Letter from Poland.

 

The place where time stood still...
28.03.2007
The legendary Warsaw bar and café ‘Poziomka’ (‘Wild strawberry’) is being shut down.
By Anna Piwowarska
On the corner of Krakowskie Przedmieście and Miodowa, right next to the Old Town in Warsaw is a café where time seems to have stood still. The gloomy, smoky interior remains dark even on the sunniest of days. Outside, on the Castle Square, hoards of tourists pass by, as does a constant flow of traffic, yet somehow inside ‘Poziomka’ it remains quiet.
On each table there are sad plastic flowers with dewdrops on them that look like they have been there since the eighties, and the menu doesn’t seem to have changed much since then either. This doesn’t matter - customers here usually just order coffee.
At 3.50 zloty it is the cheapest in town, and for those who can’t afford it, you can get half a cup for 2 zloty. Behind the unusually high bar, stands a sour faced waitress who serves the customers their strong coffee without a fake smile or chirpy banter, but rather with a look that says “I know - life is hard, I know.” Most customers are over sixty, apart from the few students who have skived off lectures and lurk in the corners holding hands. The ‘regulars’ have been frequenting this legendary institution for years.
They have seen the students’ riots during marshal law, when people would run into ‘Poziomka’ to hide from the milicja; they have heard the cheers of thousands of pilgrims welcoming their Polish Pope back home.
Once the café was a place where Poland’s greatest writers and poets from the near by Literary Society would drop in for a beer and a discussion. If you were lucky, you could hear a snippet of their newest work. Amongst them – Marek Zakrzewski, Irek Iredyński, Edek Stachura, Janusz Krasiński, Julian Stryjkowski. Not many are alive today.
The reason why people like coming to ‘Poziomka’ is because it never seems to change. The decoration has remained the same for over thirty years, even though some of the younger waitresses have tried to persuade the manageress, Mrs Zaborowska, to revamp it.
Mrs. Zaborowska (who always wears pearls) hasn’t budged. She says that her customers don’t like change – they come here precisely for that reason. “It reminds them of their youth” she says very matter a factly.
She could have put the price of coffee up 50 groszy but she realized that it meant that some of her regulars couldn’t afford it, and the extra money wouldn’t add up to very much anyway. This café is much more than just a business.
When I heard that Poziomka was to be shut down, I went to see Mrs. Zaborowska but she wasn’t keen on talking. “What good will it do?” she said “There’s been so many articles and television reports about what’s happening and we’re still shutting down on Thursday. There’s nothing to talk about anymore.”
She’s right – there is nothing that can be done to save Poziomka. A while back, the original owner got the building back and promptly sold it again. The new owner has put the rent up four times. Mrs. Zaborowska is fully aware that this is his right to do this but she simply cannot afford the new rent. No one knows what will happen to the building.
“Maybe it will be a hotel or a bank” says the sour faced waitress without even looking at me. I realize that neither these women nor their customers are bitter or angry – they’re just sad. It’s been comforting for them to hide away in this smoky refuge with its kitsch mirrored walls and plastic plants. Many of the clients are elderly people – widowers, retired university lecturers - lonely people who are not rushing to go anywhere like the rest of the city slickers. I wonder where they will go now…
There are few of these characterful, Communist cafes left in Warsaw. There is ‘Amatorska’ and ‘Piotruś’ on Nowy Świat, ‘Bar przy Kaśce’ on Plac Bankowy but they are all slowly dying out. What can be done? Nothing – you can’t stop progress. There are few people who are charmed by Communist nostalgia.
Most Poles want to move forward, forget about the time when things were poorer, uglier and sadder than in the West. They want to drink their coffee in ‘Coffee Heaven’ and Daily Café’ where the walls are bright white and the waitresses are young and smiley, serving sweet fluffy over-priced moccacinos that don’t taste much like coffee. They want to see the world changing and to be seen…
I will be very sad when ‘Poziomka’ shuts down this week. It is my local café, a place I hung out it when I had no where to go and knew few people in Warsaw. I wrote sad poems, smoked cigarettes and drank bitter coffee. It was not a particularly happy time for me, but it was an important part of my life that I don’t want to forget. I know that there are many people like me who will not forget their lost hours spent in ‘Poziomka’, the place where time stood still…