Law / Does anyone know the process to get long-term residency (stała karta pobytu)? [9]

No. I'm renewing my card right now, and all you need are 1) two photos; 2) a copy of your passport; 3) 50 PLN; 4) a copy of your zameldowanie if your address has changed since the last card; and 5) your old card.

Your residency doesn't expire. Just the card does.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]

There's a big difference between "Dutch" and "Dutch-style". Real Dutch cheeses are not that bland at all. I think your confusing "mild" with "bland". Commercial knock-offs, from Poland or elsewhere, are no comparison to the real thing. The Polish taste in cheese is practically the same as the American: as immature, taste-free and cheap as possible. Proper aging takes time, money and skill, which is a big disincentive for Polish (and American, and big commercial) cheese producers. Aged cheeses are also an acquired taste, one that few Poles have so far acquired. Poles very strongly equate the taste of aged cheeses with spoilage, so practically all cheeses sold in Poland are fresh and immature for immediate consumption: from cow to store in a week, at most.

Food / Dish containing Sauerkraut, Noodles & Sour Cream? [6]

It's called "haluszki z kapustą" in Polish, and "kapustové halušky" in Slovak. Extremely popular among Polish Americans. Tons of recipes on the internet. Some with fresh cabbage, others with sauerkraut. Some with homemade noodles or dumplings, others with store-bought noodles (often bow-ties). Some with meat, some without. Every family has their own recipe. Like I said, check out the internet for tons of recipes.

Type haluszki recipe into Google images and pick one that looks like what your grandmother made, and use that as a starting point.

Work / Career path in Shared Service Center (SSC) in Poland [4]


If it's earnings that you are interested in, then no, the career path is likely to be a dead end with a low earnings cap. Most jobs of this sort are outsourced from wealthier counties, with the really interesting and well-paying jobs remaining in those countries. The primary reason they outsource the grunt work to countries like Poland is to save on wages, and you will quickly find that any decision they make regarding your eventual advancement will be primarily evaluated in terms of that.

Another thing that will greatly limit your ability to seriously advance is the relative lack of continuing education options. You will find little in this area until you master the local language. Courses offered in English at Polish universities are usually of abysmal quality, and the certificates or diplomas obtained will be of very little value, both inside Poland and abroad.

If your coming to Poland for a year or two of fun and adventure and to get a little useful experience to spice up your CV, then great. Go for it.

If your thinking of making a career in Poland as an accountant, think again. Your lifetime earnings potential in absolute Euros will be a fraction of what you can earn in a western country, and your absolute lifetime savings potential in absolute Euros will be an even smaller fraction, with greatly reduced chances for advancement. The difference in the cost of living will never offset the amount you lose.

As an accountant, you should be aware that the really interesting and rewarding jobs are for specialists and high level managers and consultants. You would be extremely foolish not to continually improve your qualifications, acquire new skills, and beef up the skills you already have. Your earnings are mostly limited by your knowledge of advanced applied mathematics and computer skills, especially programming and modeling. Management skills are also a big plus, but make sure to get them in an excellent management program at an excellent university. Language skills are also a plus, especially at the advanced near-native level rather than a superficial familiarity.

Getting a degree in financial engineering or actuarial mathematics would greatly increase your opportunities and earnings. High-level actuaries are in great demand everywhere, and will always be during your lifetime.

I'm guessing you're in your late twenties or early thirties. Focus on beefing up your education NOW, because it's going to get harder as you get older. Take advantage of your youth while you still have it.

Study / Masters in Production management at Wroclaw University. Advice on acceptance process/visa required [3]

With your background, you would be better off studying petroleum engineering or geological engineering in India than production management in Poland. Engineers in those fields are in great demand, and earn very high wages.

If you want to get a management degree, get it from an excellent program at an excellent university. As far as I know, none of the management programs taught in English at Polish universities qualifies as top-notch. A degree from a good Indian university would be just as good, if not better.

If you're really serious about getting a worthwhile management degree, try a top university in the States or the UK. A degree in production management from CIT, MIT or Imperial College, for example, is going to open a lot more doors than one from an English-language program at the University of Wrocław.

Why do you want to study in Poland, of all places?

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]

Tamarisk: A useful answer is going to depend on your age, your education and qualifications, your previous work experience, and your plans for life, none of which you touched upon in your post.

Also, it would help to know your status with regards to the States. And how well you know Polish.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]


If you submitted your application with all necessary documents 45 days before your visa expired, then the wojewoda will issue an extension on the spot if they need more time to process it.

If you submitted your application late, then it might not be accepted, and you might not be granted an extension.

They don't need you to leave the Schengen zone to "give them more time". That would be pointless. Whoever told you that had no idea what they were talking about.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]


Frankly, if I were that desperate, I'd just stick my head in the oven and get it over with already.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]


Not for long. Even assuming that Abby works for Berlitz for six months, the amount she would be able to save up wouldn't cover the cost of the plane ticket to Poland and the cost of the residence permit, and she would have insufficient funds to either survive the summer, when no work is available, or to afford a return ticket. Frankly, she won't be able to save up anything at all, even on a potato and cabbage diet and living in a grimy substandard studio apartment with her girlfriend, and will have to call mom and dad for help, probably before Easter, if not Ash Wednesday.

She should ask herself why she, a hopeless slacker with zero qualifications or skills nor even the slightest clue how the real world works, was able to land this job, in spite of the fact that there are scads of desperate hopeless foreign slackers who would do just about anything for a buck. The reason is that the job is so bad, that even desperate hopeless slackers wouldn't touch it it with a long barge pole. Even the poor sucker who was dumb enough to take the job before her in October quit, which is why this job was available in the first place.


Which is a good sign that Berlitz is going to pull some silly stunt like offering her work on a "garbage contract", which Abby, in desperation, will have no choice but to accept.

All in all, Abby is far too immature and clueless to even consider moving to work in a foreign country. She's downright delusional. Read her other thread. It would be irresponsible and cruel to give her any advice besides the solid advice I gave her above, which was to work on her studies and forget about going to Poland and about this girlfriend.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]


You will not be able to survive on that in Kraków. Not by a long shot. No matter how frugally you live. Forget about it. That's far less than you could possibly survive on. Never mind about diamonds and flashy things, you won't be able to afford potatoes and cabbage.

Sorry to burst your bubble, kiddo, but your plan is totally unrealistic and will certainly not end well. Definitely. Not a hint of "maybe".

Your situation is totally hopeless. Best advice is to forget about the girlfriend and concentrate on studying to get some salable qualifications. Otherwise, your life is going to suck big time.

One more thing: your girlfriends parents are not going to help you out, and are not going to give you a place to stay unless you can contribute your fair share to the household expenses (expect to pay at least 1000 PLN). If your girlfriend is telling you otherwise, she's full of baloney, or just as delusional as you are.

Law / Do I need a work visa before moving to Poland? [29]

I wouldn't get on the plane unless I had already in my hands 1) a REAL contract (not a "garbage contract") guaranteeing me an income of at the very least 4000 PLN NET a month; 2) a copy of the work permit to submit to the Polish embassy in the States; and 3) a temporary residence for one year pasted in my passport. Your senses are right; whoever told you that you could apply at the American embassy in Poland is talking nonsense.

Second, a Berlitz school is very unlikely to pay you enough to live on. They are notoriously stingy, and have a very poor reputation among language teachers. Generally considered a lousy place to work.

All in all, there's no good reason for you to even consider buying a plane ticket at the moment.

Travel / A traditional Thanksgiving Dinner in Wroclaw? [16]


Actually, a pretty wise move. Start small and gradually develop your skills. A full-blown Thanksgiving dinner is a pretty hectic affair for an experienced cook who knows what they're doing.


Sadly, for too many people on this earth, a simple bowl of rice is a feast they can only dream of. More reason for us to be thankful.

Language / Please help me understand Polish adverbs [30]


Czuć means "smell" in the sense of "sense, perceive or detect". As in "I detect an odor of gas", or "I can smell the flowers". It's more passive than "wąchać", which is a deliberate action. Czuć also works with tastes. And with emotions and moods (as with "feel" in English), which is the reason why Poles often mistranslate it as "to feel", as in "I feel garlic". Probably because this is the only definition given in smaller dictionaries.

Czuć never means to physically feel with the hand, as in "feel my forehead. Do I have a fever?".

Travel / Christmas Fairs in Poland [9]


It is. And it's getting bigger every year. Definitely worth checking out.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


Yesterday, I made schabowy for my guests. They were a bit shocked when I slathered and marinated the pounded schabs before I breaded them with plenty of garlic and lemon juice, and spiced up the flour and bread crumbs with lots of black pepper, papryka ostra, ginger, basil, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, tarragon, cumin and coriander. They tasted the final product with a little trepidation, but were pleasantly surprised and impressed. I'm pretty sure that that one meal represented the overwhelming majority of their herb and spice consumption for the whole year.

Another time, I made REAL Hungarian pörkölt (similar to gulyas, but less liquid) for some other guests. With REAL Hungarian papryka, black pepper, caraway seeds, juniper berries, bay leaves, garlic, marjoram and REAL smoked bacon from the village. And a good dallop of REAL village sour cream and a good sprinkling of chopped dill, parsley and green onion. The older folk thought it was "very spicy" (not exactly a word I would use to describe my pörkölt, which is about one-tenth as spicy as my chili, which I consider only moderately spicy). I later visited them, and they made lecso for me, or rather the Polish version of it. Tasted just like oatmeal. Not a hint of spices, not even black pepper.

However, all in all, Polish food is no blander than any other northern European cuisine. Except, as mentioned above, for cheese, which is atrociously bland. Perhaps the most annoying habit I've come across is adding sugar where it simply doesn't belong, like in potato salad, tzatziki, hummus and tomato sauce. Without a doubt, though, the blandest food I've ever eaten was in the UK.

Polonia / Procedure for obtaining a student visa at the Polish embassy in New Delhi? [26]


It's an essential skill for any graduate student.


Your graduate studies are going to be an awful experience if you do not know English well. How do you think you are going to do your research? And write up your thesis? And communicate with your professors and fellow students?

Work / Teaching English in Krakow - where to start looking and the process? [21]


That e-mail address really inspires confidence.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

In the States, they're called Welsh cookies (cake means something different in American English). They're often sold for fundraisers at Welsh-American churches, especially for St. David's day.

Work / Is it possible for a street musician to make a living in Warsaw? [6]

Definitely without bills, and maybe not including czynsz. If so, it's not such a good deal.


There are a lot better places to try your luck than Poland. You're going to run up against a tremendous amount of competition here, both in music and in teaching. Highly unlikely that you will be able to "make a living" at it.

Work / Teaching English in Krakow - where to start looking and the process? [21]

Agree. The market is super saturated with native speaking wannabe teachers, and this is the wrong time of the year to be looking. The only teaching jobs your likely to find in Kraków are at lousy schools for lousy pay under lousy conditions. The good jobs are already taken. You're about 15 years to late to cash in on the Polish market for English teachers. That ship has long since sailed, and the market has contracted because of the financial crisis.

The same is also true for Warsaw and Wrocław, and to a large extent for the other cities that are attractive to westerners, like Poznań and Gdańsk. There still may be some opportunities out there in small provincial towns, but you're going to have to look really hard for them, especially at this time of year.

Also, Kraków, Warsaw and Wrocław are wonderful cities to live in if you've got cash. They are not much better than £ódź or Katowice if you don't. Unless you're bringing in a guaranteed 4000 PLN a month, including in the summer months, which is difficult, it's probably not worth taking a teaching job in Kraków, Warsaw or Wrocław. You're better off trying your luck in the States.

Food / Cheese in Poland is too bland [37]


There is only one decent Polish cheese that I have found. It's called "Bursztyn", and it's a hard cheese for grating and serving with, for example, pasta. On par with any foreign cheeses of that type. Sorta kinda tastes a little like Norwegian brunnost, oddly, but of a much better quality, harder and not quite as sweet. A decent substitute for Italian hard cheeses. The same company makes two other cheeses, "Rubin" and "Safir", that I haven't tried yet because they never seem to have it in stock when I am in cheese buying mode. Based on the quality of "Bursztyn", they might be worth a try.

There is only one cheese of the type you mention that is OK. Not great, but edible. It's a Polish knock-off of Maasdammer. Pretty much OK for sandwiches, pasta, lasagna and pizza.

All of the rest I've tried were horribly bland and lifeless, including all Polish knock-offs of Gouda and Emmentaler. Just plain inedible, and yes, they all taste more or less the same, which is, like nothing at all.

If you want great cheeses, go to the Czech Republic. They make some truly incredible cheeses that are worth writing home about. There's a great cheese shop right across the border from Polish Cieszyn, on the right about 50 meters after you cross the old international exit point (which I think is called Most Pokoju or Most Jedności, or something like that). Worth checking out if your in the area.

Polonia / Do you know any Polish Language teachers in India? [44]

Like I said, German is not more closely related to Polish than Kannada, Albanian. Armenian or Persian are, so the answer is no. Apart from all of the above being Indo-European languages, they all diverged many thousands of years ago.

Polonia / Do you know any Polish Language teachers in India? [44]


Not at all. German is no more closely related to Polish than Kannada is. Same for French and English.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

Welsh cookies are small flat cookies baked not in the oven, but on the stovetop on a cast iron skillet. Type "Welsh cookies" into Google images.

Here's my recipe:

WELSH COOKIES

5 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups butter
1 box dried currants

Sift together dry ingredients. Cream together butter and sugar.

Stir in eggs. Add dry ingredients and milk. Add currants.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured work surface and cut with a glass into rounds.

Bake on a very lightly greased cast iron skillet or griddle over medium high heat until cooked through, adjusting heat as necessary.

Take's a little practice, but you'll catch on pretty quick.

Food / Christmas cookies for boyfriends Polish parents [8]

Try Welsh cookies. I often make them and my Polish friends just love them. They're also easy to stack for shipment, and pretty durable.

Oatmeal cookies are another possibility, but they may be too delicate to survive shipment. Remember that any package you send is going to get tossed around like a basketball.

Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]

That can be arranged between you (or your representative) and your landlord. Some landlords are more flexible than others. Others want only long-term tenants. To negotiate, you will need the help of a native Pole.

Work / Moving to Poland to work at a company (Warsaw or Lodz). Average expense per month? [57]


I'm sure it will. Good luck with everything!


That's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for you to do without knowing Polish, either on-line or in person. You will definitely need the assistance of a native Pole. Better yet, ask one of your future Polish colleagues to find an apartment for you before you come. The alternative is relying on an agency to find one for you, but that will cost you about one month's rent, so about 1500 PLN, give or take.

Work / What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland? [59]


Salaries that high are for project and regional managers, high-level administrators and high-level consultants, or for experienced high-level specialists in areas that are in especially high demand. Non-managerial non-specialist positions are unlikely to pay more much more than 5000 PLN net.


Yes, you could raise a child as a single parent on 5000 PLN a month. It might seem a lot when compared to what you make in Belarus, but you can do a lot better in the West. In any case, don't move until you have a well-paying job already secured, and don't simply take the first job you are offered. Take the time to do your research, and shop around. Cast your net wide, not only in Poland.

Travel / Is Poland safe for non white women to visit? [7]


Generally, yes. As long as you avoid drunks, which is a lot easier to do in Poland than in Russia.

Work / What salaries are for IT specialists (Senior QA Engineer) in Poland? [59]


Move only after you land a well-paid job. Do not move on the assumption that you will find one once you get here.

The range of salaries can vary very widely, depending on qualifications, experience and current market supply and demand. Knowing average salaries is helpful, but, in the end, the only figure that counts is the one that your prospective employer offers. Employers in Poland are highly motivated to keep wages as low as possible, and that is often their primary, and sometimes only concern. Poland is not a friendly market for job seekers, even for IT engineers. Wages are still significantly lower than in the West, which significantly limits your ability to save up in absolute dollars or euros. Paths to career advancement are more limited, as many IT jobs are outsourced with the best jobs remaining in the home countries. Opportunities for quality advanced further education are also more limited than in the West.

Whether you should move to Kraków or not depends, more than anything, on whether you are offered a well paid job BEFORE you come. Other considerations are your qualifications and experience, and the demand for them on the job market; how long you plan to stay in Poland; what you expect to get out of your stay in Poland; the generosity of the offer in comparison to what you can make in your home country or in the West; and your plans for your future life and career.

Where are you from (citizenship), and why exactly do you want to come to Poland?