Bialystok

Tuesday 23rd September 

Bialystok is both bigger and better than I had expected. It has a population of nearly 300 000 and a history going back over 500 years. The first  church and castle were built in the 1600's, in the 18th century the palace of the Branicki family, the local aristocrats, was known as the "Versailles de la Pologne" and it became a cosmopolitan, industrial city in the 19th century. According to Wikipedia

"At the end of the nineteenth century, the majority of the city's population was Jewish. According to Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 66,000, Jews constituted 41,900 (so around 63% percent)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bialystok

It was a major centre for the textile industry and the local tourism authority has three tourist trails, one of which links the industrial buildings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Temple trail links places of worship and the  Branicki trail follows the links to the  Branicki  family, building their huge palace near the city centre. The city was devastated by the second world war when it was invaded first by the Soviet Union, which incorporated into the  Byelorussian SSR, and  whose forces demolished the town hall in order to put up a statue of Stalin. Then by Nazi Germany which led to the  annihilation of the Jewish population and finally by the Soviet Union again. Bialystok is the first city I have encountered in my trip where there seems to be a real sense of loss for the cosmopolitan society that existed before the wars of the 20th century, at least by the people who write the tourist information. It was out of this cosmopolitan, multilingual, multicultural society that Ludwik Zamenhof decided to create the Esperanto language. In a letter explaining the reasons for creating an artificial language he wrote:

"The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews and so on. This was always a great torment to my infant mind, although many people may smile at such an 'anguish for the world' in a child. Since at that time I thought that 'grown-ups' were omnipotent, so I often said to myself that when I grew up I would certainly destroy this evil."

—L. L. Zamenhof, in a letter to Nikolai Borovko, ca. 1895

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

Clearly, 19th century  "cosmopolitan" Bialystok was not the happy place I  had wanted to imagine. There is a very poignant black and white film showing aspects of Jewish life in the city in 1939. There are two versions with different sound tracks.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VP9a7yBnvc

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2rq1s_jewish-life-in-bialystok-1939_news

Apart from the little tourist information boards, modern Bialystok gives no clue to its tumultuous and tragic past. The rebuilt town hall looks pretty with fountains and flowers in concrete planters,  and houses a very pleasant restaurant "Esperanto". The main square and street are lined with open air cafes, the churches look magnificent, and the Branicki Palace probably looks better than it ever did; it now houses the University of Medicine.

Branicki Palace 

 

Main Square and Town Hall

Old Lady Drawing Water from the Town Pump

Fountain and Town Hall

Bialystok Nightlife?

By the time I started thinking seriously about dinner, most of the  open air cafes had closed or were empty so I ended up in a small place that still had some patrons and ordered the pizza largely because it was one of the few things I recognised on the menu.Plus a local beer. 

Tyskie Beer

Back at the hotel checked on train times to Warsaw for tomorrow. I had planned to get one that left about midday and the DB website showed a direct train, non-stop that initially looked fine but on closer inspection under "Platform" it showed "Bus". So decided to go for a later "train" that had a real platform number, 1st and 2nd class, could carry bicycles  and had a buffet car.

24 September

Went down to the railway station to buy my ticket for the train to Warsaw. For some strange reason  the station building is on the opposite side of the tracks from the main part of the city.   Back in the main square, my plan was to have breakfast in one of the pavement cafes but none of them seemed to be open. Had a wander round a bit more of the town and was intrigued to see a ballet of police cars manoeuvring round the main square in front of the town hall. Obviously a good day for criminals since it looked like most  of the police force was there, about 15 new police cars each with two police men or women and some senior looking officers directing the ballet. While they were performing  I looked at a photo exhibition in the square and then at a series of exhibition boards relating to Bialystok during its occupation by the Soviet Union and Germany during World War 2. Thinking that the theme would be continued in the museum that now occupies most of the town hall, I went in, paid 5 Zlotys and found that it housed an exhibition of Polish paintings, mostly portraits, from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.    By the time I came out the police cars were arranged neatly in semicircle and more VIPs were turning up together with the media. Finally the priests arrived. After several speeches, I was amazed to see two priests going to each police car in turn and blessing it with holy water. A scene that seems, to me at least, totally incongruous in a modern, democratic European country.     

The Police

The Priests

Blessing the Cars with Holy Water

The pavement cafes still appeared to be deserted at lunchtime so I had lunch in the Esperanto restaurant situated on the opposite side of the town hall from the police cars.