WARSAW — The first thing that hit you about the Poland of 1987 was the smell — a pungent mix of coal smoke leavened with coarse tobacco, a whiff of cabbage and rancid sweat overlaid with clouds of diesel exhaust. Lingering on the streets and alleys of cities, towns and villages, it was not the smell of a successful or a happy society.
The odor hit me in the southern city of Kraków in 1987, where I was taking a year off from university in Toronto to study in Poland. It was only one symptom of a decomposing country.
At Kraków’s …read more
Source: European Voice
