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20
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Adventures of an American woman in Wroclaw

«I am leaving the airport, looking out of the taxi window, and realising that this new city will change me». Emma Poper - a student from the USA studying journalism. For the upcoming semester, she will be living in Wroclaw, discovering not only a new city but also the culture of the European continent, as well as the traditions and customs of the Polish people

Emma Poper

Wroclaw will be a new page in the life of a student from the USA

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In America, a student's semester abroad is expected to be one of the most life-changing experiences a college student can have. You are told by your Grandparents, Aunts, friends, and even the weird neighbour down the street how meaningful their semester abroad was, or if they didn’t go abroad they will tell you how much they envy your life and the adventures you will go on. Suffice it to say, much anticipation goes into four months in a foreign country.

As I get ready to leave for Poland I can’t help but wonder; am I supposed to come back as a different person after these four months?

I blow kisses toward my parents as I cross the boundary toward security; knowing the next time we talk I’ll be alone in Poland in a brand new dorm room.

I rouse from my forced sleep after twenty-four hours of travel. I opened my eyes and looked out the window to see farmland zoom by us as the plane hit the tarmac. We landed in Wroclaw, Poland. My new home for the next four months.

Through the window of a taxi, I get my first glimpses of my new home. I grew up in a small town in Colorado, the four walls of my home were the mountains that surrounded our quant valley.

As I look out the window I can tell easily that this city was going to be a big change
Wroclaw spires

As I settle into my bed ready to let the exhaustion of travel rock me to sleep, I begin to toss and turn. My windows were open because of the heat. Through the windows, the noise of the city reaches my ears. Cars honk at each other, dogs bark, and I can feel the vibration of the trams as they move back and forth along their rails. At home, I am met with crickets and the occasional car, but here in the centre of this new city, a cacophony of noise reaches my ears as I try to fall asleep.

I wake up to a different world. Everything here seems to be just a little bit upside down and topsy-turvy

There are two duvet blankets on my bed instead of the standard one. Next to my bed, the outlets are completely different, I mean why can’t we just standardize plugs? Everyone has the same type of phone anyway? We standardized watts and electricity. Why can’t we standardize outlets? Walking outside of my dorm building I find a brightly lit neon green sign. What even is a Zabka? Next thing I know they are absolutely everywhere. Every one-hundred feet I find another one of these brightly lit stores.

After getting my Urban Card for transportation I got on my first tram. When I hop on there is no one to check my card. To my absolute surprise, I learned that I probably won’t have my transportation card checked for months. I guess the honour system is in full effect here.

The history of Wroclaw spans over more than 1000 years

I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere with so much history. In the first week of my education in Poland, I learned about medieval kingdoms that divided the land of Poland during the 17th century, and how eighty per cent of the city I live in now was turned to rubble during the end of the Second World War. Wherever I step in this new city I feel like I’m treading on history and walking through ghosts of the past. I don’t feel like the city is haunted, but I feel like the city's bricks reach out to me in an effort to not be forgotten.

Some things do stay the same though. In cities, there is still immense amounts of traffic. Just like in New York City, people keep their heads down as they move through the streets; never stopping to greet someone. The trivial things like bed sheets and outlets feel completely different, but the human experience stays the same.

Getting adjusted to a new city is always a difficult task, however, as I lay in my bed I feel myself being lulled to sleep by the now comforting sounds of the city outside my window
In Wroclaw, the modern is organically combined with the historical

I’m excited to adventure throughout Poland and I am starting to feel open to letting myself have my life changed by this place.

All photos by the author

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An intern student from the United States currently studying in Wrocław. In the USA, she studies broadcast and digital journalism and history at Syracuse University. She aspires to become an international journalist and documentarian. She has worked with the World War II Foundation and is currently an intern at the publication Sestry.eu in Poland.

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girl, city, nostalgia

For the longest time it has been my dream to move to America but after living there for three years, I decided to move back to Poland. Just like my parents, I thought that living in America was going to offer me this big American dream, but that was not the case. I think due to the ways in which America is portrayed, I had this preconceived notion of what my life is going to look like but I was unaware of the jarring realisations that come with moving to the West. 

When I got there I wouldn't say that I missed my old life in Poland. Everything felt new and exciting and I felt like «I made it» but the longer I spent time in the US the more I realised the sad realities of America. Life in the East is highly focused on community: I know my neighbours, I get my fruits and vegetables from a local market stand, my friends buy me beers when I’m out of cash, but my experience in America was the complete opposite of that. Unless you’re in a borough where you grew up or have built a community, all your experiences are transactional. I found myself thinking that I’m forming a relationship with someone to quickly later on finding that they wanted something from me, blurring the line whether friendships can exist outside of work or status.

What was the most difficult for me when I was there was really understanding my identity in the realm of the US

In America, I am perceived as a white girl and my identity as a Polish person is not necessarily considered unless I bring it up in a conversation. This was really difficult for me to understand because I feel like I'm coming from a country that focuses on identity so much. I felt like that was just being stripped away. I couldn't really identify myself with where I lay in the US. Should I be considered an immigrant or should I be considered a Polish American? It was really unclear for me. I was aware of the privileges that I have in America due to being a white woman but I couldn’t identify or relate to the white American women around me.

Photo: Shutterstock

I didn't really feel at home there unless I was in a neighbourhood such as Greenpoint where I was able to socialise with Polish people, and when it came to my university, I only met one other Polish person. It wasn't until I became friends with a Ukrainian guy who came from an immigrant family. He understood exactly what I was talking about. The Americans only perceived him as a white boy and he was unable to identify with white American men either. We would discuss our similarities and differences of being Polish and Ukrainian and the terror that's happening in the world right now that most of our peers in America seemed to ignore. I think that America is so centralised in its country and politics that a lot of issues outside that don’t concern people there just seem to be irrelevant and I think especially when you are an immigrant you can find yourself feeling lost. 

That friend of mine made me realise how much I miss my country and how much I miss my community because he was the closest to what felt like a community to me in America. It's a weird experience to be an Eastern European because, on one hand, most Eastern European countries have been historically oppressed but on the other hand, you do carry the privilege of being a white person and should hold yourself accountable for having that privilege. 

It's just not talked about enough how much history affected Eastern European countries and especially in the West I don't see many people being aware of what happened.

I remember how in one of my classes an American kid didn’t even know about what’s happening in Ukraine. «What war?» they said and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing

I got so angry, how can one not know? Everything there is centralised in their country, excluding anything that doesn’t focus on it or on their ideals of individualism. I couldn't take it anymore - «America this, America that», - no news about another country, while their country is one responsible for most war crimes in the world and is simultaneously one able to stop these wars.

Photo: Shutterstock

In New York, I lived in the Ukrainian neighbourhood of the East Village, hoping it would bring me a sense of peace. Instead, I found it felt rather fabricated. I didn’t hear any Ukrainian on the streets, and most of the neighbourhood seemed to be gentrified by hipster white Americans and students looking for affordable housing. I often found myself wondering what this meant for those who once called the neighbourhood home.

The contrast between the original culture and the modern, more commercialised environment evoked a sense of nostalgia for what was lost, which was only enhanced by what is happening in Ukraine right now

Similarly, I saw the same thing taking place in Greenpoint. What was once known as a thriving Polish neighbourhood was no longer the same. Each month I’d go - another restaurant would get shut down and another person I’d known would move out since they could no longer afford it. What struck me most was the change in the people around me. Many residents who lived there for a long time were being pushed out due to rising rents, and the cultural landscape I had initially felt in a way at home, began to feel more homogenised. Both Ukrainian and Polish communities were pushed out of neighbourhoods they once considered their own, now they move a couple miles further away from Manhattan to another neighbourhood they will call home until it happens again. 

All my time while I was in America I questioned: why not choose the calmer, community life? Why is this the dream? Feeling isolated in the four walls of my New York apartment, waking up every day to the loud noises outside, seeing faces I don’t recognise every day. Why not move back home and have community, support and a sense of safety? I realised that as I was complaining about all of this I only had one option. I packed my things and I left. My dream is not to be surrounded by shiny things and a job that boosts my sense of self. I want to feel like I belong somewhere, a place where neighbours say hi to each other, a place where others take care of each other, a place we can call home.

20
хв

Why I am coming back East

Melania Krych

In late October, nearly all fashionable outlets and media outlets circulated a photo of the famous actress Sarah Jessica Parker. She appeared as the iconic character Carrie Bradshaw from «Sex and the City» - holding in her hands the fresh book «Patriot» - the posthumous memoirs of Alexei Navalny.

Anyone who watched the main hit of the late nineties remembers the on-screen Carrie as a confident character who taught women two things: not to feel ashamed of their love for fine shoes and to carry ultra-thin condoms in their bags. Throughout all six seasons and two full-length films, the New York columnist showed little interest in politics - unless one counts her brief romance with a local politician.

Sarah Jessica Parker's character holding Navalny's memoirs. Photo: zz/XNY/STAR MAX/IPx/Associated Press/East News

Thus, the fact that the latest propagandistic hit of Russian liberals immediately received native advertising in a popular series is somewhat concerning. Why is that? Opening the official book annotation reveals in black and white: Navalny’s «Patriot» contains a manifesto for transforming Russia, which includes «free elections, constitutional assemblies, decentralisation and a European orientation». Allegedly, this was the last entry in the diary of the Russian oppositionist just weeks before his death this winter.

In other words, the bait for American elites is more than clear - to play on sympathy and once again sell the illusion of a wonderful Russia, one that will certainly repent and westernise after Putin’s death

A few weeks have passed since the release of Sarah Jessica Parker’s photo - and the attempt to appeal to Western intellectuals continued. The press has published a rather interesting story about how the so-called Russian opposition purchased a house near the White House. For two million dollars from the pockets of unnamed sponsors, they created this «headquarters of resistance to the Putin regime».

This centre of Russian liberalism will be just two blocks away from Capitol Hill. Three flags will wave on the lawn in front of the building: white-blue-white (used by some Russian opposition figures since the full-scale war in Ukraine began), the EU flag and the NATO flag - according to the initiators - these are «future partners of Russia after the liberation from Putin’s regime». An interesting scene for White House staff, who will commute by bicycle to work each day.

The plan is to hold regular events of the Russian opposition here - seminars, discussions, fundraising events and meetings with American politicians. The first public event - «debates between representatives of the Democrats and Republicans on the topic of the “new administration’s policy on the war in Ukraine”». No mention of troop withdrawal from another country’s territory, reparations or threats to Poland and Lithuania as the next trophies.

Not only are Ukrainian flags near the White House now but also the flags of the Russian opposition. Photo: Nur Photo/East News

Thus, it can be stated clearly that Russia aims to impose its agenda on the United States regarding the war in Ukraine. It seeks to continue doing what it has managed since the collapse of the USSR - selling itself as the main arbiter of peace, security and trade in Eastern Europe.

Once upon a time, it was Americans who saved Russians from starvation - in the harsh nineties, it was containers of poultry, popularly called «Bush legs», that saved Russians from starvation.

Nowadays Russia is well aware that every day of the war in Ukraine makes it increasingly isolated - even if one is not misled by UN Secretary-General António Guterres bowing over a loaf of bread at the BRICS summit. Therefore, Russia will employ all methods - playing on sympathy, notes of nostalgia and creating the illusion that «never again» truly means never again. Simply forget everything, lift the sanctions and immediately join NATO and the EU.

Russia has never spared money on deception and manipulation, on trinkets and awards for Russian opposition figures abroad, who likely have little understanding of the daily life of the average Russian in rural areas

Yet the problem is evident - Russians are buying their own PR in popular series and purchasing properties for future residencies close to the White House - which raises the thought of what Eastern European countries, often torn apart by Moscow, might offer as an antidote. Perhaps a shack of our own, a block away from Capitol Hill, could host discussions with Polish and Ukrainian intellectuals who live in their homeland, rather than sitting on grants as political exiles.

Clearly, this is a new challenge for Poland and Ukraine, against which the idea of an improved Russia, following the replacement of the current dictator with someone more charming and bearded, will be marketed. The aim of this initiative is simple - to make Western leaders forget about shifting focus to Poland and Ukraine as key pillars of Eastern Europe, and to once again attempt to mould a maniac into an angelic figure with rosy cheeks.

Only childhood photos of Hitler, Stalin and Putin show that all of them were once adorable infants. But this did not prevent them from killing millions and tearing down borders

Project co-financed by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation within the framework of the «Support Ukraine» programme, implemented by the Education for Democracy Foundation.

20
хв

How the Kremlin sells the illusion of an improved Russia without Putin through Carrie Bradshaw

Maryna Danyliuk-Yarmolayeva

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