Everything You ever wanted to know about Poland (part 1)







Everything You ever wanted to know about Poland - (part 5)
DID YOU KNOW THAT ... ?
By  Robert Strybel,   Warsaw Correspondent



 




 

 












 




*    Completed in 1502, the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Kosciol Mariacki) in Gdansk took
123 years to build. Said to accommodate 20,000 people, it is Poland's biggest house of worship and one of Europe's largest Gothic brick churches.

*  Polish numbers are rather difficult for foreigners to master, and the numeral two is undoubtedly the most troublesome since it has all of 13 different
forms: dwa, dwaj, dwie, dwu, dwoch, dwom, dwom, dwoma, dwiema, dwoje, dwojga, dwojgu & dwojgiem.

*  The fabled painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa is a 11th - 12th-century Byzantine icon offered to the Pauline monastery by Prince Wladys3aw of Opole in
1384. According to legend, it was painted by St Matthew on the table-top of the Holy Family in Nazareth.

*  The standard Polish flag is divided equally into a white horizontal top half and a crimson bottom half. The national crest, acrowned white eagle on a
redshield, should be flown only by Polish ships at sea and Polish diplomatic legations abroad. Turned upside down (with the red half at the top), Poland's colors
become the national flag of Indonesia.

 

*  The agrarian origin of the ancient Poles is evidenced by the Slavic names for basic tools: lopata
(spade), widly (pitch-fork), sierp (sickle), siekiera (axe), gwozdz (ordinary nail), woz (cart, wagon) and socha (primitive plow). But Poles borrowed from Germans
the names of more sophisticated implements including plug (more refined plow), sruba (screw), bretnal (board-nail), szprycha (spoke) and durszlak (colander).

 

*  'Czernina' (also spelled 'czarnina') is better known across Polonia than in Poland. Board of health
regulations now prevent the sale of blood in butcher shops, so only those who raise their own poultry or know someone who does can regularly enjoy the soup.

*  The Human Massacre (Rzez humanska) in Poland's eastern borderlands is the name given to a 1768 revolt by rampaging Ukrainian peasants who slaughtered
Polish noblemen attempting to defend Jews.

*  Warsaw is now Europe's third biggest construction site after Berlin and Moscow. Especially in Warsaw and other big cities, construction crews are working
round-the-clock erecting skyscrapers, office towers, business centers, malls and fancy condominium complexes.

*  Improved high-tech telephone links makes it easier than ever to phone relatives and friends in Poland. Just dial: 0-00-48-area code-number.

*  Before becoming king of Poland in 1632, for a brief period Wladyslaw IV was Czar of all the Russias. A revolt by Russian boyars (noblemen) overthrew him
and expelled Polish occupation forces from the Kremlin. November 7th, the anniversary of that event, is now celebrated in Russia as Independence Day.

*  So far, Poland has no capital gains tax. That means that profits earned on stocks and bonds are not subject to income tax. The interest earned on savings
accounts and time certificates is also note regarded as taxable income.

*  The American Polonia's oldest insurance fraternal is the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America (PRCUA), set up in 1873. The largest such organization is
the Polish National Alliance (PNA), founded in 1880. Both fraternals are headquartered in Chicago.


 

*    The Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, the honorary leader of world Orthodoxy,
recently prayed before the icon of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa during a visit to Poland. It was the first such event in history.

*  Although in 7th place as regards area and population, Poland is No. 3 in Europe in terms of the number of dogs and cats per capita. Britain and France
hold first and second place respectively.

*  According to American flag etiquette, when an American and Polish flag are displayed crossed, the Stars on Stripes should be on the viewer's left and the
white and red Polish banner on the right. When the anthems of the two countries are performed at public events, 'Jeszcze Polska nie zginela" should come
first, followed by 'The Star-Spangled Banner".

*  In one of its promotional campaigns, McDonald's announced 'Los Tygodnios Mexicanos' (Mexican weeks) in its Polish outlets and featured a spicy chicken
cutlet on a bun called -- believe it or not -- 'El Kurczako'.

*  Poles males often remember their army days in terms of humiliating hazing, time-wasting make-work, nasty drill sergeants, crack-of-dawn military
exercises, poor lodgings and horrible food. One thing most of them recall with nostalgia is 'soldiers' pea soup' (zolnierska grochowka) -- exceptionally delicious
because it slowly simmers in huge kettles for many long hours.

*  An 18,000-sqaure-foot combined Polish Cultural Center, mini-mall and business complex are being planned in a prime area of Las Vegas, which has an
estimated 35,000 Polish Americans. Information on the project can be obtained from the developer, Zbigniew Krowicki, at [phone].
 
*  Each year about $80 million worth of raw amber is smuggled from Russia's Baltic enclave, known as the
Kaliningrad district, to Poland and Germany. There, the fossilized Baltic resin is cut and polished into jewels of true beauty.

*  The American banking family of Chase (as in Chase Manhattan) is descended from Polish Jews whose original name was Ciesla (which means 'carpenter' in
Polish).

*  A Pole who has the letters 'Dr' before his name is not necessarily a medical doctor. Anyone who has a Ph.D., in economy, biology, history, theology,
chemistry, political science or any other field, is entitled to have a 'doctor' before his name.

*  Buffalo-area native, Pol-Am James Pawelczyk, who traveled into space in 1998 aboard NASA's neurolab, was the world's third Polish astronaut. The first was
Miroslaw Hermaszewski who orbited the earth aboard a Soviet Soyuz-30 satellite in 1978. The second was Polish-American Scott Parazynski, a medical doctor, whose
first trip into space took place in 1992.

*  Until the dawn of the computer age, the American at-sign (@) was largely unknown to Poles who used the French letter 'a' for that purpose. Now the @ is
widely known as part of e-mail addresses and is referred to in Polish as 'malpka' (little monkey), because it is perceived as a monkey encircled by its own tail.

*  'Województwo Lubuskie' is the only one of Poland's 16 new voivodships (provinces) named after a city in a foreign country. Lubusz, the city from which it
got its name, is in Germany where it is called 'Lebus' (pronounced: LAY-bus). Zielona Gora is therefore the administrative center of the new voivodship.
part 6






















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