High Cost of Polish Rubbish

The increasing price of rubbish removal is adding to inflation pressures in Poland. The average price of commercial rubbish removal services has gone up over 35% in Poland during the last year and exceeded the increase in the cost of food and energy in Poland.

The higher cost of collection will significantly add to the already high costs of real property maintenance, currently accounting for 20 per cent of the "services basket" taken into consideration when calculating the annual rate of inflation. It means that the increase in the local cost of rubbish removal has a huge impact on the inflation rate.

Communism is good for something - in the old days nobody had anything to throw out. Maybe Russia invaded Georgia just to try and capture the garbage removal contracts of that now Free Republic. I'd say Poland beware of the bear that kept biting your dupa since Rus split from Lech.

Seriously though, JPII warned about this problem years ago - materialism!

Source: Wall Street Journal Polska

Poland is a Woman

The sign says: The Party of Women. Poland is a woman.


The Women's Party of Poland, a new political party founded by writer Manuela Gretkowska in response to the Polish government's threat to tighten already strict controls on abortion, released the above campaign poster featuring seven of its candidates, baring not just their skin but their seriousness of purpose.

Having a language that is not gender neutral can be a problem waiting to happen. In Polish language there are 5 gender classes. Please do not interpret this as 5 different sex classifications.

The five gender classes: personal masculine, animate (non-personal) masculine, inanimate masculine, feminine, and neuter. That might explain why the gals above are static - there just isn't a feminine animated gender.

iPhone-ski

Telekomunikacja Polska, largest phone company in Poland, paid hip-looking film extras to stand in queues for the national launch of Apple's iPhone. While the lines outside U.S. stores went around the block - the Apple brand is not so well known in Poland.

Part of the queue actors duties was to draw attention, tell passers-by about the iPhone product and offer their slot in line for 30 to 90 Złoty.

Such a marketing ploy is ironic in Poland because queues were a regular and much-loathed feature of daily life until the fall of the country's communist regime in 1989, because of endless shortages of even the most basic goods.

Bij Bolszewika

Poland’s territory expands

Poland is getting bigger in size without war or conflict.

Twice in as many years Poland has added territory. This time around floods and high winds in southern Poland have effectively expanded Poland’s territory by 5 acres at the expense of Slovakia after the Biala Woda river changed its flow.

The Slovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs investigating the case as the area in questions is particularly picturesque.

This guy is in Poland now!

Last year Slovakia gave a small patch of land to Poland due to a couple of Polish farmers needing a border crossing to tend fields on the other side of a shifting stream.

If mother nature stays on Polands lucky side by the 50th century the country will be as large as it was in the 1300's when it was the largest empire in Europe.

Vistula Piranha

Two men from Niepołomice, southern Poland, went on a casual fishing trip only to make the most unusual of catches. According to the Fakt daily tabloid, Kazimierz Górecki was taking his son-in-law fishing on the Vistula river. After reeling in what the men thought must have been a big fish, they were only too surprised to find that they had caught a piranha. The strong-jawed culprit was 23 cm long and weighed a wholesome 320 grams.

The two men are relieved that they were not bitten, especially since Antoni Gucwinski, the director of Wrocław Zoo, was quoted in the paper as saying that the piranhas "are tough little critters, and could swim all the way up to Warsaw if they wanted to" .The zookeeper's wife Hanna also warns of the risk, as she was once bitten herself.

Intrepid explorers who want to catch a glimpse of the piranha need no longer to go to the Amazon, but rather stay in Poland.Just how the piranhas managed to arrive in the Vistula remains something of a mystery, however.

Source: Polskie Radio

Poland Woodstock A Hit

By all accounts there was just as much love, just as much mud and just as many chemicals inhaled as at the original woodstock.

The Polish rock festival has taken place for the 14th time on the border between German and Poland

Love, friendship and music was the motto for around 200 thousand fans. It's Europe's largest free music festival and it's held as a thank you to those who've donated to a European charity which raises money for children's hospitals.

This year around 40 bands took to the stage.

Here's a clip from Polish Woodstock 2006 - Featuring Justyna Steczkowska one of my favorite Polish music artists.

Poles end job migration to UK

A wave of migration is over with more Poles leavinge than entering for the first time since 2004. The number of those wishing to come back to Poland has risen by 25% say specialist recruitment companies. Part of the boom can be attributed to a special program "Return to Poland" project created by the Polish - British Chamber of Commerce.

The economic factor plays a great role in terminating the wave of job migrations. The rising cost of living makes UK less attractive for those who chose to seek better living there.

The most important reason is probably the Polish currency, because it is much stronger. The number of jobs in Poland has also risen dramatically during the last year and the salaries have risen in most sectors of the economy.

Source: Agnieszka Bielawska Polskie Radio

Polish Dinosaur Bones Found

200 million–year-old skeleton of a predatory dinosaur was found in Poland. Details of the significant discovery are published in the latest Polish edition of National Geographic.

The discovery recently announced, was made one year ago by three Polish scientists in the village of Lisowice near Lubliniec in southern Poland. The skeleton is that of Theropod, the predecessor of the most notorious predator in history called Tyrannosaurus Rex. Finding the remains of this ancient animal in this part of Europe has come as a stunning surprise. It is the first and most valuable such discovery in this part of the world. Doctor Gerard Gierliñski from the State Geological Institute in Warsaw strongly believes that more remains of dinosaurs may be found in this area. The National Geographic offered the scientists involved grants to continue their research in and around Lisowice.

Fantastic Voyage

An expedition of divers, has set out from the port of Gdynia to search for the legendary Polish Navy submarine "Orzel", or The Eagle, which went missing in the North Sea during the Second World War.

Orzel was launched in 1938 just months before the outbreak of World War Two. Though modern for its time, it encountered some difficulty in the shallow Baltic waters because of its large size.

During it's one year duty, Orzel and its crew managed a fine war service record becoming a legend of the Polish Navy. When Nazi Germany attacked Poland in September 1939, Orzel put up a lonely fight with Kriegsmarine units on the Baltic.



Due to the invasion of Poland, the ship had to seek re-supply in neutral Estonia. Placed under arrest due to pressure from Berlin, the crew managed a daring escape.

Deprived of navigation equipment Orzel literally drifted towards Rosyth in Scotland where it was subsequently based joining the ranks of British Royal Navy. The incident had been later used by the Soviet Union to justify its annexation of Estonia on claims it had not adhered to principles of neutrality.

Serving in the British naval forces Orzel took part in numerous convoys. It is also credited with sinking the clandestine German troop carrier Rio de Janeiro in 1940 which revealed Nazi plans of invading Norway. On May 23rd Orzel set out on a succesive patrol mission never to return.

The expedition members will attempt to locate the place where the submarine might have sunk. Several possibilities must be checked as there ave been various hypotheses concerning the circumstances of Orzel's disappearance in North Sea waters in the final days of May 1940. Only then will the sophisticated equipment come handy in penetrating the wreck and searching for clues to support any of the speculations
about the direct cause of the submarine's sinking. One of the most probable is that the ship ran into a mine field, says Krzysztof Piwnicki, head of the expedition.

Once the wreck is located, on-the-spot examination is sure to solve many of the mysteries.

[More Info on Orzel]

Undocumented in Poland Too

The National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) is toughening regulations against the "black economy" on the labor market.

Businessmen who employ their workers illegally won't be able to take part in tenders and are likely to lose EU funds as well as even their business concessions.

Currently when PIP discovers that a company employs people without relevant permits, it can only fine the employer.

According to experts quoted in the Rzeczpospolita daily, however, the planned restrictions will be easy to evade and they may be effective only in the case of large companies, while smaller ones will continue with illegal employment.

According to Rzeczpospolita, currently there are over a million people working in the "black economy" in Poland.