What was it like in 1989+ in Poland when the Soviet house of cards fell?

In my short time I was able to listen to BBC and VOA only late at night.

My short time interest was electronics, and although I was using transistors and integrated circuits, my passion were vacuum tubes, already obsolete at those times. Attending a radio-ham club, I got many unused Soviet tubes and I built a short-wave receiver of them. And I was able to listen to the western stations with no jamming. Why? There were three short-wave bands in use. Two of them were present on radios you could buy -- and those bands were jammed. My radio was receiving on the third band, not jammed at all! ;-)

The last remembrance for today.

As a student of chemical engineering at the Warsaw Technical University, I was very much interested in practical application of my future profession. The distillation unit shown in the picture was capable of producing very good white rum, and it was backed up by my knowledge acquired during lectures, practices and tests. Quite different from typical "bimber", my stuff was totally clean of low-ends (fusel oil) and it had pleasant smell of nice high-ends. We used to drink it in the form of dark rum made together with caramel when me and friends were doing university project calculation at evenings.

The funny part was this:
When I set the rig up for the first time, I was finishing distillation in the morning, listening to the kitchen radio. Suddenly, solemn music blared from the loudspeaker; it was announced that the First Secretary of CPSU Yuri Andropov had died. Well, so what?

Yet, since the authorities used to threaten private alcohol makers to confiscate all the property in case such a person was caught, I got somewhat scared and put the rig down to the cellar.

Around one year later, I put up the rig again. Guess what. After the night of successful distillation, the radio loudspeaker blared the news that the Secretary General of CPSU Konstantin Chernenko had just died...

I think life writes scripts no fiction author would invent... because it would sound incredibly! Yet, this happened in my own life...

Yes!


It is not about phrases, it is about justices. You know, or you should know that what commies said had no meaning really, they used big words but had given them a different meaning.

Important is a mindset and it is you with a commie mindset, property should be returned to rightful owner precisely because the commies deeds should be undone.

What owners will do with their property is their business and it is a very commie-like of you to worry about that.
Should I tell you what to do with your property? Ah ! you say it is different - really how so?


It is self- evident yes?

Very interesting story, Antek. I didn't do the distillation myself, but was a witness of so many :) How did you purify the rum from oils? I know some use charcoal or cotton besides the evaporation itself. What about that white material mangle?

The term "sour cherries" is a misnomer, since many "wiśnia" varieties are not sour at all. Especially those big dark, almost black juicy ones - with soft skin of course. Unfortunately, there is no right translation for "wiśnia". Some call them "morello cherries". There are many varieties of "wiśnia" - and yes - some species are sour, especially those small, light red, pale ones. Wikipedia, pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trześnia, categorizes it as "Cerasus avium", "czereśnia ptasia", "trześnia" - "bird cherry", however the new taxonomy suggests completely different name - "Prunus avium".

There is also "wiśnia pospolita" (Cerasus vulgaris Mill.) - probably a result of multiple interbreeding with "prunus avium" and" Prunus fruticosa Pall." - "wisienka stepowa", "wisienka karłowata".

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiśnia_zwyczajna


A good story, Antek. :-)
Alcohol of any sort, including the one produced by our colleagues from Chemistry department, served as a basis for "cashless exchange of goods and services" in our university. For example, in order to get some broken lab glass mended or some new produced one would be buried under unpleasant paperwork and procedures, followed by "we are too busy, come next week" refusals from our continually drunk faculty "glass masters". But a half litre bottle of any alcohol would open the door to their workshop in no time. Our research group was so pissed off with the situation that we all have learned the basic glasswork: how to join glass tubes, blow the bubbles, embed wire conductors in the glass - without causing it to break while cooling, etc. One more good reason to become a theoretician. :-)

• 
  Prunus avium - sweet-sour juicy "wi¶nia"
  

What did you make it from - sugar?


And have you tried to use this equipment ever again? :)

I wish I knew you back then :)

Exactly what's happening in Poland with the RCC these days.

The fact that the RCC was able to make "a fast buck" on the back of restitution is pretty damn unpleasant as a taxpayer.

It's not coming from a taxpayer pocket so what's your beef? This constant RCC bashing of yours is tedious.

Where's it coming from, then?

Remind me, where is the cash coming from to pay the compensation claims made?

Ah yes, it comes mostly from local government budgets. Where do they get their money? From the central government. Who gets the cash from...let's see...the taxpayer!

Unless of course, you think it's entirely acceptable for the RCC to demand a million zloty a year from a school.

Of course it is. If someone is renting MY property, it's MY right to collect the rent.


We were talking about selling the restored properties. As usual you are switching subject as you go. Ain't gonna play.

Nice of you to know that you put personal greed over the education of children.

Don't you think that the RCC are somewhat shooting themselves in the foot by taking away a school from children, just for extra money that they don't particularly need anyway?


Usually, the properties returned were accompanied with cash payments. The land near Lake Malta in Poznan should be of interest to you - not only do they want the land returned, but they also want a huge cash payment - which the local courts have agreed with.

Funnily enough, the average man in the street only got his property back - no extra cash.

Typical populist BS. It's not greed: it's called free market. Town hall is free to built the school themselves. If they can't - they can rent it, but they have to pay for it. School, hospital, office; doesn't really matter.


So if the courts agreed - don't you think there are legal grounds for it?

what is it you guys are talking about? sounds interesting. I'd like to look it up. Thanks in advance :)

Private properties confiscated by the commies at the beginning of their rule in Poland. After 1989' fall of communism, property belonging to the church and Jewish communal properties were returned to the original owners. Since some of those buildings belonging to the church were turned into schools, hospitals, orphanages etc. delphi objects the fact that church is collecting the rent for using them from the city hall.

Church is not a business company. Jesus was teaching to give out everything you have.

here lies the rub! in some ways it does.

Do you it yourself or shut up!

We expect people acting in the name of Jesus to indeed act like that.

Not too much to ask for, is it?

Who is we ?
I just want to say to every smart ass out there, if you have a problem with RCC, maybe about monies or something else, do it better, show that it can be done in a better way - start with giving everything you own to those in need.

gagner sa vie !

If you have nothing - you have nothing to give away. Simple.

So - by your logic, if you have a huge building - you have a huge building to give away.

For what it's worth, I know quite a lot of Catholics who were appalled by the actions of the Curia in Poznan - many of them vowed never to donate a single thing to the (somewhat frequent) appeals for funds for them after this.

One of the problems is the ferocious defense of the RCC or any other church out there by fanatics who would crucify Christ for the second time just to preserve the status quo of complete detachment from the original philosophy. How do they say: Revolutions are made by heros, organized by geniuses and their fruits are eaten by perverted fanatics who hate the revolution even though it created them.

What did they do?
Now I know why Delphi has this opinion. I read about the Warsaw nuns who, back in 2008, received a parcel of land in compensation for $11 million lost just after the war to the commies. It turned out to be prime real-estate which the nuns quickly flipped for $85 million!!!! Furthermore, it turns out this "commision" reports to no-one and its decisions are final- no appeals no nothing. This is a very interesting story.

Good for them!! They are hardly living in luxury but doing a lot of unappreciated work.

$74 million in profit!!! Don't you think, just maybe, the good nuns were just a tad overcompensated? Really?

If anything, nuns are not the one to blame. Someone who decided to give them piece of land worth $85 mil instead of $11 mil, perhaps?

First of all you would have to find out more about that case, instead of concentrating on alleged profit.
Most likely compensation was for a land lost in vicinity of land given as a compensation, also was that property worth $11 million in 1947 or in 2008 or whichever the year it was.

Secondly it is not as those nuns would suddenly become rich and spend that monies on luxury holidays or something - are you jealous or something.

Thirdly,if price of property risen between court rule and them selling the property, what is your issue?
And last but not least if it was as you say (which I doubt sometimes) it was an ample compensation for 50 years of being deprived from using their property.

We are living in the money run world. Everybody have some kind of money, why nit picking on nuns ? eh?


Yeah! I know that kind of Catholics they donate nothing anyways, they are just bad mouthing CC, tell them from me to go and f....themselves!

I had hoped we could have avoided the Church-related talk here...

Ironside, you forget about something. The properties confiscated by the communist state were used. It means, investments were done and the property was maintained, better or worse. We cannot revert the course of history to see if Zamoyskis would bankrupt with their Monte Carlo debts (or due to crises or due to poor investments) or they would make a lot of money by proper use of their property. The fact is, the properties were run by the state. Now, it is interesting to determine who would owe whom? It is impossible.

Now, The Pruszków Pencil Factory had been however returned to the heir of the owner. First thing the new owner did was killing the factory because he did not understand how to make business.

Now, Ironside - do you think it is better to act in the justice & moral way, turn everything upside down and increase the number of unemployed that way? To degrade the country's economy because you would like to "undo injustice"? Are you thinking of "peeps" or only of your ideals and also you take care of former large owners but not of "peeps"?

The way of thinking assuming a revolution is to be done and selected people make decisions who is a traitor and who is not -- is the one of most typical landmarks of Communism.


Not at all. Perhaps you are a traitor because some guy would say that?


This is what is called "fractionation" or multistage distillation. The vertical tube is called "the distillation column" and if you do the process right, it is equivalent to many distillations done in one unit. The tube is filled with "packing" that has large mass transfer surface. I made "Fenske spirals", extremely efficient laboratory packing using copper wire as the material, an axle, a small electric motor and scissors to make the packing ;-) The top part is the 'reflux tank". The fractionation requires that the part of distillate is continuously fed at specified rate back to the column ("the reflux"). My column was equivalent to six distillation stages. After making the first charge of the product, the product was fractionated again (so it was 12 distillations in total, 2 operations x 6 stages = 12 stages). With this process, the oils have been totally retained in the distillation pot. Light-ends will always pass with such process but the sugar-derived are exactly what you expect in white rum ;-)

It is important to say I was controlling the reflux manually, calculating the process quality with charts (these were laying on the top of the fridge) ;-)

The white material was asbestos + mineral wool. This was thermal insulation of the column, helping better separation, greater control, and speeding the process by avoiding heat losses to the ambient.

I have calculated this very process with university students using a process simulator last Saturday. You get 70% product, free of fusel oil, with twice the 6-stage fractionation.


Absolutely, Boletus, great story!
We had easier situation with our Chemistry Faculty and Chemical Engineering Faculty. The glass blower at Chemistry was very happy to earn more by making custom glass equipment. The craftsmen in the Engineering were good with mechanical parts and automation. However I was poor and could not afford a custom rig, so I declared some of the glass "broken", paid a symbolic fee and could build the rig myself.


The essence of rum is that it is made either from sugar or molasses ;-) Sugar, yes. No methanol, nicely smelling light-ends.


To kill Gorbachev?! ;-) (joking). No, I did my experiments just twice and then found some other interest - girls ;)))) Ah, and everybody used to smoke cannabis at that time, too ;-)

Essentially, there's two big cases - that of the land near Lake Malta in Poznan, as well as the case of the VIII high school.

poznan.gazeta.pl/poznan/1,36003,9016579,Kuria_chce_przeniesc_szkoly_katolickie_do_VIII_LO.html is one article about it, though I'm sure you can find more about it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg - it's now becoming clear that the Church has been involved in some rather shady activities surrounding property restitution - including in one case, dealing with a former SB agent.


It's a story that's going to run and run in Poland. I'm not anti-RCC, but their behaviour surrounding the property (demanding vast amounts of money, etc) is just unbelievable. It's safe to say that both the Communists and the RCC have stolen from Poland - just in different ways.


Really? One of them donates 10% of her salary to the RCC, another donates handsomely every year, and some of them give their time too. If you think that such people should "go **** themselves", then the RCC is quite literally ****** - because these are the people that keep it going, not the people handing over 2zl a week.

How much have *you* donated to the RCC this year?