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Post by rdywenur on Feb 26, 2008 6:46:50 GMT -7
ul Traugutta My first visit to Poland brought me here. It is not far from Bialy Bialska which is located in the South of Poland. South of Kracow and not far from Oswiciem or better know as Aushwitz. This is the town my aunt llives in and this is her neighborhood and my cousins. First thing I noticed was all the tv dishes in all the windows on the tall apt. buildings. Yes technology as us Americans was fast catching up with the rest of the world after long period of Communism. Train station. I love riding the trains in Poland and many use it as a means of commuting to work. A viewof what you would see looking down from the bridge. Jan Pawel II Square After arriving in Poland and sleeping through 24 hours I went to a festival held here in the square. More of less my first activity and mingling with the locals. Typical Highway leading to or from CZDZ As you leave CZDZ by train or car you may pass by here. Poland has such wonderful countryside views. (Wisla River)
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Post by hollister on Feb 26, 2008 8:19:06 GMT -7
Rdy, Great pictures! What kind of festival did you attend in the square? Do you have any information about the spires? in the center of your picture about JPII Square? How many people live in this city?
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Post by rdywenur on Feb 26, 2008 17:16:48 GMT -7
Thank you Holly, I think the festival was in my honor for coming to Poland for the first time and landing safely. (Just kidding) To tell you the truth...most of the time I was dragged around and wish I had taken notes and asked more questions. I know better know. I can't read, speaking is limited so there you go. I will try and find out for you and then update. The spires is actually a sort of monument in the center of the square. I can't find too much info on this and what is out there is all in Polish. Czechowice-Dziedzice is a town in southern Poland with 34,867 inhabitants (2004). Situated in the Silesian Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Katowice Voivodeship (1975-1998). It lies on the northeastern edge of the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Map of area....CZDZ is just South of Kracow
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Post by hollister on Feb 27, 2008 12:26:58 GMT -7
Chris, Thanks for adding the train pictures! Did you land in Warsaw and take the train into CZDZ? How did you do the map thing?
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Post by rdywenur on Feb 27, 2008 14:01:38 GMT -7
I landed in Warsaw and flew into Kracow where my cousin picked us up by car and drove to my aunts home. I only took the train to Pszczyna, Spytkowice and Bielsko-Biala. Those were day trips with my cousin Barbara, my tour guide. Then on weekends we drove around with her husband to Kracow and areas around there. Photos of those parts to follow. How did I do the map thingy...it's called shamelessly stealing off the Internet. I have another map of Poland that copied fine but for some reason it won't copy over to the Forum. Might have something to do with how it was created. (said she scratching her head)
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Post by Jaga on Feb 27, 2008 22:54:19 GMT -7
Czechowice-Dziedzice is the most famous from its petroleum rafinery. My school friend moved there. I learned about it from "nasza-klasa".
The pictures of the houses for multiple families (so called "bloki") and also the train station remind me so much communistic times!
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Post by rdywenur on Feb 28, 2008 4:16:56 GMT -7
I thought so too Jaga. Although my first impression as I left Kracow airport was the feeling of being in an old movie. There were soldiers outside the airport with rifles and then the town had tha told feeling also. I felt I was watching an old 40's movie in black and white only I was in it. But there is also much contrast at the same time. It does not look that way all over. Yes CZDZ is known for its large refineries an cable companies.
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Post by hollister on Feb 28, 2008 5:27:37 GMT -7
Wow! Where does the oil come from? Is this an area that is watching was happens with the Russian pipeline? I think it called Gazprom?
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Post by rdywenur on Feb 29, 2008 6:03:47 GMT -7
Holly I guess we will be wiating to see what happens. Most of Poland's oil comes from the Russian pipeline. Russian oil supplies to Poland and Germany have been cut at Poland's eastern border with Belarus, Polish pipeline company PERN said, and a Russian company has accused Belarus of diverting the flow. In a new twist to tension between Minsk and Moscow over oil supplies and transit to western Europe, PERN spokesman Tomasz Zakrzewski told AFP on Monday: "Deliveries were disrupted overnight and then totally cut off Monday morning on the main Druzhba pipeline, which supplies crude oil to Poland and Germany.
"Fifty million tonnes of crude pass through the Druzhba pipeline each year. Of that, 18 million tonnes are supplied to Poland and 22 million tonnes to the German refineries of Schwedt and Mider Spergau," he said.
Polish oil groups Orlen and Lotos receive Russian crude through the Druzhba pipeline, which first came onstream in 1964.
Russian pipeline operator Transneft accused Belarus of siphoning oil from the pipeline.
"Since January 6, the Belarussian side has unilaterally, and without warning anyone, begun illegally siphoning oil from the Druzhba pipeline, which is solely for transport to customers in western Europe," Transneft head Semyon Vainshtok was quoted as saying Monday by the RIA Novosti news agency.
But the head engineer at Belarus' Gomel Transneft Druzhba, which operates the pipeline, said oil supplies to Poland and Germany had only been reduced, on orders from state energy company Belneftekhim, not completely halted.
"We did not cut it off. We are working. But there has been a reduction," Alexander Bordovsky told AFP.
The development comes amid a row between Minsk and Moscow over Russian crude which is pumped through Belarus on its way to customers in the European Union.
About 100 million tonnes of Russian crude pass through pipelines in Belarus each year on the way west to customers in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia, as well as Germany and Poland.
At the beginning of the year, Belarus slapped a transit tax on Russian crude that passes through the country in response to a Russian decision to impose export duties on crude oil that Belarus buys from Russia.
The row over transit fees came just days after Belarus had narrowly averted a cut-off in Russian natural gas supplies by agreeing to a demand by Russian monopoly Gazprom that Minsk pay double last year's price for imported gas.
The Polish economy ministry issued a statement Monday assuring that "Polish refineries have sufficient reserves" to continue functioning normally until crude supplies can be restored via a Baltic Sea terminal.
"Poland also has strategic oil and gasoline stocks for 80 days, which will be used in the event of need," the statement said.
A different section of the Druzhba pipeline near Russia's border with Belarus ruptured in July last year, causing the flow of Russian crude to the Mazeikiu Nafta refinery in Lithuania to be cut off.
That interruption to supplies occurred shortly after Poland's Orlen had signed an agreement to buy the Baltic oil facility from bankrupt Russian oil company Yukos.
Supplies by the pipeline to Mazeikiu have not yet been restored, affecting -- along with other incidents -- the Baltic oil complex's bottom line, which has been forecast to be 20 percent down in 2006 compared with the results the previous year.
Officials in Lithuania have speculated that the halt in supplies to Mazeikiu was politically motivated because Moscow was irked that the Baltic oil group had been sold to a Polish firm, not one of the Russian ones that had bid for it, and that Yukos had skirted the Russian legal system when it sold Mazeikiu.
The Russians, on the other hand, have blamed last year's cut-off on technical problems, with Oleg Mitval of the Russian natural resources ministry saying last July that "hundreds of faults" had been discovered on the ageing pipeline.
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