posted
I was bored... And besides, I more or less know what an average American city/town looks like. So I thought it would be cool to give you the opportunity to have a look at an average Polish town.
I live in Tychy, a town of 130 000 people, with 29 elementary schools, 10 high schools, 1 cinema, 1 theater, a swimming pool and a skating rink. The first mention of the Tychy village appeared in the documents from 1467 AD. In 1629 a brewery was build, and it still exists here today. In 1950 the government decided to develop the town to create housing for people working in the nearby city of Katowice. Soon, though, it started developing its own industry and became an independent town.
This is the older part of the town. This church, erected in 1782, is one of the oldest buildings. Another historical place would be this palace, build in 1760-66, situated nearby the Paprocany lake. The modern part (built in the 1970s/80s) is pretty grim, due to the architectural fashion of the time, promoting "The Modern." There are some interesting buildings, however, such as the town hall or thisblock of flats. And even the most gloomy place can look beautiful at times. A lot has been built since 1990, and there has been an attempt to make the grey cubes look more colorful and cheerful. Btw, this is the area where I live, and you can see a part of my block here. The big reddish/brownish building is the elementary school. Far behind is the local catholic church, which you can see here. It looks pretty cool inside, too.
The funny thing about the town is that it has no real town centre. Some claim it's the market square at the old church, some - that it's this street with the hotel, or the one with the cinema, and some that it's around the town hall. But the truth is - it just has none.
Well, that's my town. I hope you've enjoyed the tour.
posted
Nice work with the camera! I admit I used to think of Poland as cold and gray everywhere, but that was old cold war prejudice. All I ever saw were the depressing shots of pain and hunger that our media loved to serve up. But you found lots of joy and color with your lens.
The zupes (apartment building complexes) can get depressing--I spent lots of time in and around them as a missionary in France. Every town had them. The ones in Tychy look exactly the same as everywhere else. But every town I visited in France and Belgium had layers and layers of beauty and character, too. You're showing that's true in Poland as well.
I wish I could say I took the pics myself, but I just found them on the town hall site. Er, I hope I'm not doing anything illegal by sharing them? And the pics of the colourful blocks were taken by a friend. Kind of. The "tiny cars" are Fiats and they were produced in my town. But they don't do them anymore. I used to have one of these but they're so darn small and uncomfortable so I just bought a bigger one.
posted
Say, that church looked really neat. I hate modern boring churches. I didn't see any kneelers. It looked like there used to be some. People don't kneel on the floor do they?
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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Yozhik: that's one of the railway stations (or used to be, cause I don't think trains stop there anymore). The sign says Tychy town. (miasto = town)
Theca: at the time the pic was taken there were no kneelers. They were added recently. However, since most people in Poland are catholics, and many of them do go to church every Sunday, only about a third of the people get to sit down. The rest has got to stand during the mass and kneel on the floor. Also, (cause you can't really see it in the pic) - the benches are all around the altar (there are some behind it, too) And the altar itself is situated a bit higher than the rest of the church, and symbolises the Synai mountain.
I wonder if 400 years from now, our ancesters will look back and say, 'Gosh, that mini-mall's archirtecture is breathtaking. It's so. . . soulful. Sublime. Where are all the masters, these days?'
posted
Sorry for a delay. But thanks to it what a nice bump!
No, I'm not watching "Wiedzmin". I mean I'm always going to but I'm always hindered by something. My friends say it's far better than the cinema version. They say they give the series "conditional approval". After the trauma of cinema version no one dares to hope it'll be good to the end. Zebrowski, of course, rocks!
posted
I haven't looked at the pictures yet (it's slow downloading from poland to the US right now), I was surprised by the number of high schools in your town.
I think my hometown (Newport News, VA) is 200,000 or so, and only has 5 high schools (3 public schools, two private).
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I think the difference is in the school system. A regular high school lasts for 3 years and finishes with a maturity exam. We have 5 regular high schools in town (by regular I mean ones that give general education) and 5 technical ones (with different profiles). The technical schools last a year longer(if you want to graduate with a maturity exam, which you need if you want to go to university). You can also choose to learn for only 2 years in the technical school, and only get a profession.
I hope what I wrote is clear enough.
Also, maybe it's the number of students? How big is an average high school?
posted
Huh. I discovered we actually have five public high schools, one of which I really have never heard of (and the other I simply forgot about). There are 9,000 in the public schools (2,250 in each grade so average of 450 in each school), and probably about 500 in the two private ones.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I don't think they care about marks too much, as they can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and I think we all know what that is.
Posts: 1744 | Registered: Jul 2001
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