Men in Poland in the forest? Just men?

Sopot Kamionka

are you Polish?

Hello Zetigrek! :)
I was born in Poland. I am of mixed descent and not living in Poland for 30 years. I speak Polish pretty well still.
Are you Polish?

Exactly!!!I hope he will post some pics of these forest gatherings because i AM VERY INTRIGUED.Remember when some poster was talking about little houses/shacks which after someone posted a pic turned out to be sheds działkowe.

I,ll try to answer questions first. My wife cannot tell me why the men gather in the forest, she is from Silesia and says she is sure they do not do it there. She is also sure that she cannot ever remember guys squatting in circles in Silesia or Krakow or any other major city she has visited....they just do it here. As for the guys having these 'get togethers' in the forest, now I have spent many years in most of the other European countries including some Northern ones that get cold like Poland (Sweden/Denmark) and in none of them have I witnessed this guys in the forest thing.....so it must be an Eastern Polish thing....not a Western thing? Miners squatting, have you ever been in a mine??? not much room to do anything but squat!!!! Not a job I would like to do. Somebody also mentions that Asian women squat....yes they do, but seperately from the men. Here just the men and boys squat...the women are always excluded from this squatting and even working in the fields in summer, I see men squatting and the girls and women reclining seperately away from the men. Pictures.....do you really want pictures, it really is no problem to do that, but I cannot see why you do not believe what I report, why on earth would anyone make up a spurious report about men gathering in the forest and or squatting on their haunches!!!....oh and they do it in summer or winter, doesn,t seem to bother them. My point really is that I have never seen this anywhere else in Europe and would like someone to tell me why it happens here and not in Germany, not in Belgium, not in Denmark, not in America...just in the 'Pod' or does it happen where you are?? do they squat in circles in towns nearer to the German border? or is it an Asian trait that has come down through the ages in just this little corner of Poland? and why is it still here?? it wasn,t exactly last week that Ghengis and his pals were having a pillaging party in this village???

Yes I do.You know that a picture is worth thousand words?


And never have I that's why I am asking for pics.The only explanation I can think of is that they are lumberjacks or some other kind of forest workers.

Hahahaha!!!
I like the Asian trait explanation!
One other possible explanation - they may have begun to squat only in recent times!
:)

I,m beginning to think that I am the only one on this forum who actually lives in the 'Podkarpacie'. You know the locals call this place Coniec swiata????? maybe I do really live at the 'end of the world'? Edit: not lumberjacks.......in fact the lumberjacks in these parts seem very well versed in health and safety standards wear some really good padded/waterproof/insulated coveralls and can be spotted from miles away due to bright colours and nice Stihl chainsaws like mine. (MS 650...... I recommend it......see I,m already thinking like a local)

maybe it's a survival school or something?
hey, how about asking them next time you see them?

Does it look familiar Dreadnought?

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I guess that they're not actually Polish then...


ah, Koniec świata...? Well, either there or Trollham...

They are simply doing the 'woodsman's workout' : artofmanliness.com/2012/09/19/woodsman-workout/

Next time, go join in! It could be fun! :D

Nope see my post about lumberjacks above......definitely not lumberjacks.....and my wife has just reminded me that these groups of men also occur along dirt tracks, not always in the forest, they can as easily be at the side of a field......and no they are not farmers....I,m a farmer so I should know. I,m almost willing to go along with the theory that they are escaping from nagging wives? but why here? why not the same in germany they have nagging wives also......is it just a 'Podkarpacie' way of escaping from a nagging wife and how do they convince 10 or more of their friends to come with them......they do sometimes light a fire with wood, but they don't seem to be cooking anything on it??? which again confuses? and they may or may not have a few cans of beer with them. Aha there you go....Tommy G nows says that they are not Polish.......which is exactly what the Polish guy back in UK told me.......so when did this area get added on to Poland? and to whom did it belong before?

Hrm. I wouldn't approach a group of dudes skulking in the woods, and that speak a different language and ask them what they're up to.

Maybe thay just want to drink on the fresh air? Police won't catch them there.

Ha ha all this talk about Police......I think we have one or two Policemen for this huge area! now the old Police Captain has retired (they seem to retire young here) the new Captain (three stars on his shoulder?) does not like to drive the old ARO 244 4x4, he likes the comfort of a car so does not venture out onto the dirt tracks unless he has to. There have been rumours that they will close our local Police station and Police cover will come from the next town appx 15kms away. I have to say that this is a pretty safe area, (lots of death and maiming by crazy driving) but very little theft or violence....the guys round the back of the Straz always have cuts and bruises where they fight each other or fall over but they never bother other people or passers by.

Dreadnought, the region knows all kinds of indoeuropean tribes, including germanic, slavic, celtic, finnic, huns and what not. Later it was challendged by the tartars, turks, germans, there were even dutch settlements in the 14th c, possibly also before and after that. That is what I read in the academic literature.

So maybe these very Asian traits are left over from the turks and the tartars? but that seems a very long time for these traits to have survived? This place must have been really closed off from the rest of Poland...like some kind of 'Lost World'

I have lived in three countries and learned for fun how to tell peoples ethnic backgrounds even mixes and I swear I used to be very good at it. Tell me their features and I tell you who they are. I am fascinated already! They could be clan members or a minority or locals who just took to squatting in the woods as a local trait which is imaginable to me. When two groups of the same bird species on either side of the Golden Gate bridge sing differently so can some locals develop their specific hang out behavior as well :)

I agree. Massive walls, armed border guards, killer dogs, electrified razor wire, imprisonment in Gulag concentration camps, torture, Stasi (SB), family disappearances does indeed discourage travel.

Who needs all that when they have you to threaten women on buses, or to take surreptitious photos of them in gathering places. Or to cut their television cable with a knife when they play it at a higher volume than pleases you?

There are a few people here who do have that Tartar look, ie very dark skin, eyes that look slightly asian and dark straight hair.....some of the girls who have this look can be so beautiful....and some of the guys who have the look, can look so sinister (probably nice guys just unlucky in the way they look) But there are so few of them that it makes me wonder how these Tartar ways could have survived so long with only few of the people to carry them on.

yes.

When you are on it! there some villages where settled with Tatar's slaves taken be the King, about XV century or what.

I go for the explanation that they are just spending some time with friends without the wives. In my country men are doing the same, but instead of gathering in the forest we go to a garden sit in some place, playing cards and drinking wine/beer or got to fish, but for sure fishing is just an excuse in most of the cases. Of course women are not allowed in this kind of things (usually). And this is happening in villages/cities I imagine that in very small villages/locations if they don't have the ocean or a garden to do this, maybe they will use the forest...

Dreadnought, Ironide sais it! I'll be damned! It seems my lead was not all that wrong. Possibly Tatarzy Polscy. You can find them on Google. And they have their own websites!

Perhaps they are gypsies. The Roma I have seen in Poland are very much darker than the English Romanys and the Irish tinkers

That is from Wikipedia
"Po wojnie w granicach Polski pozostały 2 wsie tatarskie w dzisiejszym województwie podlaskim (Bohoniki i Kruszyniany), ponadto Tatarzy żyją rozproszeni w Gdańsku, Białymstoku, Warszawie i Gorzowie Wielkopolskim. £ącznie ok. 3 tysiące ludzi."

Transl.:
After the war (WW2) twoTatar villages were counted both in Województwo Podlaskie - Bohoniki and Kruszyniany.
Other Tatars live in Gdańsk, Warszawa and in Gorzów Wielkopolski. Total Tatar population counts around 3 thousand people.

WRONG REGION! :(

Member Maybe could be right. I am reading Roma population goes back to the 14th century!

wrota.podkarpackie.pl/pl/kultura/mniejszosci/etniczne

Wow, just read Dreadnought's posts again. Karaimi fit to his description better. And his Polish girlfriend said they were not Romani.

No these few dark people are not Romani......this is a very 'closed up area' I don,t think Romani would be welcome here, but these people who have the Tartar look have been around for generations........I wonder if maybe they just 'happen' in the population here, you know, genes from the past coming to the front after many generations......if you had a baby with these traits you would love it just the same as if it were white 'aryan'. But that still doesn,t help with the squatting in circles like Asians??? these are white guys squatting, they must have seen this tradition carried on from ancient Tartar times in this area.......and like I said teen boys still do it......in the West if a group of teen boys are waiting for a bus etc...they will stand around......here they will squat in a circle by the roadside (any girls with them will stand)......it is a different and special culture. (I,m not saying it is a good thing.....People in the West of Poland may be embarrassed by these people? see their actions as maybe not the Poland of the future that is hoped for) But they are here and these old Asian ways are still part of Poland and looking at the young guys now they will be for a long time to come, beause if teens do it now they will pass it to their children in not too many years.

Maybe they are playng a game of craps?

Look up the KARAIMI - they look slightly Asian, speak some subgroup Turkish.
KOZACY are not so different from KAZAIMI and fit your desciption.
Mind there are two related KAZAIMI in the world. Polish and Ukrainian KAZAIMI are predominantly Asian/Turkish.
There are also KAZAIMI in the Middle East who are predominantly Semitic but a mix with probably some Asian ethnies.

They are not Polish Tatars, who were given land in exchange for being soldiers in the Polish Army, warriors who were given privilege to regain their own faith - Muslims.

Those are Poles of Tatar's or Turkish/Asian origin - slaves settled to work the land. They regained some distinctive features and customs for centuries.


Why? Should all people become a gray uniformed drones? Good they have their way perpetuated for generations.