Work / Senior system administrator in Wroclaw - is 7500 OK? [29]


No, it isn't. It's downright awful, even by Polish standards.


Completely irrelevant. The OP is not a Pole, and has nothing in common with them.


A very frugal life, at best, and he might even end up in the red. It will be hell for his wife and kid.

Law / Polish citizen moving back from USA to the EU (Ireland or Netherlands) with American partner [31]


What, may I ask, do you intend to study? And why in the EU instead of the States? How old are you? How old is your partner, and what do they study? What do they intend to do in the EU while you study? What are your long term goals, both of you?

Basically, the more detail you provide about your situation and goals, as well as those of your partner, the more pertinent answers you will get. Right now, all I'm getting from you is very vague, practically hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky daydreaming about "studying in Europe", whatever that means. You'll just get vague, practically useless advice in return. As they say, the devil is in the details, and, so far, you have provided none.

For right now, my advice is to forget about studying in Europe unless you have a darn good reason and the means and wherewithal to do so. Nothing you have written indicates in the slightest that you do.

Life / Who is poor in Poland? [720]

Type in "why are poor countries poor" into Google and you'll get hundreds of essays about the various causes, many of which apply to Poland, and others that don't.

Two of the main reasons are lack of capital in it's several forms: natural resources, human resources, infrastructure and intellectual capital, and brain drain on a massive scale, which aggravates the lack of human resources and intellectual capital.

Other problems are widespread mutual distrust, lack of confidence in political and economic institutions, persistent corruption (though nowhere near as bad as it used to be), poor investment and planning, and, of course, a load of cultural and historical reasons that sharpen the sense of insecurity and futility among large segments of the population. Religion doesn't help, either, as the local Catholic Church is very suspicious of the wealthy West, and strongly prefers a populace that is weak, servile, ignorant and dependent.

All of this discourages foreign investment, as well, especially in the sectors that would increase the material well being of the local population.

An important thing to remember is that there is a complex network of vicious cycles at play, both holding Poland back and pulling Poland forward. There is a lot of "one step forward, two steps back" and "two steps forward, one step back" going on, and it can be quite discouraging, which also adds to the public sense of insecurity.

Life / Living Expenses in Krakow [42]

To live, yes. But your lifestyle will be rather basic, money will be tight, and savings will not add up to much. If this an entry level or junior position, it might be worth considering. But if you have any experience, not so much.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]


Cieszyn is only ten or fifteen miles from a major city, Ostrava, with half a million people. Whatever you can't find in Cieszyn, you can easily find there in abundance. Cieszyn has some very good restaurants, on both the Polish and the Czech sides. And they are open way later than 9:30 PM on a Friday night.


For someone who has been in Poland for twenty years, you have an odd definition of Polska B. Neither Łowicz nor Cieszyn are Polska B, by a long shot.


Ciechan is quite good, except for the honey one which is way too sweet for me. Ciechan was one of the first breweries to launch the micro/craft brew renaissance that has just started taking off in Poland. Koźlak is another early pioneer, and worth trying, too. Most of the new craft beers, though, are rather difficult to find. Worth trying if you can find them.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

It is a cool little town. "Little Vienna" is a bit of stretch, but the Polish old town is quite nice. Ostrava on the Czech side is also close by, and may be more convenient than Kraków for flights home. Prague, Vienna and Bratislava are also within easy traveling distance, and there are lots of cool towns to visit on the Czech side like Olomouc and, a favorite of mine, Novy Jicin, which you absolutely must visit on the night of April 30 for the Burning of the Witch, an ancient festival.

2000 PLN, all inclusive, would get you a mosque. You could house your whole harem there. That's a lot of apartment in Cieszyn, probably 100 square meters. More than you need. And yes, 4000 PLN in Cieszyn could give you a comfortable lifestyle, and go a lot further than in a big city.

You'll meet plenty of English speakers there. There are lots of cultural events on both sides. After you beef up your Polish and Czech, you'll have a great time!

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]


And German.

No, Polish beer is well behind Danish beer. And the Carlsberg you know is just a decent mass-produced light lager. They produce much better beers, but they are hard, if not impossible, to get outside of Denmark.

We're talking a bit past each other here. I'm talking about real genuine beers, and you are talking about mass produced swill. I'm talking Delmonico, and you're talking McDonalds. You live in NYC, so get out there and try some really good American and foreign craft beers and develop your palate. Life is too short to waste on the likes of Coors and Warka.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

Yes, the marketing is deceptive. By the way, I did part of my graduate studies as a microbiologist working at Carlsberg in Denmark.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]


Not really. Poland's breweries were wiped out during WWII, and what little survived was nationalized by the communists, with very limited production capacity of poor quality product. The brewing industry wasn't resurrected until the early 1990's, when the state owned breweries were privatized under foreign ownership. The beers produced were at first cheap knock-offs of commercial mass-produced light lagers like Heineken and Carlsberg, both of which companies still own a huge stake in the Polish brewing industry. Heineken owns the Żywiec group, and Carlsberg owns Okocim.

So no, there is no continuous beer drinking or brewing tradition in Poland. Anything you read that suggests otherwise is just marketing BS.

The situation in Poland is similar to that in the US, where the brewing industry was destroyed by Prohibition, WWII and, worst of all, the commercial mergers of the 1950s and 1960s. By the mid 1970s, only commercial swill was available, produced by a handful of large brewing concerns. It was not until the late seventies and early eighties that real brewing started up again with the like of Anchor Steam and Samuel Adams, quickly followed by a creative micro and craft beer renaissance. Poland is at the start of this process.

In the States, it was servicemen returning from Germany that initially drove demand. In Poland, it is workers and visitors returning to Poland from Germany and the UK, and other Western beer countries. Both were disappointed upon returning home to find that the local product was far inferior to what they sampled abroad.

There are about one hundred breweries in Poland right now, with most having been founded in the last five to seven years. Some of them produce fine beers, though they are hard to come by and have yet to become established and gain a reputation.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

The Polish brewing industry is in it's infancy. It practically did not exist until the 1990s, having been wiped out by WWII. Poland has no tradition of beer drinking. It's a newbie on the beer market, and consumer tastes are still in the formation stage, still dominated by mass produced swill. Fortunately, the microbrew/craft brew movement is starting to take off. But it's going to take time and investment before Poland resembles anything like a traditional beer drinking country.

Quite different from the Czech Republic, where many great beers are produced, many rivaling or surpassing those produced in Germany. It ranks up there with Belgium at the top of the beer hierarchy.

The difference between Poland and the Czech Republic, beer wise, is night and day.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

Warka is another mass-produced swill beer produced by Żywiec. Drunk mostly by girls, with raspberry syrup in it, through a straw. Nothing a true beer lover would touch.

Coincidentally, Żywiec's best product, it's porter, is brewed in Cieszyn. And Żywiec is licensed to brew Pilsner Urquell for the Polish market, although their product is nowhere near as good as the Czech original.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

It's a bland, lifeless export pilsner knockoff. As are most polish beers. Not bad, but very far from good. And very far from the best beer available in Poland. It's owned by Heineken. Most of the large breweries in Poland are foreign-owned.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

Life in Cieszyn would be MUCH cheaper than in the big cities, including rents, which are about half that in the big cities. Food and eating out is much cheaper, too.

It's really two cities in one, or, rather, one city in two, the Polish half, and the Czech half, with a combined population of about 75,000. It's very easy to walk from one to the other, and to get around without a car. Walking will get you everywhere quickly, and a bike will get you around even faster than a car would.

If you like beer, then Cieszyn is your place. Poland does not have a living tradition of beer brewing, and is only starting to experiment with real quality brewing. Most of what is available on the market is commercial swill of no particular character. You would have to look hard to find anything worth drinking. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, is one of the great beer countries of the world, and you can easily find many great beers in Czesky Tesin, as the Czech side of the city is known, quite affordably.

Prices in the Czech Republic are generally lower than in Poland, except for Prague, which is a world of its own.

There is a very nice bed and breakfast right behind the town hall right off the square on Ulica Srebrna 7. Rather decent, and I've stayed there myself. Fantastic location from which to explore both halves of the city.

There are multiple ski areas nearby on both the Polish and Czech sides, and they are easy to get to from Cieszyn. Can't tell you about prices, though, as I don't ski myself. You'll have little trouble meeting locals who do, though

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]


It's hard not to love. But it is not "party central", for sure. Extremely literate population though, for such a small town.

Life / Warsaw or Wroclaw - for better cost of living? [19]


Agree. "Comfy" is a good choice of words.


Now that's a poor choice of words. It's slightly cheaper than Warsaw, but not a whole lot. The biggest difference would be rent, and that's about 90-95% of that in Warsaw. Wrocław ain't cheap by a long shot.

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

For nature, mountains and skiing, as well as a comfortable place to live, it would be hard to beat Szlarska Poręba. Lots of offbeat, educated and creative people. Also, a short hike to the Czech Republic, specifically, Špindlerův Mlýn,

Life / A move to Poland - where to live? What city would you recommend? [32]

How about avoiding the big, and expensive, cities and settling down in a small, but attractive, town where your money will go A LOT further? If I were to retire in Poland, I would pick Cieszyn over someplace like Warsaw or Kraków, or even Wrocław, where I lived eight years. Plus, it's a short walk to the Czech border and it is one of the few places in Poland where Catholicism is the minority religion. Lots of cultural events, and more than enough English speakers to make life easier until you pick up enough Polish and/or Czech. And the food is incredible on both the Polish and Czech sides.

Or Łowicz, where you are close enough to Warsaw and even Poznan that you could easily spend the day in either city and return home to your much cheaper apartment. There are plenty of other pleasant and attractive small towns in Poland, many with easy access to the larger attractive cities.

That makes a whole lot more sense than trying to save on accommodation by sharing an apartment.

If I had to pick one of the bigger cities. I would pick Wrocław hands down. Warsaw is overrated, Kraków is nice to visit, but I wouldn't like to live there. Gdańsk, Poznan and Toruń would be OK, too. If you want an experience, you might want to try Lublin. It's vastly underrated.

Łódź is a $hithole. as is Katowice and environs. Unless you're seriously into grime and grunge, avoid at all costs.

Language / SEXUAL AND PASSIONATE WORDS IN POLISH [41]

Who said there's anything wrong with that? I certainly didn't.

Language / SEXUAL AND PASSIONATE WORDS IN POLISH [41]


Then probably no words would turn him on more than, "Odpocznij, zrobię ci masaż stóp". Women are often unaware of the power they have to control a man like a marionette simply by regularly and enthusiastically providing frequent, long, gentle, relaxing and loving foot massages. Divorce lawyers would go out of business if wives would just greet their husbands when they came home from work each day with an ice cold beer and a tender foot massage.

Law / LOOKING FOR HELP AND INFORMATION TO OPEN INDIAN RESTAURANT IN POLAND..... [80]

Things don't look good for you when you are looking for help with your business on some random internet forum. You should have an extensive network of real life contacts that you can rely on. If you don't, then you aren't going to make it in business in Poland, or anywhere else. Get off the computer, get out there in the real world, and meet real people face to face. A businessman without a (real life, not internet) network is a businessman without a business.

Work / Moving to work in Poland from Turkey - monthly gross income will be 12500 PLN [13]


"At the moment" is the key phrase. Out of season, they can be ridiculously expensive, if they are available at all.


It's expensive, and it's low quality (the good stuff, what little is produced in the country, is exported. I bought beef only a handful of times in Poland, and I'm an American. Pork consumption is far, far higher than beef consumption. Ten times or more.

As for fish, the only good fish I had was halibut. At a price. Was singularly unimpressed by the local trout.

Work / Moving to work in Poland from Turkey - monthly gross income will be 12500 PLN [13]


It gets cheaper as you eat home cooked meals made from available local ingredients in season exclusively at home, and gets more expensive the more you eat out in restaurants and cafes, the more prepared foods you eat, or the more meals you prepare with ingredients that are expensive in Poland, such as beef, lamb, seafood, or fruits and vegetables that are not in season, like tomatoes and peppers and just about any fruit except for apples.

Snacks and beverages away from home can add a lot to your costs. If you're very frugal and careful, a family of three can make it on 1000 PLN a month. If you're not careful, then 3000 PLN is entirely possible.

The biggest blow for you will be fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as beef and lamb. Poles eat very little beef and lamb, practically no seafood except for herring and a few very bland fish like pollock or Vietnamese catfish, and base their diet on pork and chicken, with cabbage, potatoes, onions and carrots being the primary, and often the just about the only, vegetables.

Oh, and by "food costs" I include household supplies like soap and clothes washing detergent, as well as personal hygiene products like toothpaste and toilet paper.

Work / Senior system administrator in Wroclaw - is 7500 OK? [29]

I would concentrate on finding a better paying job in a wealthier country. In the US, for example, the pay for a senior systems administrator ranges from $80,000 to $120,000. That is three and a half to five times as much as you would make in Poland. Moving to Poland without the ability to save up any significant amount of money would not be the best thing for your family, and at 7500 PLN, you would not be able to save up anything significant at all, and, as I said, might even lose out on the deal when travel and relocation expenses are factored in, and you might end up poorer than if you had stayed at home. The opportunity cost of taking this job in Poland is far too high.

Work / English-speaking IT companies in Poland [4]


The best way, in Poland, just as everywhere else, is by word of mouth from the contacts in your personal network. The best jobs are never advertised, and all you will find with recruiters and internet job sites are the table scraps. Real jobs at real pay are recommended by real people in the real world, face to face, or "friend of a friend".

Work / Senior system administrator in Wroclaw - is 7500 OK? [29]


The pay offered $ucks big time by any measure for a senior IT professional with family.


Only if you are getting paid Western wages. Otherwise, the cost of living is very high relative to local wages, which greatly reduces savings potential.


There's no community at all. By far the bulk of those foreigners are students or single working males, and few stay more than a year or two, which means there is no critical mass for community formation. An Indian woman is going to be very lonely indeed, as Indian women do not associate with other Indian women unless they are of the same class/caste/clan. Being tied down with a baby and very little cash is going to make it just about impossible to socialize, anyway.

Work / Senior system administrator in Wroclaw - is 7500 OK? [29]

That's 6150 PLN per month MINUS the total cost of your travel, relocation, visa and residence permit expenses to and from Poland divided by 12.

Frankly, that isn't all that attractive for a family of three for a senior position. That's a lousy $23,000 a year, a third to a quarter, or even less, of what you would make in richer countries. Don't forget that your spouse will not be able to work, and you will have to budget generously so that they have something to do without going crazy. Forget about saving up any money except, perhaps, a very, very modest rainy day fund if anything at all. You might even lose money on the deal. In any case, you lifestyle would be have to be very frugal.

I can't see it being worthwhile for a senior professional to drag their family halfway across the planet for so little. If saving money is a high priority for you, then forget about Poland and look for jobs in the richer Western European and English speaking countries.

The big problems with Poland are 1) low wages; 2) high cost of living relative to wages; 3) abysmal savings potential; 4) very high costs of travel and relocation relative to wages; and 5) no immigrant community for you and your spouse to socialize with.

Work / Finding work as an EU citizen (Polish) in another EU country [21]

You will need an official certificate from your local police that states that you have never been in trouble with the law, translated and notarized.

As an American, I was quite surprised to see resumes with photographs when I was living in Poland. In the States, they would immediately be thrown in the trash. Same with resumes with personal information like date of birth or marital status. I don't know about other European countries, though. Always best to ask.

Genealogy / Missing spelling of Polish towns/villages. [2]

Best guess for "Backache, Lomsgnskie" is Bacze Suche in Łomża powiat in northeastern Poland. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacze_Suche

And the other is almost certainly Ochenki in Maków powiat. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochenki

Her father would have been born in or around Maków Mazowiecki, not Makowo. See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mak%C3%B3w_Mazowiecki

Work / Possible lifestyle in Poland? Job offer - 12K to 13K PLN. [40]

You forgot to say "Simon says...".

Work / Finding work as an EU citizen (Polish) in another EU country [21]


It's of trivial use compared to a well developed real world network.


Good point. I have a Polish student studying in London right now and I'm worried about his future, too.


You have heard of Skype, have you? I interviewed for my present position on Skype.