The Wild East

"There is an old woman with a leg missing begging for money in a subway."

Tuesday 22August
There is a violent storm during the night, and it is much cooler the following morning. We get up at 8.30, and head towards a bank so Mark can exchange some travellers cheques. They don't accept them. We go somewhere else. They don't accept them.
We cross the river into Praga, which has a bad reputation for theft and crime. After about the 5th try he gives up. We get into Praga Market (which later transpires to be Dzararelski Market, held in a disused football stadium). It is dissapointing.

Mark doesn't get the Russian Generals uniform he was hoping for- I’d read you could buy anything there, including Kalashnikovs from Afghanistan. All the stalls seem to sell the same thing: cheap binoculas, fake-looking watches, CDs, food, computer games, and other odds and ends, which all look like they've fallen off a lorry, or been pirated somewhere. The only consolation is I manage to aquire a Legia Warsaw football shirt, though it's clearly a fake.
The market is steadily being taken over by chinese stallholders. We spot the first 'non-caucasians' since we've been here as well.

We head back into Central Warsaw towards the People's Palace- A gift from the Soviet Union in the 1950s, although it’s a 20 storey conctrete cuiboid. We go into the Technology Museum. In the afternoon we wander round a park, and visit the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
We have another very expensive meal again, and Mark announces that he had better return home to complete some revision for his forthcoming Management Accounting resit.
I decide to head south into Hungary.
We go back to the station, and he gets on the 8pm train that's just come in from Moscow. We shake hands and that was the last I saw of him for over a week- he gets lost in the chaos of the train.

I'd forgotten how damp, dark, ugly and smelly Warsaw Centralny station was. There is absolutely nowhere to sit down (usual in Eastern Europe), apart from the concrete platform, which smells of urine. I head back towards the hostel.
Gulag man isn't there tonight. I buy an ice-cream and sit down and listen to a guy playing the trumpet, who is also quite good.

Wednesday 23 August
I leave the hostel, not before the Headmistress can check I haven't stolen or vandalized anything. I head back towards the station, and get on a train to Czestochowa. The train is packed.
There is some compensation- with a beautiful Polish girl about 23 in the carriage, who seems to be travelling with her family. For some reason (her Grandmother?) keeps giving me really evil stares. There is a Polish man, about the same age as me, whose eyes are fixed on Polish Girl's tight top, and legs. He receives some evil stares too, but I get more.

I found out later that I was sitting on her jumper, so that may have been the problem. At Czestochowa I grab something to eat, and have a look round the town. It is fairly nice, but nothing spectacular. I get on a train for Katowice, intending to get an overnight train to Budapest. Sitting next to me is a middle-aged guy in a cheap grey suit, who speaks to me in Polish, and then English.
He is Oleg, a doctor, from Belarus (former Soviet Union). He is an extremely interesting character, and we soon get talking on Russian Politics, and the economy.
He blames the 'primitive political sytem' for all the problems of ex-USSR countries. Usually 1 man still has absolute power, and most are still one-party states, with state-controlled media, but pretend to be democracies, so they get help from the IMF etc. Most of the aid given free from the west dissapears, and is sold on the black-market.
So ordinary people have to buy medicine that is given to them free. He thinks that the former Soviet Union is in a much worse situation than it was 10years ago, but hopes it will eventually improve.
He says how wonderful Britain would be, and how he would like to visit one day, only he has little chance, because of Belarus nationality. His daughter is hoping to come to Britain to work.

When I explain that I plan to get the overnight train to Hungary he looks horrified "Be Careful" he warns "there are many theives". He explains how he had all his money stolen on his last overnight train to Prague.
When we get to Katowice we shake hands and wish each other good look. Oleg is going to Slovakia to work with children suffering from the Chernobyl disaster.
He last words, like Taylor's, were “Be careful”.
I get of the train in Katowice. My first impressions are not good. It is extremely polluted. There is an old woman with a leg missing begging for money in a subway. I attempt to find my way out.

Hesitantly turning right I find myself in a long dimly-lit tunnel. I turn back, to discover 3 men with Army jackets on have me surrounded.
Poland may not be communist any more, but I think a redistrubution of wealth could take place....

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