I went to Poland and all i got you was these lousy photos

[DaanO]

So, 2 weeks ago i decided to go to Poland (for school even, hah!) with friends so 1 week ago we drove all the way to this strange country. It was also just the country behind Germany (i'm from Holland), we wanted to find out what it was really like. Plus, i like ex-Communist countries and their styles. First of all, i loved Poland. Everything is so, well, light. Not in terms of brightness but more in how people are, the landscape. Nothing is screaming for attention, people just let things be and live their lives. It's the closest thing to anarchy i've seen yet even. It just felt good, relaxed. The strange thing is that some people on the other hand are still living 20 years ago in their minds. There's some strict rules on some things and some people seem to thing discipline and authority are the most important things. The other strange thing was the huge amount of billboards, commercials and advertising on the streets, showing images that didn't seem to apply to the country at all. The trip itself was great, one big impulse. We didn't even have a place where we drove, only a direction. We just wanted to see the country and let things happen. Whenever we found something interesting we explored it.

These photos show one of the things we found and it's quite a story on itself. The fifteenth photo is what we could see from the streets (it's the one with the brown bricks that looks like something from supertimor). We decided to find a place to enter the compound and it was way bigger than we thought, i think it was about 1x1 kilometers, maybe slightly smaller. It was an industrial compound, totally abandoned, partly burned down.

The most interesting building was something that has been used as an office of some kind in the past. We entered in the basement where we found some dirty kitchen ( ? ), some rooms and it seemed like some people had been drinking a few beers there recently. We climbed up and found offices with architectural drawings (i took 2 of those) and lots of just, documents. A friend of mine even found someone's ID card. Then, on the next floor, we found a room that was like 20x5 meters, all empty. But in the corner a huge pile of clothes (5x3 meters), shoes, hats, some personal belongings, glasses, some bags. Really scary stuff. The building also had some rooms that reminded me of old hospitals, some showers, a complete bathroom. Someone's business card showed that it used to be a steel export office so i guess the factories surrounding this building were steel factories or whatever. Anyway, the building was spooky, you get the picture.

On the rest of the compound we found underground passages, the locker room (including pin-ups from the eighties - i took them all), some equipment, a water cleaning installation or whatever it's called, barrels, wheels lying around everywhere. (But not a single crate!!) Some other 'just industrial' buildings. When we walked a little further we suddenly heard a few sounds from a big hangar-like building and as we approached it we realised that it was still in use and there was people working there. We wanted to take a few more photos so we sneaked around some more and just when we were about to leave there was some Polish guy standing next to us all of a sudden, shouting to us. So i made some kind of apology gesture and me and another friend (there was 4 us) left the whole compound, another friend left before so we called the 4th guy. He answered his phone but hang up immediately. Later, we found out that he was still in the main building and had heard 2 people walking around, probably security as well. He locked himself in some toilet. When the site was cleared we called him again and told him to run to the exit so it all went well after all. Or at least that's what we thought...

We went back to our car and we were all feeling kind of releaved, excited so we decided to get a drink from our car and look through all the stuff we found. Then a Polish police van drives by and parks next to our car, 2 men step out of it, one pulls a gun and points it at the ground in front of us (we even heard the *click* from the safety pal) and the other one tells us not to put our hands in our pockets and asks for our passports. They searched our bags, mine as well, and even got out the architectural drawings, thought things couldn't get much worse back then. Too bad he didn't find the pin-ups though. In the meanwhile the Polish guy that sent us away joined the cops, he had a big dog with him as well and the security guy of the building next to it all joined in and they all started talking Polish. Fortunately, one of them spoke English so we were able to explain how we were art academy students (that ALWAYS works, with anything) so in the end we were able to talk ourselves out of it all. I even got to keep my architectural drawing. They then drove us out of the village (on the way out our driver nearly caused a car accident to make things even better) but it was all well because we had all of our stuff, they didn't write down our names or anything and we found what we were looking for in Poland.

Anyway, here's the pictures. They show the strange office building, a concrete pillar construction next to it, a bit of the water facility, 2 big uh towers (i climbed into one of those), the part that was burnt down and, from a distance, the hangar that was still in use.

Oh and one last note: All these pictures were taken in like 2 seconds because we didn't quite have the time to wait for lighting to be just perfect or find the perfect angle. I did edited the contrast on some of the photos (but a good camera can do a lot already).

[Tequila]

Very war-torn. Sounds like one hell of a trip, and yes, it's always nice when you talk yourself out of trouble.

[kleinluka]

Very nice pictures, Daan!

Thats quite a story, too

[Izuno]

yes...good story.

these pictures remind me of the pictures I've seen of Ukraine in the area around Chernobyl.

[st0lve]

http://subspace.homeunix.net/~daan/ext/polen09.jpg - loved this.

good story, I want to find some places like that

[DaanO]

Then you should go to Belgium. Many photos on abandonedplaces are taken there. Ok of course go to Tsjernobyl. I think i might go there this summer as well, but i'm not sure yet because i heard it's not safe at all there (and i'm not talking about radiation).

[FrieChamp]

Cool photos, do you have any pictures from the cities, people?

[DaanO]

Some, but mostly video. We recorded about 3 hours

[Evert]

Cool story, very cool photos!

Some of them seem to have lost some quality when resized though

But as said, very nice ones!

[Algor]

Neat photos, always wanting to visit one of those abandoned factories.

Cool story too

[Steppenwolf]

Great photos! I love poland and its people.

[DaanO]

Yeah same here. I'm probably going to Belgium this summer as well, there's some awesome buildings there. Like this one (from a Dutch TV show)

http://www.6pack.tv/Default.asp?log=231 ... g&s=wmp500

[silver]

beautifull, just beautifull !!!!!

[Taylor Swift]

is that chernovyl?

[DaanO]

Chernobyl is in Belarus / Ukrain (the area at least)