2023 Overseas Travel Blog

#4 Mstow

What better reason to go half-way round the world than to meet a good old friend and help him renovate his first home? I met David more than 10 years ago through our mutual interest in sustainability. He was heading up the new Aussie chapter of The Zeitgeist Movement. David had emigrated from Poland in his late teens. The on-going housing crisis in Australia eventually made returning to Poland a more than viable option, as well as personal, family reasons. We’ve been fast friends since, despite – or even because of – differences of opinion.

David bought a house near his birthplace of Czestochowa in a small town called Mstow (/m’stov/) where his father lives. The municipal building is where the local town mayor works. Poland has 5 tiers of government! Township, local, provincial, national and the EU. Australia had Shed a Tier movement that sought to amalgamate state and local governments into regional administrations. The claim was that we have more politicians per person than most countries.

I savored the opportunity to get acquainted with Poland beyond the cities. I wasn’t disappointed; people there spoke hardly any English, so a little shopping trip was a short adventure into Polski immersion. Everywhere you go in Poland there are people whose long, hard lives are etched in their faces.

Mstow is older than Czestochowa and has an impressive cathedral, but other than that it is comparatively very modest.

David is extremely versatile; teaching English, doing IT and heavy-duty renovations. His house was built in the early 1800s out of limestone – a common material in the area. The walls are between 1 and 1.5 meters thick! It cost him much less than AU$100K and it’s on a long block of land, walking distance from town.

DIY is very common in Poland, and although there are fewer regulations, there are some requirements such as this sign out the front of an apartment block in Krakow that was being renovated which says what changes are being made, inside and out and what materials are being used, etc..

In Poland 80% of people live outside the cities in communist style apartment blocks – which aren’t as bad as you might imagine (see Czech Adam Something video). However, there was so little garden space, that people complained about not being able to grow their own vegetables, so they were given little blocks of land or yard space that they could also put a kind of tiny house on. There is a high level of home (flat) ownership – 70-80%. However, I saw many sizeable blocks of land between Mstow and Czestochowa with comfortable 2-story homes – affordable only for the relatively wealthy. Renting rooms is only for students in cities, although there are AirBnBs. Two incomes can readily afford a flat.

Trust an Aussie to notice uncut grass. Everywhere I went in Poland the lawn was unmown – even in prestigious city parks. It’s probably cultural – David hadn’t noticed it, but as the climate warms up, it’s only going to become more evident.

And I’d forgotten the snails I’d grown up with in Melbourne… and that they’re cold climate creatures. None in Brisbane!

It’s interesting the good infrastructure ideas that just pop out of the blue … these porous canals in Mstow absorb water and reduce flooding more than solid concrete ones. I sometime wonder whether people in our local government get out and travel at all – not much, from what the one’s I’ve gotten to know.

Stay tuned for the next post.