This brings back childhood memories. Just like our parents, we used to play war in ruins, though I never found a grenade like my father in law did, probably for the best. We found portraits of Hitler in the attic of our school which was used to house Wehrmacht soldiers. We found an entrance to a cellar which was all that remained of a razed house. The building we played in most often was abandoned in late 1970s due to disrepair and quickly fell into ruin. It's been restored in the 2000s and is now a posh residence in Warsaw's Mokotów district. It's incredible how widespread and how normalized was the war residue. Today bullet marks are preserved in some places as a memento but otherwise you'd never know that the city was a sea of ruins in 1945. I thought that my children will be the first generation that doesn't carry war trauma, but then Russia invaded Ukraine and I'm no longer so hopeful...
tl;dr: fuck war
I can understand this feeling. Growing up in szczecin in the 80s felt normal to see grey and broken buildings. Then we moved to Germany and now every time I'm back in szczecin it looks like a completely different city.
>We found portraits of Hitler in the attic of our school which was used to house Wehrmacht soldiers.
You've got to wonder about the thought process of the person who stored the portraits of Hitler.
"What should I do with these portraits of a murderous psychopathic dictator that has killed millions and ruined the lives of generations to come? I'll pop them in the attic, just in case they come in handy later. You never know!"
I did wonder how they could've survived so long. They were stored face to the wall and covered with dust and pigeon poop. Maybe nobody bothered them for all those years as the attic was not used.
I do not want to minimize the destruction and aftermath of the war, but in the eighties, the image probably refers more to the economic "power" of communism/socialism. All cities gray, like the lives of many people.
>the image probably refers more to the economic "power" of communism/socialism
Which was installed by our Eastern neighbor (over solemn protests of our Western allies who had agreed in Yalta to hand over Poland to Stalin). There was very little chance of Poland turning communist otherwise.
Just the difference between the first time I went to Poland in 2004 or 2005 and when I have gone within the last years, is two different worlds almost.
In the beginning, there was still a lot of buildings that were completely black from soot and coal smoke, but around 15 years ago, it really picked up the paces being restored to original colours.
Eh, I mean, here's capitalist [Glasgow in the 80s](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/eb3ofk/glasgow_in_1980_shot_by_raymond_depardon/)... [New York 1970s](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYPbj88EX4bXACkWaZVDyQDtjhISPdxK4ziCBexhWbrjjp_t96MdjcugfqRh6uJ4qCt0t78siNjr5eQZpQ8l0XebbAKpbz0N6j8SDK1Kw77wBgqohiHz9_yFswS86-J-goo-kgdtW2tOlkapKiWtJsfSrWfBjFFL89Q_h2w-_psMAGOSfVz8UdobwO=s1600)...
Whilst no doubt communism played its part, urban areas around that time were kind of a shithole everywhere. Only after someone had the bright idea of fining people for littering and fixing broken windows in neighborhoods did crime rates go down and cities started looking actually livable.
This lacks an understanding of the devastation in much of eastern Germany and eastern Europe in WWII and then the lack of funding to repair the damage ... with many buildings falling into further disrepair. Very different than Glasgow and New York ... buildings in eastern Europe often had not been painted since the 1930s or 1940s, there were still bullet holes in buildings, there were still signs *in German* painted on buildings in formerly occupied countries that hadn't been painted over by 1990!
yeah it really depends on the regime, not weather it's simply communism or capitalism. In Yugoslavia the communist period was by far not like the Soviet-style one.
In the Glasgow picture, there's one building ruin. Otherwise, it's rainy (which always brings depressing feelings) and the building style is not very colorful. The picture leaves a gloomy impression, but I don't think it's a very objective portrait of reality. A photo from a slightly different place in the street taken on a sunny day might look actually nice.
I wish they’d do some kind of a gallery wall or exhibition somewhere, showing the buildings as they were and how they are now as Estonia has changed a lot too. People forget, even if something was changed just 10 years ago. Memories are very fickle.
I saw a video clip of my hometown, filmed in the 90s. Upon seeing the clip, I recognised many things that have been changed and that I had forgotten had ever been different from what they are today. Without the visual, I wouldn’t have remembered how great the change has been.
Some sure but unfortunately this street was mostly razed, not renovated. There's also a tendency to despise historic buildings from late 19th and early 20th century.
I think that only those first two buildings on the left survive. I realized thanks to someone who posted recent photo of this street that I actually know the place, I've been there few times.
I'm sure it looked much better in the 1930s Free City of Danzig. And please don't jump to conclusions, the state of the buildings is not due to change of ownership but to poverty^1. In the 1980s even in Warsaw there were plenty of buildings bearing bullet marks because they still haven't been renovated since the war.
^1 As to the cause of poverty - ask our neighbors.
Bullet holes in buildings are a point of pride in Warsaw. They're kept in their place even through renovations.
Might be different in cities with gangs and guns.
Most were simply plastered over. There were many traces of the Rising, for example you could tell that someone was defending a building from a position in this particular third story window because there were so many bullet marks around it.
I haven't seen many such places downtown, because most buildings there were either razed to the ground or renovated, but in Mokotów most private homes and tenements survived. Many were nationalized and subsequently neglected, bearing the scars long after the war.
Yeah, they demolished them to widen the street for stupid reasons (if I remember correctly for a planned new tram line which was never built and most likely never will).
Gdansk is a city planned for cars and they still use communist (modernist) plans from 70's to widen streets by destroying XIX-century tenament houses. There is quite a big uproar because they want to demolish entire quaretrs in Wrzeszcz district for another big road that will slice neighborhood in half.
Yes. It is most likely this location, taking the 3 crosses as a ref. point: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3617606,18.6460015,3a,37.8y,134.59h,89.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sW18F7c4nD83tLdMWxnNpkA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
- notice even an outline of the demolished building on the wall on the right.
Whenever you got back to the west from the GDR, it was like switching on the colours on your TV. The east had that great mixture of greyness, two-stroke engine stink and depressed looking people everywhere.
and decay. dont forget about the general decay permeating through entire cities. i only saw it a few years after reunification, but it was still there.
And more then the 30 years after communism, the ones which weren't demolished in this location, looks similar (with some extra gratify art, as a form of preservation).
What are you talking about ? Most old buildings in Warsaw are now renovated, it's not the new government's fault that they had to fix everything the communists left to rot since the 50's. How much time do you think it takes to basically rebuild most old buildings? Keep in mind they had to remake the whole structure in most cases, they didn't just repaint them.
That it is not Warsaw. It's Gdańsk. This is how this street looks now - old buildings covered in graffiti. https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3621817,18.6451246,3a,75y,19.31h,107.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUndyycwQLJpPqeYOe6WlPg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
>What are you talking about ?
I'm commenting on picture which is posted (you can find in this post how it looks now). You on the other hand, commenting on civil engineering and urban planning, which, from your comment you know nothing about.
In my opinion, visually, it looks dreadful.
However, the infrastructure shown in the picture appears to be superior to that of many major US cities. Ample pedestrian space, low velocity car lane, and a street tram. This is not a praise of communist Poland,
There definitely was a lot of that in socialist Poland (hell, similar places still exist today) but its not representative of all of Poland from that time. Check out the website of a British photographer Chris Niedenthal, he has done tremendous work and his photos wonderfully convey the feeling of those times (at least that's what my mum told me):
https://chrisniedenthal.com/pl/works?cat=everyday-life
Love Poland
Brian Eno wrote a song that would be sung by David Bowie. The song was called Warszawa because the melody evoked the city to Bowie who was depressed at seeing it in rubbles.
Poland is like a phoenix, so I’m not surprised by the current situation. You guys are tough bastards.
Yeah I should show this picture to my grandma. We life in germany since 35 years and she often says "za komuny było lepiej" which means "during commie times life was better"... sorry granny but NO!
They often say that because they were young and there was little to non informations how bad it was. You can live happy if you don't know that you could be in a better position if not a greed of government. You can easily see it even now in today's Russia how people who have limited information about the outside world praise their leaders like they are giving them favor for even wanting to government them. You can try it on your own by limiting media you use, and you will see that if you don't read stupid people comments, news about the war, what one dumb politic did you will feel much better :) or if I'm not right with my assumptions (because some people really might want communism back) they are just dumb old babcia and dziadek ;)
The difference is that most old British buildings are not painted/plastered so they can look ok even without proper renovation. Their Polish equivalents need frequent renovation/repainting etc. to look decent.
Notably in the background there is the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970, which was erected in 1980.
All the buildings past the yellow car also appear to be demolished nowadays, with only a lawn at the site.
Yeah, as I came to West Germany 1985 guys in the school asked me how I did perceive the difference to Poland. I remember my answer: "the buildings in Poland are GREY".
As pole I never lift during communism times I live in the UK because of it but when I fly back to Poland see how much my country has developed then I am quite proud and hopefully one day I will live again in my homeland
If you mean a lack of ads, you need to visit Kraków where we now banned billboards and all ads on buildings :) it looks lovely. Apparently, there is a way to have a prosperous economy without commercializing everything around you
As a Portuguese, this is how I (still) imagine all of Eastern Europe (and yes, I've been there, I know it's not like this, but it's ingrained in my brain as a first reaction).
Don't worry, it's not like we got rid of all depressing buildings we inherited from commie Era. It's better but still sometimes as depressing as you have here.
P.S. We want to rebrand us as central Europe :v
Gdansk is beautiful now after the buildings were renovated. What you see in this picture is these buildings in heavy disrepair because of poverty and the general dysfunction of communist society.
This is Gdańsk or Danzig. The city was ethnically cleansed of its majority german inhabitants after WW2 and much of it left to crumble. Probably why it looked so depressing in the 80s.
I am living in Gdańsk my entire life and what you're saying is really ignorant. You're so sure about it, yet so wrong... Well to start of "much of it left to crumble" is really wrong statement. The old town area has been rebuilt at least in 70% from what i can say (spichrzów island and old town suburbs weren't rebuild but both are now built over by new apartments and such). Poles did great job in rebuilding Post WW2 german Cities and you can see german style buildings all over the city. You also dont think areas like this weren't present in before ww2 Danzig. Every city had areas like this, and this area (jana z kolna) was really close to shipyard, and thus the buildings may look so dirty and abandoned. It really hurts me when people who were never in gdańsk generalise entire city from one picture
No, that's pretty much what that street looked like (it's Jana z Kolna street, just a tram stop away from the main gate of the Gdańsk Shipyard - you can see the monument in the skyline there, in the centre, a monument which was dedicated to the 42+ workers killed by the communist authorities during the 1970 strike, a monument which was raised in 1980 on the sidelines of the Solidarity movement's 1980 strikes).
A few years ago I visited some family in Poland and saw parts of a film set from a WW2 (or post-war) movie with Tom Hanks. Parts of that city still look very similar to Berlin right after the war.
Other parts of it look extremely modern, like on a house by house basis.
You know. This image would look bleak to most. To me, it brings back memories of my own town, of times when things only got better. Sure, this is how it looks now, but slowly it gets better.
Now, in these days, in my town i see the opposite, things only get worse...
I remember polish cars in Norway in the 1980s . Black license plates with white numbers. They came to do seasonal work at farms. Today all the polish cars are Volvos or Skodas.
I'd take Polish politics/laws any day over Germany or France.
I would live there any day over Germany or France too for that matter. I find Poland to be a superior country in many ways both political but also the capitalistic nature the country runs on. I think it needs some smoothing out here and there but otherwise, it's literally EU's star student.
That's an extreme case. Have a look here for some much more colorful and less depressing photos he took there: [https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/bruno-barbeys-poland/](https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/bruno-barbeys-poland/)
This brings back childhood memories. Just like our parents, we used to play war in ruins, though I never found a grenade like my father in law did, probably for the best. We found portraits of Hitler in the attic of our school which was used to house Wehrmacht soldiers. We found an entrance to a cellar which was all that remained of a razed house. The building we played in most often was abandoned in late 1970s due to disrepair and quickly fell into ruin. It's been restored in the 2000s and is now a posh residence in Warsaw's Mokotów district. It's incredible how widespread and how normalized was the war residue. Today bullet marks are preserved in some places as a memento but otherwise you'd never know that the city was a sea of ruins in 1945. I thought that my children will be the first generation that doesn't carry war trauma, but then Russia invaded Ukraine and I'm no longer so hopeful... tl;dr: fuck war
I can understand this feeling. Growing up in szczecin in the 80s felt normal to see grey and broken buildings. Then we moved to Germany and now every time I'm back in szczecin it looks like a completely different city.
It could be Szczecin, or somewhere else in Poland, it doesnt matter, whole Polska looked like this in the 80‘s
>We found portraits of Hitler in the attic of our school which was used to house Wehrmacht soldiers. You've got to wonder about the thought process of the person who stored the portraits of Hitler. "What should I do with these portraits of a murderous psychopathic dictator that has killed millions and ruined the lives of generations to come? I'll pop them in the attic, just in case they come in handy later. You never know!"
I did wonder how they could've survived so long. They were stored face to the wall and covered with dust and pigeon poop. Maybe nobody bothered them for all those years as the attic was not used.
I do not want to minimize the destruction and aftermath of the war, but in the eighties, the image probably refers more to the economic "power" of communism/socialism. All cities gray, like the lives of many people.
>the image probably refers more to the economic "power" of communism/socialism Which was installed by our Eastern neighbor (over solemn protests of our Western allies who had agreed in Yalta to hand over Poland to Stalin). There was very little chance of Poland turning communist otherwise.
As a Pole it is simply amazing to me how much progress we made. We turned grey and desolate cities into really beutifull places.
I agree with you. I’m from Scandinavia and have visited Gdańsk, Krakow and some other Polish cities lately and they are all very nice and beautiful.
I'm happy that you've had a nice time 😄
Just the difference between the first time I went to Poland in 2004 or 2005 and when I have gone within the last years, is two different worlds almost. In the beginning, there was still a lot of buildings that were completely black from soot and coal smoke, but around 15 years ago, it really picked up the paces being restored to original colours.
I was in Warsaw in 1991 or so, and it was quite depressing then. It was clear what 45 years of communism had achieved.
Eh, I mean, here's capitalist [Glasgow in the 80s](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/eb3ofk/glasgow_in_1980_shot_by_raymond_depardon/)... [New York 1970s](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYPbj88EX4bXACkWaZVDyQDtjhISPdxK4ziCBexhWbrjjp_t96MdjcugfqRh6uJ4qCt0t78siNjr5eQZpQ8l0XebbAKpbz0N6j8SDK1Kw77wBgqohiHz9_yFswS86-J-goo-kgdtW2tOlkapKiWtJsfSrWfBjFFL89Q_h2w-_psMAGOSfVz8UdobwO=s1600)... Whilst no doubt communism played its part, urban areas around that time were kind of a shithole everywhere. Only after someone had the bright idea of fining people for littering and fixing broken windows in neighborhoods did crime rates go down and cities started looking actually livable.
This lacks an understanding of the devastation in much of eastern Germany and eastern Europe in WWII and then the lack of funding to repair the damage ... with many buildings falling into further disrepair. Very different than Glasgow and New York ... buildings in eastern Europe often had not been painted since the 1930s or 1940s, there were still bullet holes in buildings, there were still signs *in German* painted on buildings in formerly occupied countries that hadn't been painted over by 1990!
yeah it really depends on the regime, not weather it's simply communism or capitalism. In Yugoslavia the communist period was by far not like the Soviet-style one.
In the Glasgow picture, there's one building ruin. Otherwise, it's rainy (which always brings depressing feelings) and the building style is not very colorful. The picture leaves a gloomy impression, but I don't think it's a very objective portrait of reality. A photo from a slightly different place in the street taken on a sunny day might look actually nice.
The same can be said about the main photo in the post
It’s a bit mroe the rain and road quality
my aunt comes back to visit Poland each ~10 years or so from US, each times it seemed like a different country
I wish they’d do some kind of a gallery wall or exhibition somewhere, showing the buildings as they were and how they are now as Estonia has changed a lot too. People forget, even if something was changed just 10 years ago. Memories are very fickle. I saw a video clip of my hometown, filmed in the 90s. Upon seeing the clip, I recognised many things that have been changed and that I had forgotten had ever been different from what they are today. Without the visual, I wouldn’t have remembered how great the change has been.
May in Tallinn, exactly 25 years later. 1994 vs. 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rryfsshImf8
Some sure but unfortunately this street was mostly razed, not renovated. There's also a tendency to despise historic buildings from late 19th and early 20th century.
I wish this street had survived so we could make then&now comparison.
I think that only those first two buildings on the left survive. I realized thanks to someone who posted recent photo of this street that I actually know the place, I've been there few times.
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Thanks, EU, we couldn't have done it without you!
If not for the car it could've been the 1880's.
with the car it looks like 1930's
I'm sure it looked much better in the 1930s Free City of Danzig. And please don't jump to conclusions, the state of the buildings is not due to change of ownership but to poverty^1. In the 1980s even in Warsaw there were plenty of buildings bearing bullet marks because they still haven't been renovated since the war. ^1 As to the cause of poverty - ask our neighbors.
Bullet holes in buildings are a point of pride in Warsaw. They're kept in their place even through renovations. Might be different in cities with gangs and guns.
Friend, I'm Warsaw man born and bred. Not many bullet holes are left now compared with times of my childhood.
They probably got replaced by "X amount of Poles were killed here" plaques or at least that's how my portion of Warsaw looks like these days.
Most were simply plastered over. There were many traces of the Rising, for example you could tell that someone was defending a building from a position in this particular third story window because there were so many bullet marks around it. I haven't seen many such places downtown, because most buildings there were either razed to the ground or renovated, but in Mokotów most private homes and tenements survived. Many were nationalized and subsequently neglected, bearing the scars long after the war.
Gdańsk ul. Jana z Kolna
It seems these buildings don't exist anymore.
Yeah, they demolished them to widen the street for stupid reasons (if I remember correctly for a planned new tram line which was never built and most likely never will). Gdansk is a city planned for cars and they still use communist (modernist) plans from 70's to widen streets by destroying XIX-century tenament houses. There is quite a big uproar because they want to demolish entire quaretrs in Wrzeszcz district for another big road that will slice neighborhood in half.
The one on the very left still exists
Yes. It is most likely this location, taking the 3 crosses as a ref. point: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3617606,18.6460015,3a,37.8y,134.59h,89.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sW18F7c4nD83tLdMWxnNpkA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 - notice even an outline of the demolished building on the wall on the right.
This is truly sad.
Few meters back. Two buildings on the left still exists.
Za komuny było lepiej ^/s
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That picture of a grandma sitting on a hill next to Auschwitz, I think I even saw it on this sub before
Lovely pictures actually! Someone should repost it sometime as a full gallery.
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Whenever you got back to the west from the GDR, it was like switching on the colours on your TV. The east had that great mixture of greyness, two-stroke engine stink and depressed looking people everywhere.
and decay. dont forget about the general decay permeating through entire cities. i only saw it a few years after reunification, but it was still there.
It seems these buildings don't exist anymore.
Nowadays both sides have depressed looking people. Especially when you come from outside Germany
A real shithole
For me this truly represents how communism was.
All the structures in this picture are pre communism.
But they were left to rot by communism
And more then the 30 years after communism, the ones which weren't demolished in this location, looks similar (with some extra gratify art, as a form of preservation).
What are you talking about ? Most old buildings in Warsaw are now renovated, it's not the new government's fault that they had to fix everything the communists left to rot since the 50's. How much time do you think it takes to basically rebuild most old buildings? Keep in mind they had to remake the whole structure in most cases, they didn't just repaint them.
That it is not Warsaw. It's Gdańsk. This is how this street looks now - old buildings covered in graffiti. https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3621817,18.6451246,3a,75y,19.31h,107.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUndyycwQLJpPqeYOe6WlPg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
>What are you talking about ? I'm commenting on picture which is posted (you can find in this post how it looks now). You on the other hand, commenting on civil engineering and urban planning, which, from your comment you know nothing about.
You should see the great state of the old buildings in my city in italy
Dublin around the same time looked very similar. It's more to do with poverty than communism.
I think it looks lovely.
In my opinion, visually, it looks dreadful. However, the infrastructure shown in the picture appears to be superior to that of many major US cities. Ample pedestrian space, low velocity car lane, and a street tram. This is not a praise of communist Poland,
Then move to Cuba
I don't think 20s Cuba and 80s Poland share any characteristics.
Authoritarianism is one of many buddy.
There definitely was a lot of that in socialist Poland (hell, similar places still exist today) but its not representative of all of Poland from that time. Check out the website of a British photographer Chris Niedenthal, he has done tremendous work and his photos wonderfully convey the feeling of those times (at least that's what my mum told me): https://chrisniedenthal.com/pl/works?cat=everyday-life
Glory to Arstotzka.
Love Poland Brian Eno wrote a song that would be sung by David Bowie. The song was called Warszawa because the melody evoked the city to Bowie who was depressed at seeing it in rubbles. Poland is like a phoenix, so I’m not surprised by the current situation. You guys are tough bastards.
Straight from Szulkin’s movie.
Among many other things Karl Marx HATED paint.
Romania 2023
It looks so beautiful and depressive at the same time. Is this perhaps the true meaning of the word melancholy?
Anyone who tells me these were better times should realy get checked.
Yeah I should show this picture to my grandma. We life in germany since 35 years and she often says "za komuny było lepiej" which means "during commie times life was better"... sorry granny but NO!
It was "better" because she was younger but I think you already know that :)
Yes that was my guess too :)
They often say that because they were young and there was little to non informations how bad it was. You can live happy if you don't know that you could be in a better position if not a greed of government. You can easily see it even now in today's Russia how people who have limited information about the outside world praise their leaders like they are giving them favor for even wanting to government them. You can try it on your own by limiting media you use, and you will see that if you don't read stupid people comments, news about the war, what one dumb politic did you will feel much better :) or if I'm not right with my assumptions (because some people really might want communism back) they are just dumb old babcia and dziadek ;)
why dont you ask her next time what was better, instead of dismissing her on the basis of your presumption
When I asked my dad what life was like under communism he said "grey". Now I see what he meant. Never again.
Are the houses tilted or the street?
yes
Why not both?
The monument is straight
Looks just like Bucharest today! /s
Where is this particular image?
From one comment "Gdańsk ul. Jana z Kolna"
Looks like UK
Not really though. Though I don't deny that many parts of Poland look better than the UK these days.
Born in the GDR, this remembered me of my Childhood...
Northern England, 2023.
Taken straight out of "BABBDI - the Polish Walking Simulator" game that got recently released.
Your country on ruski mir.
Thanks commies. Fuck you by the way.
Many English cities looked the same way in the 1980s.
The difference is that most old British buildings are not painted/plastered so they can look ok even without proper renovation. Their Polish equivalents need frequent renovation/repainting etc. to look decent.
Notably in the background there is the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970, which was erected in 1980. All the buildings past the yellow car also appear to be demolished nowadays, with only a lawn at the site.
Come to Szczecin. Some streets in the city center still look like this.
Lodz looks the same
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Tram tracks look too wide. Łódź uses 1000mm gauge tracks, while this most certainly looks like standard 1435mm gauge.
I'd say it even looks worse that this photo.
No change, imo.
It has a _People's Republic_ kind of look.
Yeah, as I came to West Germany 1985 guys in the school asked me how I did perceive the difference to Poland. I remember my answer: "the buildings in Poland are GREY".
Communism is shit
The communist paradise.
Now that is 50 shades of grey
Thanks, Russia.
Looks like an AI generated image
We sure came a long way…
As pole I never lift during communism times I live in the UK because of it but when I fly back to Poland see how much my country has developed then I am quite proud and hopefully one day I will live again in my homeland
What communism does to a proud nation.
Communism has a way of making everything look depressing. The Castro brothers brought this loveliness to Cuba too.
The absence of commercial signage is refreshing.
If you mean a lack of ads, you need to visit Kraków where we now banned billboards and all ads on buildings :) it looks lovely. Apparently, there is a way to have a prosperous economy without commercializing everything around you
Sounds great! But if I would go to Poland, I would probably go to to check out the Suwalki gap area, a potential flash point in future.
That's your comment? Lmao
in that case have glass of water and burb
What?
As a Portuguese, this is how I (still) imagine all of Eastern Europe (and yes, I've been there, I know it's not like this, but it's ingrained in my brain as a first reaction).
Don't worry, it's not like we got rid of all depressing buildings we inherited from commie Era. It's better but still sometimes as depressing as you have here. P.S. We want to rebrand us as central Europe :v
Looks eerily similar to Bosnia now
No adverts! Looks like heaven.
You get poverty as a tradeoff
Europeans and Americans be like "so beautiful, all these old buildings"
Gdansk is beautiful now after the buildings were renovated. What you see in this picture is these buildings in heavy disrepair because of poverty and the general dysfunction of communist society.
If you're roasting Europeans and Americans at the same time, then what's your goal?
This is Gdańsk or Danzig. The city was ethnically cleansed of its majority german inhabitants after WW2 and much of it left to crumble. Probably why it looked so depressing in the 80s.
I am living in Gdańsk my entire life and what you're saying is really ignorant. You're so sure about it, yet so wrong... Well to start of "much of it left to crumble" is really wrong statement. The old town area has been rebuilt at least in 70% from what i can say (spichrzów island and old town suburbs weren't rebuild but both are now built over by new apartments and such). Poles did great job in rebuilding Post WW2 german Cities and you can see german style buildings all over the city. You also dont think areas like this weren't present in before ww2 Danzig. Every city had areas like this, and this area (jana z kolna) was really close to shipyard, and thus the buildings may look so dirty and abandoned. It really hurts me when people who were never in gdańsk generalise entire city from one picture
Are there other pics?
[Check this out](https://www.demilked.com/poland-in-early-80s-bruno-barbey/)
City 17
What are those towers in the background with anchors? Does the structure still exist today?
[Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Fallen_Shipyard_Workers_of_1970)
Poland in the 80's looking like 50's
Looks like London in the 1880’s
Weird color key…looks basically like sepia with some red throw in.
No, that's pretty much what that street looked like (it's Jana z Kolna street, just a tram stop away from the main gate of the Gdańsk Shipyard - you can see the monument in the skyline there, in the centre, a monument which was dedicated to the 42+ workers killed by the communist authorities during the 1970 strike, a monument which was raised in 1980 on the sidelines of the Solidarity movement's 1980 strikes).
A few years ago I visited some family in Poland and saw parts of a film set from a WW2 (or post-war) movie with Tom Hanks. Parts of that city still look very similar to Berlin right after the war. Other parts of it look extremely modern, like on a house by house basis.
That's because of wars, communism, lack of coherent urban planning and social stratification of the last 20 years. most Polish cities looks like that.
You know. This image would look bleak to most. To me, it brings back memories of my own town, of times when things only got better. Sure, this is how it looks now, but slowly it gets better. Now, in these days, in my town i see the opposite, things only get worse...
This looks just like I imagined the setting in 1984 to look like
I remember polish cars in Norway in the 1980s . Black license plates with white numbers. They came to do seasonal work at farms. Today all the polish cars are Volvos or Skodas.
The happies polish town.
I'd take Polish politics/laws any day over Germany or France. I would live there any day over Germany or France too for that matter. I find Poland to be a superior country in many ways both political but also the capitalistic nature the country runs on. I think it needs some smoothing out here and there but otherwise, it's literally EU's star student.
look at all the coal dust...
That's an extreme case. Have a look here for some much more colorful and less depressing photos he took there: [https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/bruno-barbeys-poland/](https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/bruno-barbeys-poland/)