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Melting snow in the High Tatra

So Zakopane. Eastern Europe’s most famous ski resort, beloved by Poles across the world. A spa town nestled in the high Carpathian range, population 30,000 with a million visitors annually, peaking at holiday times.

And this January, no snow.

We’ve heard it before. We know that glaciers in the Alps are retreating by tens of metres every year.

It’s happening elsewhere too.

In Zakopane, they tell how a strange, unseasonal wind blew in off the high peaks this winter, and with its warm breath melted the snow away and brought the driving rain.

They explain how the wind – they call it the ‘halny’, like the Fohn in Switzerland – rushed through the valleys and down the mountainsides so that even the snow machines had to grind to a halt.

People did their best to ski, but it was a bit of a lost hope. The Presidential trip to open the latest cable car passed without much fanfare, in the circumstances.

They murmur that it was just the same last January. But before that, never.

They wonder, put on a brave face, keep the hotels open.

And they watch as the tourists leave town.

No call for the woodpecker

/—/.../-//-/.../-//-/.../—// Black woodpecker’s call (in Morse code)

The Isle of Wolves.

The wildest, darkest and most legend-entwined area of the capital city of Warsaw in Poland.

This is where hapless tourists find themselves relieved of loose change (and loose clothing) by the quick-witted dwellers in Praga, one of the city’s oldest districts by the flowing Wisla river. It’s not a place where most outsiders go.

The black woodpecker, though, really valued it. The peace and quiet there suited him. Plenty of grubs too.

So he drilled himself out a nice homely nesting hole in the rotten trunk of a hundred-year-old willow tree.

Crossing Swietokrzyski Bridge, you could see the ancient scrap of woodland where he lived with his numerous kin, deep in his hollow nest, looking down on the daft tourists who scattered litter in this NATURA 2000 designated area.

Have you ever heard a black woodpecker tapping at a tree?

Too late now.

The nesting hole has gone. So have the rotten, dried-out trees. Instead there’s a service road, cutting right through the middle of this little green wilderness, for the lorries to tow the timber away.

It happened quietly and quickly. It happened without the permission of the minister, the heritage people, or even the Director of Environment for the district of Praga North. Even though the black woodpecker is listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive, and the Port of Praga is within NATURA 2000 boundaries.

No-one gave permission because it wasn’t asked for. No-one took care of the place because no-one had told anyone to. The Praga Port Corporation simply sent in a private firm to tidy up the area, and paid them in firewood. The old rotten trunks were taken away. Who cares?

PS. See you at Euro 2012. In the bar at the Isle of Wolves, the black woodpecker on the plasma screen will look quite lifelike.

Przemek Pasek Ja Wisla foundation

/—/.../-//-/.../-//-/.../—// dzięcioł czarny

Wilcza Wyspa, najbardziej niedostępny i legendą mroczną owiany teren w stolicy. Tam zbłąkanym turystom, prascy obywatele pozbyć się pomagają zbędnej gotówki i odzieży. Spokój i larw dostatek docenił Dzięcioł Czarny i w pniu spróchniałym stuletniej wierzby dziuplę lęgową wykuł. Przejeżdżając Mostem Świętokrzyskim widać z nasypu zarośnięte lasem łęgowym starorzecza. To właśnie tam, w dziupli głębokiej mieszkała spoko familia dzięcioła czarnego, z góry patrząc na kloszarda z kulawą nogą i Chińczyka, co śmieci wyrzuca w obszar NATURA 2000.

Słyszałaś/eś jak w pień stuka czarny dzięcioł? Już nie usłyszysz. Nie ma już tej dziupli i nie ma uschniętego drzewa. Przez środek uroczyska jest za to droga techniczna, dla ciągnika co drewno wywozi. Odbyło się cicho i szybko. Odbyło się bez zgody ministra, konserwatora, ani nawet naczelnika wydziału ochrony środowiska w dzielnicy Praga Północ. Choć dzięcioł czarny jest w Aneksie Pierwszym Dyrektywy Ptasiej, a zielona część Portu Praskiego do obszaru NATURA 2000 należy. Nikt się nie zgodził, bo nikt o zgodę nie pytał, nikt nie pilnował, bo nikt pilnować nie kazał. Prace porządkowe na zlecenie spółki Port Praski przeprowadziła firma prywatna w zamian za drewno na opał. Zniknęły pnie spróchniałe i stare. Kto by się tym przejmował?

PS: Do zobaczenia na Euro 2012. W barze Wilcza Wyspa, na plazmie dzięcioł czarny będzie wyglądał jak żywy.

Przemek Pasek

Fundacja Ja Wisła

Polska - Flying Tonight

We went to the Polish Embassy in London to hear about business and investment in the old country and to talk about PR and promotion, Polska-style.

prone’s association with Poland reaches back countless generations. Some pronites have very aristocratic roots indeed. Scout’s Honour. (a clue)

But we don’t like to talk about that, no, no no … not unless there’s some cherry vodka and roast wild boar to tempt us. And, I kid you not, that is exactly what I have in hand now. (see photo) Well, minus the wild boar.

But I, I’m sorry to say, have no such Eastern European connections, although I do like vodka. (see photo again)

I snuck into beseiged Warsaw back in ‘82 posing as a sports reporter. A couple of captured Brit hacks were in various stages of decomposition in some lubiyanka or another. My old Fleet Street Cricket Club chum Greg Miskiw was one.

The Communists had been forced to allow the English Under 21 footie team into the country under martial law, at pain of being kicked out of world soccer sine die.

The proles were revolting and to lose Matchski of the Day could have really brought the wall tumbling down.

So in we go undercover. Meet Michael of Solidarity in the third cubicle to the right in the airport loo, sign the forms, swap a tenner for eight trillion blackmarket zlotys and Lech’s your uncle.

I’m an honorary member of the most romantic outlawed political movement in the world running on a bent visa and I could be banged up for life if I get caught. Another wódka please.

I’m in. Quick chat with Archbishop Glemp, a word with Wałęsa through the prison fence, some in-depth briefing from the so-Solidarity crew around Old Town hostelries and a sleigh ride back to the Inter-Continental before 8pm or face instant incarceration.

The game was drawn. A couple of world exclusives rattled the headlines (I was working for the Reuters organisation, so the reality of life under the jackboot went out globally on the wires to every media outlet on the planet).

Mission to inform accomplished. And lifelong relationships and love for the country and its heroic people established.

I will always remember knocking back tumblers of the colourless stuff at Stansted airport with a couple of hearty Poles while waiting for clearance to depart to the dark heart of the closed country. Legless take off. Painless.

Tannoy: “Would our friend in seat 34B pliz come to the cockpit.” It was my friends from the bar. Pilot and Co-pilot. And we had another drink.…

The Poles have always been great pilots.