Selected Archive News Stories of 2007 from
Krakow Info
Year 2007
New Year, As Usual
The usual number of some 120,000 people turned out for
Krakow’s traditional New Year’s Eve’s open-air party
on the
city’s central Rynek Glowny square. While
rejoicing they could watch free
concert
featuring Poland’s pop stars of three generations
followed by a firework display.
2007 Voted Officially the Year of Krakow
Poland’s senate has voted 2007 to be The Year of
Krakow nation-wide to celebrate the 750th
anniversary of the city’s sweeping self-government
it enjoyed in the Middle Ages. Krakow is the
country’s first city ever honored this way.
Lajkonik, the One and Only From Now
Visitors to Krakow can no longer take home a picture
with themselves next to the city’s iconic lajkonik
horseman. The
municipality
has refused the resourceful impersonator of the
legendary Tartar a permit to earn his living for
another year through posing for tourist cameras on
the
Rynek Glowny
central square. This way the city hall
wants to protect the integrity of the
traditional lajkonik figure that every
year leads a historical pageant through Krakow’s
streets on the first Thursday after the feast of
Corpus Christi.
Fountains of Light and Harmony
Krakow’s municipality has decided that
the city’s fountains in the
Old Town historic district and elsewhere
are to spout light and music on winter nights rather
than stand idle in freezing
temperatures. Shining strings are
supposed to mimic jets of water spurting from each
fountain in warmer seasons. Accompanying classical
music, and possibly jazz as well, will change every
month or so. The first fountain of light, in a
Planty garden near the
barbican, delivers Tchaikovsky’s
compositions every night to be replaced by Chopin’s
pieces by the end of December. Cost to Krakow’s
taxpayers is an equivalent of about 54,000 euro.
Visitors To Stay Warm This Winter, Courtesy of City
Hall
Krakow’s
city government, already famed in Poland
for its compassion for the homeless, has announced a
new service to help them weather the winter. Besides
thousands of free meals every day, accommodation for
hundreds at night shelters, a number of bath houses,
health care, and thousands of benefits in cash – all
at the cost of zlotys 4.5 million a year – the
municipality has resolved to kindle ten fire-baskets
in Krakow streets whenever the temperature drops
below minus twenty Celsius. City hall reckons that
about 2,000 homeless spends the winter in Krakow, in
that number seasonal migrants from the country’s
other, less hospitable cities.
Krakow’s Opera House–Somewhat Later and Much
Costlier
Completion of a brand-new, state-of-the-art
opera
building for Krakow at Lubicz street is delayed by at
least six months with new deadline set for the end
of 2007. At the same time its cost has shot up to
some 80 million zlotys (an equivalent of roughly
twenty million euro) from the original 54 million,
the difference to be covered by the government of
the
Malopolska province whose capital city is
Krakow. Till now the
Teatr Slowackiego theater at Pl. Sw.
Ducha square has doubled as opera venue.
Property Tax in 2007 Is Up, Barely
Krakow’s
City Council has left the yearly
municipal property
tax
on
residential estates unchanged while
commercial floor space is to be taxed slightly
higher in 2007. Basic rate for
commercial property has been raised by
0.16 zloty,
to 18.25 zlotys per square meter. As before
superstores
of 2,000-plus sq. m will be taxed a bit more in 2007,
at 18.6 zlotys per square meter, a rise of 0.17
zloty. At the same time such businesses as bakeries,
bakeshops, and slaughterhouses are to pay just 9.3
zlotys per square meter, an increase of 0.08 zlotys.
Owners of flats or dwelling houses pay as little
property tax as 0.54 zloty for a square meter of the
living quarters. The Krakow municipality forecasts
its revenue from the property tax to total about 283
million zlotys, i.e. euro 72.5 million or so.
Eight Million Visited Krakow in 2006
Last year 10.9 million tourists visited the
Malopolska province
and its many
holiday destinations, 1.3 million more
than in 2005. In that number about eight million
arrived to Krakow, the province’s capital and
Poland’s southern metropolis. Foreigners accounted
for roughly three million of the visitors to
Malopolska. Germans and Britons made up respectively
17 percent and 16 percent of them with Americans
distant third with 9 percent. On average a visiting
foreigner spent en equivalent of some 170 euro,
compared to a hundred euro for a Pole. The aggregate
windfall for the province amounted to an equivalent
of euro 1.08 billion, of which Krakow earned some
890 million.
Auschwitz Attracted A Million in 2006
Last year the record number of nearly one million
visitors toured the sites of the former Nazi most
notorious
Auschwitz-Birkenau complex of concentration camps
in the city of Oswiecim, seventy kilometers west of
Krakow. The infernal prison, where in the years 1941
to 1945 about a million inmates perished, has been
turned into a museum after World War II. The
museum’s staff attribute the increase to the overall
surge in tourism to Poland in 2006 rather than a
greater awareness of the holocaust.
Never Get Lost in Malopolska
Super-precise
positioning system is being launched in the
Malopolska province whose capital city is
Krakow. The system, based on radio signals from five
purpose-built stations in the main cities of the
province, may locate an object with the accuracy of
two centimeters, compared with three meters in case
of the widely uses Global Positioning System (GPS).
At the cost of about 415,000 euro, three quarters of
it refunded by the EU, the Malopolska provincial
government hopes the new positioning system will be
instrumental in tracing ambulances, land surveying,
construction of roads and bridges, mapping of
archeological finds, etc. The system will be also
available free of charge to any owner of a GPS
device via the access code posted on the webesite
www.gps.malopolska.pl
Krakow Airport’s New Terminal
Krakow’s
Balice airport has got its second
passenger terminal. The brand-new, 1,800-sq-meter
building has capacity of 600,000 passengers a year
and serves all domestic
flights. It’s situated next to the
airport’s cargo facilities, some 600 m south of the
main passenger terminal that handles over two
million fliers yearly.
Krakow, the Frontiers of Silicon Valley
Google Inc. has announced it opens in
Krakow
one of its ten research centers in Europe and the
company’s first such high-tech outpost in this part
of the continent. It will be staffed by just 20 to
30 employers but the American giant wants to attract
Poland’s top computer scientists. Krakow can already
boast R&D centers of Motorola and IBM.
Tourist Mecca for Trendsetters Is Here
Orbitz, the USA’s online
tourism
giant, has declared
Krakow
one of the world’s seven hottest destinations in 2007
alongside Spain’s Valencia, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh
City (a.k.a. Saigon), and four American
getaway
spots. Krakow is next Prague–reads the argument.
Orbitz highlights Krakow’s well-kept historical
landmarks,
cultural
prominence, energetic
nightlife, and long
carnival, which make the city a good
choice for a jaunt in January or February.
Airport Numbers Fly High
In 2006
Krakow’s John Paul II International Airport in
Balice, some 15 km from the city center,
served the record number of passengers in its entire
history. Last year the Balice airport either
received or dispatched the total of 2,367,527
fliers, compared with just over 1.5 million in 2005
and mere 840,000 in 2004. This year an estimated
three-million-plus passengers should use the Krakow
airport.
1.6-Billion Wish List
Krakow’s
City Council has voted in a ten-year
investment plan comprising 66 major municipal
development projects to be completed till the end of
2016. Their aggregate cost totals 1.5 billion
Polish zlotys, an equivalent of about 385
million euro. The plan includes all overdue projects
from an indoor
sports
arena to a
convention
center to a fast commuter train line.
Papal Autos On Sale for a Good Cause, Soon
Pope Benedict XVI has given Krakow’s Cardinal
Stanislaw Dziwisz five cars and two electric carts
that once used to ferry his predecessor
John Paul II. The two BMWs, Lancia,
Toyota, Chrysler, and two other vehicles arrived to
Krakow in mid-December. Four cars and one cart are
to be auctioned off this spring to help finance the
construction of a religious center commemorating the
late Pontiff. The vehicles are in perfect
condition.
Krakow’s Beloved Museum Is Moved for a Time
By the end of
August, 2006 the Krakow National Museum’s popular
Gallery of the 19th-century Polish Art
in the
Cloth Hall has closed for renovation
with most of its exhibits moved to Niepolomice’s
castle for the next two years. The exhibition of the
gallery’s 400 paintings and 50 sculptures in
Niepolomice, a town on the eastern outskirts of
Krakow, has opened this year in February. The
museum’s two best know giant paintings, Jan
Matejko’s ‘The Prussian Homage’ and Henryk
Siemiradzki’s ‘Nero’s Torches’, are left
behind in the Cloth Hall out of sight while four
others have been transferred temporarily to The
Krakow National Museum's main hall at 3 Maja street.
The Niepolomice castle was one of Poland’s royal
residences and its present Renaissance architecture
dates back to the 16th century.
A Krakow Priest Shakes the Polish Church
Krakow’s priest’s new book has galvanized Poland’s
public opinion and rocked the country’s Catholic
Church. Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski was
persecuted by the secret police under communism in
the 1980s, now he wrote about the Krakow priests who
were turned into informers of the infamous SB
security service. Among others the book, based on
the agency’s documents, exposes some of today’s
Polish prelates and it has become instant
bestseller. Till recently Father Isakowicz-Zaelski
was mostly known for his charity works for the
disabled.
Pope in His Mind
The memoirs by Krakow’s Archbishop, Cardinal Stanislaw
Dziwisz, recently published concurrently in
Poland
and Italy have proved a bestseller in both countries.
And no wonder as the book evokes the prelate’s
49-year association with
Pope John Paul II, first as a chaplain
and then the late Pontiff’s private secretary for 27
years. Tellingly, the title of the Polish edition
translates as ‘Testimony’ while the Italian
publishers opted for overly familiar ‘Life with
Karol’ (the name the future Pope had been given
at baptism).
Krakow Mourns John Paul II on the 2nd Anniversary.
On the second anniversary of the death of
Pope John Paul II, the 2nd of April,
Krakow commemorates its greatest son to date with
religious services as well as an open-air concert on
the
central Rynek Glowny square and other
cultural events. Three special High Masses will be
said in the Ecce Homo sanctuary, the
Sanctuary of Divine Mercy, and in the
church of SS Peter and Paul. A prayer vigil will be
held in the front of Krakow’s Archbishop Palace from
9:30 p.m. Earlier, at 7 p.m., an open-air concert
features the “Tu es Petrus” oratory on the Old
Town’s huge central square.
More Money for Krakow Landmarks
This year Poland’s government, namely the republic’s
president, has pledged record funds for the
restoration of Krakow
historic buildings – Polish zlotys 45.5
million (an equivalent of roughly 11.7 million euro)
compared to 37 million zlotys in 2006. The money
will be disbursed for 121 renovation projects. The
biggest grants are to go to the
Wawel Royal Castle (2.9 million), the
Wawel Cathedral (2.15 million), the
Krzysztofory Palace at 35
Rynek Glowny central square (two
millions), and the
TyniecAbbey
(1.9 million).
Little Square in a Big Way
Krakow’s Maly Rynek (the name translates as ‘Little
Square’), the Old Town’s picturesque piazza just a
block east of the city’s huge
central
Rynek Glowny plaza, has been fenced off as
it undergoes renovation. The thorough refurbishment
of the former medieval meat market is to be
completed, fingers crossed, by June 2007 for the
celebration of the 750th anniversary of Krakow’s
self-government. After the facelift the
square will be rid of parking cars for
good.
Museum Recess
Krakow
National Museum is closing for
Easter. All its branches will stay closed
on Holy Saturday, Easter Saturday and Monday, April
7-9. Later on, from Tuesday, April 10 till the end
of the month three departments of
The Czartoryskis Museum at 19 Sw. Jana
street will stay shut – i.e. Gallery of Antique Art,
European Handcraft, and Armory (the price of tickets
will be reduced).
Five Presidents to Talk Oil in the Wawel Castle
Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski hosts a two-day
“energy summit” in Krakow on May 11-12. He has
invited presidents of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
Lithuania, and Kazakhstan to the
Wawel Royal Castle to discuss the
transfer of the Caspian oil through their
territories. Kazakhstan's president Nazarbayev opted
to meet with Russia's Putin instead, sending to
Krakow one of his ministers.
Krakow’s Summit Explores the Caspian Oil
Presidents of Poland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
and Lithuania plus their entourages wreaked havoc on
Krakow’s streets as they descended on the city May
11-12 to talk the transfer of the Caspian oil via
their countries to the European Union. The encounter
also produced a joint declaration supporting the
scheme and promising creation of an
inter-governmental task force to further it and a
multinational company to carry on and cash in. A
follow-up summit is to take place in Lithuania’s
capital Vilnius in October 2007 possibly with the
addition of the president of Kazakhstan.
Krakow Film Festival: Short Is Beautiful
This year’s
47th Krakow Film Festival, May 31 to June 5, will
screen 46
movies – twenty documentaries, seventeen
feature films, and nine animations. They have come
from twenty countries, including nine British
productions, five from France, and five from Russia.
They have been selected from 2260 entries. Ever
since its birth 46 years ago the Krakow Film
Festival has been confined to short films, i.e.
currently those lasting fifty minutes or less. The
main festival venue is the Kijow playhouse at 34
Krasinskiego street.
Not So Monumental
Krakow’s city hall has foiled the erection of a
monument to Prince Boleslaw the Shy, Poland’s ruler
who granted Krakow self-government in 1257. Two
consecutive designing competitions enticed a fair
number of entries but have failed to produce a
convincing sculpture. Thus once grandiose
program for the June celebration of the 750th
anniversary has been still further
reduced.
President Not Coming, Needs a Rest
Poland’s president Lech Kaczynski has eventually opted
out of Krakow’s much trumpeted
750th anniversary of the city charter.
Official reason: he needs rest before a getaway with
the American president George W. Bush in a resort on
the Polish coast of the Baltic See. Yet the
presidential absence is widely seen as a deliberate
snub to Krakow’s leftist mayor and its centrist City
Council from the right-wing Mr. Kaczynski.
New Tunnel for Motorists
230-meter-long, two-lane motorway tunnel under
Krakow’s central
train
station and
Galeria Krakowska giant shopping mall
should ease congestion in the city center, at least
somewhat. It opened on May 15 and cost some four
million euro to build. The long overdue tunnel was
originally conceived in 1975 as part of a
thorough-going overhaul, now almost accomplished at
last, of the so called Krakow Transportation Center
(Krakowskie Centrum Komunikacyjne) consisting of the
main rail station, the adjacent central bus depot,
and new arteries in the area.
Awards of the 47th Krakow Film Festival
United
Kingdom’s filmmaker Daniel Mulloy scooped the Grand
Prix of the 47th Krakow Film Festival while The
Netherlands’ director Jeroen Berkvens was awarded
with the Grand Prix in the category of full-length
documentaries and Poland’s 22-old-student Rafal
Skalski won its Polish leg. Since its conception in
1961 the yearly festival has been devoted to short
films, and documentaries in the first
place. This year it attracted 2260 entries from all
over the world.
Political Scandal Rocks the City
Krakow has been rocked by news about the attempted
suicide of the mayor’s acolyte and former campaign
chief charged with being an accessory to the
financial irregularities concerning zlotys 142,000
(about 37,000 euro) of campaign funds in 2002. Mr
Andrzej Kulig, once the mayor of Krakow’s chief of
staff and since 2005 the CEO of the
University Hospital, is one of five
persons accused in the case. Mayor Jacek Majchrowski
dismisses the charges as a smear campaign by his
political opponents.
Rock Climbing Galore
Poland’s biggest open-air rock-climbing center has
opened on the premises of Krakow’s KS Hutnik
sports club at 4 Ptaszyckiego street in
the Nowa Huta district. As many as 64 climbers may
scale at the same time three artificial crags 8 to
12 meters tall and eight 3.5-meter-high boulders
totaling 500 square meters of climbing facilities.
Admission costs an equivalent of three euro or so
per person per day and the center is open till 10
p.m.
New English Weekly in Krakow
Foreign publishing partnership of Marshall Cominsz and
Nicolaas Hoff, residents of the USA and the
Netherlands respectively, has launched Krakow’s
local weekly in English. ‘The Krakow Post’, a
newspaper modeled on ‘The Warsaw Voice’ published in
Poland’s capital city, deals with local issues as
well as nationwide news stories. The publishers
foresee the circulation of 10,000 copies to be
distributed free of charge.
Walk the Walls
After half a century sightseers are allowed again to
climb the remnants of
Krakow’s medieval city walls next to the
giant
barbican
and walk their parapet walk. The 180-meter tour starts
in the Baszta Pasamonikow tower at the eastern end
of Pijarska street at Szpitalna street. It includes
the upstairs chapel in the 13th-century Brama
Florianska gate tower, the Brama Stolarska tower to
the west, and the barbican. They are accessible
every day between 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. A ticket
costs six zlotys, an equivalent of about 1.5 euro.
Iconic Landmark of Today
Krakow’s historic
Old Town central district has got a
distinctive modern structure in its heart. The
brand-new ‘Wyspianski 2000’ brick building at the
corner of Plac Wszystkich Swietych square and
Grodzka street adjoins the
City Hall and has been meant as a
municipal information center. Yet that brainchild of
Poland’s world-famous film director Andrzej Wajda
was conceived in the first place as a frame to hold
the stunning
stained-glass windows that Stanislaw
Wyspianski, Krakow’s greatest artist of the late
19th century, designed originally for the
Wawel Cathedral in 1902. The sleek
edifice designed by Krakow’s architect Krzysztof
Ingarden cost euro 2.8 million to build.
Stag Night
Krakow Fever: Behave or Beware
Police has declared a policy of zero tolerance in
Krakow for misdemeanors of foreign visitors and
promised to prosecute all transgressions, including
littering, breach of the peace, and indecent
behavior. Policemen, together with border guards and
the municipal police, are to patrol intensively
the city’s downtown as well as the
central
train station and its vicinity on Fridays
and Saturdays till the end of September, popular
nightspots
to be watched most closely. It’s the response of the
law enforcers to the complaints of
residents, increasingly vocal in recent
months, about unruly foreigners, notably young
Britons who have taken a liking for stag parties and
other
drinking
binges in Krakow.
New Address of Municipal Offices for Entrepreneurs
Effective July 9,
Krakow’s municipality has moved its
private enterprises department from the notoriously
overcrowded front office at Powstania Warszawskie
street to a nondescript office building at 28a
Wielicka street, newly refurbished at a cost of euro
two million. Clerks and their
business
customers have been allotted an entire story. The
remaining five floors are meant for personnel
catering to those Krakow citizens who live in the
Podgorze district.
Krakow’s Tennis Player Wins Wimbledon
17-year-old native of Krakow, Urszula Radwanska, won
this year’s girls competition of the Wimbledon
tennis
tournament. On the same day, teamed with Russia’s
rising tennis star Anastasia Pavluchenkova, she also
won the girl doubles championship. Earlier Miss
Radwanska had defeated Pavluchenkova in the single’s
quarterfinal.
Krakow Teen Beats Sharapova
The city is agog with the news of Krakow’s teenage
tennis
player Agnieszka Radwanska’s surprise win over the
defending champion Maria Sharapova in the third
round of the US Open. The 18-year-old Radwanska,
seeded No. 30, beat the world No. 2 in three sets
6–4, 1–6, 6–0 at Arthur Ashe Stadium on September 1.
Her defeat of the Russian tennis superstar has
elevated Ms Radwanska to the status of a local hero
on a par with Krakow’s Formula 1 driver Robert
Kubica.
Family Matters
Surprise decision of Krakow’s quintessential
politician to quit politics has electrified the
city. Jan Rokita MP, one of the leaders of the Civic
Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) party, announced
his retirement in the wake of his wife’s appointment
as adviser to President Lech Kaczynski associated
with the rival PiS party led by twin brother
Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Mr. Rokita, 48, former cabinet
minister and a candidate for office of the country’s
premier, has been Member of Parliament for Krakow
since 1989 and one of Poland’s most recognizable
political figures of the last decade.
Election Ups and Downs
Krakow has voted overwhelmingly for the main
opposition party, Civic Platform (Platforma
Obywatelska, PO) in the recent snap parliamentary
elections on October 21. The centrist party has won
47.4 percent votes at the ballot in the city,
compared to 41.4 percent it has secured nationwide.
Its main opponents, the governing rightist Law and
Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, PiS), have got 34.4
percent of the Krakow votes and 32.2 nationally. Two
other parties that have scaled the five-percent
threshold to win seats in Poland’s house of
representatives, Sejm, the leftist Left and
Democrats (Lewica i Demokraci, LiD) and the peasant
Polish Popular Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe,
PSL) have obtained 9.7 percent and 4.2 percent
respectively in Krakow against 13.2 percent and 8.9
percent countrywide. At the same time, in Krakow
61.4 percent of eligible voters bothered to cast the
ballots while the nationwide turnout proved record
high at 54 percent.
Museum of Medieval Art, Reactivation
Long overdue, Krakow’s renowned
museum of medieval and baroque
art reopens on October 19. The branch of
the Krakow National Museum, it has been moved to the
thoroughly renovated Palace of Bishop Erasmus Ciolek
(Palac Biskupa Erazma Ciolka) of the early 16th
century, 17
Kanonicza street, at the foot of the
Wawel Royal Castle. The ground floor of
the Renaissance lavish residence has been turned to
a gallery of the Orthodox church art from the 15th
century to the 20th century. Upstairs the museum
exhibits the Polish medieval church art of the 15th
and 16th centuries, a collection of portraits of the
nobility from the 16th to the 18th century, and the
ancient village art.
Krakow Airport Is Schengen-Ready
A separate departure area for ‘Schengen’ passengers
has been added to the international terminal of the
Krakow airport in Balice. The
3,000-sq-meter extension contains 15 new check-in
desks and five new points for security checks. It
has increased the Balice airport capacity to 3.5
million passengers a year and enabled a more secure
five-stage processing of luggage now in place. The
new facilities allow to separate ‘Schengen flights’
– i.e. to most of the continental European Union –
from the non-Schengen ones. It makes the Krakow
airport ready for Poland’s inclusion in the ‘Schengen
area’ of abolished border controls on December 20.
Even so, as regards air travel, the introduction of
new rules will be postponed till March 2008.
Museums for Free
The city’s 21
museums plus the
Botanic
Garden may be visited free of charge on
Sunday, November 25, declared the Krakow Museums
Open-door Day. Last year 27,500 visitors took
advantage of complimentary admission on similar
occasion
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