News / Poland's economic future? [294]


yes yes - you know everything about Polish geogryphy Dougpol - it's almost as if you said that if you fart it affects people in Zakopane


it all costs money - big money - the money Poland doesn't have - that's why I told you to appeal to the EU for subsidies

from another point of view - ok let's give grants for converting to electric heating - how many people will actually do it when they know their heating bills will double as a result

lot's of people in Poland complain that goverment is spending too much and living off credit (mainly total oposition supporters) - and you want it to spend even more

again we have our own coal while we need to import gas for the time being from Russia - it was irresponsible to increase reliance on gas for heating in the situatio where Russia had a monopoly - also Poland didn't have money for extending the infrastructure

there are also other priorities for this goverment and Poles at large - roads are more of a pressing issue than the gas network - the smog problem seriously affects only a couple of areas in Poland (Kraków, Warsaw and Upper Silesia) - if smog was a national issue it would be a serious political issue too - it isn't


electricity in Poland is very expensive relative to household incomes - in absolute figures it is cheaper than in most EU countries


only because Poland started diversifying it's gas supplies - including plans to built Baltic Pipe: a pipeline that will connect us to Danish and Norwegian gas systems; and the construction of the gas terminal in świnoujście of course - the current gas contract with Russia has us paying at least 10 per cent more for Russian gas than most EU countries

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


I corrected myself as to how expensive is heating with natural gas - also I mentioned that natural gas network is not available in most rural areas - some people heat their houses with propane-butane installations in rural areas and this is much more expensive than coal heating - I realize that heating with gas (especially natural gas) is convenient (clean and almost service-free) but still coal remains the cheapest option and there are lots of people who have no choice but to use it

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

let's try a different approach to the same question - Poland mined about 70 million tonnes of bituminous acoal (the in 2016 - the estimates of all subsidies (which are overblown If you ask me) are 6 billion PLN yearly recently - that gives about 85 PLN a tonne of coal - a tonne of coal for individual consumers is about 800 PLN at the moment - the mininig of lignite is not subsidied but lignite is not quite suitable for heating households - anymore questions?


you are very well informed indeed - Bełchatów is over 200 km north of Kraków and prevailing winds in Poland are WSW - so yeah Bełchatów is really a disaster for Kraków (I guess you also think that Bełchatów is the cause of Kraków's smog, don't you - well then there must be even more smog all the way from Kraków to Beałchatów which is like 20 per cent of rural Poland - I'm not sure you have ever been to rural Poland then)

ok the cost of gas heating that I said is almost 2 as much as coal heating pertains to propane-butane installations - the natural gas installations are much more economical - they are 25 to 20 per cent more expensive than those powered with coal - the biggest problem is that there are big areas in the country where natural gas network is not available - most rural areas - in the big cities where district heating was implemented natural gas heating makes little sense - also you have to take into account that we have our own coal and we need to import natural gas and after the Nord Stream construction we are in a precarious situation where Russians can stop supplying us with natural gas any moment (it will be even more pronounced if Nord Stream 2 is built)


o sure - downsize yours to set an example

there is also the issue of price fluctuations of natural gas - Poland is bound by contract with Russia where the price is partly indexed against the prices of crude oil - if the price of oil rises we pay more for natural gas to Russia - I think the estimates in the prices of natural gas against coal were that I quoted were made in 2016 when natural gas prices hit the record low (along oil prices) - in 2017 natural gas for households was about 10 per cent more expensive than in 2016 - there is little chance that oil prices will be as low as in 2016 any time soon - and Polish-Russian gas contract expires in 2022 - the current government doesn't plan to sign a new long-term contract with Russia - so the future natural gas prices in Poland remain an unknown

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

ok you want figures - after Rzeczpospolita article : WISE (Warsaw Institute of Economic Studies) estimated that in 2012 an average taxpayer paid about 100 PLN for all subsiedies that the coal mining sector receives (none of which are direct subsidies as I already mentioned) - that makes about 200 PLN per a household - in Poland more than 80 per cent households are heated in this or other way by burning coal - let's be generous and say than an avarage family that uses some kind of coal powered heating received a 250 PLN subsidy in the price of coal - an average cost of heating a 50 square meter apartment in Poland exceeds 2000 PLN yearly - again most of the households are heated using coal in this way or another - this means that even without subsidies coal is probably the cheapest source of energy to heat households - because the subsidies lower its price not much more than 10 per cent - gas heating in Poland is almost twice as expensive if you ever wondered and electric heating is even more expensive

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


you know next to nothing about Polish energy sector Casual simple as that - and you bring up some stupid simplistic headlines

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

also there are no direct subsidies to coal - the only significant form of subsidy is to retired miners which has low impact on the prices of coal (retired miners don't dig out coal you know)

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


the avarage foreign tourist visits Kraków, Warsaw, Gdańsk and Wrocław not a ****-hole on the Ukrainian border my dear ecologist - so your data are meaningless - also I guess (and it is not a wild guess) that your data on how much a tourist spends in Poland refers to foreing tourists and not Polish tourists - and if you assume that most tourists to visit Poleski Park Narodowy are Polish pupils on school trips the data is even more meaningless

and I trust the gut feelings of the local municipality authorities in the area - they definitely have a good estimate of how much they earn from foreing tourists and tourism in general

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

btw there is a quite good way to estimate how many foreign tourists visited Poleski National Park - go to youtube and check how many videos were taken there by non-Poles, I bet there won't be even 10 of these (I will be actually surprised if there is a single one)

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


in the absence of specific data broad general average data may be completely misleading and therefore can't really be called data

you only presented how many people visited the Poleski National Park not how much money they left in the Park itself and it's surrounding - you presented exatcly nothing then


burning coal is the cheapest way to heat your home in Poland, many people cannot afford other methods - so genius appeal to the European union for hefty subsidies to those other methods or shut up

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


present the hard figures for Poleski Park Narodowy and we will talk

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

I originally responded to Casual Observer's post about some marsh in Poleski National Park in which he complained that a rare species of a bird inhabits and may be endangered - Białowieża was a later distraction and not by me

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


the figure you quoted is an average for Poland and may be completely irrelevant to the case we are talking about - maybe you have heard about Krasiejów Jurrasic Park in Opole region - it's a day trip - no need to overnight - people come there by cars - most visitors are still school trips who arrive on busses - maybe they will buy a snack or two appart from the entry fee - that's the definition of low spending - let's assume that 10 per cent of visitors to the Poleski National Park are foreingers who actually need accomodation etc (which is in my opinion a hugely overblown figure) - and they actually spend 200 PLN per day there (which is doubtful) - that leaves you with not much more than 2 million PLN a year - sure maybe 10 families could live well on that money but we are talking about hundreds of people who can earn their living if a coal mine is built in the vicinity and the municipalities would gain much more on taxes from mining (ever heard of Kleszczów near Bełchatów - it is the richest municipality in Poland (per capita) thanks to the taxes on the coal mine) - Poleski Park Narodowy will always be an obscure place far out in the sticks that hardly anyone knows about except for the locals that is difficult to reach as well


coal mines don't create smog my ecologist pal for the simple reason that they hardly burn any coal

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


we are not talking about Białowieża cms but some rather obscure Poleski National Park of which allegedelly the swamp is a part where an even more obscure little bird lives - and the whole park generates (according to Atch) more money from mushroom pickers and hunters (who would've thought you can hunt in a National Park) than on actual tourists - Atch has no data on how much money the tourists actually leave in the communities though (and not the park itself) - which could be miniscule as I pointed out and gave reasons why

News / Poland's economic future? [294]

most of these tourist are low budget tourists or zero spender tourists because they are school trips - be more realistic sometimes pal


there is thousands of square kilometers of gas shale elsewhere in Poland - no need to touch Białowieża

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


there is no coal under Białowieża - anymore questions?

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


44 000 visitors a year makes it not much more than 100 a day - and you think communities can live off the tourist traffic and try to compare it to a coal mine which can give jobs to hundreds of people - yeah you are realistic indeed

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


Poland does not have communities - it has villages and towns instead Atch

News / Poland's economic future? [294]


Atch so you don't criticize the government for the 500+ irresponsible spending, instead you want it to spend even more, interesting

News / Beata Szydło - the best Polish politician, world's politicians could learn from her [80]


do as you please, there are no shoulds and shouldnots in reality

the simple practical reality about violent American thugs is that they are too stupid to come to Poland and that is why there is no need to limit their access to Poland by an administrative measure

Work / Polish private pension - is it obligatory to join? [13]

just checked it - you cannot check if your employer pays ZUS contribution for you online - you can do it either in person in a ZUS branch or through (snail) mail - i'll try to figure out addresses you can send your request to (I guess you need to use Polish in the letter)

History / WWII - who really was the first to help Poland? [900]

Harry - ever heard of the Polnische Wehrmacht?

History / WWII - who really was the first to help Poland? [900]


those mentioned were mostly blackmailed to sign the Volksliste to be conscripted to Wehrmacht otherwise they or their families would end up in concentration camps - I guess only a tiny (perhaps even a very tiny minority) of them actually volunteered to serve in German army - and as you mentioned they often deserted at the first opportunity even though they were deliberately spread around German units so that no en messe desertions occur. What is more those who deserted often ended up fighting the Germans on the side of the Allies - at least one third of the personnel of the first Polish division of Polish People's Army in Soviet Russia were exactly those deserters and POW's

. Numerous Silesians, Kashubians were taken out of the POW's camps in Italy and offered to serve in the Second Corpse of Polish forces in the West. I read stories that those who decided to return to Poland after serving in the Anders' army faced persecution from the new communist Polish authorities.

Work / Polish private pension - is it obligatory to join? [13]

I'm not sure about now as I am on disability - but in the past employers often evaded paying ZUS contributions for their employees - but a lot of has changed since then so I don't know now - I think you should have a Polish PESEL (national idetnification number) to be able to check the amounts that has been paid into ZUS on your name

Work / Poland is not the best country to get part time job with study? [59]

if you know Polish or Ukrainian - yes

Life / Polish Song About Emperor of China / ... wielki cesarz Chin [7]

sorry can't help you - don't recognize the song - if it is Polish then it could be some obscure folk tune that I never heard of

Language / Verbal Aspect - "składała" vs. "złożyła" [15]


the funny thing is that Polish people often use imperfective in that case - W zeszłym roku czytałem pięć książek. - the boundaries of perfective and impefective are blurred in many instances

just as "Widziałem ten film we wtorek" - Polish people more often than not would ask "Czytałeś tę książkę?" even if they mean to ask you if you finished the book

Widziałem is in a sense it's both a perfective and imperfective verb depending on context
So "Widziałem cały ten film" is perfectly ok and even a preferred version in normal speech over "Obejrzałem cały ten film"

Ok - I think the general rule is that with some verbs imperfective form can be used in informal register to describe a finished action while perfective can NEVER be used to describe an ongoing action/process

The verbs that come to my mind are 'widzieć' ,'slyszeć' ,'czytać';'jechać' and possibly other (oh "pić" and "jeść" definitely)

News / Poland's Party of Law and Justice (PiS) reconstruction [38]


it will go on until the anniversary this spring - it was already anounced like in August or September

Language / Idiomatic Polish [65]


the dialect of Kurpie and neighbouring areas

Language / Idiomatic Polish [65]


you guessed right - 10 points ;)

Travel / Help with a travel plan to Poland [72]

I think the best form of transportation in the winter is trains (though they too can get delayed in very adverse conditions) - fortunately there are quite decent railway connections between the major cities you want to visit

as for snow - even at the turn of January and February there is a chance there will be no snow in most of Poland (I know it sounds weird there can be as well over one foot of snow in many parts of the country at this time) - your best bet to see and experience snow is to go to the mountains - my advice is to visit Zakopane which is about 2 hours away from Kraków by train - you can make a visit in Kraków say 4 days with a day trip to Zakopane if there is no snow in the cities you are going to visit