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Post by Jaga on Jun 25, 2015 20:24:11 GMT -7
From what I saw sofar Romania and later Poland are the most beautiful countryside countries in Europe. Here are some pictures from Romania/Transilvania www.dangerous-business.com/2012/07/village-scenes-life-in-rural-romania/\life is slow but the countryside does not look poor and there is just so much traditions in Romania - Transilvania, Bukovina, Western Carpathians. Even Causesco was unable to destroy it all:    |
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Post by karl on Jun 26, 2015 6:45:35 GMT -7
Jaga
It is refreshing to go back to our beginnings with such photos of a life many of us lived and then through lifes processes, we now are different people.
Although most of us do enjoy a peek into the past with wonderful photos as this, but after seeing the city, not many of us could once again live as we once did.
Thank you for presenting
Karl
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Post by Nictoshek on Jun 26, 2015 6:49:49 GMT -7
I'm getting homesick. |
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Post by pieter on Jun 26, 2015 9:50:43 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jun 26, 2015 9:59:26 GMT -7
 A wooden house in the Polish countryside. Polish famers in the Polish countryside Harvest in Poland Poland Rural farm Polish farmer pulling a wagon with a tractor across his farm field Edward Sawicki on his ancestral farm in the hamlet of Ogonki, Poland. Polish farmer on a bicycle |
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Post by Jaga on Jun 26, 2015 10:00:04 GMT -7
Pieter,
really good pictures. I especially liked the picture of the apple tree and a road wet after the rain with lots of horse cart trails. This was I remember also and this is NOT that beautiful as some other pictures/
Karl, Nictoe,
thanks for your comments. Glad you liked it, it gets us out of political life.
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Post by karl on Jun 26, 2015 11:01:36 GMT -7
Pieter
Very excellent country photos, and, some early memories triggered whilst viewing. There were many farms near Cuxhaven whilst finishing my school years there. Many of us includant my self, when not working in the ship maintenance and repair yards, we earnt money for school cloths and whilst the harvesting season held, worked harvesting potatoes/Hay bales some times loose hay which was more work intensive. In my later teens, if a fishing boat capitain could be talked into my benefit, then to crew with him and his older crew whilst the summer lasted. They were reluctant to hire some of us boys for the reason it would be only temporary and then we went back to school, and he would then be to look for another replacement.
One problem in the shipyards for us young fellows then, was we were not allowed to work in the bilge areas or hazard areas of descaling and painting. Or, areas of risk of injury whilst installing heavy equipment into the hulls.
I did enjoy operating a tractor and other farm equipment and was pretty good at it. That is if not being caught using the rear side brake to brake skid turn the machine to quickly.
Karl
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Post by pieter on Jun 26, 2015 11:06:57 GMT -7
Dear Jaga, Karl and Nicetoe,
I get flashbacks when I look at these images. Flashbacks of the late seventies and early eighties when we went to Poland with my fathers green metalic Ford Taunus Bravo, and drove through the Polish countryside. We saw the horses and wagons on the streets, and the horses and ards. Some charming little old farms, because Poland in contrast to some other communist countries did not had a large scale collectivization program after the war. There were collective farm, but the majority of the farms were owned by small farmers (farming families). I remember the fresh products of the Polish farms, biological we would call them today in Western-Europe (without pesticides or other poison).
We often went on holiday to our small family Dwór or dworek. I remember a little white country house or villa, which was maybe 100 km from Poznań, with lovely villages, little lakes and some nice small woods nearby. We spend some holidays there and often visited nearby Polish farms. I remember the white storks and their stork nests on the roofs of the farms. I remember very large chickens, hens and Wild turkey's next to the other farm animals. You had to watch out for the geese, because these were the watchdogs of the farms or villages. I remember fishing with our Polish uncle in that lovely little lake and catching a lot of fish to the surprise of my uncle and my father.
Nex to fond memories of Poznań and Warsaw I have very dear memories of the Polish countryside and the mountains South of Poznań, probably near Jelenia Góra. I remember playing with Polish farm kids and that they were very curious about the West. We gave one such boy a large jar of Dutch Peanut butter, which he loved. They did not have Peanut butter in his village shop. When we asked him what he wanted to be when he was an adult, he said 'Capitalist'. That was a very funny answer for us. I remember that we had the watch out for a gang of forest youth boys, who wondered around in that mountain forest. Just like in the Netherlands there were local rivalries, and as a stranger you had to watch out, because I didn't spoke Polish. And being catched as an alien by a dangerous group of wild Polish forest boys was scarry ofcourse.
I also remeber that next to the old farms there were some concret square farm sturctures everywhere, communist rural farm style I believe. Could you veryfy this Jaga? It is my memory as a kid and early teenage boy. It is a long time ago. Also memories of the many times that we drove from the DDR-Polish border to Poznań on the old concrete communist (or partly prewar) highways with some holes in it. You didn't had much 4 lane, 6 lane or 8 lane highways like you have today in Poland, the highway back then stil had two lanes in both directions. I also traveled to Poland by train a lot as a child and teenager. With both of my parents or just with my mother to babcia and dziadek in Poznań, where they lived in ulica Mickiewicza 24 (if you look on google maps you can see the street and the architecture of the houses. The street changed by the atmosphere of the claccisist and Jugendstil houses is stil the same). Poznań had a lovely mix of Polish and German (Prussian) architecture and atmosphere. It is a special city and different than other Polish cities. (Like every city is different than other cities and has it's own uniqueness. Krakow is unique and Warsaw too. And ofcourse Wroclaw and Gdansk too)
Poznań was different due to the German influence. My mother, who was born in Warsaw in November, 2, 1934, said she liked Warsaw more, because for her it was more Polish in atmosphere. Maybe she is right, in Poznań you have a heavy Prussian influence. But Warsaw after the war was different than her memories of during the second world war in her neighborhood Mokotow, and before the war, when Warsaw was a wonderful, cosmopolitan and very Polish city in the same time. Her fathers family came from Eastern-Poland. My grandmothers family came more from Southern-Poland and concentrated themselves before the war in Poznań.
The Polish country side, rural Poland will be always in my memories due to all these car and train journey's which went through it and the vacations that were spend on the country. Warm hot summers, a lot of swimming and fishing, long walks and also camping wit the Popup camper. When we dried our Popup camper in ulica Mickiewicza that would be a reason for sightseeing of the Polish neighbors. People hang out of their windows and stood on the street watching that Western phenomenon and car (Ford Taunus Bravo) which was standing next to all the Polish Fiats, Polonez FSO and some old Warszawa cars in the street. The atmosphere was stil communist back then with the two stroke engine, coal and lignite (brown coal) smell in the air, and the fact that people wore similar clothes and most shops and supermarkets were state owned. I loved the same, Polish state supermarket though, due to the fresh products, the milk we had to cook before drinking, the lovely white breads, fresh butter and I was very fond of the bar mlezny, because they had very fine cheese cake there.
What was also great for us a Dutch kids was that the Polish cinema was affordable and we went to many movies during the day and often to the little charming Poznań Zoo with the small Indian elephant. I stil remember the Poznań atmosphere of the morning, the afternoon, the evenings and nights, when you heard the sound of the trams on their tram tracks (the metal sound) and the sound of truck traffick and late taxi's driving by. The atmosphere of the streets, the boulevards, viaducts, the Opera and theatre, the churches (especially the lovely dominican monk church we often went to, or maybe it was Benedictan. The choir of Polish monks sung wonderful at their Easter celebration). I remember that sometimes mass was so crowded that we stood outside the church. A wonderful atmosphere. I remember the Polish pedestrians walking on the sidewalks, or passing the streets, sitting in their parks enjoying the sun, or using the bus, tram or taxi. I remember eating Polish lody (from the square paper bag). And even in communist times people enjoyed the terraces of the restaurants and pubs of the old square and the galleries over there.
Folks you see what these threats and images of Romanian and Polish countryside have erroused in me. Melancholic, romantic and even nostalgic old memories of communist Poland and the non-communist familymembers, farmers and strangers in it.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jun 26, 2015 11:26:11 GMT -7
Pieter Very excellent country photos, and, some early memories triggered whilst viewing. There were many farms near Cuxhaven whilst finishing my school years there. Many of us includant my self, when not working in the ship maintenance and repair yards, we earnt money for school cloths and whilst the harvesting season held, worked harvesting potatoes/Hay bales some times loose hay which was more work intensive. In my later teens, if a fishing boat capitain could be talked into my benefit, then to crew with him and his older crew whilst the summer lasted. They were reluctant to hire some of us boys for the reason it would be only temporary and then we went back to school, and he would then be to look for another replacement. One problem in the shipyards for us young fellows then, was we were not allowed to work in the bilge areas or hazard areas of descaling and painting. Or, areas of risk of injury whilst installing heavy equipment into the hulls. I did enjoy operating a tractor and other farm equipment and was pretty good at it. That is if not being caught using the rear side brake to brake skid turn the machine to quickly. Karl Dear Karl, I love the three images of Jaga even more than my own. He start triggered my short google image research and posting. Especially the one Nictoe copy pasted and became homesick about. For me it erouses romantic and melancholic feelings. Probably the Slavic Pole inside me (the other 50 procent that is hidden in this Dutch guy with his Dutch, English and German language living). This week I got into contact with a Dutch historic tour guide of Arnhem. I asked him about his surname, which sounded Czech to me. He said that my assumption was right and that he has a Czech father and two Czech cousins in Czechoslovakia. Our shared Western-Slav, Central-European heritage created a reason for connection and exchange, because both of us are fond of history and art history, architecture and somewhat unorthodox in nature. I have few slavic or Polish connections here I can relate too. This post triggered some beautiful youth memories of you too from your time in Cuxhaven. And I can relate to that from my first 20 years in Vlissingen, because Vlissingen was a small city or town with a ship building yard, ship maintainance and repair yards too, for the Dutch Royal navy (ships were built, maintained and repaired in the Schelde ship yard docks) but also for commercial navy. Both near Vlissingen and in the Belgian Ardennes mountains I have worked in farms, being not from a farm family myself but due to farm boy friends, both Dutch school mates as French speaking Walloon farmer children. I have fond memories of collecting little delicious patatoo's, carrying Hay bales to the farm stables and also herding cows and watching the milking of the cows and working with the manure cement and metal reservoirs. The Ardennes Walloon farms were less modern and automatized as the Dutch farms and had some charm of the shabby old state of some farms. Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by karl on Jun 26, 2015 12:25:08 GMT -7
Pieter
I do enjoy your full descriptions of your early life {and present}, for you provide a vivid description I do relate to. Perhaps it is your artistic manner of detail and colour that instead of painting, the colour is provided by your choice of words in descriptions and intrinsic feelings.
I am not a voyour of any kind, simply observant and felt to answer as such.
Karl
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Post by Nictoshek on Jun 26, 2015 12:58:19 GMT -7
The kind of photo....were you second guess yourself. |
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Post by pieter on Jun 26, 2015 13:50:39 GMT -7
Pieter I do enjoy your full descriptions of your early life {and present}, for you provide a vivid description I do relate to. Perhaps it is your artistic manner of detail and colour that instead of painting, the colour is provided by your choice of words in descriptions and intrinsic feelings. I am not a voyour of any kind, simply observant and felt to answer as such. Karl Dear Karl, There is some truth in your words, because my writing is like my editing a video with covershots over an interview, and like my drawing and painting too. You are right. In this kind of personal writing I use the same elements in me or 'creativity' as painting and editing. I realize that English is not my native language and that I am not a writer. I am someone who works with images and arranging images in some sort of pattern or line. Sometimes I have to watch out not to use English grammar and orthography in Dutch written language, because sentences are built or constructed differently in Dutch. Maybe it is vice versa and it could be that I use the Dutch construction of sentences with English words in my English texts, letters or essays. Your comment and compliment was appreciated. I don't see you as an voyeur! Cheers, Pieter |
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