Work / Job opportunities for experienced US Civil Engineer in Poland - any hope? [30]

The main difference between IT and Civil Engeenering lies in the number two of your list: you don't need additional professional licenses given by a proffesional chamber to get a good job. The advantage is that there is easier start in IT than in CE... on the other hand all those additional licences in CE lets you to build a more solid cereer - in the end a Civil Engineer with a solid background and solid papers can earn gratifying money - but it takes years to build such a position. Those people in many cases have small independent bussiness and work on their own.

Work / Ukrainian Software Developer moving to Poland - job and salary with my experience? [15]


I disagree, as long as he will be able to sell it as an experience for making presentations for a clients, internal trainings etc. then it is an advantage. It is not common in IT teams to find a person who will not forget a name in front of couple of dozens of people.

Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]

^^
Maybe that is the reason of that common opinion that life in Europe is more relaxing than in USA?
We have just better sex life thanks to this little bit of skin :) :)

That would also explain USA affair with wars... Sexually unfulfilled men are always looking for trouble... ;)
One can go on and on like this... Like americans run for wealth is just a symptom of looking something which was lost..
Taking more and more but never fully satisfied...

Law / Where can I check in Poland my company formation status and tax number NIP and REGON? [95]

krs-online.com.pl/

upper right corner, fill the box with whatever you have (for example REGON, or just name of the company) then click button "Szukaj"

PS. KRS = Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy = The National Court Register

History / What do Poles owe to Czechs? [87]

The rumour is that Wroclaw was founded by Bohemian prince Vratislav I somewhere in the begining of 900, but it is unconfirmed...

Life / Lodz vs Wroclaw - difference in mentality of people? [53]

city vs city is banned on some forums... ;)

None ot the two is tourist city in the full meaning of that term, but from the two of them Wroclaw is definitely more tourist.

Anyway those are two cities with very different history, so it all depends what you are looking for.

In terms of economy Wroclaw is relatively wealthier.
Lodz is kind of a young city which grew very fast on one type of industry and had very hard time landing when this type of industry collapsed, additionally nearness of Warsaw sucks vital powers from it. I don't know if it is special place in Poland, the distinctive thing about it is a directors school (ie. Roman Polanski is from there), but that would be mostly it. Well, maybe old factories and tycoon palaces is the second distinctive thing.

Wroclaw is much older so architecturally is more diversified, and has this charming thing which old cities should have - nice marketplace. Probably Wroclaw has better night life also, but that is quite subjective thing. The other advantage (and curse) of Wroclaw is five rivers flowing through it, which creates many nice places to feast and relax - with moskito repellent ;)

Life / Are Polish roads really this bad? [237]

State of Polish roads according to SCC forumers (as of 12.12.2011)

skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1310317&highlight=stan+polskich+dr%F3g

green - good
red - bad
blue - under construction

State of Polish roads according to State Road Agency (from 2010):

History / History behind Poland and Turkey's Relationship [118]

Fortunately it seems that now we can put aside this:



(Bitwa pod Wiedniem, Józef Brandt, 1863)

and focus on this: polandturkey.com

:-)

It seems that amount of trade between Poland and Turkey is below potential...

^^
From economic point of view both countries are of lower importance to each other - about 1 - 1,5% of foreign trade (for Poland and for Turkey similarly).

Food / Tylko gęsina (only goose)!? [5]

Aren't you living in US? Turkey is by no means popular on Polish tables. You are using some false analogies. The king is the chicken and that is because it is cheap compared to other birds due to mass production and due to perfect size for a dinner...

As for goose the problem with it as with a duck is that it is not so easy as a chicken to cook it properly. Anyway, I know you like to look for signs of swallowing Poland by evil western civilization but in this case the reasons are much simpler and practical.

Besides as far as I can remember gooses were running equally with turkeys on small Polish farms long before communism ended. Just because turkey is kind of symbol of some holiday in US doesn't mean it is US invention ;) Well, it came from Central America, but it was started to breed in Poland already in XVII century. So why now goose suppose to be a tradition and turkey not?

News / Poles start to feel arrogant and superior to Southern Europeans [182]

Well, rama, in Polish PIIGS would go like that: PIWGH. This abbreviation means nothing in Polish and don't resemble any word (except piwo maybe...), so as you see there is no reason to panic ;-)

On more serious note though, Poles maybe are a little shocked when they learn about some mismanagement cases in Greece, which are unimaginable even in Poland ;-)

Life / Rate Poland (Life Quality / Culture and People / Food): 1-10! [232]


Not really, in that way those 58,3 milions are counted. Those 12,5 milion are visits with at least one night in Poland. It goes the same for other countries - short weekends trips are quite popular in Europe.


Well, you underestimate Baltic coast... The trick is that it is not the coast for lying on the beach but for biking. With that concept in mind 20 degree instaed of 30 is advantage. I told you, with Poland you must know where, when and what for ;)


I understand that, still the number seems to be small - probably all this security issues at US airports don't help tourism, I remember sometime ago I watched on msnbc some tourism industry representant in US who was complaing a lot about that.

Life / Rate Poland (Life Quality / Culture and People / Food): 1-10! [232]


Fuzzy I understand you have some initial thesis you are trying to defend but don't exaggerate. There are milions of foreign tourists in Poland every year:

nationmaster.com/graph/eco_tou_arr-economy-tourist-arrivals

In 2010 there was about 12,5 milion of visits of foreign tourists (number of total foreign visits in 2010 was 58,3 mln). Sure, colder and more cloudy Poland hardly can compete with France. But don't forget that typical holiday calendar in Europe for regular folks consists of couple of different holidays in the year. So, yes two weeks in some hot place, but also one week or couple of days somewhere else - Europe is small... By the way, have you ever been at the French Mediterranean coast in August? It is pure nightmare, it is terribly hot, there is no place at hotels or campsites, and on the beaches there is not one metre of free space... Baltic sea and white sand at Polish coastline is heaven compared to that (obviously if you are lucky enough to hit the sunny days ;) ).

Btw. there is about three times more visits of foreign tourist in Poland than it is in USA... I understand though that internal movement in USA is big enough.

Genealogy / ORP Błyskawica Crew Records? [46]

@sushka, try here:

zpwb.org.uk/index.php/default

or here:

londononline.co.uk/profiles/129174

Life / Rate Poland (Life Quality / Culture and People / Food): 1-10! [232]

Well, Prague don't have a Dragon, but they do have Knedliki - I'm torn ;-)

Life / Rate Poland (Life Quality / Culture and People / Food): 1-10! [232]


As I was listening the other day to some notable cook in the radio, the problem with Polish food, especially bigos is that to make it right you must make it couple of days.

Thing is, that due to sanitary regulations you cann't keep food that long in restaurants (at least in conditions required to make bigos right). That is the reason why it is hard to get proper bigos and some other Polish food in restaurants - it is just cooked wrongly, and that is the reason that "babcias food" rules and will rule. Babcias don't care about sanitary regulations...


Look at average number of sunny days here and there. Poland does better in that regard than UK but which country doesn't ;) To sum things up, weather in Poland is to unpredictable to regular tourist, and season is to short. Just look at this year, most of July and August were rainy and relatively cold. But September was unusually warm and sunny... One can never tell on the border of atlantic and continental climate.

As for beauty of Polish countryside - probably individual thing. I've been to probably half of European countries on holidays and in many places in Poland. In my opinion Poland has as much to offer as any European country of that size. You just need to know where, when and what for you go.

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


My sentence you were reffering to suppose to be a small joke... Oh well, if I have to take an official stand on the issue then for me currently central Europe consists of Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, maybe Slovenia too. Come on, how come a country which consits of parts from Russian Empire, German Empire and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire is not central? We have it all. Even Atlantic climate zone is ending somewhere in the middle of western Poland...

Heh, but if KingAthelstan says that Poland is in EE then it must be :-)

PS. KingAthelstan, please do not refer to Economist as a credible source regarding CEE geography. In recent years they were notoriously ridiculed by CEE forumers because of their pathetic level of articles about CEE...

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]


Zhirinovsky as an ultimate guru? You must be joking... If you have cited Dostoyevsky or someone of that kind...
Of course Russia is a country that is on the edge of Europe and Asia (or judging by its size it is rather rest of Europe which is on the edge of Russia), but in most terms - population clusters included - it lies in Europe. On the other hand suppossedly Mao said that Europe is a small peninsula of Asia :-)


I guess Polish perception is quite logical, as it is in CE then everything west is WE ;-) Ok, it would be if didn't add to that Sweden and sometimes... Australia ;)

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

I suspected it will once again become a flamewar, wait, I will catch some popcorn ;)


How come "Third Rome" can be not in Europe?


You are aware that "Europe" in this sentence is a mental leap for European Union? You can also in such context say "Switzerland relations with Europe"...

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

^^
Malta perphaps? ;-) Anyway, I was a bit ironic...

History / POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country? [1080]

There were countless internet discussions about it. It all depends on what do you mean by that...
Poles are annoyed when by "Eastern Europe" someone means the "wild east land far far away where white bears eats children for breakfast"...

The problem is that except post-comunist meaning of term "Eastern Europe", Poland is in central Europe (in terms of climate, geoghraphy, culture - yes, strange but mostly true, politics, economy, etc...). So, if someone is using term EE, then one of possible conclusions in the Polish mind is: "hm... it seems that someone is trying to offend me" ;)

btw:


If Serbs are from Eastern Europe, then Greeks too ;-)

Work / Planning a move to Wroclaw (a company offers me a Gross salary of 4000 Polish Zloty) [23]


In general various social benefits. I have no idea to which you will be entitled to as a foreigner who pay taxes here, but what I do know is that there are famillies who have less than 4K gross and have to much to get support.

Free stuff like for example kindergartens. If you pay taxes in PL maybe even as a foreigner you could apply for a place for your child there, but because there is not enough of places you will have to wait in line...


The city has some amount of flats which can be given for a very low rent on social basis. But don't bother with that. People waits for years to get that - and usually those are not pretty places.

Work / Planning a move to Wroclaw (a company offers me a Gross salary of 4000 Polish Zloty) [23]

To make things clear 4000 gross is somewhat quite regular money for a young proffesional in Wroclaw in many fields, also it is considered even good pay for not so young in others. Thing is that normally wifes works to, there is a familly support - grandmas, grandpas etc for baby-sitting, very cheap rents in city flats for many, free schools and bunch of other free stuff you will not be able to get as a foreigner.

To sum things up: your employer probably will tell you that "but this is a salary Poles get in Wroclaw branch!", yet you are not a Pole and some shortcuts are closed for you.

Work / Planning a move to Wroclaw (a company offers me a Gross salary of 4000 Polish Zloty) [23]

If this is normal "umowa o pracę" deal then 4000 PLN gross ~ 2850 net PLN, here is tax calculator: money.pl/podatki/kalkulatory/plac/

It is not enough for a familly without local support net and state sponsored rent of a flat.
Renting of a 2 room flat will cost you up to 2000 alone...

Here is thread with cost of living: Wroclaw life (cost of living, rent, food, transport)

Life / Are Polish roads really this bad? [237]

After recent long weekend in Lubuskie I was positively surprised by relatively good quility of country roads there (except some cobblestones ones) - at least near Skwierzyna. Great place for biking... Country roads in Dolnoslaskie are in bad shape in many places indeed, including centre of Wroclaw. But, yesterday part of the A8 motorring around Wroclaw was opened (now you can reach airport from it).

As a lover of a new bridge (still under construction) you must excuse me that I will post some new picture of it.
This picture includes also the object guilty of postponing some road works inside the city. There is a qustion if it was worth it. For me it was :) Besides, without this stadium this motoroway wouldn't be a priority...

Anyway by Waldemar Kluczewski:

Travel / Best Places to eat in Wroclaw [24]


Wait a minute... Did you mean "Piwnica Świdnicka" ? This one?:
strona.piwnicaswidnicka.com

Did she say it is new ?! This is the oldest restaurant in Wroclaw, started somewhere in middle ages... of course after WWII there is a few decades hole but anyway, it is a restaurant there for a couple of years again...

Life / Are Polish roads really this bad? [237]

I love this grumpy tone of pf ;) It is so Polish! :-)
Just to prevent mass suicide something to cheer up a little bit:
Wroclaw, new stadium and a new motorway near it, with very fine bridge, should be open this year: Wroclaw bridge

PS. as I already posted, state of national roads in Poland on 30.01.2011:

Life / Are Polish roads really this bad? [237]

Some are good some are bad. Here is a quite reliable map maintained by polish forumers of skyscrapercity.com.

green - very good,
..
red - very bad
blue - build/rebuild
grey - no data (no report by a forumer)

state of national roads in Poland on 30.01.2011

I think somewhere on gddkia.gov.pl there is an official map on the same topic.

News / What should Poland do with the problem of Belarus? [1800]

Poland should do all that what was done to Poland during communism by western countries, which is:
- support opposition
- support external alternative media (in Belarusian language)
- speak loudly about political prisoners (it really helps sometimes to that people to not spend most of the time in jail)

The thing with dictatorship is that you never know when it fail. From outside it can look solid as a stone, every outsider can have an impression like for example "all old people love dictator" but reality can be totally different. Dictatorship is run by fear, that fear hides true society from external world. It is hard to say if it is by analogy with Poland 70', 80' or 88' in Belarus, but make no mistake thinking that Lukaszenko can beat and inprison people and that it will be forgotten. That is not the case, Belarusians will remember that, just like Poles remembered 70' or 80' and when time comes, they will again hit the streets. But whenever it happens it must be by their will, any external force would only split society in half.

With Belarus it can also go another way. It is a country feed by Russia. Everytime West make pressure on Lukaszenko he turns to Russia and sell some piece of economy for support. That was the case this time, when a few days before elections Belarus signed custom union with Russia and Kazakhstan. Sooner or later his ability to please Moscow will end. On the other hand someone said that Belarus to Russia is the same thing as North Korea to China. Both small countries are pain in the ass, but valuable as a geopolitical inconvenience for respectively EU and USA.

News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [178]


Have you by any chance been in Goerlitz recently? It is beautiful city empty like a shell at the same time... If any Pole feels that Germany is a threat and Poland should counteract there is no easiest way currently to do it than make some children and colonize Eastern Germany. They would even invite you with an open hands, because they renovated all this beautifull tenemant houses, and half of it is empty... Sadly there is not much to do there in the evenings, more sadly Polish demography is not booming either. It doesn't look like lack of space is CEE problem.

News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

I've read it before and have mixed feelings about it. I mean this intermarium aliance idea is unrealistic in the first place. The main idea behind this article is: Poland is f..ked because of geopolitical position sooner or later... If that is the case the only obvious and logical conclusion would be to get some nukes, many of them not some fragile aliance...

But what strikes me the most in Friedman thinking is kind of archaizm in it. I'm almost sure that this guy reads some stories about ancient nobility and knights and their dominions before he goes to sleep. Of course if something is archaic it doesn't mean it cann't happen. I just think that the internal dynamic in the systems made of modern countries is entirely different than it was the case between even XIX or early XX entities runed by nobility or some kind hard dictatorship. What I mean basically is that as long as Germany, Poland and Russia will have reasonable per capita and literacy levels and high trade turnover then there is no way either Germany or Russia will be able to turn its societies into full scale war with Poland, because regardless of how fast it would take to conquer teritory, pacification would be long, bloody and costly especially considering how easy is today to become a terrorist. As I'm writing this it becomes clear to me that oversimplification in Friedman analysis lies in thinking about Poland, Germany and Russia as a separate blocks. The current reality is different though. So to recreate world fit to Friedman view we would need total impoverishment of societies, total halt in trade and demographic boom, ie. pre WWII conditions. What we have is stability or growth in terms of HDI, growing trade and what is more important interconnection between economies, and demoghrapic decline. Maybe economic decline can be rapid, but demography is hardly movable object. So I think we don't have to worry to much for a couple of decades especially if we add Asian rising powers pressure on Russia far east.