Pawel & Matylda, Gdynia
For its livelihood Gdańsk has always turned to the sea with all its trade routes and its wealth of amber reserves. So when Paweł and Matylda suggested we approach the city from the coast, or as far as we’re able to by beach, that sounds appropiate. The Baltic remains the cold seagreen way to the heart of Gdańsk.
There is a cluster of three Polish cities along the Baltic coast: Gdynia, Sopot and Gdańsk. We’ll be staying in the holiday apartment of Matylda’s wealthy aunt in Gdynia. Such an apartment bloc from the seventies takes getting used to. Outside the plasterwork is a miserable grey, especially in winter, and wherever it’s not crumbling or patched-up graffiti rules - like in all subways, on gas pipelines and on trains – yet inside the open space has all the white goods you can wish for, plus sprung wooden floors and puffed-up duvets with floral covers.
To line our stomachs we breakfast in one of the taverns on the Gdynia foreshore. We pick a backpacker’s hang-out where a kind of omelette is served with a puddle of mushrooms, tomatoes and melted cheese in its centre. As we chew away it becomes edible, but coffee seems essential afterwards. Now we’re ready for the beach trail to Gdańsk, the city named Gyddanyzc by a Benedictine monk as early as the year 999.
It’s almost May the first, workers’ day, and the spring sun shines gaily. The trail starts at a monument honouring one of the greatest writers of the English canon, Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad. A Wroclaw academic once said to me that Conrad ‘was lost’ by the Poles. They do treat their writers with reverence; in the royal castle of Wawel in Kraków many writers and poets lie tucked in under engraved slabs.
‘There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea’ – with Conrad’s words to ponder on we finally set off to Gdańsk on a pristine beach, keeping as close as possible to the fresh Baltic Sea.
A team of swans on green choppy waves? I’ve never encountered the likes of it before. Yet there they are, slender necks begging for a crust. Also on the beach: a youthful Jesuit priest with rosy cheeks and a jaunty way of walking, sunbathers with beehive hair-do’s and youths with gym muscles under taut marble skin. At www.container.com we call a halt. Baltic fishermen have turned these containers into shops to sell a delicacy which should not be missed at any cost: smoked trout fillets and lusty pink smoked salmon, halibut and delicious herring. Eat the fillet right there on the sand under the pale spring sun, then move onto one of the many cafés-in-the-sand to wash away the remnants with spritzy Zywiec served in a tall beer glass.
We arrive in the coastal town of Sopot, full of holiday-makers and a type of Moravian style architecture to marvel at, each house with its beautiful hanging balcony closed in with glass and carved wood panelling, its windows wide open to let in magnolia and plum blossom. On the busy ul. Bohaterow Monte Cassino, the Street of the Heroes of Monte Cassino, we conclude our midday snack with a gofry, a crisp waffle with whipped cream and glistening jagody or blueberries. Then on to Gdańsk by train.
Gdańsk Główna or central station is much better than the one at Gdynia, which is no place for the melancholic soul. A few nights earlier we arrived there and made our way through the central hall. I looked back over my shoulder at the waiting room where people sat bent over with weary, desperate heads, waiting on their train, or simply waiting in that dimly-lit netherworld, its air so rank it could be cut with a knife. Suddenly three cocky policemen in dark blue and fluorescent yellow uniforms descended upon a drunk, she in turn let out a piercing cry – a scene straight from the days of the Communist era. The state controlled SKM Train Service should be ashamed at offering such a public space to a city of more than 260 000 people. That waiting room reminded me of the Nabokov short story telling of: ‘miserable refugees in God-forsaken railway stations.’
young Jesuit monk, Gdynia
Gdańsk is promoted by its municipality as the city of my dreams. Once inside the old town the three of us walk around aimlessly, cameras and guide-books bagged. It’s the best way to explore a city. Get the feel of the cobblestone streets under your soles, peep through private windows and down smelly alley-ways, talk to strangers if you can, smell and touch and let the city be your guide. We stroll into a bon-bon factory and sample boiled sweets flavoured with frangipani, so fresh from the pot that they’re still hot in the mouth.
Like all mediaeval and pre-mediaeval cities, Gdańsk’s centre is laid out in a semi-circle and fairly small. It is a city with a checkered and troubled history: twice it was embroiled in wars with Sweden, in between it had its Golden Age accumulating so much wealth that artists and artisans from the Netherlands were hired to mould and paint facades and interiors. During the partition of Poland Gdańsk was lumped in with Prussia; the wife of the philosopher Schopenhauer wrote of the Prussian king Frederick II: ‘ …he is a vampire which sucks the life blood from the city.’ The city was renamed Danzig under German occupation; during the Second World War ninety percent of it was destroyed. Only a single church and a few historical buildings survived the burning and shelling.
Gdańsk would never be the same again, not even when its patrican gables and the przedproża, the porches so famous to the inner-city, were reconstructed. After the war freedom had to be bought at a price from Moscow, endless residential suburbs with their wave-shaped, ten-storey apartment blocks went up around the historical centre; censorship, propaganda and the radical shrinking of individual rights were to follow.
In and around the eighties one man with an unruly moustache rebelled against the repression: the enigmatic Lech Wałeşa from the shipyard of Gdańsk. Once again Gdańsk would become world famous, this time for Wałeşa’s trade union Solidarność, its members infused with the longing for democratic rights.
Seasons came and went, snow fell on the red tile roofs, the Baroque chapels and the fantastic Gothic towers and more snow on the warehouses and crane towers along the Motława River. The wall of Berlin came down and Poland was declared an independent republic.
On both sides of ul. Długa, the elegant Long Street, the Rococo and Renaissance facades are once again decorated in gold and mustard yellow, in salmon pink, sage green and sky blue. Now restaurants, amber jewellers and souvenir shops prevail, turning the city into open air museum, albeit a pretty museum.
To see if it’s still possible for the ordinary citizen to buy a loaf and string of blood sausage for supper, we stroll into the indoor market housed in a neo-Gothic building from the late nineteenth century; and come upon abundance. Stout farmer’s loaves which had risen on sourdough, new season’s honey and crisp sesame sticks in cellophane. Also Italian shoes in the latest fashion, slips and underpants and bra’s for big mothers, and big, round wreaths finely arranged with, and that makes all the difference, fresh roses, lilies and foliage.
Surely such a wreath would make the deceased sense the love of the living from the very grave. But of course that is not true in such a devout Catholic country. Here the death of their beloved pope Karel Wojtyla is still lamented and the souls of the deceased have fluttered to their heavenly home long ago. Thus the time has come to visit the churches and the museums.
First a refreshment: coffee and a slice of the heavenly tort bezowy – never pass a Polish cake shop, their tarts and pastries are unbeatable – then up the 76.6 meter tower of the Gothic church of the Most Holy Virgin Mary to the outlook right at the top.
From here the distant Baltic Coast, the Gdańsk shipyard which now lies deserted, the endless apartment blocks around the old city and the meandering Motława River should come into sight. Instead all you can see and hear is crowded out by elbows and shoulders and baseball caps and digital cameras and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, tsjieke-tsjiek, tsjieke-tsjiek through the iPods. I find myself overwhelmed by claustrophobia and am forced to speed down the 7001 odd steps and down the spiralling staircase to solid ground below.
Reinforcements are needed, something substantial like Polish rye bread with schmaltz, and immediately we set out to find a darkish pub on ul. Mariacka and order just that and a round of Zubrowka vodka. The vodka comes in lufas or gun barrels. One lufa holds a formidable 50 ml, a challenge for a non-Pole to gulp down in one go.
a wooden St John, Church of Holy Mary, Gdansk
It is late afternoon and the sky has turned a fresh blue with floating white clouds. Two important museums remain. First is the amber museum housed in the medieaval prison tower and torture house. During the Golden Age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Gdańsk became the centre of ‘Baltic Gold.’ From its harbour the amber routes lead to Hamburg in the west and to Rome and Sicily in the south.
Amber is a petrified pine resin formed over a period of 14 million years and was used in the most diverse ways. Mixed with honey, rose oil and mastic it was turned into a cure for sorethroat, tonsilitis, eye and ear inflammation. Polish kings, noble men and members of the bishopdom all commissioned amber artisans to manufacture exquisite tools and art objects. On view are scabbards embedded with amber and precious stones, an amber dinner service and an amber bonsai tree, delicate amber broaches and so on. Also a contemporary amber egg by Fabergé in a glass case.
A mere corridor separates these treasure rooms from a torture cell. With bated breath you watch a video of instruments and methods of torture devised by the most innovative minds. And for added effect, cries of horror pour from hidden speakers. In a glass case is a compendium from1508 by one Ulrich Tengler illustrating all the possible transgressions which could earn one the death sentence, as well as the torture method preceding each one of these sentences. Against the cell’s stone wall hangs a woodcut showing the halving method whereby the transgressor is neatly sliced in two from head to toe. Not daring to ascertain which transgression would bring on such punishment, I flee from the cell thinking of another lufa of Zubrowka.
Just before closing time we reach The National Museum of Art to view Gdańsk’s Hans Memling. There is no time for the rest of the collection, yet I do notice a silver and gold ostrich, circa 19th century, a comical artifact made by one of the cities talented silversmiths.
The Memling is the pride of the museum and definitely worth a visit. It consists of a 222cm high triptych on which the master of Brugge depicted the Last Judgement. On the left hand panel the chosen ones are welcomed through the door of heaven by Saint Peter. And woe to ones on the right hand panel, the eternally doomed are propelled through a glowing sky to the fires of hell. You can see clearly how some of the sinners are trying to crawl back across the frame separating the right panel from the centre one, but the archangel Michael is not putting up with their nonsense. On his scales the poor things have already been weighed and found to be too light, devils with sharp two-pronged forks are at the ready to impale them.
Paweł and Matylda decide that we’ve had enough of Polish cuisine even though I’m mad about żurek, a sour soup made from fermented rye flour, marjoram and wedges of Silesian sausage. This time it’s going to be Japanese. The chef uses the freshest, best Baltic fish for his sashimi. Paweł demonstrates how he’s able to swallow a lump of wasabi without tears. Has the lining of his throat been toughened-up by fiery vodka since childhood? On my way to the toilet I notice the young, ambitious chef’s sushi-chef certificates with golden rosettes all in a row against the wall.
As a farewell to Gdańsk we attend Titus Andronicus at the Teatr Wybrzeże where Shakespeare’s most bloodthirsty play has been given an utterly Polish rendition. The cast is huge and the players act with verve and spirit. I sit there, amazed and visually overcome. It is as if all the sorrows and violations that ever occurred in this city and all over Poland are being shouted out by the players, yet with humour and a touch of ‘zawiany’ which, as I see it, is ‘like a crazy wind that’s ruffled the
Titus Andronicus by teatr Wybrzeze, Gdansk
brain’. After the show in the adjoining club this particular uninhibitedness is on display once again.
Many lufas are downed, the dj’s mix from a laptop is a galloping, outrageous one, old and new songs are blasted out with wild rhythmic overlays. In the thick smoky air tables are cleared for dancing; girls first, and then the boys. And history, and the future, is forgotten and for that moment Gdańsk truly becomes the city of my dreams.
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The article was first published in Afrikaans in the travel magazine, Wegbreek, September 2007.
© Eben Venter.
