The New Years Day concert from Vienna was magnificent - now listening a third time on the i-Player
The New Years Day concert from Vienna was magnificent - now listening a third time on the i-Player
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Designated a World Heritage Site, the Old Town of the Polish city of Krakow is undoubtedly very impressive and beautiful but, for a student of twentieth century politics and history like myself, the suburb of Nowa Huta is far more interesting.
Nowa Huta was basically a present from Stalin to the working people, those involved in industry and agriculture, from the area around the city. Krakow had always been associated with the intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie, and the first uprisings against Communism in Poland sprang from Krakow. the new city was not to be for people from Krakow but only the surrounding areas. Much of this part of southern Poland had been devastated during the war so Stalin had the idea of building a new city with the industry to employ its inhabitants. At the centre was to be an enormous steelworks; Nowa Huta translates as "The New Steel Mill".
Of course, Nowa Huta was in reality a mammoth work of propaganda; look how happy these Polish people are living in their new apartments around tree-filled courtyards, look at the men climb on board the trams on their way to work in the steel factory, how wonderful life is under Communism!
Work started in 1949; in 1952 Nowa Huta was joined by tramline with Krakow. The "Lenin Steelworks" opened in 1954. In spite of the fact that the scheme was uneconomic and really only to make a propaganda statement, steel production in Nowa Huta reached an annual 7 million tonnes by the 1970s. However, by the 1980s the growing pressures on the economy were causing production at Nowa Huta to slow dramatically. The steelworks had no easy to access to either
coal, brought in from the Silesia area, nor iron ore, which was brought at great expense from the Soviet Union. Even when the city was being built people were employed with dubious necessity; one photograph shows three men laying one brick between them. Nowa Huta was another great Communist example of job creation for the sake of it. However the building of Nowa Huta also provided plenty of stories of personal sacrifice and achievement well suited to the needs of the Communists; one man, Piotr Ozanski, was reported to have laid a staggering 33,000 bricks in one single day!
Still, Nowa Huta did provide decent homes for its inhabitants in the shape of well designed apartments built around courtyards and situated on wide tree-lined avenues. When we visited in October "golden autumn" as it's called in Poland was well underway and the trees were a glorious symphony of coppery browns, burnt golds and russet reds. The apartments had full heating and indoor bathrooms, features most of the inhabitants tenants had never enjoyed before.
Plac Centralny is the heart of this showpiece of Stalinist or "Social Realist" architecture which borrows heavily from the neo-classical style. Photographs from the 1950s and 1960s show the buildings that form the square as smart stores selling quality goods, another propaganda move of course. The long road from Plac Centralny leads to the absurd crenellated twin buildings of the steelworks, a kind of twentieth century fortress of industry in the Venetian style - local's still refer to it as "the Doge". Opposite the Plac Centralny is an open spot of land that was going to be the site of a cultural family centre but this was never achieved. Plac Centralny was originally named after Stalin himself but in 2004 it was re-named after Ronald Reagan (a post-pub discussion of ever there was one!)
On the left as you make the approach to the steelworks is a vast manmade lake which was badly polluted in the 1980s but has now been greatly (though not entirely) cleaned up thanks to EU grants. Most of the original Nowa Huta buildings are discoloured from the awful smoke that poured out of the steel works and other Nova Huta industrial plants. Some facades have been cleaned but nothing can be done for the many people whose health has been irrevocably affected by living in this heavily polluted region. Sadly the pollution from Nova Huta also did damage to the valuable buildings of Old Krakow too.
One of the most striking sights in Nowa Huta is the Arka Pana church, built to resemble an ark. Nowa Huta was designed, of course, to be a good Communist city without churches but so strong was Catholicism among the people who went to live there that a movement started up to campaign for a church to be built. The citizens of Nowa Huta raised the money themselves with the help of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) who laid the first cornerstone in 1969. The interior is as remarkable as the exterior; inside there's a tabernacle containing a fragment of rutile brought back from the moon by the crew of Apollo 11, and a statue to Our Lady the Armoured made from ten kilograms of shrapnel removed from Polish soldiers wounded at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Nowa Huta contains all the shops and services its citizens could need. Today there are modern places like pizzarestaurants and mobile phone stores in the units beneath the apartments but the real highlight is "Stylowa" a restaurant and bar that was recently refurbished true to its old style. Indeed the name means "stylish" and lovers of retro chic will find this an appealing place for a beer or a coffee (the latter is horrifically strong!)
A branch of the Krakow History museum charts the history of Nowa Huta with some fascinating photographs from the first work on the site, through construction and some of the propaganda shots issued once tenants had moved in. The photographs were so successful that even in the mid-1960s farm people from southern Poland were still turning up hoping to move in, bringing their goats and pigs with them.
Ironically Nowa Huta turned out to be almost the very antithesis of what was hoped for. Nowa Huta proved to be a particular stronghold for the trades union Solidarity which was instrumental in bringing about the end of Communism in Poland. When martial law was imposed on an increasingly volatile Poland in the 1980s the steelworks had to be put under military control so concerned were the authorities about subversive groups working there. Then there is the role of the church; not only were churches built in Nowa Huta but Pope John Paul II played a big part in ensuring the religious freedoms of the people there by making sure he visited regularly. He knew that the authorities would not want to risk the censure of international community by showing that Polish people were denied the freedom to worship.
Originally we planned to take a tram to Nowa Huta and this is an easy option taking about thirty minutes from the centre of Krakow. However I then discovered Crazy Tours who offer "Communism Tours" in original Trabantcars (the little fibreglass cuties from East Germany) and I decided that this would be a better way to learn more about what we'd see. There are other tour companies who will take you around Nowa Huta but not in such a memorable way perhaps. Tours tend to last around two hours and you can usually be picked up and dropped off wherever you like in the city (within reason). If you go independently there are plenty of diversions to occupy you for at least a half day visit, longer if you stop for lunch and explore on foot. The wide pavements and leafy avenues make walking a pleasure and there are enough places to stop for a beer and take the weight off your feet every now and again.
I loved Nowa Huta, but then I do have a particular penchant for Communist history. The Old Town of Krakow is all very well but if you have time, or maybe on a second visit to Krakow, Nowa Huta certainly merits a visit to appreciate the more recent history of the region which is easily ignored on the Rynek Glowny. Surpisingly Nowa Huta is not grim at all; I found it rather charming and it looks like a lovely place to live. It was certainly more appealing than the labyrinth of 1970s and 80s high rises near my hotel. It is easy to criticise the legacy of Nowa Huta; yes, it did create terrible pollution but what industry didn't in the 1960s and 70s? I predict that within the next few years Nowa Huta will be the "in" place to buy and live in Krakow, full of cool bars, media companies and arty young people. It is somewhere I would be happy to live now - but I already live in the Slovenian equivalent!
http://www.crazyguides.com/krakow_tou rs (to be reviewed separately)
Pictures of Nowa Huta, Krakow, Poland
The first church to be built in Nowa huta;the residents raised the funds and did the building themselves
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Superb review of a destination I would otherwise never have heard of - I do intend to get back and see more of Poland sometime (maybe next year?), this sounds like it would be a little different to the usual places on the agenda...
suehome 05.11.2008 15:44
Fascinating, always wanted to go to Krakow......one day perhaps...............Sue
torr 02.11.2008 16:57
What an interesting review. Like most tourists I barely penetrated this part of Krakow, but now feel I missed out.
exceptional by (22%):
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