Men in Poland in the forest? Just men?

Yeah, I was in that region often and saw many minority and mixes and so I was surprized to see now that these Asian looking people are so hard to find using Google. Official websites do not seem to list them at all.

You are right Ironside.

Why would they be listed?Polish Commonwealth was after all a melting pot.

The Census forms asked to name the ethnicity. Not all people name other than Polish but those who wish can declare other ethnicity. That is why I expected to see them on official maps. Those maps of Podkarpacie that I saw first diid not identify Tatars but now I see other websites that do.

I think I see your point: It is a Melting Pot anyway. Sure but it is just very interesting - it is a riddle to solve!

Once I met a guy from Turkey who did not look Turkish - he looked familiar to me. Moreover he loved the Polish Basketball League. It turned out he was from the Polish minority living east of Istambul.

Freemasons

did he mention aprons?

In PL most lodges are mixed. Perhaps the guys in the forest are on male bonding exercises.

" I had hoped that you could explain the social reasons for these gatherings of guys in the forest?":

I ran into two of these guys walking out of a Polish forest. They introduced themselves as Jeeves and Nigel. Jeeves was tall and lanky while Nigel was cherubic and short. Upon seeing me they dropped their "one world" talk and began speaking in a Kaliningrad accent.

If you see the movie, "Dinner with Andre" Andre Gregory explains the Polish forest people.

Do we live in the same Podkarpacie, cos I still have my doubts? The simplest and shortest explanation to the phenomenon you've mentioned is that you don't have many places of public entertainment in the villages. These guys that gather near the local shops are just unemployed inexpensive wine connoisseurs with plenty of spare time. Meanwhile the wives earn a living. Although drinking alcohol in places such as streets , parks and squares is prohibited in Poland and the drinkers are liable to a fine it's hard to break a habit. That's why some of them prefer partying in the forest. Why do they squat down? Who knows? Maybe they don't want to sit on the ground - I can't see any asian background here :) If the Podkarpacie region was under any eastern influence it'd be rather eastern european infuence , definately not asian. And why only men? Drinking alcohol in the forest is not the best kind on entertainment one can dream of - I 'm saying this as a girl :)

finally a voice of reason.

However, I really enjoyed reading this thread.

The speculations were really well thought through and the presentations were very up to the international standards. I really liked the Asian spin.

We are squatting in front of computers, but it has nothing to do with being Asian;)

I suspect that a deep vein of embarrassement runs through you all, I am deeply embarrassed by the 'chav' society that UK has produced, we have Jeremy Kyle and you have that parade of grotesques called Sprawy dla reportera? who never seem to get the right help when it happens that the mother has gone away to work and has signed the family farm over to her 'idiot boy' eldest son who promptly sells the whole farm for a crate of piwo! Boze moj!!! But I digress (mostly to press my point) I am not that far from Jaslo by the way so I can claim to be in 'The Pod' and this squatting.....some of you seem to misunderstand (maybe on purpose?) I am definitely sitting on a chair not squatting....squatting is bending of the knees.......why am I describing this?? just think of an Afghan peasant......So you adjudge that this behaviour is not Asian.....so how did it come about....people do have chairs here and have had for a long time!!! Asians often in history have not used chairs and favour large cushions and either a squat or a cross legged sitting position. I make a cultural point now, I have seen this in the Arab world and again a similarity arises, because the people that I saw squatting around a low table in an Arab country were all men, they did not allow the women to eat with them and here when the men are squatting they do not allow women to squat with them!!! (even squatting teen males do not allow girls to squat wwith them, I have seen a group of teens waiting for a bus....the boys were sqautting in a circle talking...the girls were stood away to one side talking) so how did this parallel culture arise when European sized tables and chairs were also available. Back to the deep vein of embarrassement which you cover with light hearted remarks about the guys behind the Straz being connoisseurs of cheap wine...of course they are, but my deeper question is why the penchant for hanging out behind every shop and every Straz.....I have never encountered this anywhere else...of course the rest of Western Europe has its share of hopeless dregs of society....but they don,t do it in the same way as they do here?? I was hoping for an explanantion that it is a hangover from the days of communism when people hung around the shops hoping for something to come in other than osset and brown paper.

Dregnought, pleaseee :) :) You' re not waiting for explanation , you are asking and giving yourself the answers. BTW. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, that's the point ;)

Greetings from the Podkarpacie :)

you got all explanation that you will get just next time go and squat with them and maybe you will learn something. Of course if your arse is not too fat to squat.

Ironside, you know what gets me kudos around here? the locals say I am kind and brave, because not only I but my wife too, when it is hot in summer we will buy a round of beers and take them round the back of the shop and sit with the guys and ask "whats new" (nothing ever is new of course this is a small village) but no I don,t squat and its not because my backside is too fat (you obviously never worked a farm? it does keep the fat off if you put your heart into it) it,s my poor old knees (15 years of running and lugging huge backpacks and a rifle have not treated my knees well.... so I lean against the wall) I am a man of the people, I mix with professors and businessmen and teachers and doctors and I also find time for the derelicts......there is method to this....whenever I need a ditch digging I can always find a good cheap worker.

Good for you.


and the piss taker again good for you.

My wife is so good to me, she just reminded me of another tradition that they have here in the Podkarpacie......I have no idea whether this has any bearing on the 'squatting in circles' that so many of you insist is not an Asiatic trait and even is only a figment of my deluded and drug addled mind!!! But lets discuss Wigilja.......now in this area they (not everyone but must be quite a few families) eat this meal from one bowl in the centre of the table using the fingers of one hand only.....no knives and forks, no plates just pick from one bowl with their hand....and I am not talking peasants here......we were invitied by some friends of ours, very nice people who live in a modern house, Electrician and a Nurse, to partake, but they did warn us before hand that they follow the older traditions and if we liked we could be served on a plate, but they would eat with their hands. We later learned that many families also serve this meal in a big bowl in the centre of the table but they serve themselves with spoons...again no plates involved. My wife was astounded and tells me that this is in no way the tradition in Silesia etc......So is this an asiatic trait or am I completely deluded and 'off my meds' as some of you so succinctly put it. I have seen this family meal things and hands only (in fact as here... one hand is kept behind the back and the other is used for eating) in muslim countries? in what could be called Asia.....how did this tradition arise in Poland and how is it still here. (those who ask for 'pics or it never happened' will have to wait a while....obviously!!)

I have no clue. Never heard about it to be honest. You must have a very peculiar friends.
The only thing that comes to mind is a book I read about peasant's long gone customs of eating from one bowl but using spoons.

My advice for you and your friends would be to squat around the bowl and eat from a bowl with you foot.

Ah and don't forget about pictures.

When I first came to live in Poland I didn,t think that any Poles had a sense of humour......now I know they do....but it is so subtle sometimes. Seriously though this is after all 'The Podkarpacie' a backward but very beautiful and relaxing (if you are on holiday) part of Poland...with it,s own culture and traditions.

You’re so full of it your eyes turned brown. I myself have been born and raised in that part of Poland, spent more time there and visited more people on all sorts of social occasions than you ever will, never seen it myself and never even heard of it. I don’t care what you may or may not think of this region of Poland but I can honestly state that you and your wife are full of $hit.

There are many traditions that have been cultivated here perhaps longer than in other parts of Poland like (zapusty, śmieciarza, sobótki) and some unique to these parts as well that you might find peculiar but what you’re talking about is pure nonsense and fiction. You also seem to confuse bunch of teenagers drinking and gathering of żule with traditions which to me at least suggests you're not that bright.

Moderator...I have in the past been 'moderated' for less than this. Short haired thug gives no reasonable argument why these traditions may or may not be, just his own opinions......surely the venom and bile and personal insults should be curtailed? I obviously cannot post pics, but there are several families around here who do honestly have this tradition of eating that special meal from one bowl with their hands no amount of venom or bile will change that.

I have lived in this part of Poland for 40 years man and boy and I've never seen such instances of said squatting...

However when I lived in the UK I often saw many men sit in the forest in 'squares'....

And in New York, women used to wait for the bus squatting in triangles...

What does all this mean?

This strange phenomenon is not just related to Poland...

Surely these backward 'western' countries have some hidden ancestry that would explain these traditions... ???

Hrm. As an American, thus fitting the aforementioned criteria, I would posit: those dudes be getting hiiiiiiighhhh.......

Really? I speak from the experience as the native to the region in question; you on the other hand are confused as what constitutes a tradition. Complain all you want, the venom, bile and insults are coming from your end, not that I would really blame an ignoramus like you for that as you seem to be confused about lots of issues, I suppose the recent phenomena of the social behavior of chives in Britain have a very long standing history and tradition behind it. Honestly do you think you are fooling anyone? As Iron pointed out to you the customs from the middle ages that may have been true back then as the result of extreme poverty of the region and peasants’ in general does not makes it true today neither does reading Chłopi projecting the life of peasants to present times picking a region at random, as if. Remember Reymonts’ novel was first published at the beginning of the last century and even then much of what he was writing about has long time vanished from the day to day reality of that time. I know I have given you too much credit here, there’s a fat chance in hell you ever read anything in your life. You simply let your imagination take the best of you and your wife is encouraging it knowing your secret perverse sexual fantasy and knowing what consequence it will bring if you ever act on it. Hoping that after a good beating you will snap out of it and from that point on you will only fantasies about her

.
PS. If you are a yank by any chance then explain to me the long standing tradition of teenagers congregating in the forest preserves, parks, what have you, often standing in circular pattern as they take a quick swig from a brown paper bag or passing a bong or joint around, or that of the winos gathering around the parking lot of the liquor stores doing the same thing, squatting by or sitting on a guard rails. Why only man? What are the roots of that tradition? Odd.

I,m not going into it with you, because personal insults are never productive, but visitors always comment on the size of my bookshelves...no Reymont though! I will now give an example from my past....I once met a guy in Greece, (this was way back) he said to me "I not Greek... I not Greek..I spend 5 year London......I full modernised" I will say that I have never seen so many people gathered on a forum who are so scared of geing grouped or identified with Eastern societies... and so vehemently desperate to be 'Western'..... you can talk around the truth and be afraid to confront it......make of that what you will.....but Geography and history you can,t argue with..you are what you are it,s in your genes.

I'm tempted to not say anything, and just leave room for everyone to read this again, in case they missed the subtle and not-so-subtle invective the first time. You're not Polsih. You don't understand what Poles identify themselves as, and you're in no position to judge their level of desperation nor fear as you ascribe them. You are stirring them up, and you grinding your axe. Whether this is from boredom, or you truly have a beef with them, or you're just more prolific at typing than you are at appreciating other cultures, that I can't tell you. I don't make things up if I haven't enough information. A rule you might consider subscribing to. And please, stop this ridiculous


dodge, as though you're just some benign intellectual conversationalist looking for answers to toothless questions. You either know that you yourself are insulting, or you're too socially inept to notice. Either way, you need work, and your posts could benefit from about four re-writes before you commit them to posting.

This is clearly an 'Iron John' type male bonding rituals. In America, tired and stressed city executives go out into the woods with other tired and stressed executives and build 'sweat lodges' of branches covered with blankets, moss, branches etc where they heat stones with fire, then get naked and poor water on the stones to make steam. The circle of squatting men are undertaking ritual sweatlodge behaviour but don't realise they need to build the sweatlodge first.

After the executives are very sweaty they run in the forests attempting to kill small animals with sticks and once the 'hunter' has caught the 'prey' i.e. a small wood mouse or similar. they butcher it and smear the blood over eachother's bodies. This causes bonding amongst the executives.

Many are happy to pay $1,000 each for attending an 'Iron John' weekend. Are you sure those gatherings in the 'Pod' aren't just American businessmen from Warsaw seeking a cheaper alternative?

No, I'm pretty sure he's just -without subtlety- making veiled allusions to the mystical and arcane nature of Polish "forest people", doing mysterious, perhaps nefarious things deep in the woods, without female companionship. There's an agenda here, and it's not one of personal discovery. It's one of slowly tainting the rural Pole.

Ah how wrong you are.....I like the rural Poles in this area they are fairly honest and simple people, the only Poles I have found not to be so nice are city types. Look all I am simply trying to find out is why no one talks about 'the elephant in the room' I know Berliners who have gotten over the fact that anything above the age of 3 was raped by Russian soldiers so their blood is full of Russian blood, but many people on this forum have a terrible fear of admitting that the Tartars were here long term...they brought eastern traditions and some of them have stayed. what is the big deal?...nobody is going to kick you out of Europe or think less of you because of a few eastern Traditions? The Romans were in Britain for 600 years all told....we don,t try to hide the roads or Roman ruins, some on the East coast are proud of their Viking heritage.....But eastern traditions here are anathema and something to be denied, by patriots?? I hope it is a strong sense of patriotism that drives you? and not fear or shame.

Geez. Hanging out in the forest is NOT a Tatar tradition, end of. It's a guy thing. I can totally see why they don't want their women there. Do they enjoy horses and horsemanship in general? Do they hunt with bows or make bows? No? Then they're not Tatars. ;-p

Re: squatting. You squat (and not outright sit down) when the ground is cold and damp and you have no chairs / benches available. Like in the forest. There, solved that one for you.

Re: food from one bowl. Long, long ago, the poorest peasants used to eat from one bowl using their own spoons. Maybe the poorest of the poor didn't even own spoons, maybe the family or families you mentioned carry on this tradition on Christmas Eve because it's a meal during which it is traditional to eat what our ancestors used to eat. So you go through the motions even though you know it's ritual and you maybe don't even enjoy the traditional meal so much (good case in point: Swedish Lutefisk as a Christmas dish).

To sum up: there is no elephant in the room.

You make my point for me.....hanging out in the forest is a guy thing....its a guy thing In Germany but with g/fs it,s a guy thing in UK but with g/fs it,s a guy thing in just about every other European nation....but with g/fs and wives...here it is always just men, like there is some cultural exclusion of women. I may not have made myself clear about this squatting in circles, but like I said earlier, it can be in the forest, it can be along side a track (many dirt tracks here, used by all and sundry to cut miles from a journey due to the many hills and valleys) It can be in the height of summer (and we do get long hot cummers here in 'The Pod') so even when the ground is dry and the grass is soft and warm....they still squat in circles like Afghan peasants, whereas a group of guys in say Holland or America or Denmark would be lounging on the ground, maybe sat or sprawled out...not here...... they squat. I will accept that long, long ago much nearer to the time of the Tartars peasant farmers were poor in the material sense of not having money to buy things....but I don,t buy that people who were talented in the use of wood and had very good wooden artifacts even in early times all ate from one bowl because they only had one???? Horses??? loads of horses here every other farm has a horse and people here use them for all sorts of things....I have to admit that riding horses is not popular among the farmers they see them as tools nowadays. Bows?? oh yes....bows and crossbows are kept here because a gun makes a lot of noise and cartridges are expensive nor do you want the Police or the forestry guys snooping around.....and an arrow can bring down a deer quietly, venison is very tasty. (Just a footnote: year before last we did see a man and his son ploughing....apparently the horse had died and they couldn,t afford another so they took turns pulling an old single furrow plough up and down the field...won,t see that very often though.....funny thing was in the next field was a guy ploughing with a tractor...he could have helped them and done their little field in 15 mins.......I,m willing to bet they were too proud to ask him....we wondered why he didn,t offer though.)

If it's with girls it's not a guy thing any more! Don't you see that? ;-)


Maybe they don't want to get their clothes dirty. BTW, this sort of squat is extremely comfy! I speak from experience, and I have never lived in the countryside.


It was never a question of only having one bowl - it was a question of eating out of one bowl (you cook a lot of potatoes or soup or whatever and serve it in one bowl, much easier than having every member of the household eat from separate plate, who gets to wash all those plates afterwards? - no running water, remember).

Meals eaten from a single bowl were typical of peasant life in most parts of CE Europe till quite recently (maybe 80-100 years ago). Ask your wife or google it.


Come on... you know I didn't mean that! Of course farmers keep horses! Don't be ridiculous now. But do they ride them all the time? Race them? Develop new breeds? Do they keep them for the pure love of the thing? I bet not.


Really? I'd think people would keep that sort of info under wraps, AFAIK it's illegal.