Sep 23 2008
Krakow Under Construction
The trip was long and draining from Teplice mad Metuji to Krakow. I was stuffed on a bus winding through picturesque little towns for six hours.
Yes, the vegetable gardens outside of every home are cute and quaint, but six hours was more than enough. I have to say, though, the farmland on this trip was really beautiful. We’re talking about corn, sprouts, and even sunflowers growing in neat patches that stretched far and wide.
The green was even more rewarding in the drizzling, misty grey sky.
Our first stop in Poland was the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. Quite a sobering site, and I will freely admit that I cried seeing the 80,000 shoes piled in rooms, and the two tons of human hair that would have been used to make textiles.
It is something everyone should see at least once in their lives.
But I was really interested to learn that after the camp was liberated, some of the materials - like wood and stone - were taken by the local population moving back into the area whose villages were destroyed when the Germans swept through.
At least, they took the material from the buildings the Nazis didn’t get a chance to burn.
It would seem that the Poles (who were actually the first persecuted by the Nazis at Auschwitz) are good at rebuilding.
As I walked around Krakow today, I couldn’t get away from construction. Everything is being updated or reconstructed, from old churches to new tramways. Everything is loud and noisy and parts of sidewalks are closed to pedestrians.
To me, this is good to see. Over the past several years, Poland has been reducing its unemployment rate.
Not that long ago - in February 2003 - the rate hit a peak of 20.7%. Now, that number has dropped to 9.3%, as announced by the Central Statistics Office on Tuesday.
Another good thing to see is, since joining the European Union, wages have risen. And while some Polish people are heading out of the country to find better paying jobs, like in the UK, some are actually moving back home for work.
Krakow seems to be a big draw for tours as well. Lots of high schoolers roam around the massive square, and the little side streets are stuffed with Adidas stores and tattoo parlors.
But that takes little away from the accordion duet playing in front of Marian Church, or the streaming red and white flags hanging from 50-foot poles on each side of the Market Square.
I like Krakow, and would have certainly liked to spend more time in Poland to visit Warsaw, the real economic center of the country. CNN International is doing a special on Poland’s economic potential. It should air in October.
But tomorrow, I’m headed to Slovakia, the first of these new EU countries that will adopt the euro… in January 2009.
I’ll talk to you next from there…
