Language / Is the term 'Polak' derogatory?? [254]

@Sledź
Why would you think "the Germans" made up U.S. Polish jokes (in English!) and why?

Btw, the idea that the word 'Polak' is derogatory is very much an American thing - in Europe we don't use the word (except of course when speaking Polish). So yes, blame it on the Americans if you want to.

Law / In Poland on National Visa, want to visit London - how can i apply for travel visa to UK [22]

That depends on where you're from. Citizens of some countries need them and citizens of others don't.

Polish residence doesn't make any difference - the UK isn't in Schengen.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

I wouldn't put it past Macierewicz, certain publications - in fact some of the scarier cranks in PL - to suggest the Russians were 'cloud seeding' or some such.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [245]

It's changed incredibly fast, even over the past couple of years.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [245]

It used to be like that in Warsaw, but not now. Plenty of service industry jobs - not well paid but ok for students and nowadays colour-blind.

Remember Warsaw tends to move faster than the rest of the country and the scale of the change has been dramatic.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [245]

With Lodz, I like everywhere except the three places you've mentioned :-). but yes, it's got a feel of its own. Some people say they don't like Warsaw, but again, it's a multi-layered city, and for students, the infrastructure is great. A foreign student too, might find it easier to buy foods they like, meet people from their own region, get invites to their embassy etc. plus, it's the most multicultural place in the county so they'd stand out less.

Bits of work too (not usually steady or lucrative) and some foreign students go for casting for adverts, extra work, but parts simply because they look different. Plenty of service industry work for students only - generally round Nowy Swiat and the Old Town, and no problems if the person's black.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [245]

There are a lot of poor and lonely foreign students in Poznan. Maybe I'm too pro-Warsaw but after all, it's the capital. Kraków I wouldn't recommend, Gdansk probably no. In Warsaw there are more chances.

Poland is relatively cheap, but a miserable place to be if you have no money. In Warsw at least, there's a chance of work.

Study / Rumor about racism - will I be fine in Poland as a black International student from Africa? [245]


As Dominic says, the universities aren't the best. What he doesn't say is that choosing s university isn't just about chasing rankings, it's about studying somewhere pleasant, and Polish cities are up a nice place to be.

It's relatively easy to get a place there and you shouldn't worry about safety etc - there are people from all over the world studying there. A word of advice - choose a big city, perhaps Warsaw. Smaller places are less interesting.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

It was a government plane, a qualified pilot and it was the nearest airport - and after all, the pilot advised otherwise. Such a shame that the PiSuarzy always try to apportion blame elsewhere.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

Then, as everywhere, he should have followed the direction of the Premier, rather than misbehave as usual. If he or his aides hadn't caused an accident which killed him as well as innocent passengers doubtless he'd have made a fool of himself in some way over the ceremony.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

That's actually as comical as something the clown Jaro Kaczynski would have squeezed out - 'should never have been put on' doesn't apply for the head of state, nor is the visa thing more of a distraction. Sad that you call the country's Premier "scum" though, and try to shift the blame for the accident on him, when it lies squarely with the person or persons who were in the cockpit interfering with the flight. Remember any incidents with a certain Kaczynski interfering with pilots before, by any chance?

No reason for him even to be there, given that the Premier was there too.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

That's just paranoia. And at least we now know there was interference in the cockpit.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]


Certainly never in front in front of TV cameras while Mayor of the city. Nor did he, since he hadn't 'lost his temper' - his spite was fully controlled and aimed at a vulnerable person. By the way, A politician being dead does not mean that you only have to mention their good points - which in his case were few. Otherwise there would never be any appraisal of historical figures.

Interesting what the rest of the transcript said. It certainly demolishes all those paranoid conspiracy theories. Those public figured who've levelled wild accusations against members of the government should apologise. Hopefully it will shut Macierewicz up.

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [870]

Hard to tell from the voices they could recover from the tape, but interestingly not all has been released. The PiSuarzy would hate yet more footage (remember "spieprzaj dziadu") that paints him in a bad light.

Law / Working in Poland while being self employed in the UK and paying tax and in there [24]

Sort of. If he was in Poland, he probably wouldn't spend 90 days (the threshold in the UK) back in England and wouldn't be liable for tax in either place. However - and it's a big however, if he's actually working in Poland, the activities he undertook would generate a tax liability from day one.

Plenty of people working in Poland keep up their National Insurance payments in the UK though. He'd still need to pay Polish ZUS however by paying NI he'd retain pension rights etc at home.

As for being self-employed in the UK, there are Poles who do that too - he'd still need to register a 'representative' with the KRS in Poland, so on the whole not that much point in it - though of course that depends what exactly he wants to do.

Work / Are Indian dental qualifications recognised in Poland? [22]

Remember that to work in healthcare in Poland, perfect or at least very good Polish is needed - there's also too many people chasing too few jobs, and many people going abroad for work.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

They don't much, unless they're teenagers or there's some other reason - the stats are about Poland not the UK.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Well yes. Although I don't trust Polish statistics about the pill, I suspect the 50,000 hospitalisations figure was genuine, and there are statistics about the number of Polish women who travel to the UK. Also, a lot go to Czech for it.

It's good that the 'morning after pill' is now available, and one unintended side effect of the 'klauzula sumienia' is that in a small town, women know which doctors are likely to be amenable to a request.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

It's available everywhere and there's a pretty low birth rate and plenty of one-child families. Since the rhythm method doesn't work (and in any case most people aren't so religious that they'd have any qualms about birth control) they must indeed be using contraception. Any low figure in stats is more likely to be down to people not wanting to discuss it.

I remember reading a figure from the late 90s, that 50,000 women and girls had hospital treatment due to self-administered abortions. I don't know how reliable that figure was. Easier now to pop over to the UK.

Worth mentioning that the page in local newspapers with the medical adverts has two types of ads for gynaecologists. One of the types always uses the phrase 'full range of services'. This is understood to discreetly include terminations.

History / Good enough for British - Joseph Conrad? Poland-born novelist. [30]

Quite. They say the sequel took so long because she was busy spending the money and he couldn't do it on his own. Jessie Conrad certainly grew to like the highlife - a working-class teenage girl marrying an older sophisticated foreigner who eventually became rich. As I understand, the sons spent the lot.

Conrad himself was once described as an outsider in all five countries he spent time in, including Poland. In many ways true.

History / Good enough for British - Joseph Conrad? Poland-born novelist. [30]

Yes - it's surprisingly common. The Dick Francis stuff (he actually existed - he had been a famous jockey) was suspected but came out after he died and it turned out that the books were at least as much his wife' says his. People suspect that Dan Brown is the same and that Mrs Brown had a lot to do with the Da Vinci Code etc.

In Conrad's case, he certainly wrote most of it, however his wife seems to have rewritten quite a bit while proofing them and contributed to the plot lines.

History / Good enough for British - Joseph Conrad? Poland-born novelist. [30]

As people used to say, behind every great man there's a great woman - in Conrad's case there's a serious hypothesis that his wife, who was English, not only very heavily proofread and edited but some scholars say they can detect her hand in the text.

She was a published writer herself (a recipe book) and a remarkable person who stuck by him through thick and thin (they had years of poverty after his sailing and before his writing became popular). A long-suffering partner too, given some of his ways.

Conrad deserves to be more fashionable. The racism allegations about Heart of Darkness are pure nonsense - people who misread the book and assume the opinions of a character are the personal opinions of the author. Same as Kipling.

History / Good enough for British - Joseph Conrad? Poland-born novelist. [30]

He was actually very progressive and innovative for his day - Nostromo, with its non-linear structure is perhaps the best example of this.

Classifieds / Wedding reception in Katowice, Poland [14]

Of course you don't need to do it completely Polish-style with all that vodka and continuing the whole weekend - any hotel should be able to give you a quote for something nice.

History / How far did Kashubia extend? [8]

Indeed. There were individual Kaszëb families spread across a much wider area than the Kaszëb heartland and the OP is also talking about a period when migration was common and loyalties were changing. He is also talking about people who lived in areas with large scale national and international trade as well as incipient industrialisation.

History / How far did Kashubia extend? [8]

Remember there weren't hard and fast borders between regions. People also didn't always identify themselves only by the district they lived in and the distances you're talking about are relatively small, even by the standards of the day.

Language / Busha and JaJa [140]

Permission granted. Many such words emerge when people in different countries use a language. It's part of the human communicative process. And no reason why Polish or any other Eastern European cuisine should not develop with time as new ingredients and ideas about eating appear.

Language / Busha and JaJa [140]

The best pierogi in my opinion are Bolognese ones. Quite traditional in their way too, since they've been made in Lwów since the 1930s. Feta and olive pierogi are good too.

If Americans want to use the word Busia, good luck to them; they can use absolutely any word they want. Even though the word is unknown in Poland.

Language / Busha and JaJa [140]

I really fancy getting my chops round Busia's Spinach and Feta Quesadilla (in a dinner sense, I wasn't being vulgar, far from it).

Perhaps the word means something else in Greek or Spanish.

History / How far did Kashubia extend? [8]


Indeed, though not so far away for it to be a strange place for a Kaszëb family to be living in 1812, a time after all of population movents.

Fascinating really and certainly areas overlapping with other populations, in many ways the quintessential story of this part of Europe.