Genealogy / The village of Surazkowo in Poland (Chomczyk, Czaban, Sawicki) [20]


Not necessarily Archiwum, the Austro-Hungarian zabór went quite a way east, including a lot of the Lemko territory. Supraśl however was in the Russian zabór however it is a long way from the Lemko heartland.

News / Kaczyński slams "political correctness" plague in Poland [85]

Though the story you tell Doug sounds awful and I can understand very much how you were worried, distressed and probably bloody angry, I'd question whether it has anything to do with PC or whether it's about what they are legally able to do and say. You and I might bend rules - they get prosecuted if they do that and this has certainly happened.

Kaczynski's rhetoric was playing to a crowd and misunderstands (perhaps deliberately) what PC means (it's all about using language in a way that doesn't demean). He may well rail about people's rights etc, but to draw an analogy with your situation, a couple can live together for 60 years and when one becomes ill they have no right to any information at all or even a hospital visit whereas the doctors consult a cousin or whatever - simply because the couple are both ladies or gentlemen and when one dies the other has no right even to attend the funeral. This has all changed (though only informally in Poland) and it's an improvement. The situation you were in with your brother is more a bureaucratic failing - not that this excuses it or lessens your stress - than a 'PC' or rights thing. Needs improving too though.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Availablilty, telly/media appeal and circumstance. often the politicians (if he can be counted as one) with the least to say get the pre-election exposure because it makes the teatime news interesting.

Work / Thirteenth Salary in Poland [13]

They sometimes do the thirteenth salary in Germany too. Kind of like a Christmas Club.

One benefit is that it ensures there is food on the table and gifts under the tree in families who'd otherwise spend everything on booze. There are of course drawbacks too.

Classifieds / New Poland's naturist FB page for expats and other English speakers [27]


Yes, very much so, and has been for many years. There are quite a few very well used official and semi-official naturist beaches in Poland. Usually very civilised places.


I only took mine once. He found a particular part of some sunbathing ladies just that bit too interesting for his wet nose and slobbery tongue.

Some people are very repressed indeed. Naturism's still popular though. If someone is so screwed up in the head that it upsets them, they can just go to the 95% of beaches where people wear bathing costumes instead.

Life / Whats with going to sauna naked in Poland? [41]


Precisely. In somewhere as fiercely hot as a sauna, why drape your body with various textiles, and if someone is so repressed and inhibited that they fear nudity, why go to a sauna at all.

Life / Racism & study with part time jobs in Warsaw ? [53]


Yes it's safe, though as with any foreign capital, it's usually better to stick to the high quality clubs and you probably won't be the only person of colour there. The low quality ones aren't the safest places for any visitor to go to alone really.

News / Kaczyński slams "political correctness" plague in Poland [85]

Same perhaps with the S in PiS...

News / Kaczyński slams "political correctness" plague in Poland [85]


Par for the course sadly:


And comments like this (despite doing the Kaczynski-ite cause no favours at all) is a sniff of the kind of rhetoric we expect from Kaczynski and his gang. I'm surprised they didn't gag him pre-election, to avoid losing them votes.

News / Wizz Air to start new routes between the UK and Poland [13]


Exactly, there aren't any, but it would be very nice to see more since that is where a lot of the demand is.

News / Wizz Air to start new routes between the UK and Poland [13]

Wizzair and Ryanair are rarely as cheap as they advertise, especially between the UK and Poland, due to high demand for certain flights. Plus all the extras. Good they're going to Bristol and Aberdeen, nice to see some more services to northern England.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


And this is the key. The sheer arrogance of JK and his friends. They couldn't see the writing on the wall - it was as if they existed in a bubble.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Absolutely. They were a national and international joke when they were briefly in office before.

Travel / Is it safe to travel to Poland? [194]

I doubt that too. It just doesn't happen. Ever.

News / Russia threatens Poland over monument [33]

Indeed, and it's all about pride. Now if it was melted down for scrap (and that wouldn't be unjustified) they'd teally have grounds to complain.

News / Russia threatens Poland over monument [33]


In the free world you'd be cautioned at best - what's the state got to do with various groups' sacred places, anyway? Not sent to a Siberian Labour Camp.


And no 'evidence' that they're behind the invasion of Ukraine. They still pretend their soldiers are volunteer rebels.


You've probably been attending some other sort of parade. Either that or just object to dancers if they are both men - I've attended dozens of such parades and most have kids in attendance with their parents. And if their 'values' include bigotry, this is not a good thing. And who's meddling?


They do.


With Russia, there are no grounds for Poland to respect them as a country and diplomacy where Russia is concerned only happens on their terms.

And yes, they are a risk when they start making threats.

News / Russia threatens Poland over monument [33]


You think that, I think that; these are people who send girls to Siberian labour camps for taking their tops off in church, who assassinate journalists, ban gay parades and who have sitting politicians who have seriously suggested blowing nuclear waste over the Lithuanian border.

As someone once said, nothing is true, everything is possible.

Life / Legalising Marijuana in Poland. Therapy available? [76]

In Poland, that would be illegal. But when in Amsterdam, nothing wrong with stopping off for a coffee.

The article is about therapeutic uses - researchers are only just discovering the potential. The effects on MS are well known (though not for every sufferer) and it also has benefits for treating certain cancers and glaucoma.

As well as being rather nice.

News / Russia threatens Poland over monument [33]


It's on all the other news sites too, I just chose that almost at random.

And yes, they could make trouble as they have threatened. Visas, trade, a whole host of things.

News / Russia threatens Poland over monument [33]

Not done and dusted for Russia, it seems...

Life / Legalising Marijuana in Poland. Therapy available? [76]

Merged: Marijuana therapy now in Poland

Very good news. One at teatime makes for a chilled evening


thenews/1/9/Artykul/221572,Marijuana-therapy-available-in-Poland

Real Estate / EU national wanting to move and buy a house in Poland [41]


Think carefully about keeping the UK as your official place of residence, even though you may be physically in Poland. You have the right to be there and to own property whether resident or not, however becoming resident there may incur higher taxes than you would expect.

Real Estate / EU national wanting to move and buy a house in Poland [41]


Which is why someone living off for example investments or a pension in the UK may prefer not to register to avoid creating a tax liability. The health insurance part is easy enough.

Real Estate / EU national wanting to move and buy a house in Poland [41]

No, there's no issue with living in Poland. If you are a citizen of an EU country you have an absolute right to be there (the only way you can be excluded is as a threat to national security and this has never happened).

That article refers to people who are looking for permission to settle - this does not apply to a citizen of any EU member state. We do not need this and if anyone from within the EU applied, they would be politely refused. A typical person applying for that is a citizen of, say, Ukraine who came to Poland to work or study and wished to remain after 5 years.

You are supposed to register as resident if you stay in Poland for more than 3 months without ever leaving however this is not enforced - no citizen of an EU member state has had you leave because they chose not to register. Should they start enforcing that (unlikely to the point of unbelievable) then you'd just need to take your passport along and register or pop to Berlin for an afternoon's shopping and keep your train ticket as proof.

In any case, you do not need to register as resident in order to buy property.

The term cudzoziemców in the article doesn't refer to EU citizens.
ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/move-live/index_en.htm

Worth mentioning that there is no law preventing you as a British Citizen from buying property (whether you're a resident or not) other than farming and forestry land, and there are legal and respectable ways to circumvent that rule if you want to be a farmer.

Thousands of British people own apartments or houses in Poland without hassle. Some even do buy-to-let and don't actually come here.

Real Estate / EU national wanting to move and buy a house in Poland [41]

You can buy a house without any problem. You don't need to register as resident beforehand. The only restrictions are on agricultural and forestry land.

UK, Ireland / Brutal stabbing, Poles arrested [36]


As a migrant in the other direction, I'm curious about their story.

UK, Ireland / Brutal stabbing, Poles arrested [36]

Gruesome murders and kidnappings are always newsworthy. This crime is a particularly extreme one.

UK, Ireland / Brutal stabbing, Poles arrested [36]

Well, Nothanks, he kidnapped the children and repeatedly stabbed her in a savage attack, so I suppose there's not much difference between the two cultural groups.

UK, Ireland / Brutal stabbing, Poles arrested [36]


In a forum about matters Polish?

It's quite interesting to see some of the phenomena. I'm most interested about why they behaved as they did, what took them to that exact place, what made them target that lady, what sort of person they were before they emigrated. And how the criminal justice system will deal with this.


Quite.

We don't want such people in Poland, and I doubt the folks back in the old country are chuffed about them moving there. Maybe parachute them into Mosul.