, so it will be better then. And far better than my Polish.

A fine powerpoint presentation at the Polmos factory informed me that Poles actually prefer beer to vodka. 88% of the total alcohol consumed here is beer, with vodka at only 7.5% and wine with a 3.2% share. Whiskey, liqueurs and brandy account for the rest. So first, the traditional beers, then a tour of the old town down alleyways and through ancient courtyards up to the castle overlooking Plac Zamkowy.

Then via a small shop to buy bottles of wódka żołądkowa gorzka to rest awhile on an unlit wooded terrace behind the cathedral. This was the tradition of my youth, we had the small bottles and we walked around the town taking small sips and talking about life. Wiśniówka is another local brand, made from cherries, which I am also quite fond of. She then says, I was not drinking Wiśniówka because of local patriotism. I drank it only after I left Lublin and it was long after this I had this raised consciousness about it being locally produced. I just liked the taste. Then we go to another late night drinking place (and another 24 hour alcohol shop) in a square near the Catholic University. I have to lie down in the bushes for a while. I can’t keep up with the others. There was some staggering home at dawn after that, but I can’t quite recall how.

We can rest in peaceful Nałęczów, a spa town and health resort due to its micro-climate, set amongst gently rolling hills and woods. Only 25 kilometres away from Lublin, the intense heat we felt earlier in the day has disappeared. We sit in the garden and eat pierogi and borsch, the perfect antidote. A rain storm passes quickly over, throwing down a heavy burst of rain, but the air remains pleasantly warm and fragrant. After dinner, she says with a sigh, Life is so short, so here is a taste of life. A pause, and then: Of course, forbidden fruit tastes the best… (I am finding that most Polish have a certain poetic flair with our English words. I must ask my colleague, the good Doctor, to extrapolate on the tradition of romanticism in Central Europe…)

We take a long walk in the splendid park at the heart of Nałęczów, with the restored sanatorium, a lake and river, and a palm house where you can taste different types of mineral water, variations on the Nałęczówianka brand which is produced here. Next to the palm house is a Wedel, if a hot chocolate is more your cup of tea (as this cafe specialises in divinely flavoured hot chocolate…) It is a fine place to recover the wits one lost the night before. From within one of the neo-classical buildings a pianist with the light touch of Debussy accompanies a woman singing an old Ukrainian melody. Another storm approaches with dramatic lightning and we scurry to hide under an arch, escaping a soaking. Later, there is another terrific thunderstorm in the night, drowning the flowers on the balcony and drumming hard on the roof.

Some days you regret waking up. It is the day of the Holy Hangover. We are late for breakfast with Babcia, two hours late at the very least. We stand on the balcony, to catch our breath in the hot morning air, drinking water. It will be a stifling 32 degrees today. We look down at the foot of the tree where her Aunt’s favourite cat is buried. It died in the middle of winter and the ground was too hard to dig, so she had to hide the body in the basement of the flats until the thaw, when she finally snuck out into the middle of the night to bury the body. Red flowers grow on the grave.

We arrive suitably apologetic. Her Grandmother greeting: You stink of vodka! Why must you drink so much? Who is this strange man with you? Is he responsible? I am reminded of what Mike Summerbee, a player on the wing for Manchester City, once said when recalling his late nights drinking with George Best, of rival team Manchester United: We flitted from club to club. They tended to become more downmarket as the night wore on. George didn’t drink pints, he drank vodka and lemonade. It doesn’t smell and there’s no real taste, but it’s a dangerous drink.

I doubt he ever met a formidable Polish Grandmother and therefore had his vodka habit outed. George -  one of the most exquisite football players ever, a handsome Irish rover – was often quoted as saying: I spent 90% of my money on women and drink. The rest I wasted.

We sit down to eat porridge. I ask for a small portion. Small is large in Babcia land. I hate porridge since an incident with nuns in primary school. Nevertheless, I eat most of it, with an awful lot of sugar. This is followed by a selection of home cured meat and bread. Grandmother says, See, I told you porridge is not enough for a man!

Eat it all, she says, or Babcia will be offended. I say nothing and thoroughly stuff my face. The meat is delicious and I remove none of the fat. There are also fresh gooseberries and a raspberry compote. I wonder when I will faint. I quietly eat, while she is interrogated. We are given a package of food to take with us. We walk out into the heat. You know, after all last nights drinking I really want to puke but I will not, she says, Instead of this I will show you my old school and where I used to live. This is on the other side of the dual carriageway and an impressively large concrete Catholic church. The heat is oppressive and I feel unusually faint.

Dr. Kurz politely suggested to Mr Jackowski that despite a large intake of alcohol during any evening it was quite reasonable and entirely possible to arise at 5 am in a positive and productive frame of mind. Mr Jackowski remained unconvinced and ordered another two towers – large beers with a vodka chaser. This evening, in an unusually liberal frame of mind, Dr Kurz went on to explain her utter opposition to the recently toughened Law of Lustration. This Law – originally intended to keep people who collaborated with the communist-era secret services out of positions of power (MPs, ministers, directors who pursue national interests) had been widely extended to people born before August 1st, 1972, and requiring hundreds of thousands of citizens in positions of authority such as academics, journalists, teachers, and state company executives, to declare in writing whether they cooperated with the communist secret services or risk losing their jobs. The revised law was being described as ‘Stalinist’.

More info on the topic can be found on this blog - beatroot.blogspot

Inspired by the possibilities of vodka consumption in Ireland and the rapidly expanding Polish diaspora, The Institute of Anglo-Polish Cultural Affairs was pleased to undertake some action research into the need for a similar institution in Ireland. Our primary fact-finding research took place in a bar or two in Roscommon. Members of the Institute were first treated to a walking tour of the town, and spent some time admiring the construction of the new fire station alongside the modern ring road, which was notably busy at all times of day. Unlike other parts of Ireland, there was little evidence of public art sited on the numerous flower-bedecked roundabouts.

Through a focused discussion group,  members discovered that there was a great deal of excitement about the National and World Ploughing Championships. While this years Ploughing Championships also saw the biggest farm safety demonstration ever held in Ireland -  run by The Health and Safety Authority in partnership with the National Ploughing Association and the Farm Safety Partnership Advisory Committee – this did not seem to stir the blood as much as the thought of ‘The JCB Dancing Diggers’, 10 tonne ballerinas mechanically choreographed to music such as The Phantom of the Opera.

Some of our more inquisitive members were invited to attend a local night club, Rockfords. Sinead told us that she tried to avoid it, but somehow all roads, winding or otherwise, seemed to carry her back there. It was variously described as both the “best fun in Roscommon” and “a bit of a cattle mart at times” and  “a numbing experience for all concerned.” The way that opposite members of sex interact in this context was described in detail by a local expert as follows: Now, say if yer a fella, all yer do is drink an awful lot then prop yerself up against the rail that goes around the dance floor. Eventually, a woman who’s drunk an awful lot as well, probably even more, will come staggering by and you both sort of collapse on one another. And that’s the mating ritual sorted. The local women present were of the opinion that “the boys grab ’em like flypaper and that’s them making an effort…”  It is in this context that a new generation of liberated Polish women, who are working in Ireland, form a remarkable revolutionary vanguard.

One man, Jimmy, told us: Sure, the local colleens are getting worried, cos there’s these new women in town and they’re different. They look different and they act different. They’re Catholic of course, but a very different breed of woman to what the men are used to. They’re a bit more glamourous, that’s fer sure. So the Irish girls are having to make a bit more effort. For a change. Another commented: It’s the first time in history that Irish women have anything to be jealous of.

The big question for Peter – regardless of whoever you were, whatever nationality, and whatever your station, high or low – was this: Did you know the difference between a shovel and a spade? He had a left handed shovel. It was, of course, the best shovel in the whole of Ireland, reliable rain or shine.  He thought that if you didn’t know the difference between a spade and a shovel, what use were you to man or beast?

You lift and scoop with a shovel, you dig with a spade, he said finally. It’s that obvious.

Though he knew that many Poles would be familiar with farming and rural ways, he was not aware if they were fully cognisant of the importance of this distinction between the two implements. He said that he expected any girlfriend he had any intercourse with to appreciate this crucial point. He was in agreement with one of his brothers, Tommy, who stated,  You know, Polish girls are tall, blonde and have great bodies, but their heads are full of turnips.

Indeed, several members of our Institute noted that many of the Polish women were indeed blondes, natural or otherwise, and were reminded of the advice proffered by the Argentinian coach of the Polish National Men’s Volleyball team. When asked what guidance he would give to a first time visitor to Poland, he said: Przede wszystkim radze jednak znaleźć sobie ładną blondykę na tłamacza. We understand that this translates as: However, I would especially recommend finding a beautiful blonde interpreter.

Most of the individuals in Roscommon we spoke to had nothing but respect for the new émigrés. They openly spoke of their admiration for Radoslaw Sawicki, who worked in a major supermarket warehouse in Dublin. Misleadingly described in the news media as ‘the new Lech Wałesa’, he had organised the Poles working there, gaining the support of local trade unions, fighting for equal labour rights. The supermarket and the employment agency now have cases in court. It was all to do with the number of boxes per shift that workers were expected to carry from one place to another and a glaring discrepancy in wages.  Irish people working in the same job, but employed by the supermarket itself and not by the agency as the Poles were, earned at least 200 euros a week more. Box moving quotas for the Poles were also increased.  Sawicki was quoted as saying: “I know it’s not my country, but it’s my Europe.”  Members of the Institute fully endorse this sentiment and we found common ground with every self-confessed lazy person in the pub who thought that while the hard working virtues of Poles were well-known this business of box-shifting was a ridiculous state of affairs in Dublin.

Now, one of Peter’s younger brothers has avoided any potential Polish-Irish conflict and has got himself a German girlfriend. She doesn’t like drinking, smoking or going to discos, so he has to hide the fact that he does like all of these things and in abundance. So he pretends that he is visiting his sister at 3 am in the morning. It’s a bizarre relationship, Peter says.

The last official census, in 2006, recorded 63,276 Poles living in Ireland, far more than those of German origin. The Irish Times of July 5th 2007 estimated there are actually 200,000 and said half of them do not intend to return home. There’s a lot of lonely Irish guys out there for sure and not just at Rockfords on a Saturday night.

In Roscommon, there are also a lot of Brazilians, working in a bakery and a halal meat factory that exports to England. These did not form part of our research at this point, though, for future reference, it would appear from our observations that they are great drinkers and enthusiastic pool players. At this time we are unaware of the potential vodka market in the South Americas.

The Institute of Anglo-Polish Cultural Affairs will debate these matters further at its AGM in October. The main topic of this meeting will be about the group of young Polish writers called the New Neurotics. If you wish to put forward a motion to the meeting, contact the Secretary through the usual channels.

On St. Patrick’s Day, my attention was drawn to an old press release from Irish Distillers, which quoted Pablo Picasso as the source of the following statement: “The three most important things in the past century have been The Blues, Cubism and … Polish Vodka.”  The company held a special dinner to celebrate the arrival of two premium Polish Vodkas – Wyborowa Exquisite and Zubrowka Bison Grass – in Ireland. At the reception, the Domestic Commercial Director told the guests: “We in Irish Distillers are delighted to provide Irish consumers not only with a variety of premium and super premium vodkas but also a selection of vodka from Poland, the home of vodka.  Our Polish vodkas combine authentic Polish heritage, innovative packaging and the highest quality spirits.”  Guests were welcomed with Zubrowka Green Destiny Cocktails and Chilled Wyborowa Exquisite.  Wyborowa Expresso Martinis were served after dinner.  Vodka now has a 40% share of the spirits market  in Ireland.  

Once upon  time, but not that long ago, I took a taxi to the Koneser vodka factory in the old district of Praga. Koneser? Zabrowska? asked the driver.

Yes, tak, Koneser. Proproszę.

Koneser vodka? The driver clearly expressed this as a question, as if I didn’t really want to go there at all. Or perhaps he knew something I didn’t. My request was surely not so peculiar.

He shrugged, seeming a little mystified by my choice of destination. Maybe he was thinking, It’s a nice sunny morning, why go across to Praga when there is the Royal Route to explore? We headed to the east side, in a steady stream of traffic across Most Lazsienkowski, one of the eight bridges over the river Wisła. Downstream I could see one of the water purification towers which squatted in the slow moving water. I had been told they were nicknamed ‘Fat Kasia’. These conical compact green and yellow metal structures look like the abandoned nose cone of a space rocket, formerly used in an episode of Dr. Who, beached there till the end of time.

The taxi swung north along Wal Miedzesznski, a wide dual carriageway which passes the old national football stadium – soon to be redeveloped for the 2012 European Championships.  The broad Wiłsa to one side, the embankment masked by trees and bushes, on the other side we drive past large apartment blocks and open spaces with huge figurative sculptures which commemorate some fallen hero. Why is it that in most cities, the east side is the older, the less developed, the more run down, more earthy or less glamorous and later subject to elaborate regeneration schemes? What is it that makes us gravitate to the west?

Koneser is – or was -  a vodka factory on ul. Ząbkowska, first established here in 1897. It’s a short walk from the main street, Targowa, where the tram lines run, and near to the Carrefour shopping centre and neo-Byzantine Orthodox Cathedral at Place Wilenski. There are several opportunities to get drunk along the way, particularly if this were at night of course – though I notice that the bar with the huge spider outside is open. There used to be a sign near here with a large bat motif, offering GOTHIC DOOM, THRASH DEATH, HEAVY, BLACK. It is has gone, and another new bar has opened.

I meet Dominik and Iwona outside the gates of the factory. We are shown round by Pani Halina – let us call her that. Immediately she announces, I warmly welcome you on behalf of our chief and myself! The chief does not appear at any point during our tour of the site – which occupies about 5 hectares (50,000 square metres). As our bags are checked by security, our guide stresses that it goes without saying that you can’t bring alcohol onto the site as contamination is a big concern. And no smoking anywhere, she says, looking at Dominik. She has met him before and clearly knows his habits. 500 zloti immediate on the spot fine! she admonishes him.

This was, purportedly, the first factory in Warsaw to have electricity. On their website they proudly describe their industrial heritage as follows: ‘Our buildings are classified as the best types of relicts. Cast iron roses, which survived, make the buildings look more attractive. Very important element, which can be called a work of art, is the chimney.’ The blocks of flats on the edge of the site were built by the factory owners to house their workers. They remind me of old Glasgow tenements. Most of these have been sold off and turned into private apartments. Other parts of the site have been leased to other organisations or businesses. There is, for example, a photo-gallery in one of the buildings.

Pani Halina told us some curious stories about this place. After the Second World War, with most of the city lying in ruin, workers were paid only with vodka, which they then sold on to neighbours and friends or used as barter for goods. Further back, in the winter of 1914, when the Imperial Russian army occupied the city, the military governor ordered a prohibition on alcohol. He demanded that all liquids at this factory ‘be disposed of” and a deadline for this action to take place was announced. When the fateful day arrived, crates of vodka were carried out into the street to be poured down the drains, a public display of the ruthless enactment of the Tsarist edict. The gutters soon overflowed with the vital spirit. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, no-one knows how many, gathered in the cold air with all manner of containers, buckets and receptacles to scoop up the vodka as it was decanted. It became a kind of crazy festival of waste and reclamation. The factory workers, obeying the dictum of the occupying army to dispose of the alcohol, pouring it away for hour upon hour. Then people rushing around in a frenzy to gather it up in a mad act of either communal desperation or uninhibited liberation. Who knows how many hundreds of thousands of litres turned to a frozen sludge that bitter day or how many were recouped, some precious nourishment for hard times to come?

The factory produced pure vodkas: Metropolis, Warszawska, Legenda, Zagłoba, Planet, Koneser, Bycza, Targowa, Winiak Klubowy, Oleńka, Kniejówka and spirits. They produced two types: potato spirits and corn spirits, but mostly making products based on corn spirits. Only Metropolis vodka is made of both kinds of spirits. She explained to us, the European Union prefers using corn spirits in production process, so this why we use them too.  She tells us how potato spirits are delicate and have a slightly sweet taste and how corn spirits are spicier.

The factory had its own water supply of high quality demineralised Oligocene water pumped up from a from a well 270 metres underground. It also had its own railway station until the 1960’s, where the raw ingredients of alcohol – spiritus – arrived, shipped here from all over the country. It first arrived at a weighing station, as did the later road transports, where each container was meticulously checked to ensure that the cargo that arrived was the same weight that was shipped. There were, it seems, many bands of spiritus thieves roaming the countryside. The shipments were also tested for taste.

This led us into a long conversation about one of the more intriguing jobs in the vodka factory.  If there is any doubt about the quality of the vodka, the Taste Committee is convened. This may be the most important job in the factory.  It isn’t easy to be selected for this role. The staff are subjected to a rigorous vetting process. Statistically, it may be easier to be selected for the Polish version of Big Brother or Pop Idol. Firstly, you cannot be a smoker. Secondly, you can’t use perfumes of any kind. Thirdly, you have to be healthy, you cannot have a cold – “no sniffing of the nose” as she put it. Fourthly, you have to prove that you are capable of important task that has been entrusted to you; you have to be able to distinguish between subtly different tastes and the degrees of taste.

The taste test is described to us by Bożena, the Head of the Laboratory. Her laboratory is housed in the oldest building, the original site of the rectification process from one hundred years ago. Potential members of the Taste Committee are tested for their ability to recognise different tastes -  sour, sweet, bitter, salt, or just plain water. Several samples for testing are given to the individuals with a specific flavour at different levels of dilution. In the laboratory they are looking for the precise point at which the candidates will stop distinguishing the taste. Some specific flavours are introduced. Can an individual distinguish an orange taste or a nutty taste? Testing is undertaken between 11am and 1pm. The individual cannot have anything to drink for several hours before the test. Should you pass through the initial maze of tests and join the elite corps of the Taste Committee, then you and your companions, no more than three or four at any one time, may be called upon at any time to pass judgement on a particular batch of spirits. At the height of production, it was possible for the Taste Committee to meet every single day. Their verdict must always be unanimous. Anything less than this means that the vodka is rejected. There are, of course, also a range of chemical checks on the spiritus being received and the level of alcohol in the vodka in production, ensuring no contaminants have crept into the process.

Ninety five per cent of production here was pure vodka, though Konesar also produced some flavoured vodka – cranberry, honey, forest fruit. The ‘small’ production line – miniatwka – could produce 15,000 bottles a day, the ‘medium’ line 80,000 half litre bottles a day. All is quiet this particular afternoon. There appeared to be no production. We were told that 103 people worked here, with 50 dedicated to the production lines. We saw less than a dozen people while walking round. We will soon discover why. The following week an announcement appears in the press. The factory has been sold to a property developer, who will convert the buildings into luxury apartments. This industrial heritage will soon be devoured and disappear.

March 8^th for many years used to be an important holiday in Poland. The day was not free from job (as it was in Soviet Union – and still is in Russia). Yet, as a matter of fact, no gross income would be make for Poland on this date. All men in the country wanted to celebrate their female colleagues – usually with a carnation (beautiful flower, just now coming back from the hell of official overpopularity in People’s Poland), sometimes – formally, from the head of factory or office – with pair of stockings, and/or towel, and/or bar of soap, and/or bar of chocolate. All necessary goods, all hard to get goods. There were also greetings from the first secretary of Party to all hardworking women building socialist family and country (lazy ones were excluded).

And – of course with a glass of vodka (it is and of course it was illegal to drink in work place, but…). These celebrations could be so long and loud (and liquid) that actually men lost their wish and ability to celebrate their home women: wives, partners, sisters, mothers and daughters. It’s hard to stop when you start. As Wiesław Gołas sung: “Before the first large shot will go to our head / we take the second glass”. The title of the song was Into Poland we go, fellow men [W Polskę idziemy, panowie] ­– and was supposed to be ironic, as the song itself. Another proof that participation in culture is unpredictable – people (men) just sang it, and – went into bars and streets of the country, holding a broken carnation for the lady.

Now the holiday has been regained by women who on the day in some Polish cities organise manifestations (“manifas”) in call for their rights. For 8 years now this day belongs to us. In the evening organisers usually have a party in a chosen club. Not much vodka is being drunk there, though. And the song sounds now more like Into Poland we go, fellow women…

I am a drinker with a writing problem.
- Brendan Behan

It seems that each time I meet her, whether in a bar or not, she has some precious nugget of information to share with me. There is a huge electrical storm passing over the city tonight. Late into the night, we sit under huge parasols that threaten to collapse with the weight of the downpour. I listen carefully and record her pronouncements.

She says:
You may be a heavy drinker or an artist because Praga has this black legend. A little unsafe, a place of thieves, of the working class… The market I go to has three types of social typology:  old people – quite old – then there are the young girls, quite young, pregnant for the first time, maybe accompanied with her boyfriend, usually shaven head and tracksuited… dresiarz is the word in Polish. Then there is, after 11’o’clock in the morning, you understand – when most people are working – the people with dreadlocks and India t-shirts, the bohemians, those artist types, musicians and so on, buying yoghurt for breakfast at noon.

There is a word I’ve invented for ‘dresiara’, a girl from Praga: Prazynka. It’s a joke. Prazanka is a girl from Praga, Czech and Warsaw as well, and prazynka is a potato chip. They tan a lot, so they get dark and crispy.

You know, when I drink vodka, there is deeper, more proper, more serious conversation. You know, at a party, people getting drunk on wine, vodka or beer, the boys are in the kitchen. The Polish kitchen is the centre of Polish drinking. When they get the vodka from the fridge, they prepare for the ‘long night of Polish conversations’. Mickiewicz speaks of this in a poem. Do you know this?

No, I say, I don’t know this poem but I must find it.

Of course, we have sequel to discussion on complicated relation of Polish vodka and Polish spirit. As you perhaps know, last year a new film of Schlöndorff was released – ‘Strike’ is based on story of Anna Walentynowicz, one of the most important leaders of August ’80 events – a lot of details were changed, esp. considering bio of Walentynowicz, but anyway we have (or rather had, as I think that film didn’t appeal to many viewers) discussion in our current debate (or rather fight) about the past – who was an agent and who was an angel, about revision of last 15 years and last 50 years, and new thread appeared.  Namely “we didn’t drink vodka” (not so much, anyway

And it’s funny – there’s a sort of truth in it -  I think that during normal underground meeting probably there was vodka, but during the strike workers proclaimed prohibition – it was an act of self-awareness of workers class, considered (or rather performed) the first step to real emancipation (precise reason was to avoid any accusations of chaos and criminal events, easy going with alcohol). In famous ‘Man of Iron’ by Wajda (made just after that August ’80. Did you see it? We may have film evening again the journalist who is to gather bad materials on strike’s leader is also an alcoholic; during some talks he manages to get some vodka (last hidden bottle), but the most dramatic moment (in alcohol context) is in the beginning when he comes to the hotel, and wants to drink. But there is prohibition, and everybody serves the rules of Strike’s Committee (no way, no alcohol); our brave journalist has a bottle of his own, but suddenly oops – it crashed on the floor in bathroom; then with a towel he gets last drops of precious liquid…
Iwona

dear i,
I found this on the letters page of Ireland’s Eye, Issue 313, a magazine my Mother receives from a relative.

Ireland Sober
Ireland Free
Sir -
I would like to thank you for your faithfulness
to Ireland and its heritage.
I attended a Pro-Life conference some months
ago and I heard a lady saying Ireland Sober,
Ireland Free. It struck me like a ton of bricks, so
I decided to do something with it. I would also like
to know who would be able to, or want to promote it?
It might help people to think Irish. Our country has
become a keg of beer nearly, with drink being sold
everywhere. I firmly believe that there are some Irish
people out there and if they were to sober up that they
would have so much to offer our language, heritage,
freedom etc.
John Donohoe, Inchicore, Dublin

With reference to the workers and alcohol…. I think that this could also be changed to
Poland Sober, Poland Free
(what do you think? will all this influence our vodka project and give us some extraordinary material?)
bj

b,
There are some importants events of this kind in Polish culture. (I don’t mean me drinking . As Marek Hlasko, a writer, who was carrying his friend, Krzysztof Komeda (composer of Rosemary’s Baby) after heavy drinking together and they fell down. Komeda struck his head and died in coma several days later. And it happened in Hollywood.

Yes, definitely.

Polish literature, esp. Pilch, Stasiuk, Varga – all three drinking men
See http://www.polishwriting.net/

i.

We went to see ‘Rezerwat’ (Reservoir) at the Kinoteca. This cinema is in the basement of the Palace of Culture and Science, much loved and much hated building. Gifted by Stalin to the people or Warsaw (or imposed, whichever your preference), it is a landmark indeed. The film is set in Praga, where I am living, and it was enjoyable to spot the locations. It tells the story of a photographer, down on his luck, who is forced to move to a flat in an old tenement block on the east side of the river (purportedly the rougher part, this ‘dark Praga’ – described to me by Jacek, himself a Praga resident, as a cross between Gotham City and Montmartre). The film follows his encounters with residents there. It plays on working class stereotypes, the ruffians, the drinkers, the blonde hairdresser with a heart of gold.

As is the tradition, we drink beer in the cinema, two cans in her handbag. She was amused to see her former drama teacher from Krakow on screen. The film felt like two different films in one, and reminded me of the gentle French comedies of Eric Rohmer and of Ealing comedies.

From there we went to her favourite café, which now has a smoking ban – which is not the norm in Warsaw. Do you have a secret corner for smokers? she asked the waitress. No, said the waitress sternly, we have a duty to care for our customers. Then I won’t be able to recommend this place any more, she said, quite exasperated. She is from Lublin and has high expectations of the capital city. She went outside looking for a light. There was a man visiting from Białystok there, a smoker also. He said, It’s strange, no-one in Warsaw looks you direct in the eye.

We wandered from bar to bar, intending to go home after eleven. But it was not to be. Wódka Zołądkowa  Gorzka and orange juice carry us through the hours long after midnight. (But not mixed in the same glass.) We ended up in a street with bars and cafés which never seem to close, by Three Crosses Square (I have had breakfast here before 7 am another time). I was not planning to get drunk with you, she said, but it has happened. It was a fine and beautiful evening of invigorating conversations. With someone half my age or maybe ancient and twice as wise – it’s hard to know which. We covered all possibilities, I think. Life expectancies, the nature of relationships – including the parental variety – chance encounters, personal and professional boundaries, and accidents that are meant to happen; all were felled by our alcohol sharpened words. It was after 5 am before we knew it. The night buses had finished and the morning buses began. The city streets were already busy, with many people walking purposefully.

I walked over the bridge Księcia Józefa Poniatowskiego across the river towards Stadion Dziesięciolecia, the old national sports stadium built with the rubble from the ruins of the Warsaw Uprising. Literally ‘the 10th Anniversary Stadium’, it opened in 1955, the anniversary being commemorated was the first manifesto of the Communist Government of Poland. (On July 22, 1944, in Chełm, the Soviet-sponsored Polish Committee of National Liberation issued the July Manifesto, which established a communist system, with the government then seated in Lublin.) I watched the young Vietnamese making their way to work at the famously popular black markets that traded around the tunnels and long abandoned football terraces. I wondered how long I could survive without sleep.