Life / Opłatek, not presents, epitomises the true Polish Christmas spirit [85]


It's peak season for domestic violence, including murder within the family setting.

Work / Planning to move to Poland - Need Idea about expenses/salary [19]

@GD1410

You said that this is an internal transfer. Are there other Indians working at the location you will be working that you can contact? Or anyone who speaks English in the company that can help you find an apartment before you come?

Study / Poland-Germany university transfer? [16]

@Jeevannani1

I can't imagine any scenario in which studying in Poland, in English, for a year of graduate school would help you get into a German master's program any more than would staying at home in your country and bringing up your academic standing there by doing remedial studies if need be.

i don't think your plan is realistic.

Work / Planning to move to Poland - Need Idea about expenses/salary [19]


That will be a problem. Try Airbnb, but expect to pay a large premium. Like double.


Once you settle in, and you find an experienced older Pole to help you, you will be able to find an apartment in this price range. However, it will be a very basic, small one-bedroom apartment. If you're planning on keeping costs below 5000 PLN a month, you won't be able to afford anything larger or more comfortable.

Likewise, a car is out of the question if you are on that budget. You will have to take public transport, which is not a problem in Kraków.


Anything having to do with children is very expensive in Poland. Make sure to bring as much baby supplies as you can with you.

People will tell you this is a good wage for Poland, and it is.... for Poland. However, wages in Poland are very low. People will tell you also that you are making a lot more than the average Pole. That doesn't mean anything because you are not an "average Pole", and share nothing in common with them, just as you share little in common with the "average Indian". People will also tell you that the cost of living is low, bit it's quite high in relation to prevailing wages. For a foreign worker, the only financial figure that matters is savings potential. Your wages, prevailing wages and cost of living do not matter except in relation to savings potential, which is very low in Poland. Poland is a very poor choice for those for whom savings is a major priority.

You are being hired at very low wages compared to the richer countries of Western Europe and the English speaking countries. Somewhere between a half to a quarter of what you could make there. $43000 USD is less than a starting engineer makes in those countries. Your savings potential would be several times higher in those countries than in Poland, in spite of the higher cost of living.

If you were able to find this job in Poland, it is a pretty sure bet that you will be able to find a much better job in a richer country, and be able to save significantly more a year. Remember that the best jobs are advertised solely by word of mouth, and NEVER on the internet or through recruiters, so exploit your network of real life contacts, especially ones who work or have worked in richer countries.

If you are viewing this job as a way to get your foot in the back door of the EU, you're wasting your time. Someone with your qualifications can walk through the front door. Going in through the back door isn't going to help you any. I suggest you explore better opportunities in richer countries, relying on your real-life contacts.

Language / Polish gravestone translation [45]

@sarahxj82

It is Polish, almost certainly correctly spelled on the stone, but the picture was poorly transliterated by someone who doesn't speak Polish, hence all the mistakes. Post a picture, or show the picture to someone who speaks Polish. I interpreted it the same way Peter Olsztyn did above, but I suspect it is still not quite right.

The Polish that would be written on a tombstone in Baranowicze in 1941 is identical to present-day Standard Polish.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]

@Harinathan

It's extremely unlikely that she will be able to find a job, unless she does so BEFORE she comes to Poland. Make your plans on the very safe assumption that she will never be able to earn a single penny during your stay in Poland.

It's probably best to leave the wife at home in India unless you are earning very. very well. So well that there is no need for her to work, and that there is plenty of money to keep her entertained her so that she does not go crazy.

Work / Planning to move to Poland - Need Idea about expenses/salary [19]

Not really any sites like that. Those that exist would be quite expensive.

Book an apartment for one month and look for an apartment once you are in Poland.

You will absolutely need the assistance of an older, experienced Polish colleague to find an apartment. You won't be able to do it on your own without speaking Polish. All the ads are in Polish,

The older, experienced Polish colleague would know far better than you whether the apartment is in a good location, and whether it is in good shape. They can also haggle to get the right price. They know what to look for. For example, whether transportation and shopping is within easy reach, and whether the windows in the apartment are good. Bad windows can drastically increase your heating bill in winter, and decrease comfort. Make sure the kitchen is adequate, as a small kitchen can be completely useless.

Plan on spending a total of 2000 to 2500 PLN a month for a small no frills 45 to 50 square meter one-bedroom apartment in an average neighborhood PLN for each additional bedroom. That's all inclusive: rent, administration fees and utilities except TV/phone/internet. You can easily double that if you expect more comfort, especially in Warsaw.

Can you keep expenses down to 5000 PLN a month for a family of three? No way. You forget an important expense: the cost of relocating to and back from Poland for three people and of getting your residence permits. Divide the total cost by 12 and deduct that from your monthly earnings.

Also, you are going to have to pay to keep your wife from going crazy. She will be alone with a baby in a small apartment with nobody to talk to. There are essentially no other Indian women for her to associate with, or every, very few indeed. There is no Indian community in Poland to speak of, and most of the Indians in Poland are transient single males who stay a year or two and then either move on or move back. Especially during the winter, your wife might go a bit stir crazy as it will be a chore to leave the apartment.

It will cost you to cook and eat Indian food. You will find the selection of fruits and vegetables in the stores very limited and of poorer quality than you are used to. You will have to special order ingredients such as spices. It would be best if you could adapt as much as you can to local eating customs using locally available ingredients, including produce in season: potatoes, noodles, cabbage, carrots, onions, pork, chicken and bland fish.

Lamb is hard to get and expensive. Warning: you use as much spice in one meal as the average Pole does in a year, or even a lifetime. Polish food is very, very bland, and the only spice used is black pepper. Not that it's bad. It can be quite good, in it's way. But definitely a far cry from the spicy diet you are used to.

Eating at home can be cheap if you can adapt. Meals, snacks and beverages outside the home are not cheap, though.

Clothing is particularly expensive in Poland, especially baby clothes and accessories. You will have to outfit your family with warm clothes for the winter, including good shoes that can stand up to the snow and slush. Late winter/early spring can be a bit messy as the snow starts to melt and there is slush everywhere.

Overall, you could do it on 6000 to 7000 PLN a month. Don't count on saving more that about 3000 PLN a month, and nothing at all or less if your wife insists on going back to India to visit. You really have to pay attention to her mental health, and make sure she has enough entertainment and diversion to keep her from going off the edge.

Study / Study "Dental technician" in Poland and job perspectives there [9]


He's not planning to study to be a dentist, but a dental technologist. Frankly, judging from his other posts, I doubt he can manage even that. He'll never set foot in Poland.

Study / Study "Dental technician" in Poland and job perspectives there [9]

@Tamir_x1

First things first. If you want to study in Poland, make sure that you, or your family, comfortably has all the money needed to pay 100% for the cost of your studies and all of the costs of your stay in Poland. As a foreign student, it is exceedingly unlikely that you will be able to earn even a single penny in Poland. There are no part time jobs available for foreign students. Ever single red cent will have to come from your savings or your family.

Next, it's probably going to cost you significantly more than what you've been led to believe. The cost of living is higher for foreigners who do not speak Polish very well.

As for your Polish, you will not be able to study in Polish. It will take you years to bring your Polish up to the level that you can comfortably study in it. You will have to study in English.

Courses in English are much more expensive than courses in Polish, and are generally of lower quality.

As for finding work in Poland after you finish your studies, that is highly unlikely. Don't count on it. If your plans depend on it, then make other plans. Even Polish graduates have difficulty finding work and go to richer countries. Wages in health-related fields are also depressingly low, so you will have little incentive to stay in Poland anyway.

Sorry, but planning to make a career in a country from which the natives themselves are emigrating to greener pastures is not likely to end in success. You need to talk to some knowledgeable adults who have forked for a long time in the EU and can give you realistic advice, and then formulate a realistic plan with their help. That plan is probably not going to include studying or working in Poland.

UK, Ireland / Prices of Clothes in Poland and England [35]


Not at all. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Thousands of people have already had this exact same idea, so you're not bringing anything new or unique to the market.

Your thinking about courier fees is erroneous, as you ignore the costs that you will incur bring the shirts to Poland and deliver them to the customer. Those costs will have to be passed on to the consumer, and probably exceed those of a mail-order business. There's a good reason why online stores are thriving and brick-and-mortar stores are failing.

Sorry, but the chances of success for your business idea are zero or worse. In Poland, clothing retail is a losing venture unless you are already established or are Vietnamese.

If your wife is telling you that you will be able to make a living in Poland as a foreigner that doesn't speak Polish very well, and apparently has no marketable skills that are in demand, she is deluded, and you would foolish to believe her. Poland does not treat fools kindly.

Stay in the UK, and visit Poland only for short vacations. Resist your wife's desires to move back to Poland even if it means separation or divorce. Unless you have truly marketable skills, then you have no business moving to Poland. And face it, someone who TYPES IN ALL CAPS is unlikely to have any marketable skills at all.

USA, Canada / Poles in America: How do you pronounce your Polish surname? [128]

You weren't listening carefully enough, if at all. No one drops the f, except babies and retards. Stop making $hit up.

USA, Canada / Poles in America: How do you pronounce your Polish surname? [128]


No. The "w" is followed by an "s", which is unvoiced, so that it becomes assimilated and is pronounced like an "f".

Love / Best, safe Polish dating sites? [95]

You are aware that free dating sites are populated practically entirely by creeps, losers, con artists and psychopaths?

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Based on the present-day distribution of the name, most likely from the area around Puławy and Lubartów just north of Lublin in eastern Poland. There is a second concentration around Giżycko in northeastern Poland, but these people were almost certainly settled there after WWII, as it formerly belonged to Germany.

You're rather lucky that is a rather rare and apparently unique surname in Poland, with only 218 citizens bearing it.

See: moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/wyskwar.html

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

It's certainly Polish. "Wy" means "out". "Skwar" means "intense heat". "Wyskwarzyć" means "to subject something to intense heat so that something comes out", like frying bacon or rendering goose skin. "Wyskwar" is a noun derived from it.

Study / Tuition fees at American School of Wroclaw? [13]

I have no particular knowledge of WIS, except knowing that it is rather expensive. Whether it is worth it or not, someone else will have to answer.

Homeschooling with additional tutors would probably be the way to go. The kids will learn a lot more Polish from a private tutor than from "absorption" in a school with Polish speaking pupils. University students suffice and are quite affordable. For social contact with Polish children, afterschool activities will probably be the best way to go, like sports and the like.

It all depends on how long you plan to stay in Poland, how much you want your children to speak Polish and integrate, and, most importantly, where you want your children to attend university, which is probably not Poland. And, of course, how much cash you have to burn. A good school is going to cost you about 9000 PLN a month for two kids. That's more than $3000 Canadian.

A lot, too, depends on how adaptable your children are. If they are outgoing, enterprising and adventurous, it will be a lot easier for them than if they are shy and sensitive.

The big problem, as I said before, is that there are very few ex-pats living in Poland with their families, at least outside of Warsaw, and this makes it difficult to form an ex-pat community that can provide basic needs like education. In all my eight years in Poland, I rarely encountered expats with children, and in all cases they were men married to Polish women, with children born and raised in Poland. By far most ex-pats I met were men without families or who left their families at home for the duration of the contract.

Coming to Poland with children in tow requires a great deal of research, analysis, planning, ingenuity, sacrifice and, most importantly, cold hard cash. And that has to be balanced against preparing and saving up for your kids' university education. Even coming with only spouse in tow is a bit of a challenge. Provided that you or your spouse is a high level consultant or administrator getting paid in Western wages while in Poland, it's doable, but even then it's not going to be easy. I wish you luck in all you do!

Genealogy / Praniewicz - where did my great grandfather come from? [8]

One last word of warning. Kowno probably does not refer to the city of Kowno itself, now Kaunas in Lithuania, but to the entire Russian imperial province of Kowno, which covers a huge chunk of modern-day Lithuania. Look up "Kovno Governorate" on Wikipedia. It has a map showing the area.

Also, I expect this was a very well-to-do family at one time, as one Fr. Tomasz Praniewicz was poet, composer and a very high-ranking Catholic clergyman in Poland in the early 1800s, and then in at Notre Dame in Paris after he left after an uprising in 1931. High-ranking clergymen and highly literate people in general came almost exclusively from influential families.

Also, from bits and pieces I could read on the internet, the family seems to have been anti-Russian Polish nationalists, or at least some of them were, and at least one was imprisoned for supporting revolutionary activity.

It could be that the bulk of your relatives were deported to Siberia, either by the Tsar or by the communists, or probably both. That was the case with my mother's family, which was similar and from the same region, which was almost entirely killed outright or deported to Siberia.

In light of that, it is rather improbable that one acted as a Russian spy. Even if he had wanted to, his family background would have made him automatically unreliable.

Genealogy / Praniewicz - where did my great grandfather come from? [8]

Based on the map of the surname in present-day Poland, it is almost certain that they did not come from anywhere that is now in Poland. There are only 23 individuals in Poland with that surname, almost entirely within those parts of Poland that were added after WWII and settled with refugees from the eastern regions that were lost. It may turn out that your ancestral village is now not populated with anyone related to you, or that it no longer exists at all.

The biggest advantage you have is that this is an exceedingly rare surname, so you can somewhat safely assume that anyone with it is closely related to you. Your next step would be to locate individuals with that surname in Poland and communicate with them.

Study / Tuition fees at American School of Wroclaw? [13]

Really, the only realistic option in Wrocław is the British International School of Wrocław. It's quite expensive, about 4300 PLN a month. I'm not endorsing it, but it is far better than the "American" School of Wrocław, which is a complete waste of money, even at the cheaper price.

Frankly, there isn't much of a choice of English language schools outside of Warsaw because there are very few ex-pats who live in Poland with their families. Most ex-pats come to Poland on their own, with no intention of staying more than a year or two. They leave their families at home in the interim, not least because of the difficulty in finding good and affordable educational options for their children.

It may be cheaper to hire a private tutor for your children if you come to Poland. However, I do not know anything about how that can be done in Poland. Perhaps other posters have experience with that.

How old is your child? If of high school age, then I can recommend the IB program at Ekola, which is taught in English. I used to tutor a kid who went there, and was quite impressed by the quality of the program. Unfortunately, their lower levels are taught in Polish. However, it may be a good idea to contact them about setting up a homeschooling program or other solution. They are pretty competent people.

Study / Tuition fees at American School of Wroclaw? [13]

Last time I heard it was 1600 PLN a month. Might be a little more now. There's nothing "American" about the school. It's run by Indians. It does not have a good reputation in the town, especially among teachers. (I lived in Wrocław for eight years). Sorry, but I am very suspicious of a school that markets itself as "American" only to deceive gullible foreigners.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]

"Daddy said no, so I'll run and ask Mommy" is not a viable strategy for dealing with Polish bureaucracy, either at the embassy or at the university.

You've been told to ask Daddy several times in this thread, and apparently he has said no. Mommy can't do anything to help you. You're just wasting your time.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]

Sorry, Sebb, but it sounds as if you have not given them any credible reason to believe that you have any intention of returning to your home country at the end of your studies. If that is the case, then your have absolutely no chance of getting a visa. End of story.

Also, Sebb, if you cannot manage the relatively simple process of getting a student visa, how are you going to manage to study for four years in a foreign country where you do not speak the language and do not know the culture, which is very bureaucratic, unforgiving and unhelpful. If you're not good at dealing with bureaucracy, then maybe Poland is not the best place for you.

Polish universities are not like, say, American universities. There will be no one there to help you and hold your hand. If you can't figure something out on your own, no one is going to babysit you. You'll be totally on your own. It's sink or swim, and if you sink, no one will care or stretch out a hand to save you. You need a lot of independence, resourcefulness, ingenuity and doggedness to survive as a student in Poland. I get the impression that studying in Poland will be a bit too overwhelming for you, and that you wouldn't survive a semester, never mind four years.

Work / Studying in Poland - are international students allowed to work? [18]

Internships are often unpaid, and are very, very hard to come by in civil engineering, even for native Poles. There are no jobs in construction available for international students. Many Polish construction workers and civil engineers go abroad to work, so no employer is going to hire international students for construction.

If you or your family cannot afford to pay for 100% of the costs of your study and stay, then Poland is not the country you should be studying in. Make your plans on the very safe assumption that you will never be able to earn a single penny during your stay in Poland.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]

If the embassy told you that you have to go back, then you have to go back. Why don't you trust the information that they are giving you? They are the most reliable source about their own procedures. They are not lying to you are just making it up.

Work / Poland Work Permit / Study Visa Processing Times [191]

If the embassy told you it can take up to a month, why don't you believe them? They are the ones who know best. In some countries, it can take three to six months, or longer. Count yourself lucky that you only have to wait a month.

Law / Opening a Mini Market Store in Poland. Starting cost / Expected monthly income? [22]

Agree with terri. One of the things that most struck me about Poland was the overabundance of retail shops of all kinds. You will have a very hard time finding an underserved market, especially in Warsaw. It will take some ingenuity, lots of research, lots of hard work and even more luck to find a niche market. Sorry, but retail stores selling clothing of any type are as common as cockroaches in Poland. It would be wiser to invest you money in an already existing business. You could try your luck with internet sales, but there are already thousands of sites fighting for a limited amount of potential customers, by far the bulk of which are losing money.

The "Polish wife wants to move back home to be closer to her family in spite of the fact that the non-Polish husband she's dragging along doesn't have a snowball's chance of earning anything substantial" story is a very common one, as is the "Polish wife wants to start her own business even though she knows fcuk all about business" story. I've never seen either story have a happy ending in all my twelve years of living in Poland. Might as well invest in lottery tickets. The chances are better.

Law / Work permit + national visa in Poland for India citizen [91]

Well, the first step is to get hired by a company in Poland. Then they will apply for the work permit (you can't do this). Then they send you a letter of intent to hire, which you take to the Polish embassy, where you apply for a visa. You can't get permanent residency until you have lived in Poland continuously for five years.

Sorry, but the chances of finding a job in the marketing industry in Poland are extremely remote for a non-EU national that doesn't speak very good Polish. Whatever vacancies exist can easily be filled by Poles and other EU citizens without having to bring in workers from non-EU countries.

Food / Polish food vs Ukrainian food [31]

More likely to be eaten by Polish Americans than by Poles. Ate it often when I was growing up in Scranton. You could even buy the blood in the supermarket. But never even saw it during my twelve years in Poland. Can't even say I ever met any Pole who ever ate it, in fact.

Delicious, if homemade. I had it in a restaurant once in Chicago, though, and it was God awful. Nothing at all like the homemade version.

Love / Best, safe Polish dating sites? [95]

Do you mean to say that you are too ugly or obnoxious to meet people in real life like normal human beings do? Internet dating sites are for creeps, losers, wonkers, scam artists and, last but not least, trolls.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]


Surnames don't bear coats of arms. People did (past tense, a very, very long time ago). You're going to have a hard enough time identifying your great-grandfather, never mind going back far enough until you hit anyone who may or may not have born a coat of arms, which means absolutely nothing nowadays, anyway.

First thing you are going to have to find out is where, exactly, your grandfather was from. Without that, it will be extremely difficult and probably even impossible to go back at all. There's more than 6000 Budzińkis in Poland, and, like I said, I highly suspect that the name is not unique, so you are probably completely unrelated to many or most of them. Your grandfather was most likely not the only Teodor Budziński in his generation, and your great-grandfather's name is likewise unlikely to be unique.