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Warsaw: 27.05.2004
We (Rashid and I) arrived at Warsaw yesterday at 11.30 pm.
.As usual, my day had started 12 hours earlier, leaving Muscat at 11.00 am, flying via Dubai and Munich to Warsaw. The Dubai-Munich leg was 6-1/2 hours long. The Munich-Warsaw flight was on a small jet meant perhaps for midgets, owned by Lot, the official Polish carrier.
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We were staying at the Intercon located at the Centrum, or town centre. Both the location and the hotel were very good, except that a bottle of water in the room costs RO 3.500! Polish people seemed very friendly and courteous, by and large. Today we went around our business, meeting prospective clients.......
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The morning started with a couple of hitches, as usual. My Warsaw-Minsk flight on 1.6.04 was still waitlisted and as per Lot, there was no chance of confirmation! We made a parallel booking for 2/6 and hoped for the best.
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Secondly, we normally employ interpreters in such places. They charge $10-15 per hour and are usually with us 6-7 hours a day. Here the going rate was $35-40 per hour! We ended up employing an English-speaking taxi-driver on an hourly basis. Poor fellow didn’t know our evil designs and only when he kept on being dragged into offices for ‘small help’ did he realise that he was doubling as an interpreter without pay!
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The history of Warsaw needs no introduction, famous as it has become for being the centre for the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany.
.Warsaw has a population of around 2 million, the next largest town Krakau around 1 million and Poland as a whole 40 million. It has joined the European Union on 1st of May and the common man seemed quite apprehensive that overall prices would go up! However, economically they had been gearing up for the last one year to join the EU and so, they aver, the shocks will be less.
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Warsaw, in terms of architecture, is as old as the hills, though in construction material not more than 60 years. In WWII, the city was practically razed to the ground! The Poles went through the City Plan once again, raised funds worldwide and rebuilt the city as an exact replica of what it used to be. Today, not a trace remains of the devastating damage, and the architectural and cultural heritage has been maintained. Hats off to these guys!.
.Warsaw, surprisingly, is a very clean and a very green city. Not the manicured green-ness of mowed lawns, but that of trees growing and shrubs popping up all over the place and grass varying from one-inch to one-foot high. Lots of small open parks between roads. It was raining slightly during the morning and the smell of wet Polish earth carried no less pleasure!
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The roads are not very wide and peak-time traffic congestions exist. In another 4-5 years, Warsaw will face difficulties. Public transport like trams and buses are quite heavily used.
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This is the beginning of the summer season and the days are already long. Sun sets around 8.30 pm. Around 7.00 pm, we went to see the Old Town, which is a bit of Warsaw that has been preserved in the old old style, with stone and red-tile houses and fortified walls, ramparts and towers still remaining. [Quite like the Old Town in Tallinn, but bigger]. It is a general time-pass place for the Poles and a ‘must visit’ place for the tourists. Nikolai II’s palace that had been utterly destroyed in the war stands tall again. There are musicians playing for money in the alleys, and the central square is laid out with open-air restaurants. Today was too windy and chilly (around 4-5 degC) for people to eat outdoors, but we could imagine it noisy and active with the enthusiasm of young Poles..
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.They are a friendly lot, the Poles. The typical European snootiness, especially towards brown-skins, has not crept in. The hotel staff are so loud in their “May I help you saar?” routine that a couple of times I almost bit my tongue!
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We walked back from the Old Town to the hotel, which would have been an enjoyable experience were it not so COLD. If summer is like this, what about winter here? Before going out for dinner to ‘The Indian Curry House’, we pulled on inner thermal wear in order to be really comfortable. Although the concierge assured us that it was just 15 mins “walking distance”, we insisted that a taxi be summoned.
Warsaw: 28.05.2004
Today we went to prospect for a customer in the town of Lodz, pronounced “Woozh”, for whatever reason! Rashid and the driver argued for a full minute before realising that the location was the same. This trip gave us an opportunity to see the Polish countryside, which is beautiful. Rolling green fields, red-and-white houses, black-and-white cows (also rolling) – quite soothing. We passed through a few small townlets, which seemed to be a bunch of houses occupied by retired people.
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.Organisations here, however small, take themselves very seriously in terms of structure and work styles. Whoever we visited were perhaps 1/10-th of our size, but sported a President, two Vice-Presidents, different hierarchies of Managers, and everyone saying in a puzzled manner: “I don’t recollect having this appointment, but since you are here ….” Even if they are twiddling their thumbs the whole day, the visitor should be seen only with an appointment. It’s the style, and a courtesy expected from the visitor. We barged in everywhere without appointments and were lucky enough to get English-speaking people, except the last one where only the President spoke English and he declined to see gatecrashers like us, saying he was a little busy. So our day ended at 4.00 pm.
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Today we had lunch at ‘The Maharaja’ which, compared to Curry House, was lower on the décor front but higher on the tastiness front. Quick service too.
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This hotel has internet connectivity through TV with a remote keyboard. Costs money of course; but this time we avoided going to the Business Centre for e-mailing. Costs around RO 8/- for 24 hours.
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Yesterday, when we were scooting from customer to customer on the outskirts of the town, with no time to come back for a proper meal, we popped into a supermarket ‘Auchan’ to buy some stuff we could eat on the go. Huge place. After having picked up some chocolate and chips, we recollected the rates in the hotel and stocked up on some more eatables, water and beer (for Rashid). Prices seemed to be at par with Muscat. We also located a small food-counter and finished lunch there itself, with a lot of dumb-charade on my part explaining that I wanted no chicken (“Aaaah!”), no meat (“Ooooh!) and no fish (“La-la-la!) in my lunch. Seeing her totally at a loss, I located a tubful of macaroni and suggested she could give me that, which she did, with a lot of sympathy, like with an operation patient on a liquid diet.
.A prospective customer met us in the evening, who had helped us to get the visas quickly. We did not do any sightseeing today, but just went to the Indian Curry House and dined simply and lightly off Chicken 65, Mulligatawny soup, Papad, Pindi Chana, Alu Palak, Garlic Naan and Rumali Roti!
Warsaw: 29.05.2004
Saturday, and it was obvious that the weekend had started. The roads were half-empty and so was the breakfast room in the hotel. We still determinedly visited a customer to be told that the manager was off for the weekend. Beaten by the system, we returned to the hotel and booked a city tour of 3 hours starting at 2.00 pm.
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We had Polish dishes for lunch, for a change. Rashid went for fish, while I ordered a dish that turned out to be a sort of veg momo, with stuffing of potatoes, cabbage and cheese. Very bland, both of them!
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The city tour was quite nice and covered three main areas: (a) the Lazienki (pronounced “Wojenki”) Parks, (b) the Jewish ghetto area, (c) The Old Town (which we had already seen once).
.The Lazienki Park (which means “Baths”) is indeed a beautiful place, occupying around 8 hectares. Not much of flowers, but lush green meadows and footpaths crowded by bordering evergreens. The park also holds the summer palace of the last king of Poland (King Poniatowski 1764-95), which was also known as ‘Palace on the Water’, as it is on an island in the river. Although the park is located in an area the Germans occupied and lived in, thus protecting it from total destruction, most of the palace was still heavily damaged and what we saw were faithfully reproduced replicas!
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Warsaw has had such a violent history. At the start of WWII, Warsaw had a population of 1.3 million. In WWII, around 400,000 Polish Jews and 400,000 others lost their lives. The balance half-a-million were deported to Germany to act as slave labour and, practically speaking, in the course of German occupation, Warsaw became a un-lived-in city. Hitler had given orders to demolish Warsaw totally and the German military achieved 85% reduction-to-rubble, before the Soviet army appeared as ‘liberators’ and imposed Communist rule. As per the guide, even the Soviets caused a lot of loss to Polish culture as the country manors, which were custodians of a number of cultural artifacts, were labelled as housing “class enemies” and converted to warehouses or, at best, schools and offices.
.What is, however, amazing is the reconstruction and restoration carried out throughout Warsaw. Apparently, most of Warsaw now stands a couple of metres taller, as it has been built upon the rubble and ruin of the earlier constructions. The reconstruction is still not over and buildings are still in queue awaiting resources and funds.
.We visited the Jewish Ghetto districts where all the Polish Jews had been restricted to stay. A memorial stands in the middle of the area. Some photographs displayed there show the rubble that the ghetto was reduced to by the Germans before they left. “More absolute destruction than Hiroshima!” said our guide. Looking at the district now, full of rolling lawns and modern flats, one could not imagine the misery that had pervaded the area at one time. The guide recommended the film “The Pianist” to all, to get a better idea of the ghetto life that the Polish Jews went through. The subsequent era of Stalin’s rule was not comfortable for Christians either. Between Hitler and Stalin, they destroyed 22 of the 23 churches!
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.We visited the Old Town once again and boy, was the place crowded today! The guide gave some history of the place – in fact, the whole town has been demolished and reconstructed (It is now an UN Heritage site). Ironically, the red bricks used of reconstructing the church and other structures in the Old Town came from bricks from demolished houses in Berlin, which had that particular red-coloured bricks!
.There was a children’s show going on. There are a few beggars in Warsaw but those in the Old Town do it in style! One had dressed up as a “Metal Man” and stood like a statue. One had clothed himself in a black dress and hood as “Death”. Some groups were playing traditional Polish instruments – one wind instrument that sounded like a moose with a sore throat, and a drum that looked like a big toadstool! In the main square, a violinist, wired to an amp with a mike hanging from this throat, was soulfully playing away..
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.The Old Town has a large number and variety of eating joints, both indoor and outdoor. We had dinner at ‘Maharaja Thai’, in search of Chinese or Thai food. Fairly good cooking, with big servings that we could not quite do justice to.
.Incidentally, wherever we went today, be it Lazienki Park or the Old Town, we found weddings taking place. Bouquets in every hand, but the faces somehow did not hold smiles, except the bride and groom, who were anyway blissfully unaware of all undercurrents.
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Tomorrow being Sunday, we are at a loose end. For a brief while we had seriously considered a day trip to Krakow (former capital of Poland) and Auschwitz (famous Jew-extermination centre). But both the expense ($350) and the time requirement (14-16 hours) dissuaded us. We’ll probably regret this decision later.
.For once we had dinner at the hotel itself, at ‘The Hemisphere’, the continental cuisine. I had black bean soup (heavy and tasteless) and risotto (which tasted like paella without the non-veg). Somehow the Indian palate is always disappointed and scandalised by cooking without any trace of spices!
Sunday. Got up at 9.30 am. Small compensation for not going to Krakow/ Auschwitz.
Morning went by in lazing around. Writing reports. Fixing an interpreter for tomorrow. Making copies of Yellow Pages. All boring stuff …..
After a late lunch at the Maharaja (where who we thought was a young Indian girl turned out to be Nepali and the chef’s wife), we proceeded to see Wilanow’s Palace, which had been recommended by the hotel staff as THE place to spend a couple of hours in. This area (Wilanow) is just outside Warsaw proper and has escaped major Nazi damage. It is almost a provincial cultural centre and has been patronised by a number of barons and the like. In fact it was much more impressive than the King’s summer palace at Lazienski Park. Like Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, Wilanow’s Palace was full of paintings, so much so that in some rooms walls seemed to be redundant! Disappointingly for us, 99% were portraits of Polish noblemen and cultural doyens. There were some other collections like vases, swords etc. The décor of the rooms and the variety of furniture was quite fantastic.