Growing up in 80's in Poland

Thursday, 12th of August 2021

It’s been quite a while since I published my last article. I guess I hit the writer's block. Or maybe Ernesto took over. Or I just got busy with life. I don’t know. I just didn’t feel like writing or interacting much online at all. My noise has also been idle for a few days. Some days are just like this I guess. 

This morning however I read an article by @CoquiCoin . In her article Eliana wrote about the Venezuelan government’s attempts at control and how it affects their lives. At first I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but then memories started flashing back one after another and I remembered that our life in Poland back in the 80's was not all that different. I proceeded to write a lengthy comment, then I stopped, as I realised I should write an article about it. Thank you Eliana, for inspiring me to write again. As we know, what goes round, comes round eventually :) 

History is really not my thing!

To be perfectly honest I remember what life was like, but never really understood why it was like this. I remember we had a curfew, or ‘police hour’ and my mum would say that we were in a ‘war state’. As history has always been my weakness, I had to research it and… seriously, I get so bored reading about dates and politics. From what I can gather we were still under a communist regime, which lasted since after World War II and soon before I was born, the ‘Solidarity’ trade union was also born, which at first was meant to be just that, but soon became entangled with politics and eventually helped to end the communist regime. In 1991 the first free parliamentary elections took place which was when Poland made its transition into democratic political system. The last post-soviet union soldiers left the country in 1993. 

In the meantime, ‘Solidarity’ was opposed greatly by the ruling government, which resulted in many strikes, protests and ‘accidents’. The 80’s was also a decade of economic crisis and this is what I remember well. Power and water outages, like Eliana mentioned, were pretty much a norm back then. We always had a supply of candles in our home in preparation for the next one of those. 

I was born near German border and that’s where all my family comes from. In 80’s, soon before my brother was born we moved to an area of Poland called Silesia, which is located in the south of Poland, near our old capital - Krakow. Here most of the coal mines were located and my father got a job as a miner. I was 3 when we moved into a new flat, which my dad was allocated as a coal miner and I still remember empty rooms, with shiny wooden floors and piles of plates laying on the floor, as we had no furniture yet. My parents still live in that flat to this day. 

We lived on the first floor and I remember my mum throwing me a box of matches out of the window, with a ration card hidden inside, so I could go to the shop to pick up some necessities quickly after she found out about the delivery. Food rationing and queues were very real. My paternal grandmother lived above an always empty grocery store. We always knew when the delivery was, as the huge queue would form under our windows. Sugar and toilet paper were some of the most wanted products out of all things! 

Thinking about it… it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if one of those sugar shortages happened suddenly all over the world. Obesity and diabetes problems would soon be solved. 

Sugar was not the only missing product though. Shelves in all shops were empty. Back then we had money, but it had not much value and we were not able to spend it anyway, as there was literally nothing to buy. I remember really wanting a bike and my dad was promising to buy me one for months, but there were none available. For some reason I wanted an orange one. One day my dad found out about delivery to the sports shop and ran to get me my dream bike. Obviously there was no selection of colours and dad came back with a bright green one. I was still happy like a little monkey and I remember riding this little bike for years to come. 

Similarly to what Eliana said, our currency, Zloty, had not much value then and american dollar became a parallel currency. Many Polish workers seeked jobs in the western countries, mainly Germany, some emigrated permanently and never came back, even after the end of socialism. Some came back and injected Polish economy with foreign currency, which the government tried to control by all means. In almost every polish city there were government owned shops called Pevex, where you could only buy things with hard currency. I remember those well. While there were shortages of everything in all other shops, the shelves were fully stacked in Pevex. We would go there just to browse, as we had no dollars to buy anything. 

I do wonder if I already decided to emigrate back then, while looking at what foreign currency can buy?

Lack of toys to entertain us made us very creative though. Take ‘trzepak’ for example. The English name for it is ‘carpet hanger’ and it was used to hang carpets on it and then beat it with a special ‘tool’, until all the dust was gone. For us kids, it became a hanging place for most summer days in town. This is what we actually did with it… or rather on it. 

Image source.

Some people are surprised just how flexible I am, even as an adult. Well, here is the answer - I was hanging on trzepak for hours per day, doing all kinda flips and acrobatics! Then summer holidays I would spend at my grandparents, surrounded by forests, where we would go foraging for various fruits and mushrooms and little lakes, where we would go swimming and playing with frogs. Summers in Poland were really hot, around 40 degrees every day, so there were huge laments when our mums were trying to get us out of the water when our lips were blue from the cold water.

Winters on the other hand were really cold, around -20 degrees was a norm and there was ALWAYS snow. There was a basketball area behind the block my parents live in. During winters firemen would come and pour water on it, which created a perfect ice rink for kids to have fun at. That’s how I learned to skate. I also remember having little skis as a child, but I wasn’t too keen on those I don’t think. 

Although the political and economical situation was really difficult in 80’s, when I was growing up, I still remember all the fun we had with apparently no toys. By the time I was a teenager the situation improved greatly. Shelves in shops became full, but as my dad wasn’t much of a worker, we had no money to buy much anyway. 

Fast forward to my 20’s and even though Poland was already a free country, we weren’t a rich country and even with a diploma from an University it was difficult to find a job if you didn’t have connections. Even passing a driving exam was difficult without connections. I graduated a year after we entered the EU and when the door of opportunity opened to work in another country, I didn’t think twice. I booked my flight to England. 

It was meant to be for 6 months… 16 years later I am still here. The situation in Poland has improved greatly in all those years, but England is now my home.

Until next time 💙