In my new apartment, there’s a pocket Lonely Planet guide to Kraków. One of the less obvious suggestions is a visit to Nowa Huta, a “workers’ paradise”. It’s a suburb of Kraków, about 45 minutes from the centre by bus or tram.
The guide says that Stalin, as a “special gift”, had the suburb built. I was curious about the “1950s socialist-realist architecture”.
The central square, once named after Stalin, was renamed in honour of the former US president, Ronald Reagan. Close to the square is the cultural centre, whose interior was more interesting than the outside suggested.
I continued following the guidebook’s route. The Nowa Huta Underground is one of the few nuclear shelters that you can visit in the area. These extensive shelters were built in the 1950s and 60s. Entrance is via an engineering college. The shelter’s entrance takes some finding.
On Google Maps, I saw, just before I went in, that people were disappointed with the shelter. There are just four rooms and some said the hour trip was not worthwhile. I paid my 22zl (about £4/€4) and looked around. It was Spartan. I hope that the disappointed visitors went to the other places in Nowa Huta, which are worth seeing.
The Theatre for the People, Teatr Ludowy, has a “startling socialist-realist exterior”. It looked closed but the box office person told me to go around the side and enter the building via the cafe. The theatre itself was locked but you could see some of the building interior.
I then went to the plush cafe and had freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.
My final stop was Arka Pana, the “Church for the Workers”. On the way, I saw another church and passed through an outdoor market.
The Church for the Workers was built after protests from workers. This Brutalist style church is an incredible building. The concrete ark houses stunning stained glass windows.
The church was built in 1977, when Poland was still a communist country. The godlessness of communism was complicated.
Karl Marx said:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Often only the last sentence is quoted, usually implying that religion is bad because it fools people. Marx’s point, however, was more subtle. Religion does comfort people who are suffering but that comfort can stop them from changing the social conditions causing the suffering. Opium (a painkiller), in this context, meant something that brought relief from pain, provided an emotional escape, and numbed suffering. Ultimately, Marx wanted people to change their economic systems so that their material conditions would improve and the need for religion (as a painkiller) would disappear.
As it happens, communism turned out not to be the answer in Eastern Europe. It failed in many ways, such as not being able to provide material necessities for people.
Given the state of things in many European and other countries, it’s debatable whether the current system is the answer. This may explain the rise of populism, which is the tacit recognition that major parties in many countries are no longer improving the lives of most people.