The people of Poland are wonderful!!!

I have always been impressed with Polish society - this is a primary reason why I have chosen to live here. But what happened to me yesterday has made me appreciate these people so much more...

I am an American citizen living in Krakow. I was returning to Poland after a short visit to L'viv, Ukraine (necessary for my residency requirements here). Before crossing the border, I had a brief discussion with one of the Poles in line with me. The people around me were so fascinated to hear me speak (my guess is that they have encountered very few native English speakers). After a rather lengthy "confrontation" with a Ukranian guard, I walked a few hundred yards to where the Polish guards were checking passports. When one of my newfound "friends" saw me get in this lengthy line, he told me "nie" and escorted me to a Polish guard and told him "Amerikanski". This guard looked at my passport and invited me to jump over the gate - he then escorted me directly to the front of the line to allow me to be on my way without further delay.

After this wonderful gesture, I hopped on a mini bus for the 15 km ride from Meyka to Przemysl. A placard on the dash of the bus said "3.00 zloty", so when the drive came to collect his fares, I handed him a 2 zloty coin and a 1 złoty coin. Apparently the ride was only 2 zł because he handed me back 1 zł. It was so obvious that I was a foreigner, but he was totally honest with me in a situation where he could have easily pocketed the extra cash. Amazing...

These people are absolute gems - thank you Poland!

Nice story.


I can't help but think you had a Hawaiian shirt, fanny pack/bum bag, massive camera around your neck, white shorts and a baseball cap? ha ha ha.

Nope - just dark brown eyes and a very poor command of the Polish language...

Fair enough,
It is great when people extend their help to a stranger.
Especially when confronted with guards.
There is always a lot of scare mongering about travelling and it is good to hear a positive story.
I suppose humans enjoy reading about peoples misery more.

You should try to see what would have happened if he had said ''Ukrainksi'' to the guard.

The Ukrainian guards were quite intimidating - on my way to L'viv, a large Ukrainian man actually threw my passport in disgust when I couldn't understand his questions. Then upon my return to Poland, a female guard pointed to my bag and asked me a question - not understanding her, I replied "no" thinking she was asking if I had anything to declare. Then she sternly said "OPEN THE BAG" (in perfect, blood-curdling English that made my skin crawl).

Perhaps intimidating isn't a strong enough word - I actually had flashbacks to the old movie "Midnight Express" during both encounters!!! Memories of my American cold-war indoctrination are alive and well...

I had a similar experience on the Czech border, in Cieśyn. The Polish staff were helpful enough but this Czech twat started getting a bit frosty. I wasn't having any of it. They are checkers, not bullies. I spoke Polish to the Polish authorities there and they soon snapped their counterparts into obedience/reality.

I saw quite the opposite.The polish guards are strict and take bribes.They considerably delay the traffic between the borders while the ukrainian side lets far more vehicles in in short time.There is no comparison between the time you have to wait when you have to enter the ukrainian side with the time needed to enter the polish side.

The guards in ukrainian side are rather unprofessional,there was a woman with heavy make up,heels and guard suit with short skirt coming to me laughing and asking if I carried narcotics.I think if I bribed here we could go to the toilet together.

I remember years ago (About 5) a Polish boarder guard was threatening not to let me back into Poland because I did not have my temporary working visa with me (or something), going to Czech but the gobsh1te that said it was not there on our return, so no problem.

I find a lot of the time if you give a small man (in personality not in stature) a stamp or a gun, the power goes straight to their heads

---

I have just been playing chess with a Polish friend of mine who is a truck driver, he was waiting for it to be loaded.

He drives to Ukrain often, he does all the nesaccary stuff on the Polish side when driving but when he is in the Ukrainian side a Black BMW with tinted windows meets him and he is told to stop for nothing. The first time this happened he almost sh1t himself, the police had wanted to stop him but he kept driving, he thought they would shoot him but the BMW stopped the police instead, now all it takes is a telephone call.

He also says that the Ukrainian truck drivers are the most friendly in Europe and they help him if he is broken down and have all the tools to do so.

I have not been to Ukraine yet.
I have just driven through Europe and I love that there are no more borders.
The worst boarder crossing I was in was the South African/Botswana one, holly sh1t, these guys with guns came on the train and threw my friends passport on the gound shouting it was a fake and demanded money, when we refused to pay, they tried to drag my mate off the train, he held on for dear life, then the guy stamped our passports and said he'd be back. When he came back, we told him it was too late, he'd stamped our passports.

I met many great people on that particular trip.

You should be impressed. They treat people like **** at any given US border crossing.
In a style very similar to what the Stasi were doing in the past.
You should have waited at the border for days as anybody else and experience what we Europeans see at the US border crossings.
And what mystifies me is to which great lengths of effort people go to be able to go the USA. I do not need a visa at all, but would never ever go there.

You're preaching to to choir - I am living in Poland in large part because of my frustrations with life in America. I am fairly certain that the things I experienced at the Polish border would never occur at an American border crossing...

Really??? I cross the Niagara falls border quite often and have never been hassled by a guard. As a matter of fact, ever since the new passport law was introduced the guards usually notice the "place of birth" on my passport and always joke about me smuggling pierogi/golabki across the border.

And ambassador bridge @ windsor/detroit is a joke - they rarely check ID.

I never spend more than 30 sec at the border crossing (well unless there's a line up). From what i can tell only visible minorities have a hard time crossing into the US.

So you are telling that the guards are great because they allowed you to skip the line bypassing the poor Ukrainians?

Of course not - my "great" comment was about the generous people waiting in line who invited me to bypass the line...and the wonderful bus driver who was honest.

How could you possibly interpret my comments as anything but positive? After rereading my initial post, I feel my intent was quite clear...

I know it might seem nice to you, but knowingly or not your post comes down to "Polish border controls are really unfair, but they're unfair in my favor, so yaahoo!!!"

I know people from Russia and Ukraine who need to come to Poland for week long education sessions and the way they're treated is not very edifying (like having to go to Kiev for a visa and wait for a week when Kiev is farther from their hometown than Warsaw). I know some Vietnamese people and the horror stories I've heard about how Vietnamese are treated by border guards is completely disgusting.

It's not wonderful that Polish border guards treat so many people so badly even if they're nice to the occcasional resident of a rich country.

Why jump over the gate and not try to get in front of those waiting in line?
The guard allowed you to bypass them,not the people waiting in the line.

er, why not just open the gate and let you walk through...i mean geez, when i flash the lion and the unicorn people show some respect, they dont make me jump over things...

Yes


The guys post had nothing to do with that, youz are just looking for the dark cloud.
This guy met some nice people, what the hell do you want, for him to apologise? for the guards resignation? or for the guys in the cue not to be nice?. This is not about all guards or Poland's stance on foreigners, this is about some guys helping a stranger.

This guy BLS is a first hand witness to the events, now you can make up all sorts of BS as to the reasons why they were nice to him but seens how he was there, I would go with his version of events.


Well being nice does not mean not having a laugh and making him jump through some hoops or in this case over a fence.

They did it deliberately.They did not open the gate in order not to let the Ukrainians who were standing next in the line to pass.

i'd like to share my story also.

back in summer 2006 in torun, i walked a friend to the bustop, waited til the bus come then i left to go back to my hotel. i realized at the moment, uh oh where's my wallet? i got the usual stuffs, id, credit cards & such. ive seen that majority of stores in poland dont ask for id when they charge credit cards. so i thought, i'm never gonna see my wallet ever again. but, still believing in the goodness of all people, i decided to come back to look for it. i came upon a lady who mumbled some words to me and i heard 'dokumente' in a sentence. at this time i didn't know much polish so i thought dokumente means money, so i kinda signaled to her that no i dont have any money sorry.. then i went into the tiny bus station.. and out of my disbelief and amazement, someone had found my wallet and returned it. i told all my polish friends about it and of course all of them said i was very lucky.

thanks....
;)

Poland people are great
girls also

Wonderful! I like this story.

I've been friends with a Polish girl for two months now she is such a credit to this country where she now resides. The first time we arranged to meet up (this was arranged through a mutual friend) she gave me such a warm hug, a kiss on the cheek and a small gift (a book all about Poland). I was astonished. Sometimes we can take kindness for granted and I definitely have. Sometimes in this country, meeting someone for the first time, I doubt many of us would go to the extreme like my friend did. I have met other Polish people too and have been greeted so kindly by them, it just makes me want to run off to Poland. :)

i like polish people and i live here. i just returned from a trip with some friends and they are just so relaxed and open. I do appreciate compared to the secret lives people live in my native country. They play games while driving the car. Very sweet. And people are more than happy to speak english with me and help me with my polish

I can add a story. I got on a train at Warsaw Wschodnia on my way to Torun. The train was quite crowded, but I figured it would get better as we wandered through Warsaw. At Warsawa Zachodnia a father and daughter boarded. The train was still a bit crowded so the father sat down across from me and his daughter across the aisle.

My bag was still on the floor and the father asked in Polish if he could place it on the rack. I certainly agreed, using my very elementary Polish.

As the train became less crowded the father moved over to sit by his daughter. As we left the station right before Torun I began thinking I was going to have to put together enough polite Polish to get the bag down as it was too high for me to reach. Just about then the man asked me something in Polish. I said, "Sorry, I'm an English speaker." His daughter turned to me, and said in English, "Where are you going?" I explained Torun was my stop and she explained it was the next stop. The father sat my bag down on the floor. As we entered the edge of Torun, I prepared to walk to the end of the car so I could leave the train quickly. The father said, "Nie nie." So I sat back down. When we got into the Torun station he got up and carried my bag out to the platform and then went back on the train to continue the journey with his daughter.

I could add story after story like this about my journey around Poland this past summer.

because he is negative nancy.. it was a nice story and about time.. gets old hearing the same negative.. we all know theres negative, but some of the stuff on here is so far fetched .. keep watching and you will see.