After arrival to Cracow, I and 9 other EVS-volunteers received free tickets for public city transport. On a ticket, but bus and tram, we saw picture with harnessed horse. Probably the upcoming festival of Jewish culture played its part, so we came to a girl sitting on a coach and asked, if we can take a free ride with our tickets. Unfortunately not, lie is everywhere and you have to pay for everything – in this case it was 150 PLN for one short ride. Anyway, I spend in beautiful Cracow almost two weeks and that was the only one disappointment from the city.
But there was muuuch more positive emotions. First of all thanks to amazing people, with whom I’m living and working here. On the eve of the main event of the month, the 27th Jewish Cultural Festival , for which we have gathered here with the people from different countries, on July there are also the Days of Cracow with its film festivals and unusual photos, the UEFA U21 football championship, and a lot of other exciting events for every taste. It’s hard to take breath, to keep up with everything…
What about history of the Jews and their culture – for people, who weren’t deep in this topic, like me, everything turned out to be very interesting. The STRIM organization tried to fit part of the information on this subject, which people have been collecting for years in universities and travels to the Promised Land, into our heads in a few hours. During the lecture, I learned with interest that for centuries Jews from different countries communicated with each other in Yiddish. It can be said that Yiddish had the same role as English today, but only for the Jews themselves. A common language, among other things, allowed this scattered people all over the world to receive useful information and conclude profitable international transactions, which was difficult for the rest of the population of those times.
The Jewish district of Krakow is Kazimierz – in the past it was a separate city with its walls, where in the Middle Ages local Jews were “politely asked” to resettlement. As a result, Kazimierz became the European center of Jewish life, a kinda mini-Israel. I managed to get inside its synagogues, also in the oldest of them, which is located on a section of the street dug deep on the ground. This way Jews cleverly circumvented the ban on building synagogues above Christian churches: the building itself is high, but due to being in the pit it doesn’t violate local laws.
No less interesting was the walk through the ancient Jewish cemetery, the tombstones of which were hidden during the Hitler’s occupation, and then they were restored to the places of their “owners”, but it’s highly possible, that it wasn’t done propertly. At the same cemetery, my colleague from Bulgaria and I returned a little bird, which a few days ago fell from a wall and was lying on the roadway.
На это же кладбище мы с моей коллегой из Болгарии несколькими днями позже вернули упавшего с его стен еще не умеющего летать птенца, оказавшегося практически на проезжей части. Bird was met by his parents, so we don’t have to worry about the life of our little friend.
To be continued.
