Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


There are a lot of really good initiatives in Poland to help with medicine - my local church (I don't attend, but I admire them for their social work) collects old medicine to distribute to those in need, for instance. The NFZ does pay for the cost of some medicines too - so it's not all doom and gloom.

One thing I find in Poland is that people only quote their official salary - no-one will ever admit to getting 500-1000zl 'extra' somehow.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


They are common - just that Polish food places tend to be more formal (in line with the culture, no?) than the American style places.

Polish food wouldn't translate too well to a fast food context - so your answer is right there. But - one example - isn't North Fish (found in pretty much every decent sized shopping centre) a Polish owned/operated brand?

Just because McDonalds and other American brands are everywhere doesn't mean that Polish owned businesses aren't everywhere, too.

(for what it's worth - Chłopskie Jadło seems quite poor to me, but I tend to hunt down small restaurants anyway - I had a brilliant Jewish dinner in Wroclaw the other day - owned by Poles though ;))

Now I think about it - Poland is stuffed full of Polish-owned/operated chains. Even Poznan has a chain of about 12 milk bars!

Sphinx was Polish-owned too, no?

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]

Bear in mind though, that many, many, many people pay next to nothing for their property. Many flats have been inherited, or have been purchased for peanuts post-1989 - Poland, as far as I remember, has quite a small mortgage industry compared to the UK. Property prices are only high in the major cities - the cost of living is dramatically lower outside of them.

And again with the wages - bear in mind that these wages are only the "official" ones. Teachers for instance - it might seem that they're low paid, but their compulsory workload is 20 45-minute classes a week. That leaves plenty of time for additional private lessons to bump up their income - and a lot of them do, especially teachers in "better" schools.

We don't see it from the Polish point of view - for instance, we would never "tip" the postman if he delivered cash to us. Yet many people do - that money could easily add up to 500-1000zl extra a month. Heck, you even see people tipping the guy who fills your car with petrol - that could easily add up over the course of a shift.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Everybody will try?

Not so. In fact, I've often observed the opposite, especially with smaller businesses.


Perhaps if people learnt that telling the authorities doesn't mean you're collaborating with the enemy, we might get somewhere.

Right now, this curse of "omg, cannot possibly tell anyone who can do something about it, it's WRONG" causes so much trouble here.


Uh, there's several Polish chains - I don't know the proper name, but there's the "pierogarnia" chain of restaurants for a start. The Brovaria chain (known as different names in different cities, but with the same concept) is another one.

As for the "energy of the best of the nation" - I don't know about you, but I had several excellent dinners over the weekend in Polish owned restaurants. You can commonly find "the best of the nation" right there.

Incidentally, as far as I'm aware, the "American chains" are actually Polish owned and operated.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]


Indeed, it's compulsory. But -


The vast majority of those won't be officially registered. The black economy in Poland is huge - if everything is in cash, the taxman is unlikely to find out or care.


The normal way of doing things seems to be not registering in the beginning while you build your business, then when you get to around 4000zl profit a month - registering then. ZUS is written off as a business expense, too.

It seems to me that the high costs are a way of forcing people into saving for their retirement - given the Polish attitude, many of them would spend today and never think about tomorrow.

Travel / Train from Poland to Serbia and car from Lithuania to Budapest [15]


No, nothing at all.

Study / Need advice on MA programs in Poland [13]

The programmes are pretty poor by European standards, and won't offer a particularly good education.

Genealogy / I'm pure Polish and have some red hair on my beard [23]

You're pure Polish, are you?

Can you prove it? Naaah. Course you can't.

News / Visegrad Battle Group under the command of Poland [261]


You do realise that the Zloty has more or less shadowed the Euro (and before that, the DM) since 1995 or so? If the Euro collapses, so will the Zloty. The pain in Europe was seen in the value of the Zloty - simply put, if there's a crisis in the Euro, people aren't going to hurry to put their money into a weak currency like the Zloty.

Work / Some cold, hard facts about teaching in Poland for newbies [101]


It's a perfectly acceptable business expense - how can training/education not be a business expense?


You don't get it. Many individual clients will want an invoice, for whatever reason. I have several students who want invoices - not because they have companies, but because their work will refund part/all of the cost of the classes. Invoices also allow you to offer pre-payment of classes - no-one is going to give a random stranger money upfront, but they will with an invoice.

News / Warsaw is the natural capital of Europe, not Brussels [67]


Uh, the liberal veto wasn't exactly a great endorsement of democracy.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Indeed, and vice versa.

Poland is quite friendly towards people in general - no-one is going to report you for dodging taxes, for a start.

Law / Setting up small business in Poland? [191]


360zl for the first two years. Generally speaking, you can assume costs to be about 500zl for the first two years, then 1000zl a month after that. That's including the cost of an accountant, though.

Worth pointing out that although it seems like robbery, those figures include pension payments and health insurance - and if your business is turning over millions, you still only pay the same social insurance costs.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Does this happen in Poland? I've never seen it happen here, except once - when we did it to spite the landlord of the pub.

News / RHD cars in Poland - my campaign to change the rules in Poland [128]

Exactly the reason I'd never let Poles import RHD cars - can you imagine the carnage?

I'd be in favour of allowing people to have them, upon passing a special test (or holding a licence from an RHD country). But I just don't want to imagine the horror of your average Polish macho driver with an RHD car. The ones visiting from the UK are bad enough!

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


It depends on just who we're talking about - but for instance, you can go away now for 200 pounds for a week in some place, flights and food included.


Yeah, I'll try and find it for you.

The UK is actually much worse in Poland in some respects - it's impossible to find cheap food in cities, for instance.


What's worth pointing out is that many Poles weren't living a normal British life though - for instance, they frequently didn't bother to pay their council tax bills (which are huge - perhaps 1000 pounds a year per house?), or did a lot of work cash-in-hand. They were also taking flats that no-one wanted - such as in horrible depressing council estates. The councils were desperate to rent the places, so they were often ending up with 4 room flats for very, very little money.

Another thing to bear in mind - while no-one is bothered by three generations living under the same roof in Poland, or brothers/sisters sharing a room - in the UK, this is a total no-no. So - the blue collar worker in Poland can raise his children at granny's flat and they can share a room - in the UK, the children would suffer dreadful bullying because of this.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


No Mark, with money earnt in Poland.

I know it's a difficult subject for you to appreciate, but in Poland, men generally do work rather than staying at home.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


That's pretty much the reality of many people in the West, too. It's nothing unique for Poland - I'd actually say that it's far worse in places like London and Paris.

But what gets me is that many of the people who are crying about being poor often aren't - anyone who can take a holiday by the Polish seaside isn't poor, for instance.

It's the same nonsense that led one idiot in the UK to proclaim that "not having the latest games console and jacket is poverty".


The amount of corruption within academia is absolutely staggering - even on the level of simply giving private lessons and not declaring the income at all. I know at least three teachers who have built houses (despite, on paper, not earning that much) for instance - all of them have never declared a thing. There's also a huge amount of teachers who retired early and then went straight into private teaching - heck, in Poznan, you can command 50zl an hour!

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


I do wonder where it's going to go - I don't think we'll see 4zl/kg again, but even 6zl/kg would be nice.

Problems with apples will be far worse though - part of my 'basket for 10zl' would include a lot of apples.


Indeed, you just need to spend half an hour sitting outside Media Markt to see the vast amount of new televisions and so on that are getting bought. And what's even more interesting is that many of these things are bought in cash. I've always said that while the official statistics show Poland to be quite poor, the black market is huge - one estimate recently suggests that as much as 25% of GDP might go unrecorded in Poland!

No-one thinks twice here about paying cash and not getting a receipt. Where's all that money going? It's not being recorded officially, that's for sure.

Law / Got Polish citizenship, now I need a Pesel and passport [26]

Good, it discourages people from applying just for the sake of EU citizenship.

I can only hope that a Polish language test will be introduced in due course, preferably at B2 minimum level.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


You don't live here, so what are you talking about?

It seems very strange that plastic Poles, not living in Poland, seem to know more about prices in Polish greengrocers than the people living here. Tell you what though - I'll take some pictures tomorrow of the prices.


Poor is not having adequate shelter over your head, not having running water, not having clothes and not having food.

If you have all those things, you're not poor by any civilised standards.


Good for the environment, and should be encouraged.


Prices in Warsaw are way out of whack - strawberries are down to 7kg a kilo now in Poznan.

I had a look today in Wroclaw, and you can pick up quite a few things for 1-2zl a kilo - and that's in Biskupin!


Combine that with the very odd Polish expectation that EVERYONE should have foreign holidays, a car, a nice flat, etc - and you get this overwhelming perception that people are poor. Sorry, but they're not.

Still, nice to know that there are so many champagne socialists on this forum.

Law / Got Polish citizenship, now I need a Pesel and passport [26]


Or alternatively, you could stop TYPING in CAPITALS and instead use your brain.

With your attitude, I'm not surprised that they don't want to give you the Dowod.

Incidentally, three weeks is about normal for obtaining the ID card.

Of course, if you didn't want to do it like this, you could just..you know, not be Polish.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


Local greengrocer.

There's normally all sorts of stuff available for 1-2zl a kilo - for instance, potatoes never go above 2zl a kilo, and I've seen them as cheap as 60gr at one point last year. Then there's always all sorts of stuff that's in season - it's really not difficult to walk away with a huge basket of produce for 10zl. You can, at least, get 4-5kg of food a day for about 10zl.

It won't be particularly varied or appetising, but food is food.

Travel / Driving to Poland from England - any tips? [264]


No way - at least in the ones I'm familiar with (Slubice/Frankfurt, Swiecko/Frankfurt, Kostrzyn/Kustrin Kietz and Gubin/Guben) - the rates at the border are about as competitive as it gets. The spread was no more than 5gr - which is perfectly acceptable.

Heck, I changed some money in the old Customs terminal in Swiecko and got 3.97 (the interbank rate was 3.95) on the Euro - can't complain about that!

From what I can tell, it's actually worse in the cities than at the border - probably because at the borders these days, there's a vast amount of competition.

Work / American ESL Teacher looking for Job in Warsaw/Krakow Area - i do not have a work visa! [10]


Haha, could be ;) I suppose he's very much modelling himself on your average American televangelist.


There's definitely a lot going on - it might be a small place, but they seem to have a lot of ambition.

Add Bydgoszcz and Lodz to the list of cities where someone is likely to get a work permit.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]


I don't do anything immoral in business (all income declared, etc etc) and do just fine.

That's usually the line spouted by those who are just too damned lazy to actually work for a day in their life.


Utter nonsense. They might not have the latest clothes or gaming systems, but that doesn't make them poor.

Poverty is when you don't have food, clothing and shelter. Not many kids in Poland suffer from a lack of all three.

In fact, I'd argue that 95% of poverty in Poland is due to parental neglect. Given that you can fill a basket with fresh produce for 10zl a day - there really is no excuse for the vast majority of children to ever go to school hungry.

Work / American ESL Teacher looking for Job in Warsaw/Krakow Area - i do not have a work visa! [10]


Torun and Wroclaw are both difficult markets these days - Torun is really popular with Americans for some odd reason, and Wroclaw's market is becoming like Krakow - oversaturated.

Szczecin, Opole, Gdansk, etc are good suggestions though. Bialystok and Rzeszow too - especially as Rzeszow is very well maintained and very close to the mountains.


The only schools in Krakow and Wroclaw that will bother going to get a work permit for a non-EU citizen are the ones that demand significant experience.

History / What was it like in 1989+ in Poland when the Soviet house of cards fell? [237]


If I remember rightly, that route wasn't particularly popular - East Germans needed exit visas to visit Poland, and they simply weren't being issued in any great numbers, especially after the Round Table agreements. The last death due to 'republikflucht' (or however it's spelt) was actually on the Polish-German border, not the German-German border as is commonly believed.

The same problem with that route was that crossing the Odra wasn't especially easy either - I've seen some photos (alas, don't have copies) where you can clearly see that the East Germans were defending the Polish border too. All that talk of 'friendship' - utter nonsense ;)

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


If you're Indian and need to work, forget about it. No-one is going to go to the effort of getting a work permit for someone that works part time - and I'm not sure that a work permit would even be granted for such work.

Life / Moving to Poland - Checklist / Things to Consider [33]

That's changed now for EU citizens - now it's a 5 year permit, then 10 year "permanent" permit.

I'm told the real reason behind permanent residence permits only lasting 10 years is due to them wanting an updated picture of the person - in line with the requirements for Polish people.