“Pippin” at London’s Southwark Playhouse: Solid Production of a True Favoriteby Randi / March 22, 2018
I have to admit that I did not know about Kyiv. Not Kiev; I knew about Kiev. But that’s all I knew. Let me splain. As we planned our trip from Russia through Eastern Europe and back home to London, my husband said “we should go to Kyiv”- pronounced Keev. And I said “where is this ‘Keev’ I never heard of it” and he was like “Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine??” and I was like “no that’s Kiev and it is pronounced ‘Kee-ev'”and he was like “wat” and I was like “what is happening” and I learned that Kiev (‘Kee-ev’) is the Russian word for the city, and since gaining their independence, Ukrainians have been very serious about reclaiming their own word for their capital city, ‘Kyiv’ (Keev), the one syllable version that was unknown to me. Can we blame the Russian bots for my ignorance? Now I’m all smarted up and ready to talk about this great city, Kyiv. Or Kiev, if you wanted to I guess. I like the sound of the two-syllable evil version better, but my preferences as a non-Ukrainian don’t matter. Do as the people want us to. It’s Kyiv.
i know this is a hotel but come on pretty
Now that that’s sorted, let’s talk about this charming city. We were solidly back in Eastern Europe now, having left Mother Russia. Oh let’s talk about that leaving bit, shall we. After our less-than-a-day return to Moscow, we caught an overnight train – our second-to-last one of the trip!! – from Moscow to Kyiv. This train was the worst experience yet, isn’t that so fun??? I know some of you who kept up through all the China and Uzbek trains are like, what how on earth could it be worse? What about those 8 hour border stops where you had to sneak into the bathrooms to pee? What about the old Chinese lady in your bed? Well those were all terrible, yes, but hear me out. When we boarded, I thought we were soo lucky because the toilets were automated! Like Amtrak, with the lit-up flush buttons and stuff! They weren’t just holes opening up onto the track! Unfortunately, that luster was short-lived. Apparently the super-fancy (not fancy, basic technology) toilets very quickly broke, and since the conductor isn’t an engineer, he just duct-taped the toilet shut, rendering it unusable for the rest of the journey. I trekked down to the other end of the carriage with a sigh, which turned into a bigger, more horrified scream when I saw that that toilet was ALSO taped shut. The next cabin on was the restaurant car! No toilets in there! And the next one in the other direction was the overcrowded platzkart, packed full of people in bunk beds in the open plan, with lines for the toilet at all hours and so resentful of people from other carriages on their turf. Those toilets were basic open-the-bottom-onto-the-tracks; apparently only those passengers with doors were given the fancy easily breakable toilets. So every hour throughout the night, I had to clamber through the terrifying open section that connects carriages, stepping on the giant metal chain links that wrenched forward and back with the train’s movement and trying not to fall while jerking the heavy carriage doors open with all my might. Over and over again!
I HATE UNCLE TRAINY you see what I did there
Thank all the lucky stars, I was okay. Pissed off and full of impotent rage that I couldn’t actually direct at anyone (I never saw the conductor people, and also what else could they have done), but okay. I was so excited to see Kyiv, which I know I am spelling in the progressive way but honestly I can’t stop saying Ki-ev in my head. Anyway, I didn’t know much about Ukraine going in, except that I had just recently started saying it without the ‘the’ that so many Americans seem to think is required – seriously why do we always call it The Ukraine?? it’s so weird! – and that Oksana Baiul was my favorite skater in 1994 and the only winner to come out of the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Well her and Margot Robbie. I was eager to learn more about the country through its well regarded capital city.
Our Russian language skillz would come in handy to understand all the signs in Cyrillic and all the similar sounding vocab, but despite much of the population speaking and/or understanding Russian, it would not be very wise to lead with speaking Russian. Since their independence from the Mother Country, Ukrainians have some tension, to say the least, with Russia, as we all do. We assumed, now that we were back in Europe, that it would be easy to get by with English. Surely most of the people know English! Spoiler, they don’t! It was very rare that we encountered English speakers. So follow Scar’s advice (not the Boy Scouts)(the Boy Scouts suck) and Be Prepared.
I realize this is just a hotel that we didn’t stay at and I shared a photo from a different angle above but it really represents the city’s aesthetic well
Our train arrived at about 7am, so we were exhausted and very much wanting to shower. Our last shower was in that random hostel in Moscow (was that the day before? Time had no meaning any longer). So we took a cab to our lodging. We were staying for the next few nights at the Theatre Boutique Apart-hotel, in a studio apartment situation that operated like a hotel, sort of, in that there was to be someone at a desk in the building of apartments to check us in. I initially liked how it sounded because theatre. The building was hard to find because it was set back in a kind of alley complex that was SUPER shady and graffitied and even at 7am just completely sketchy. I was skeptical. And unforch, because it was so early, no staffers were in yet. The maid was there, luckily, and was used to dealing with guests arriving at inopportune times, and she told us we could leave our stuff and come back in….six hours. I KNOW! I was soooo mad. Surely the main employee would be in at 9, right? And would call us and tell us that our room was ready before the godforsaken common check in time of 2pm? I could not wait six hours! But I had to! Ahhh! Anyway the ‘place’ we could leave our stuff was right there in the main hallway, reeeeeally not secure, so I was not feeling this place at all. Strike after strike. Z was like ‘who is going to steal our disgusting stuff tho’ and I was like ‘disgusting people tho’. I asked the maid if there was a bathroom we could use – we still needed to brush our teeth and stuff if we couldn’t shower yet! Well, this is an apartment hotel type jawn, not a hotel hotel with bathrooms on the main floor or anything, so no, the only bathrooms are in the rooms. Ahhhh! Luckily, the maid was super nice and showed us to one down the hall that was HER CLOSET. Like it had all her cleaning supplies in it and also all her snacks and changes of clothes and pictures and knick knacks and stuff and also a toilet and a tiny baby sink and it was sooooo awkward. I was so grumpy about this whole situation. But there’s no time to sulk when you are filthy and also in a new exciting city! We decided to go out and get food, and that story plus all related stories will come in a separate post about Kyiv food next. After that and some activities which I’ll talk about next, our room was ready, and it was GREAT. I was so happy because after how low my expectations had dropped since arriving, it was so much nicer than I hoped. It was clean and modern, all black and white and cool, with a nice bathroom and a big comfy bed with really good white sheets. I love white sheets. Anyway, so don’t judge a book by its cover or its lack of employees or main floor toilets and all that. I would highly recommend staying here.
St Sophia
The most important activity for us to do in the city center was see the St. Sophia Cathedral, the oldest surviving church in Kyiv. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and you know how we feel about them (loves it!) so off we went to see how the old broad looked after about 1000 years of hard living. The complex is lovely. Note, the Bell Tower costs extra to climb up, but I think it’s worth it. It’s right at the entrance to the whole complex and is nice to end your visit with after seeing the rest of St. Sophia. Also, the Bell Tower is the only spot in the whole place where you are allowed to take pictures so it was worth it just so I can break up all my nonsense with pictures.
climb this biznatch
We had a nice time seeing all the interior churchiness and singing about how Jesus is an ocean, as one does. It’s said that in all the churches in Ukraine that ladies have to cover their heads because god hates seeing us evil-doers or whatever nonsense your religion teaches you to keep you down, but I don’t remember anyone telling me to do so here. I think they are more lenient with tourists. Anyway, we ended with the Bell Tower climb, because we like climbing this. I counted about 200 steps up before I stopped and lost track, which isn’t as bad as it could be buutttt the stairs were pretty, um, not reassuring as you could look through all the thin metal and exposed piping of the layout and see down forever and it was a little anxy. As you would expect of me because this is what I do when traveling in foreign lands and living my life, I banged my head super hard on a metal pipe despite there being a colored swatch on that section because it was low and apparently everyone hit their head on it before they decided to paint the cautionary alert on it but of course I am special and hit my head after they flagged it. It was really painful and we had to stop for a few minutes for the pain to subside and for me to run through the customary thoughts I have every time I hit my head which invariably have to do with Natasha Richardson. Luckily I was okay though, and it seems like Liam is now too. And the views from the top were nice.
“And the hands get heavy oh the hands I don’t know what to do with the hands or the feet”
Our next sight to see was the Golden Gate in the middle of the city, standing like a fortress to remind us of all the fortifications they once needed (prob still need) against enemies. It was named after the Golden Gate of Constantinople, and although it was completely destroyed during the Middle Ages, it was rebuilt by the Soviets in the ’80s. It’s a tad controversial, because no images of the original gate actually exist, so the rebuilding process was under scrutiny from historians et al. who were like ‘no THIS is what it should look like’ ‘ no THIS is’ ‘no YOU’RE mother was a hamster’ and finally Vlad over at the Soviet Historical Society was like ‘no guys this is what we’re doing, you disagree I kill you’ or something probably close to that.
The gate/fortress jawn is right at Zolotovoritsky Square, a lovely little square near a park and a nice row of restaurants and stuff. It’s a nice little city.
Okay so I THINK there was a lil church at the top of the Golden Gate?? And this is me in it?
looks like a funky curved lens doesn’t it like i’m in a funhouse mirror or something
This city is so nice, full of statues and greenery and beautiful buildings. I keep saying that, don’t I, that it was so ‘nice’ and I really hate that word. But there’s not much more I can think of to describe it, because I never really clicked with it. It was great to be back in Europe, and to see such lovely architecture and important monuments and relics of history and all, but I never really jived (jove?) with Kyiv. My husband liked it a lot more than I did, but I didn’t necessarily dislike it, not at all. I just didn’t connect with it. It was nice to look at, nice to be in, but I didn’t feel much for it. My heart wasn’t in it, despite its checking off all the proper points on my list like it was my Walter or my Frank in a Nora Ephron rom com before I met Tom Hanks. (Tom Hanks, btw, would be my Warsaw. Stay tuned for that, our next destination.)
who dat ninja
now that I like
As always, I loved finding funny signs or product names in stores, and despite being back in Europe, we still found some, like this brand of milk that can probably only be enjoyed by blond boys named Chad who swim for just-sub-Ivies.
Or this shop, which we made a LOT of very bad jokes about because Tories are the ones who would cut all arts funding in the UK you get?
AIN’T NO SUCH THING
We had a great time exploring Kyiv. I know you’re probably thinking…you didn’t do that much, right? Well, that’s because our main activity warrants its own post (coming next, along with a food post). The main reason for our visit to Kyiv, besides logistics, was to visit Chernobyl. We took an all day (like seriously from dawn till nighttime) tour of the zone of the infamous, horrible nuclear disaster, and it was astounding. Devastating, heartbreaking, and we learned so much that is only now coming to light about the disaster. It’s a truly worthwhile trip to take if you are in Ukraine or in Kyiv, which, despite my not clicking with it whole-heartedly, I still do recommend visiting!
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First Stop: Helsinki! A Stroll Around Town and A Lot of Sugar
I’m writing this from the train to St. Petersburg! Just like Anatole! Except he was probably writing love letters (written really by his sister ewwww) to married or betrothed women, his faaave. Okay that’s enough of The Great Comet (just kidding I already listened to the whole album once today and it’s like 11am). We just pulled out of Helsinki (so it won’t get preggggnannnnt) and there’s wifi on this business so here I am! We really didn’t have much time at all in Helsinki, Finland, but it was a charming place that had vegan milkshakes so I would happily return once we are in a position to think about future travel.
After not sleeping at all Thursday night (how could we with this super exciting adventure just hours away! also I was saving my Ativan for the trip), we “got up” in the 5 o’clock hour and left for Gatwick airport. At the Pret a Manger there, they had this new coconut milk-quinoa oat porridge that was very decent. Hooray for all these new vegan options at Pret. Now if they stop feeling the need to put red pepper in every single veg sandwich like the US dairy industry sticks whey powder in every commercial product we will be even better friends. We flew Norwegian, and despite its semblance of civilized behavior, I spent the 3 hour flight fighting a turf war with a giant man over the armrest. I will NOT BE MOVED. I will NEVER SURRENDER.
At customs, we met and became best friends with literally the nicest customs agents in the entire world. They were curious about our trip but not in a customs-agent way, they were just like aw have fun. What a great start. I dare Russia to top that with their agents. Ha. We took various trains and trams into the city center, which took about an hour and change. It’s kind of daunting to figure out what the right train is because the language is super confusing, but as usual in European countries, everyone speaks great English. We headed over to the Eurohostel on the little peninsula hanging off to the east of the city, where we dropped our bags in our literal college dorm room. Seriously, I think the producers at this here Truman Show just borrowed the set from the Penn State dorms and used my concrete wall-tile floor-two tiny twin beds- room with the separate men’s and women’s group bathrooms down the hall for this set as well.
Hey the border control guy just came around to check our passports and our visas! They worked, yayyy! I’m obsessed with how my name is spelled in cyrillic on the visa. Well not Randi because it just looks like pahdi, but Jill is hilariously complicated. Fun with languages!
So after we dropped our stuff in college, we walked around the city, which like I said is super charming. Like Sweden, it’s on little lakes and marinas and it was really nice to see water, especially because this trip is going to be super landlocked (look at that map!).
At customs, we met and became best friends with literally the nicest customs agents in the entire world. They were curious about our trip but not in a customs-agent way, they were just like aw have fun. What a great start. I dare Russia to top that with their agents. Ha. We took various trains and trams into the city center, which took about an hour and change. It’s kind of daunting to figure out what the right train is because the language is super confusing, but as usual in European countries, everyone speaks great English. We headed over to the Eurohostel on the little peninsula hanging off to the east of the city, where we dropped our bags in our literal college dorm room. Seriously, I think the producers at this here Truman Show just borrowed the set from the Penn State dorms and used my concrete wall-tile floor-two tiny twin beds- room with the separate men’s and women’s group bathrooms down the hall for this set as well.
Hey the border control guy just came around to check our passports and our visas! They worked, yayyy! I’m obsessed with how my name is spelled in cyrillic on the visa. Well not Randi because it just looks like pahdi, but Jill is hilariously complicated. Fun with languages!
So after we dropped our stuff in college, we walked around the city, which like I said is super charming. Like Sweden, it’s on little lakes and marinas and it was really nice to see water, especially because this trip is going to be super landlocked (look at that map!).
We strolled along the waterfront and the main bits of the city, passing the giant white Helsinki Cathedral on the way. But we were strolling with a mission – find food! At the top of my list was a little vegan-friendly cafe named Well, really close to the main train station which means we went all the way out and then all the way back but we really needed to drop our bags before dealing with food because we have reallllly heavy bags. I need my toiletries! Well, well, well, Well did not disappoint because despite the limited selection, they had vegan pastries, sandwiches, and – what I was after – a salad! It was full of literally all my favorite foods – lettuce, red cabbage, radicchio, CHICKPEAS, QUINOA, broccoli, AND tofu! It was like I kept uncovering layers of greatness. It was really huge too and I couldn’t finish it. Yay for all my fave healthy foods in one. Except kale but I’ve come to terms with the fact that my smoothie on Thursday was the last kale I will probably have until October. It’s okay!
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After healthy food came literally the only thing I had on my to-do list for Helsinki – vegan milkshakes! Kitty’s Milkshake Bar was a little hard to find because it’s actually inside a food hall, but thank goodness they were still open despite a lot of the market being shuttered already. So Kitty’s is a pure American-themed milkshake bar (I guess because milkshakes are American! USA! Your best export!), with actual license plates from all 50 states decorating the walls. It’s so fun. When we said we were from the States, the guy working got nervous because we would be the most knowledgeable critics. It was funny. He was super friendly and fun and made us laugh a lot, though I was already full of nervous laughter because I was SO EXCITED FOR A MILKSHAKE! In London, ‘milkshake’ means flavored milk, like as thin as regular milk, and it is the saddest thing probably ever. Even at the places now advertising American-style milkshakes in London, they are still thin as water. SHAME! SHAME! But the shakes at KItty’s, holy cow! They were properly thick and required the spoon end of the straw for a while! And yes, this place was so legit that they even had the 711 slurpie style straws with the spoon at one end. They only have three flavors – peanut butter, caramel & popcorn, and apple cinnamon. I was tempted to get all three but that’s ludicrous and Husband had just had ice cream beforehand, because his entire food list was just finding salamiaki ice cream, which is that gross Finnish salty black licorice (blech!) made into ice cream. He liked it but dayum. He also likes durian. So obviously we got the PB, my favorite thing ever, and I was tempted by the caramel but the guy recommended the apple cinnamon. I’m glad we listened because it was delicious! Not as spectacular as the peanut butter but that’s only because the peanut butter one had peanut butter in it. The guy gave me a punch card which is the saddest thing I’ve ever had to leave behind. Amazing food stop even though they were big and I of course felt super sick all night because it was like eating a gallon of ice cream. WORTH IT.
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Then, we met up with Cousin Adam and chatted for a while as it got colder out, but not darker, because this is the north and the sun never really sets! Seriously, even in the middle of the night, there was still a bit of sun you could see! So weird. Definitely bring an eye mask. Anyway, we walked around the town more, and saw that there’s nothing really to do in Helsinki for young people except smoke and drink. SO MUCH CIGARETTE SMOKE. We also noticed that there’s zero vaping, so coming from London where vaping is (thankfully) catching on, the widespread use of just cigarettes was extra revolting. But there’s no clubbing or anything really, no nightlife, with things closing around 7pm a lot of the time, so yoots just hang in the parks and smoke and drink and wear black and be yoots.
There was one place open late, Iggy’s Bar and Food Joint, which was on HappyCow. They have thin crust pizzas and a few, according to HappyCow, are vegan. On the chalk menu at the joint, a few did indeed have green V’s next to them so we ordered a few to share. But it came out with cow cheese and the lady was not very sorry about it. She said they are vegan if you ask for it to be, which of course I should have done but when the info I read in advance just said ‘they *are* vegan, not they *can* be, I got complacent. Oh well I really didn’t have room for pizza in there with all the soy ice cream anyway so it worked out fine, just mad that I let my vigilance slip for a minute. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER SURRENDER.
There was one place open late, Iggy’s Bar and Food Joint, which was on HappyCow. They have thin crust pizzas and a few, according to HappyCow, are vegan. On the chalk menu at the joint, a few did indeed have green V’s next to them so we ordered a few to share. But it came out with cow cheese and the lady was not very sorry about it. She said they are vegan if you ask for it to be, which of course I should have done but when the info I read in advance just said ‘they *are* vegan, not they *can* be, I got complacent. Oh well I really didn’t have room for pizza in there with all the soy ice cream anyway so it worked out fine, just mad that I let my vigilance slip for a minute. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER SURRENDER.
By the waterfront, there were tons of farmers market type stalls, so we bought some fresh fruit for the train journey. Nota bene: do not buy strawberries when you don’t have a fridge and are not going to eat them until the next day. They do not taste good once they are squished in a bag and virtually cooked. But we got cherries too, which are hardier. OH that reminds me! At the milkshake bar, we were sitting at a little table drinking of cups of pure joy, when we heard the guy tell a woman at the counter that the raspberries were finished. Oh, she said, so I guess I will pick a different flavor. No no! the guy said, not finished, FINNISH! Ha I love language. But he wasn’t just saying hey these are local berries – there’s a much greater significance. Apparently, if berries are imported from outside of Nordic countries, they have to be COOKED to be served! So random! So because these were Finnish berries, he could mix in fresh ones. Fun facts! We’re already learning so much!
So, that’s all there really was to our half day in Helsinki! We got up this morning, tried to rezip our backpacks that somehow feel heavier and harder to zip despite not adding anything to them, and headed for the train station. We stopped again at Well Cafe so I could get another of their amaaaazing salads for the train journey, PLUS a vegan croissant and a vegan pastry! Considering how expensive Finland is, this place seems a little more reasonable. Like those milkshakes were 9 euros each! But this gigantic salad was 10, I think. So a lot (even for London) but not for Helsinki. Oh your Nordic countries and your super high prices! This Allegro train is pretty nice so far. I hope the longer train journeys we have planned are as nice! We will see! Now we await our arrival….. TO PETERSBURGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Warsaw, Poland: Beautiful and Welcoming City with a Tragic Past
Warsaw is one of the most surprising cities I’ve ever visited. Usually, I am a tough critic when traveling (especially if I don’t have a bathroom or a nice bed). But I became a fan of Warsaw almost instantly and jumped right into exploration and appreciation of this important city. It’s a city of contrasts: it feels hospitable and welcoming yet still retains an air of eastern European coolness. The desire to progress and rise above its history is palpable, amid seemingly innumerable monuments to the past. You feel almost overwhelmed by all the history surrounding you, yet every building is almost brand-new. There’s a lot to understand when visiting Warsaw, and it’s a rewarding undertaking. Even though I had zero expectations (or maybe because of that), Warsaw quickly became one of my favorite places.
Cloudy and cool – appropriate weather for the walking tour of mournful history
We arrived on the overnight train from Kyiv very early in the morning, so our room at Dream Hostel Warsaw wasn’t going to be ready for hours. Oh and because of its location in the city center (200 meters from the Royal Castle), our car wasn’t able to get on its actual street so we had to walk a little to it in our exhausted stupor. With these two tiny obstacles beginning our trip, you can guess how pissed off I was, so that tells you a little bit about how great this city is that I was able to overcome my pissiness to such an extent. The Dream Hostel, aside from letting their other customers check out so late (i.e. not at 7am when I wanted them out), was a great place to stay. It was clean and simple and modern, with a really comfortable bed, at least in our private en suite (we are adults we do not fork with hostel dorms anymore). The location was perfect too, right in the Old Town, so I recommend it if you’re going and looking for a budget-friendly place that isn’t a straight up hole filled with loud drunk yoots. (There are yoots though; it is a hostel.)
Right outside the hostel was an outdoor exhibit on Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish-Lithuanian military leader who became a hero both in Poland and in the USA. He fought in the American Revolution as a colonel of the Continental Army. He also was an architect and he designed and oversaw the construction of military fortifications such as those at West Point. When he returned to Poland after straight killing it in America, he was made the very model of a modern Major General in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Army, then was Supreme Commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, leading the 1794 Kosciuszko Uprising. Don’t make me type that name again. The K-dawg Uprising was against Russia, as most uprisings should be, but he was captured. Luckily, he was pardoned after a few years and thought, get me the hell out of here, I’ma go see my homies in America. And so he moved not only to the USA but to Philadelphia! Pop POP!
Proof of this dude’s opposite trajectory to mine
The Dream Hostel staff directed our attention to what is my #1 activity tip for Warsaw – the free city walking tour, from freewalkingtour.com. Free walking tours are my favorite thing to find in any city, as they are always incredibly informative and entertaining. But Warsaw’s (actually called the Free WALKATIVE Tour because they’re adorable I guess) were my favorite ever. That’s right, we took two – the general history/Old Town one (very good) and one specifically about the war and the ghetto and everything, which was extra long (2 1/2 hours I think). This latter one was spectacular, I think because our incredible guide packed so much important history into our tour and treated all of its history, good and tragic, with reverence and consideration, so it felt properly serious. And soul-crushing. Most of Warsaw’s prominent history is grim, so you have to be really ready to dive in.
We met at Zygmunt’s Column in the Old Town, one of the most famous landmarks of Warsaw that I didn’t happen to take a picture of for some reason, I think because I was cold. It’s named after King Sigismund III Vasa, the 16th century king who moved Poland’s capital from Krakow to Warsaw. I like to say his name with an aye-aye-aye in the middle.
This lady above was our guide in the Old Town for the first tour, and then for the World War history tour (the big long most important one) we had a young man take over. Both were very good (but the boy was my favorite) and both told us that they were newly engaged (not to each other), because every single guide in every single free walking tour we’ve ever taken, across the globe, has told us that they were newly engaged (I think as a ploy to get more tips, but like, no harm no foul, get that paper.)
This lady above was our guide in the Old Town for the first tour, and then for the World War history tour (the big long most important one) we had a young man take over. Both were very good (but the boy was my favorite) and both told us that they were newly engaged (not to each other), because every single guide in every single free walking tour we’ve ever taken, across the globe, has told us that they were newly engaged (I think as a ploy to get more tips, but like, no harm no foul, get that paper.)
My favorite tour guide ever! He said Warsaw so cute
But let’s start with the not-so-terrible history in the Historic Center of Warsaw. Like the above pictures, where you can see famous sayings and famous people (or characters (yes that’s Donkey from Shrek)) in various languages – including Esperanto, the language made up in the 19th century to be an international language (instead of forcing everyone to learn English). It’s not super weird to speak Esperanto here because its creator, the Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist Zamenhof (hey that’s like me I want to invent a language but not touch people’s eyes) was from Warsaw.
We also saw Marie Curie’s house. I guess I always assumed she and everyone else with second-syllable-accented names was French, but she was Polish, born in Warsaw (as Maria), and that above is the house she grew up in. Our guide taught us so much that I didn’t know about Marie’s incredible life. I knew she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win two, and the only person to win in two different fields of science (she real smart). I did not know that she was part of an actual Curie Family Legacy – there are 5 Nobel Prizes now in her family. Her descendants are under hella pressure. The first element she discovered was named polonium after her home country. I mean it’s so obvious but I never realized it; I think I assumed it was after her favorite Hamlet character. (Uh, I think I remember Hamlet accurately.) And everyone knows she died from radiation exposure during her research in radioactivity but I didn’t know she got extra radiation from developing mobile x-ray units for field hospitals during World War I. Her extraordinary achievements could have been thwarted by the simple fact that she could not enroll in any institute of higher learning in Poland because she was a woman. She and her sister studied in Paris, after years of planning and earning enough money to do so. While Marie saved money and worked, she continued to teach herself. She also fell in love with a man who couldn’t marry her because she was poor, and although she was heartbroken, it was sort of for the best because if she did, she may have never gone to Paris or achieved what she has. Plus people said that the man who rejected her always regretted it, so she got hers.
I also loved this story of Maly Przeglad, the newspaper written and edited by children, for children. Janusz Korczak made such a publication possible, when for 13 years in the early 20th century he ran and distributed the paper, making 50,000 copies of it every week. Meaning Little Review, Maly Przeglad was a supplement to the Nasz Przeglad, the largest Polish-language Jewish daily newspaper. Janusz said he developed this newspaper because, “There are children who have many great ideas, remarks, and observations, but don’t write, because they lack courage or just don’t feel like it. Our newspaper will encourage them to write. Encourage and embolden them.” I love this man.
Above is a picture of the clocktower at the Royal Castle, in Castle Square (apt) at the entrance to the Old Town. It was formerly the official residence of Polish monarchs, from the 16th century, as well as the seat of the King and Parliament. It was also the site of the writing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, the second-oldest codified national constitution in the world after the USA’s (although I bet more respected). However, you may recall when I said in the beginning that everything in Warsaw is new. That includes this castle and everything else in the Old Town, which was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. Here is a picture of the same site during the devastation, and one from beforehand, which was used later in the rebuilding process.
In 1939, following the invasion of Poland, Nazis burned and looted the Castle. But it would be almost completely destroyed a few years later, along with the rest of Warsaw, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the subsequent Warsaw Uprising in 1944. After WWII, more than 80% of the city would be demolished and almost all of Warsaw’s 300,000 Jewish residents (making it the largest Jewish city in Europe) would be dead.
Metal map of Warsaw
So I guess we’ve reached that point where we have to talk about it all. As I said, Warsaw was the biggest Jewish city in Europe pre-war, with around 300,000 Jews. Before WWII, Jews were thriving in Warsaw, with the majority living in the city center and commercial districts. Many left Warsaw during the depression, which was worse in Poland than the rest of Europe, but even so the population remained high. When the Siege of Warsaw occurred in 1939, German planes bombed Warsaw, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying 10% of the city. After this, the number of Jews in Warsaw actually increased, because there were so many refugees fleeing from the Polish-German front. Soon after the Siege ended, Hitler established the General Government in Poland and the Jewish Council in Warsaw, which would let the Nazis start carrying out their atrocities against the Polish people. First was Jewish forced labor, to clean up after the bombings. Then all the bank accounts of Polish Jews were blocked, followed by the required display of Jewish star on all Jewish shops. Then came the required armbands, and then the ban from public transit, and then the prohibition on communal prayer.
A section of the Mur Getta, or Ghetto Wall
In the fall of 1940, the Nazis, now running Poland, established the Warsaw Ghetto, which would become the largest Ghetto in Europe. They ordered construction of the Ghetto walls around the predominantly Jewish area. Non-Jews (referred to as ‘ethnic Poles’, but like Jews still can be that, asswipes) were removed from this area while Jews from the suburbs were brought into it. The walls, closing the inhabitants off from the outside world, were 3 meters high, with barbed wire on top, and anyone trying to escape was shot. More than 400,000 (some reports say 450,000) Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto, which was only a little over one square mile. People were packed into rooms, with little if any food, prohibited from freely traveling in their own city. There were typhus epidemics in the dirty, close quarters. There was starvation – the rations started at 180 calories per person per day and decreased with time. The vast majority of food in the Ghetto was smuggled in.
Marking the boundaries of the Ghetto area today
From the Ghetto, Jews were deported to concentration camps for either forced labor or extermination. More than 250,000 Jews were sent from the Ghetto to Treblinka in the summer of 1942 for extermination. Most of the remaining Jews in the Ghetto died from shootings, gassing, illness, and starvation. By the end of 1942, the Jews in the Ghetto realized that the deportations meant death, and that the transport for ‘resettlement’ was really leading Jews to mass killings. They decided to resist by smuggling in weapons. In January 1943, the Nazis entered the Ghetto to round up more Jews for transport, but they met resistance from some armed Jews. Still, 600 Jews were shot and 5,000 were removed (of the planned 8,000). But now the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was starting, the largest revolt by Jews in WWII. Adults and children were ready to fight, although with their limited supplies and arms against the German forces, they knew at this point it was more a fight for honor rather than survival.
This is called the Kotwica, the emblem of the Polish Underground State and the Home Army (which we talk about below). It was the symbol for Polish struggle to regain independence. The symbol comes from the initials P and W, from the phrase “Pomscimy Wawer” – We Shall Avenge Wawer. Wawer was a massacre in 1939, one of the first large-scale massacres of Polish civilians by German troops.
The resistance organizations, the ZZW and ZOB, gained control of the Ghetto and executed Nazi collaborators and traitors, like the Jewish Police officers. The head of the Jewish Ghetto Police committed suicide. By Passover, the police and SS forces entered the Ghetto to complete deportations, but the Jewish fighters held them back. The SS officers started burning down houses block by block to force a surrender, but the fighting continued for almost a month.
While this fighting occurred inside the walls, outside the walls the Germans were attacked at various points by Polish resistance groups. However, the numbers of fighters in and outside the Ghetto kept falling, and eventually there was no organized defense left, just survivors who hid in the sewers and dugouts referred to as bunkers.
The Nazis searched out these hiding places and would smoke or flood the inhabitants out, or just use explosives on the area. One of these dugouts was the infamous Mila 18, with approximately 300 people inside, including smugglers and ZOB commanding officers. The smugglers surrendered to the Nazis, but the ZOB command refused to move. The Nazis threw tear gas down into the bunker, and a few people managed to escape uncaught, but the rest committed mass suicide by ingesting cyanide instead of surrendering to the Nazis.
While this fighting occurred inside the walls, outside the walls the Germans were attacked at various points by Polish resistance groups. However, the numbers of fighters in and outside the Ghetto kept falling, and eventually there was no organized defense left, just survivors who hid in the sewers and dugouts referred to as bunkers.
The Nazis searched out these hiding places and would smoke or flood the inhabitants out, or just use explosives on the area. One of these dugouts was the infamous Mila 18, with approximately 300 people inside, including smugglers and ZOB commanding officers. The smugglers surrendered to the Nazis, but the ZOB command refused to move. The Nazis threw tear gas down into the bunker, and a few people managed to escape uncaught, but the rest committed mass suicide by ingesting cyanide instead of surrendering to the Nazis.
The site of Mila 18. It felt too strange to take a picture, so instead of deciding whether it was appropriate or not I took a half-picture.
The Uprising ended on May 16, 1943, when the Nazis demolished the Great Synagogue of Warsaw in a symbolic fuck you to humanity, although I am surprised it wasn’t demolished at the start of things. 13,000 Jews died in the Uprising, and most of the remaining 50,000 (remember we started with 450,000) were captured and sent to camps, mainly Treblinka.
At this point in the tour, an (white female (always) (dammit)) American woman asked the tour guide “Why didn’t the Jews just fight back when this all started??” All the decent people gave her side eye and the guide explained that the events didn’t just jump from zero to murder in a day. The oppressors, like all oppressors, started small, with sacrifices you couldn’t really risk everything fighting against when it seemed like something you could live with. Then the oppressors would add something else to the mix, and the same question is asked of you: is this the breaking point, or will it be okay? Most people think things will be okay for them, that things couldn’t get too out of hand in modern society. But soon you’re faced with a pile of small atrocities stacked on top of each other and the stack leads to complete injustice and horror, and by that point it’s too late to do much. We visited Warsaw many months ago, and even then I was shocked that the lady didn’t realize that the same thing was happening in the USA. I wonder if she can see today how ignorant she sounded, or if she realizes that we’ve reached the point she was talking about, when people should be fighting back. Every day, the leaders of American chip away at the rights of citizens and innocent people, and they degrade our institutions so much that our checks and balances are now a joke, a joke that for the most part they are in control of. But aside from trying to fight back civilly (in the courts, with fundraising, with calling offices), no one is rioting in the streets or risking their lives to fight it. We excuse it day by day as something we can live with, something that we will change when decent people are back in power. But look at what the incremental nature of these injustices has led to. There are literally babies being snatched from their families and locked up in cages. And we are not rioting in the streets for them. Is this the point when we should be? If we don’t, will it be too late to fight against what happens next? I am scared of what will happen next as I’m sure all decent people who aren’t morally bankrupt are, but I’m also scared of what’s happening now and what’s already happened. We’re supposed to study history in order to learn from it and not repeat the mistakes of the past, but that’s hard to do when people who want to repeat history are in charge.
Warsaw’s Palace of Justice today (the courts)
Ok let’s get back to Warsaw’s history before we all get back to crying, donating, crying, screaming, and not knowing what else to do. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 happened over a year before the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the general revolt in the ‘main’ part of the city. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 was part of a nationwide plan from the Polish underground resistance, led by the Home Army (the dominant Polish resistance movement), to liberate Warsaw from the Nazis. The fighting lasted more than two months, with no outside help, to be the largest military effort by any European resistance in WWII. The timing of the Uprising coincided with the retreat of German forces from Poland head of the Soviet advance, but when the Soviets approached the city, they halted temporarily and ignored Polish radio contact instead of charging into the city. Also, there was a Soviet base a few minutes away from the city, but they never provided air support. All of this led to allegations that Stalin halted his forces on purpose to let the resistance fail and be crushed.
Churchill pleaded with Stalin and FDR to help the Polish allies, but they refused. Without obtaining Soviet air clearance, Churchill sent more than 200 supply drops in the Warsaw Airlift. Finally America did a thing and sent one mass airdrop after getting Soviet air clearance. However, it was too little too late, and the Soviet halt gave the Germans the ability to regroup and defeat the resistance. So just another lesson from history that you cannot trust the Russians. In fact, Stalin found the Home Army’s resistance so ‘inconvenient’ to his plans that their name was censored in the post-war period and he twisted the facts through propaganda in the Soviet-controlled People’s Republic of Poland.
Monument to the fighters of the Warsaw Uprising
Approximately 16,000 Polish resistance fighters were killed in the Uprising, and between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died mainly from mass executions. In the city, about 25% of Warsaw was destroyed, but after the Poles surrendered, Germans razed the vast majority of the remainder of the city as a final lesson.
Monument to the Heroes of Warsaw, also known as the Warsaw Nike for obvious reasons
Pomnik Bohaterow Getta, the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Right outside the Jewish Museum.
Monument at the Ghetto walls
After the war, Polish citizens led a five-year reconstruction campaign to restore the Old Town of Warsaw, a restoration so meticulous that the entire new centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site. They used old paintings and photographs to ensure that the reconstruction got much of the city’s rich architectural heritage correct, and its thanks to that campaign that Warsaw looks as historic as it does.
Today, Warsaw’s historic center is gorgeous, filled with lovely colors and important buildings, belying a history that left it completely destroyed.
The Warsaw Mermaid is an important symbol of the city, featured on its coat of arms. There are several legends about the mermaid, and the official City legend says that she decided to stay in Warsaw after coming upon the riverbank near the Old Town. Fishermen noticed that there was something making waves, tangling their nets, and releasing their fish (yas queen). The fishermen were going to trap the mermaid, but then she started singing and they fell in love, as you do. But a rich merchant (always bad) trapped the mermaid and imprisoned her. She cried, and when the fishermen heard her cried they rescued her. In return, the mermaid has been armed with a sword and a shield so she is ready to help protect the city and its lovely residents. Other versions of this story say that the Warsaw Mermaid is the sister of the Copenhagen Mermaid (the Little Mermaid). Could be true considering the Copenhagen/Little one had all those sisters. This statute stands in the Old Town Square.
So yes, when you go to Warsaw you have to take this walking tour and learn about the history. You can’t just go and enjoy the insane vegan food (next post) and not pay your respects to its past. It’s so important to learn and remember what happened here, and with any luck learn from it.
