Poland – Warmia-Mazuria, Podlaskie August 9- ,2019
I entered this area of Poland, located in the far northeast of the country, from Lithuania.
Like all Schengen countries, this is an invisible border with only a sign.
Just before the border, I picked up a young couple hitchhiking. I like picking up hitchhikers, but I see them rarely. The last was over 3 months ago in Romania. I prefer backpackers as they can usually speak English. I would be unlikely to give a ride to someone who did not speak English. As soon as I saw them at the intersection of the road leading to Poland, I wanted to pick them up, as the man was a travelling German carpenter. They dress in a very unusual way and are immediately recognizable. Wanda was from Cologne, a pediatric nurse who had recently quit her job and was interested in taking time off and possibly engaging in environmental activism, with no definite plan. They had known each other for about a year, and as he travelled all the time, she joined him in Lithuania. Leander had been working in his trade in Norway and Sweden. Both wanted to visit the World Heritage Site, Białowieża Forest, an ancient forest in eastern Poland renowned for its centuries-old originality. With no specific plan for Poland yet, I decided to go there too, so we agreed to travel together for the 2 days to get there.
I have seen and talked to these “travelling carpenters” twice before. I forget the first time, but believe it was in Mexico. The last time was around 2016 in my hometown of Courtenay, British Columbia.
TRAVELING CARPENTERS (Wanderschaft)
This is an 800-year-old tradition in Germany. Finish your three-year carpenter training (German students are streamed to a group that finishes grade 12, aiming to go to university, or after grade 10 to enter a trade) and hit the road working as a carpenter wherever you want throughout the world. There are about 6-700 travelling carpenters out there at any one time. Most come from Germany, but a few come from Switzerland and Austria. For the past 200 or so years, they have been an organized group with several rules of behaviour.
• They must dress all the time in the traditional clothing of a traveling carpenter: a black top hat, white shirt that is long sleeved and buttoned up, black vest, black heavy cotton (German leather) bell-bottomed (usually 60-80cms around and made this way to keep saw dust out of shoes) trousers with a 2-zipper flap fly and a specific courduroy heavy jacket, and white buttons on the vest and jacket. The “costume” sticks out as it is so unusual. Once they have decided to live this way, they purchase the clothes privately or have them hand-made. They have a second set of traditional clothes with them that they wear to work, which is a little simpler. They also have “chill out clothes”, more common dress, but only use that when staying with relatives and not working.
• Their only luggage is what they can carry on their back, and it must be the traditional cloth wrap with attached shoulder straps. They must be able to wash it, so that eliminates any commercial packs. They all have a sleeping bag and pad, sometimes a tent (but usually not, as they are too bulky and weigh too much), but often have a tarp that allows them to camp out.
• They must commit to at least three years, but can continue as long as they want. Most find three years long enough and then become traditional carpenters.
• To become a travelling carpenter, after finishing formal training as a carpenter, one only has to find someone presently working as a travelling carpenter who agrees to mentor you for three months to teach the rules, how to hitchhike and deal with the accommodation issues. They also learn the polite demeanour demanded by the profession.
• They cannot work or go within a 50km radius of their hometown for the duration. If they want to see their parents, relatives or friends, they have to travel outside a 50km radius to meet them. This forces them to travel frequently. It helps to have relatives outside this distance who may serve as a home base.
• They can’t work at any one job for longer than 3 months.
• They can’t pay for travel or accommodation for the duration – they must work in trade for both.
Travel is almost always by hitch-hiking, as it is not permitted to use commercial or public transportation that has a price.
Accommodation. Most commonly, they are supplied with room and board at the job site. When not working or travelling, they camp, stay at fire halls, ask locals if they can sleep on their couch, or sleep in bus or train stations, or anywhere they can find that is free.
• Remuneration. They usually receive money for their work in addition to room and board. When not working, they purchase their food at stores and cook, or occasionally eat at restaurants. They also use it to buy new clothes when their present set wears out.
Suwalki. This is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,210 (as of 2011). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important commercial centers in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Suwałki is the largest city and the capital of the historical Suwałki Region. Suwałki is located approximately 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the southwestern Lithuanian border and gives its name to the Polish protected area known as the Suwałki Landscape Park. The Czarna Hańcza river flows through the city.
The Augustów Canal (Kanal Augustowski), a tentative WHS (20/03/2006). This is a cross-border canal built in the 19th century in the present-day Podlaskie Voivodeship of northeastern Poland and the Grodno Region of northwestern Belarus. Built from 1823 to 1839, it was 101.2 kilometres long and had 18 locks and 22 sluices, starting in Debowo, Poland, and ending on the Neman River near Sapotskin, Belarus, where it connects to the Bystry Canal.
It was the first summit level canal in Central Europe to provide a direct link between two major rivers, Vistula River through the Biebrza River (a tributary of the Narew River, and the Neman River through its tributary, the Czarna Hancza River thus providing a link with the Black Sea to the south through the Oginski Canal, Daugava River, Berezina Canal and Dniepr River. It utilizes a post-glacial channel depression, which forms the Augustow Lakes and the river valleys of the rivers above, allowing for a seamless integration of the canal with the surrounding natural elements.
The reasons for construction were both political and economic. In 1821, Prussia introduced repressively high customs duties for the transit of Polish and Lithuanian goods through its territories, which effectively blocked access to the Baltic Sea for Polish traders via the Vistula River and the Prussian seaport of Danzig (Gdańsk). The canal bypassed Prussian territory, linking the center of Poland with the Baltic seaport of Ventspils. The canal was used for the transport of flour, salt, grain, chalk and gypsum. A large port was built at Augustow, allowing vessels up to 40m long and 5m wide to pass through. It was described as a technological marvel with
The completed part remained an inland waterway used for commercial shipping and to transport wood to and from the Vistula and Neman Rivers until it was rendered obsolete by the development of the regional railway network. The final section to connect to Ventspils did not occur.
After the St. Petersburg–Warsaw railway was built, it declined, and from 1852, it floated only forest products, after which it was closed in the mid-1860s.
During WWI, it was damaged but rebuilt, and between the world wars, it became a tourist attraction with sporting routes for canoes, sailors, and boaters. In WW II, three locks, 12 bridges and eight weirs were demolished. The Belarusian section was not repaired, but the Polish section near the border has been restored for tourists and water management purposes.
The canal connects seven natural moraine-dammed lakes and eleven rivers, each connected by locks and weirs, towpaths and roads, bridges, and buildings. A water reserve is provided to feed the canal from outside.
It was listed as a tentative WHS in 2004 and is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland.
BIALYSTOK
It is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Białystok is the tenth-largest city in Poland, the second-largest in terms of population density, and the thirteenth-largest in area.
Białystok is located in the Białystok Uplands of the Podlaskie Plain on the banks of the Biała River. It has historically attracted migrants from other parts of Poland and beyond, particularly from Central and Eastern Europe. This is facilitated by the nearby border with Belarus, which also serves as the eastern border of the European Union and the Schengen Area. The city has a warm summer continental climate, characterized by warm summers and long frosty winters. Forests are an essential part of Białystok’s character, occupying approximately 1,756 ha (4,340 acres) (17.2% of the city’s administrative area), making it the fifth-most forested town in Poland.
The first settlers arrived in the 14th century. A town grew up and received its municipal charter in 1692. Białystok has traditionally been one of the leading centers of academic, cultural, and artistic life in Podlachia and the most important economic center in northeastern Poland. Białystok was once a significant center for the light industry, which contributed to the substantial growth of the city’s population. The city continues to reshape itself into a modern metropolis.
Branicki Palace. It was developed on the site of an earlier building in the first half of the 18th century by Jan Klemens Branicki, a wealthy Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth hetman, into a residence suitable for a man whose ambition was to become king of Poland. The palace complex with gardens, pavilions, sculptures, outbuildings and other structures and the city with churches, city hall and monastery, all built almost at the same time according to French models, was the reason why the city was known in the 18th century as Versailles de la Pologne (Versailles of Poland) And subsequently Versailles de la Podlachie(Versailles of Podlasie).
This is a large, yellow and white-trimmed palace fronted by extensive gardens and fountains. It has two copper domes.
St. Roch’s Church. Built between 1927 and 1946 in a modernistic style, it was designed by the renowned Polish architect, Professor Oskar Sosnowski. Its official name is Church -Monument of Poland’s Regained Independence n an it stands on the Saint Roch hill on Lipowa Street in Białstok, in the spot where a Roman Catholic cemetery, founded in 1839, once stood. The cRussians profaned the cemetery uring the January Uprising.
The church is planned as an octagon, with three masses set on top of one another. The first mass forms the central part of the complex, while the additional two are located on the sides, creating the attics. Initially, the church was dedicated to Mary, symbolized with a star; therefore, Sosnowski used stars in his design, especially in elements of the vault. During the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland during World War II (September 1939 – June 1941), Soviet authorities planned to open a circus in the unfinished building.
The church has an impressive 83-meter tower. Above it, a 3-meter figure of Mary stands on a Piast-style crown. The vaults resemble traditional vaults found in houses in the northeastern part of Poland. Near the church, there is a rectory, also designed by Sosnowski. The entire complex is surrounded by walls, in keeping with the tradition of fortified churches common in eastern Poland.
This is a vast new church, white with an interesting geometric design on the façade. Inside the nave is octagonal under a large stained glass skylight (the sun with a central eagle). The stained glass is frosted geometrics. The apse has grand stucco carvings. The Ways of the Cross, confessionals, two large side chapels, and the pulpit feature nice, carved wood bas-reliefs.
BIALOWIEZA FOREST
This is one of the last and largest remaining parts of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain. The forest is home to 800 European bison, Europe’s heaviest land animal. UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme designated the Polish Biosphere Reserve Białowieża in 1976 And the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1993. In 2015, the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve covered an area of 216,200 ha (2,162 km²; 835 sq mi), subdivided into transition, buffer, and core zones. The forest has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And an EU Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation. The World Heritage Committee, in its decision of June 2014, approved the extension of the UNESCO World Heritage site “Belovezhskaya Pushcha/Białowieża Forest, Belarus, Poland”, which was subsequently renamed“Białowieża Forest, Belarus, Poland”. It straddles the border between Poland (Podlaskie Voivodeship) and Belarus (Brest and Grodno voblasts), and is 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Brest, Belarus and 62 kilometres (39 miles) southeast of Białystok, Poland.
The Białowieża Forest World Heritage site covers a total area of 141,885 ha (1,418.85 km2; 547.82 sq mi). Since the border between the two countries runs through the forest, a border crossing is available for hikers and cyclists.
The Strict Reserve of Bialowieza National Park can only be visited with a licensed guide available at the small kiosk at the entrance to the reserve in the town of Bialowieza. PLN 6
Some of the tours offered are:
Face-to-Face with the Bison – For up to 6 people, it starts 1-1.5 hours before dawn and lasts 6 hours, visiting the forest but not entering the Strict Reserve. Requires own car. PLN 600
Bialowieza Forest by Night – Using night-vision binoculars, this 4-hour experience starts 1 hour before sunset. It is suitable for groups of up to 4 people, allowing visitors to explore the forest without entering the Strict Reserve. Requires own car. PLN 660
Bialowieza Forest at Twilight – Starts 3 hours before sunset, lasts 4 hours, for groups of up to 6 people, visiting the forest but not the Strict Reserve. Requires own car. PLN 440
Onithological Morning in Bialowieza Forest – Doesn’t enter the Strict Reserve. Requires own car and binoculars. PLN 550
The Oldest Part of the Primeval Forest – Ornithological Morning in the Strict Reserve. Best in the spring, this tour starts at sunrise and accommodates up to 8 people, lasting 4 hours. Requires own binoculars. PLN 440
The Oldest Part of the Primeval Forest – The Route to the Jagiello Oak – The tree was destroyed in a windstorm in 1974. 4 hours. PLN 330 + 9 for the entrance ticket.
The Oldest Part of the Primeval Forest – Walk to the Heart of the Forest – 6 hours, for six people and requires special entrance approval. PLN 660 + 35 for the entrance ticket.
GO TO Poland – Mazovia (Warsaw, Radom) and Łódź
