This article is in response to an article recently published about Łódź.
The publication of the article, which came up at the beginning of this year, has caused a real storm not only around inhabitants of Łódź. This is the second false and misleading publication about Łódź and Poles.
The first one, a report on Euro 2012, was published by BBC in the United Kingdom. The author of the article warned people off from attending Euro 2012 games taking place in Poland. Poland was described as a dangerous, moreover unpredictable country. After the Euro 2012, however, all the information published by BBC appeared to be false in practice. Many commentators stated that the organisation of Euro 2012 by Poland, together with Ukraine, was one of the best ever. The atmosphere around the cities and the stadiums is more proof of this than anything else.
I moved to Łódź seven years ago in order to undertake my degree, and even though I am not a big fan of this city, I cannot accept someone who spent only a few days in Łódź to write in such a negative fashion about this place.
What suprises me the most is the fact that some people who possess very basic knowledge in particular topics may publish their thoughts and personal opinions to ruin what others have been building for years. I’m the type of a person who tends to travel a lot, and I had the privilege to visit places all around the world. I’m also totally aware that in each of these places, people may find good and bad elements. However for myself, living in Łódź, it’s hard to understand why the author focused only on critisising that city. Łódź with no doubt is a place that has so much to offer its citizens, and tourists. From a variety of interesting places, yet features for instance, well known in whole Poland “Manufacture”, the old industial part called “ Księży Młyn”, also Piotrkowska Street with such unique stony tenements. I strongly encourage people to visit Łódź to in person explore its real beauty.
Most of the descriptions shared in the article are far from reality. Here are some of examples.
„Left building, bricked in shops, crumbling plaster” – however in every city, pictures like the one described may be found. For instance Athens – in a distance of 1-2 km from the city, there is a street called Omonia, not much attention is being paid to its bad condition, and what about Brooklyn in New York, which is one of the poorest districts located just nearby the richest one. Very similar situations to the ones in Łódź illustrated previously.
Regarding foreign published articles, surprisingly many Poles hold negative opinions. On one hand, the situation that may cause concern, as anyone who’s spent some time with Poles knows well, that one of our national afflictions is complaining on actually every possible issue. In the streets, very often many complaints may be heard about the weather, which in winter is too cold, too wet, too grey (that’s however the beauty of winter), in summer for instance is too hot or simply too sunny (that’s also the beauty of summer).
Commens like : „Half of Łódź’s population emigrated out of the city to search for job opportunities” are false, made up. If that was true, Łódź would not any longer be the third largest city in Poland.
„The fall of many factories, together with a rise in unemployment caused the city to be classified as the poorest in Poland”. Regarding factories being closed down, I must unfortunately say that is the true, as textile industry was no longer profitable and therefore closed down. There are, however, new factories such as Philips, HP, Dell, Gillette, Infosys, Fujitsu operating in Łódź, which replaced the textile ones
. They give employment and develop skills of a large number of local people.
The opinion of one, representing young society teenager saying: “Many pubs and clubs were closed down due to a small number of young people who could fill these places”. Łódź is being seen however as student’s city, where a large number of young people actually spend their free time in pubs, and in fact clubs. To experience it, you can simply walk down Piotrowska Street on Thursday or Friday evening (called student’s evenings), to see how many students and young people, who aren’t complaining about a lack of places to spend evenings out on partying. Piotrowska Street is a unique place, where on a distance of a few kilometers, a big number of bars, pubs and discos are located. Frankly speaking, I haven’t come across many places that had so much to offer, while also being as good at it as Łódź.
Piotrkowska Street, at a length of approximately 4 kilometres, is one of the longest streets in the world – “covered by bricks in abundance, dead even in the middle of the day.” Whoever had a chance to spend some time in that street would disagree with the above sentence. It can be said, that the author provided proof of it in the form of the picture. But who actually goes out in late afternoons, especially when weather conditions are bad? We invite the author of the article to visit Piotrkowska street in summer time, when almost every pub places tables outside to create ‘beer gardens’ in the evenings, when the night life blooms.
Pictures showing buildings covered by graffiti, homeless people, or bricks in windows appalled me most. Tell me then, in which large city, can pictures like that not be taken, and are not natural elements of the city?
In order to challenge the misleading views on Łódź presented by the negative article’s author, I strongly recommend admiring the real beauty of this city, captured by Krzysztof Firkowski who originally comes from Łódź and knows his own city well:
Photo © Krzysztof Firkowski