The Guardian : Living in Poland

Interesting article in today's paper about Brits living and working in Poland. The paper version had some good pictures including one of Wroclaw.


guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2225850,00.html

Interesting article, although it contained some exaggerations such as Poland having extremely bitter winters and other comments. All in all though, it presented Poland in good light.

This American expat found the wonderful 'secret' of living in Poland back in 2002. After living in a village, I would never even think of living in a flat in any large city, not in Warsaw or Krakow.

- I think it's a gross exaggeration; in reality the number is perhaps less than 400,000.

I found the article very interesting certainly makes me think that my planned move in the next two years will be worthwhile with my daughter :)

my thoughts exactly ! :o)

still undecided whether it will be Krakow or Warsaw , and knowing me it'll be somewhere completely different !

Lol three areas in mind for me polanglik mentioned in the other thread ... living in poland without working one :D

it show what i `ve been saying 48 years old English guy married a polish girl does not say the girls age but I bet she not even 30

plus is funny like the article put first is one million them you read on and say two million what is not the same

Her colleague, Sue Holmes, a 42-year-old from Crewe, agrees that an English teacher can live handsomely even on the basic Bell salary of the equivalent in zloty of £500 net per month. "You can afford to live right in the centre of town," she says. "And get a cleaner," Raskin chips in, "and really enjoy yourself. Warsaw is very cultured - you can go to the opera for £15." just the last part is true

why everyone seems to be 40`s years old

some parts are true tough but it seems that Polish girls are the reasson why this later 40`s married with early 20`s come

"It's cleaner, it's cheaper, people have better manners. It's safer - you see more policemen around central Warsaw than you ever do around central London.

The Guardian is not the same paper use to be this is bolocks

is good for the ones coming with big jobs in big firms like the ones the articles talk about

normaly in real estate that is it Poland is where Brits with no money come to the ones with money go to france that is the reality

You lose the bet ......try reading the article .... it clearly says his wife is 33yrs old .... and is expecting twins ...

I'd like to know what makes you such an expert, such an authority on everything concerned with Poland, and life in Poland ?


can you blame them ? but this is not the only reason ...... like i have written on other posts and it has been supported by many articles in the newspapers and by other people on this forum .... they come for a better standard of living, a slower pace of life .... and an opportunity to start businesses and make some money.

It is not only single guys looking for the beautiful women who come to Poland ... there are many single young women (some with kids), and I have seen many British families moving to Poland ....... some had only intended to stay for a few years, but after falling in love with Poland decided to make it their new home :o)


how long have you been reading the Guardian newspaper to make such a comment ...?


we all have our opinions, and the right to disagree, but try refraining from using terms like 'bollocks' ....... it just reaffirms what an uncultured yob you are !


I'd agree that more Brits are moving to France than Poland, but to say that Brits with no money come to Poland is not true ..... I know of many who after selling up in UK move to Poland with well over £1million ...... is this considered 'no money' ?


unfortunately your 'reality' Zeze is a far cry from the normal person's reality !

whatever mate

quote=Polanglik] what an uncultured yob you are ! [/quote]
and I read the Guardian hum !!!!


long enough


I live here do you ???


live anywhere in the world is good with that type of cash

botton line mate 2 million poles left just on the past few years without couting the Poles in the USA that is another 1 million

come if someone come here with 1million Pounds life will be good
and is not beacouse


give me a break !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zeze, you have a serious problem with comprehending simple text ..... Helen Pidd writes that

'up to a million Poles have come to Britain since their country joined the EU',

and then further in the article she writes

'plugging the gap left by the estimated two million Poles who have abandoned Poland since it joined the European Union in 2004 - up to a million of them to the UK'

....... this means the other million went elsewhere, like US, Germany, Italy etc.. She does not say that two million Poles came to the UK !

Just because you have a negative outlook on Poland, why can't you accept another person's perspective and that they can

'fall in love with Poland'

..... if you had read the article thoroughly .... and actually understood what it said, you would have read the bit where it says

'food is one of the things Blunt loves about his new homeland'

There have been many articles in the English press recently about Brits moving to Poland - many who have come with very little, and are earning what the locals earn - like the bus driver who moved from Newcastle to Zywiec, because he fell in love with the place.


For the last couple of years I have been spending between 1-2 weeks every month in Poland ....sometimes longer. I have been going to Poland since I was a child and my wife is a native Pole; so I have a good understanding what life and culture is like in Poland, both through my own experiences and from what my wife tells me about Poland.

How long have you lived in Poland ?

I see from your profile where it asks whether you speak Polish that you answer ‘Hell No’ – are you so up yourself that you can’t even make an effort to learn the language of the country in which you are living?

Your response ‘Hell No’ implies that you can’t be bothered … or you are a lazy so and so ……. or maybe you’re not capable of learning a new language :o)

You live there and fookin complain every thread about how sh1t your life is since moving to Poland .. no one made you go there bar yourself ... so you have only yourself to blame for that ....

you went thinking you would have the life of riley and came up with the harshness of reality that you just are not prepared mentally for .... you really need to get a life .. if Poland is not the country for you then do it and everyone else a favour and your company you recruited you and fooking leave .....

then your opinions wont matter!


It implies also he is not accepting of a another country ... he cant be bothered to intergrate within it on a social level .... !

how many language can you speak ? I speak 4 and you ?

this is not the first time I live in another country lads !!!
I been living in other countries them my native land for thr past 15 years

I have no agaist Poland or Poles I am married with one I am 29 she is 27
I have a job here I an an imigrant not an expat so I know how really is did not came with 1 million Pounds ..There are many Polands the one of krakow , gdansk , others places and the one of LODZ . Katowica Warsaw type of Poland .

all I am saying is Reality is not so sweet as it seems on the Polish forums

plus most of you Brits want come here not becouse is so lovely but becouse is cheaper and you have a bit of cash and for the blokes find or with a nice Polish girl .

and for the yorkshire single mom yes you how many coutries have you lived in ???

come people wake up here amateures

I thought it was a good article. The one thing about the Guardian is that it has a depth of opinion rather than the anti-foreign feeling in other papers in the Uk (notablt The Daily Mail rag) but there are others. Stories about swan eating, carp stealing, job stealing Poles are everywhere. Why complain about a paper that tries to rectify the bias and xenophobia in existence.

you may have issues about certain aspects of the styories but to dismiss the paper is crass.

One of the people interviewed in the story (from Wroclaw I think was a woman older than her boyfriend) She is quoted as saying he was the first Englishman she had met that she cou;d have an intelligent conversation with. I found this funny but embarrassing. anyway, if she has a sister......

I won't get into the childish nature of how many languages/how many winters you've seen.

the problem here mate is that people dont want talk about how hard life is they dont want talk about 20000 Poles in the UK alone !!!!!!!

they have some money and a nice young Polish girl they can buy a flat and if all does not work they fly back to the UK

face it people if this place gona go better we must see the foults also

plus this is a coment from another forum Of those people who allegedly have super jobs, property portfolios etc, one keeps ringing my office to sell advertising space on a website and one to my certain knowledge is unemployed and sleeping on somebody's sofa!!!!! And they've both sent me their CVs within the past few month's.

And Sense is hardly 'one of Warsaw's trendiest restaurants' unless trendy restaurant has suddenly become a synonim for sleazy and loud bar.

And if they're teaching EFL in Warsaw, why on earth are they working for 400 quid a month? Less than 2000 zl!!! The going rate is 50zl for a 45 minute unit. Even Polish EFL teachers expect 50zl per 60 mins.

but how you guys could know

IF YOU DONT LIVE HERE
DONT BEALIVE IN WHAT YOU READ ON THE NEWS

So much for journalistic accuracy.

Not that any of this fazes 48-year-old Jim, the kind of charmingly ramshackle character who, when you see a gigantic crack in the bell tower of his mansion and gently ask why he didn't get a survey done before buying the dilapidated property, says with a grin: "Because that would be no fun!"

The first example given of an expat...... a post middle-life-second-wife-crisis-maintance-dodging- nutjob......

Another example, Phil Jones, a 30-year-old IT worker, recalls an occasion when he blew his nose and ice came out during the winter of 2005.

How large was his nasal cavity.

Sue Holmes, a 42-year-old from Crewe, agrees that an English teacher can live handsomely even on the basic Bell salary of the equivalent in zloty of £500 net per month

Massive lie....

Re-asserting the old colonial superiority...

"Particularly if you are male, you get a lot of attention. I have seen so many average blokes come over here and get a nice Polish girl with almost no effort at all."

Wake up smart ass anyone swanning about with cash will always attract a certain
genre of female, whatever the country....

Actually having re-read the artic le it is typical journo repro, a little truth, a little fantasy and a whole lot of waffle. Well done the Guardian....crock.

Thank you !!!

I expect that more British will be moving up to Poland. I think it's good. And I'm sure they will never be treated there as bad as many Poles have been treated in UK. It's not a Britophobic statement, but a matter-of-fact one. Any Brit friends in this forum should not feel bad about my honest words; these words aren't any blame-game on my part.

:)

Thanks for quoting my post on the other forum!!

A friend who is a journalist told me the Guardian pay 800 quid plus expenses for an article like that. More if there are pictures. It seems the journalist just got a cheap flight, turned up at Bar Below, Sense, etc and spoke to some of the regulars, who in my experience tend to sit at the bar and tell people how wonderfully they're doing. Some claim to have payed no tax in years, others to have deflowered dozens of village maidens, others to live in swish coroprate apartments. The truth is usually a bit more down to earth.

In ten years here I've seen many people turn up in Warsaw, some do well and stay, some crash and burn, many somewhere in between. Like anywhere else, life iswhat you make it. This isn't the Poland of ten years ago, nor is it Moscow.

But journalists are only really interested in filling column inches in as interesting a way as possible!

Agreed

very true ..... Poland will not be everyone's cup of tea :o) ..... but there are many who will come to Poland with the intention of staying only for a few years and decide to stay for the longterm ... for whatever their reasons, be it falling in love with one of the natives, or Poland itself, or because they've started businesses or they see a better quality of life in Poland than they would have if they returned to their homeland.

for those who keep complaining about their life in Poland, there is one simple answer ...... leave :o)

this is what many Brits have done ... they have decided they would have a better life elsewhere .... and moved !

life in poland will be good for 1 out of the 10 person that is it

Thats certainly not you we have all established that Rex oops sorry i meant Zeze oops sorry previously known asZion!!!

They are all you .... !!!!

that sounds like a very definitive statement ...... could you let me have the research which backs up this statement ?

how do you determine/define the term 'good' in the statement 'life in Poland will be good' ? What criteria are used to determine 'good life' ?

hmmm need to qualify that.

Jim's wife is 36


2,500 Brits living in Poland approx 1,500,000 or 5% of the polish population living and working in England. If we Brits living in Poland began to affect employment and/or put strain on the national health i suspect the Poles would not appreciate it too much.

We have an agreement with Poland whereby a lot of medical treatment is free anyway. Before I came to Poland in 2004, I got what was called an EH222 form. I fell off my bike a year later and got free medical care for 3 days whilst in hospital. All I had to get was signatures. Who is saying that Poles are actually straining the NHS? By their own admission, Poles are hypochondriacs so what u say is at least plausible

100% true.

I was one of the people who were interviewed by Helen for this Guardian article. Having read it i was quite happy with the way it came out.

Helen didn't just "turn up" at Bar Below or Sense as you put it, i was contacted beforehand through my business contacts in London. Having read the article i can spot some quotes from people who will remain nameless and i know that they are stetching the truth and thats putting it nicely.

Most Brits who come here do not think we are better than others but we do in some cases add skills and knowledge which will help businesses in the long run, i love living in Warsaw and will stay here for a long time to come.

I know Sue and I know that she would never say anything like that. I also know that she is very pissed-off that the hack from the Guardian claimed she did.

A nice open thread. Too many forum threads are too closed, thus encouraging digression.