What the Polish government do to bring back home Polish immigrants?

So a person decides to leave, make home somewhere else, quite often because it was easier to have better life, and after that, when they decide to come back other Poles, who struggled and created Poland for all those years should bend over backwards to give them information they can find themselves? How about doing ones reaserch? Google stuff, join or create groups for people like you...Be an adult for Pete's sake

When you first said this


it was quite equivocal.


You should have included it in your first post.


Where had they resided before return? Have they just returned from Paradise that they don`t know about dangers of being cheated on etc?

How about the prodigal son story?

What about it? Develop the topic, please.

Sylwio - you are so right about lack of information and any government initiatives. Poland is effing clueless in this respect. Zilch. And other posters here cant see the old adage that people are the greatest resource.

As posts in the guardian today state, why would Poles want to come back here - they don't have a medieval society in the UK, no one criticises them for not attending church, they are in control of their own bodies, they can even bloody well vote in the old country, whilst all the time earning more disposable income than is possible for most in relatively expensive Poland..

And what does the Polish ambassador offer them? "Come home, I beg you..."
Pathetic.

Dear Sylvio F off from him, nothing to do with issues you talk about in here. Seems like you have your own BS you should dealt with a long time ago.

Also if you think that now is BAD, where have you been while PO was in charge. Not saying it is all good and dandy now,. ..


What? Created a mess if anything, corrupted courts, idiotic tax system, crazy pen-pushers making decisions on a whim, no incentive to start a business and so on and so forth. Yes came back bring money - so we can tax you to the hilt, Came back put to use for the good of the country your skills and experience - yet on almost every position there is a mate or his cousin or his brother in law( not some, as much as they can even if they are retarded and do not know their own F names), family first they goes for PIS and PO. In other words go F yourself WE know better and WE don't need you, WE are jealous and resentful (being F over while they speak).

If there is a big company with money for bribes they can make a buck or too no problem, maybe a tad less now when PiS is charge.

I think I was misunderstood. Im not against RM or PIS at all. And not have strong feelings on politics. I just wish Polish system of authority was less Top-Down only. When I lived in UK I often wrote letters to my local MP and got numerous replies, addressing local issues. Here, in Poland, where I live in Kujawy its hard to figure out who IS my MP, they dont answer phones, and seem uninterested in any inputs from voters. Coming back to my leaflet for returning Poles,at border points, it could warn about: severe lack of public toilets ( compared to US at least), dreadful quality goods being sold everywhere; difficulties with returning goods which fail, or are already faulty; highly elaborate processes involved with connecting your home to basic amenities; endemic blame culture in all public institutions; government offices and facilities offering poor service level, issuing wrong advice, then think nothing of it when people suffer consequences, unwilling to deal properly with complaints. All these, plus many, many others are not visible from outside. And my point is why not tell people coming back from English speakung world, in advance, that their homeland, culturally is still a fairly feral, and savage country.

@ Sylvio
What you say is, unfortunately, true. Poland is still a great place for rather petty tribal wars. How it works, you have just seen in the above post of Iron as he didn't even bother to read your message to the end before he started acting as a spokesman for one of the tribes.

What to do? Just run out of EU and here they come

Come on. If someone managed to start a new life in a foreign country, are they really unable to learn how things work here?
Is anyone worried about those who don't know how to start a business, get new skills etc? If you need to do something you do it yourself. As for leaflets, I'm not sure it's such a great idea in the era of the internet. And where do you distribute them? At the airport?

Use the internet, ask clerks for information etc.
As for what to do to bring back people here, I'd say it's a question of social security.

That is the result of electoral system. In UK first past the post means MP have to please their constituents, in Poland there are supposed to look more of a whole nation (hence proportional representation)

Things work different. I would think that intelligent person understands that things may work differently in a different country not to mention different continent.

And being worned about toilet numbers? Seriously? You mean that person moved back without visiting Poland for all that time and walking the streets?


Uk for example loves their leaflets. God knows how much paper they waste on it.

A leaflet goes a long way. Say, you want to register a new car. In UK a leaflet ( i imagine) will tell you ALL you need to bring to complete registration. In Poland, some person will tell you that you need for example, an inspection. When you bring it, another person will tell you that your inspection has something missing in it, which the 1st petson forgot to tell you about. You come again, with the right inspection, to be told that you also need a proof of purchase. When you bring that, they will tell you that your proof of purchase is missing a date, or some PSEL number of the previous owner. And all this time no one in the car reg office thinks to take any responsibility that instead of one you have already made 4 visits, waiting your turn each time, sitting on a plastic chair in a long line. Rather than feel themselves responsible to give you full set of information, at the outset, they just shrug their shoulders and mutter among themselves, that you must be stupid not to know what's seems "obvious" to THEM. BTW, I had to visit that office 16 times! ( I counted), each time having yet something else missing, or not quite right. In the end, I sat on the doorstep and wepped like a child, feeling sorry for myself for beeing treated with so much contempt in my town of birth, through no fault of my own. Now I know why so much effort is going to extricate UK from EU. We are so different. People in EU had never thought to cultivate among themselves, the enjoyment to please another. Basically, you want something from me? You are scum already. This is so sad, and I wonder if could ever change.

Have you heard of 'reverse culture shock'? It's real and often worse than culture shock in a new place because it's so unexpected. I've spoken to a lot of Poles who've suffered from much more severe cases, it's real and not something to sniff at.

If the Polish government is serious about encouraging Polonia (esp in the UK) to come back they would offer incentives and help because both are needed*. But they're not, it just cheap election sloganeering something to make their core constituency feel better about themselves...

*Poland is often not an easy country to adapt to... and it's no easier (and often far more difficult) to _readapt_ to. If returnees are valuable then help in readapting is an investment that will bring more returns than offering more 'free' government cash for votes.

But that is true for every country. Once you lived abroad for a decade or so, returning to your home country will always be kind of a shock unless you visit on a regular basis.

Hey, I freak out anytime I go back to the US of A (for short visits) I can't imagine what it's like for returning Poles (well I've talked to some - it's not pretty)

But that's the whole point, even if people visit regularly coming back to stay will be a very big adjustment and any government that's serious about helping people return will offer help. If they don't do that then they don't really want them back.

People will have to ask themselves what country really is their home. After a decade or more, the place of residence becomes your home and your country of origin a distant memory. That's at least how it was for me.

That's how it is for almost everybody... many people think they're moving for a short time.... and then life happens and they end up spending decades.... reversing that process isn't easy or cheap and a government promoting reversing the process is either serious and offers help or is just blowing hot air.

You know what you are talking about feller. I couldn't agree more. In Poland , it's all "You wanted democracy - well, here you are. We wash our hands of you."

It's a mystery what some government agencies are actually for, and we pay enough taxes to earn the right to published information. It's an abdication of local authority civil responsibility.

Your story of car reg (easy when you've done it the first time) is a good case in point, and indefensible in a modern society. The point here is the government don't want you importing a car - because just as in communism, it isn't a desirable state of affairs. It means their servants are actually required to have to do something. And then it's frankly astonishing when you (sometimes) come upon a government agency where they couldn't do enough for you.

I find myself looking nervously around for the camera, and a old TV presenter about to leap out of the shadows laughing uproariously, yelling "Candid camera!"


Excellent succint post. Thank you.

So true.
I know of many people who have returned to their country of origin, only to find that it has changed beyond recognition and is no longer the country they left.

Many of them try to come back to The UK, but if you have sold property here to buy abroad, by the time you have realised your mistake, you can no longer afford a UK property because the prices rise so quickly.

Great post, Milo. I couldn't say it any better.
Now, imagine somebody like me after 50 years of being away. I could just as easily go back to Russia and troll from there.

:-) Only a small handful of people on here still think you are a Russian Troll Rich.
But they are the "slow" ones.

While I have all the sympathy for the shock let's look at it seriously.
You want to tell me that people who earlier managed to get passports, visas, jobs in a foreign country quite often with limited knowledge of the language, took care of formalities in the era before internet suddenly cannot Google how to do this or that and talk to family and old friends how to do things?

Give me a break. If that is the case Poland would be better off inviting immigrants as they seem to do all these things even though they are not native speakers

I think you are very naive and inexperienced in how real life works.
Yes, it happens, a lot.
Go figure.

PiS lies all the time and about everything. Their encouragement to emigrants to come back is only a cheap propaganda trick. In this way, PiS can say to their voters: Look how we care about ALL Poles, vote for us.

They didn`t spend one single zloty on emigrant welcome programme and aren`t going to coz whether Poles return or not is the least important matter to them.

Then well, though luck.
To me it all screams of entitlement. I'm coming back, be grateful , you owe me.

I don't really follow Polish politics so can't comment on PIS.
But from my experience here in England, the only Poles who are considering returning to Poland are the highly skilled and childless Poles.
Which is good for Poland, because they tell me they want their children to be born and grow up in Poland and will bring their talents back there.

The unskilled workers see no future for them in Poland.
And the ones with kids that were either born or grew up here know they can't return because their kids are more British than Polish.

It is a real dilemma for many.

@mafketis
I kind of experienced it too. And I lived abroad for a relatively short time.
But still if someone manages to work out how, for example, taxes work abroad, how to open s bank account, get health insurance etc speaking a foreign language, doing it in your mother tongue should be easier - but then it gives you more reasons to complain.

Very logical.
But when you spend, say, ten years or more abroad, however often you visit on holiday or watch TV from your home country,
you still lose touch.
Many people are shocked by how much their country has changed when they move back there.

@Milo
Shock is understandable but if the can make it in a completely new country with foreign language they can make it back. A leaflet wouldn't change the shock factor one bit.

Fact is some emigrants behave as if the life in their home country stopped when they left. Don't want to accept the changes.

You have hit the nail on the head.
But is that really their fault?
Should they be punished for their stupidity?
If so, then I know a lot of stupid Poles.......