Maidan in Warsaw? Nie, dziękuję!
Andrey Tomsky, journalist, Warsaw-Kyiv
I'm in Warsaw again, I was here a few years ago. It has become much cleaner, new skyscrapers have risen - not spoiling, but decorating the city, there are no traffic jams, excellent municipal transport.
The capital of Poland attracts a large number of Ukrainians. They work almost everywhere - in supermarkets, in hotels, in taxis. And all of them, of course, miss Ukraine, from which some left a year ago, and some ten. But no one wants to return. Despite the victorious “Revolution of Hydnost”, which was supported here.
Tanya, who cleans my hotel room, came from Western Ukraine to Poland a year and a half ago. I got a work visa for money. Here he receives little compared to the usual Polish salary. And it is currently approaching 4000 zlotys across the country. This is almost 1000 euros. There are smaller ones in the villages, more in the capital. However, as Tanya says, here she gets 5 times more than at home, with almost the same price for food in both countries. If you don’t show off, then half of your salary can be sent home. This is not an isolated case, but a trend.
There are significantly more Western Ukrainians. As a rule, they work in the service sector. There are very few Eastern ones, and they are more involved in medicine or logistics. Oleg, who drives the bus that brings all sorts of little things to the hotel, is from Gorlovka. Left a long time ago. He remembers Ukraine like a bad dream – he didn’t have enough for the basic necessities, even working 12 hours a day. Here he can afford almost everything. He watches our news with interest, congratulates us on the dollar at 16 and says that if the zloty fell by half, like the Ukrainian hryvnia, in Poland all members of the Sejms of all levels, headed by the President and the Cabinet, would already be hanging on poles.
This is not to say that Poland is overly rich, although its standard of living has improved significantly in recent years. The Poles themselves are surprised how things can be so bad in a country like Ukraine, where there are a lot of minerals, black soil and other natural resources.
Karolina, a journalist from Polish television, with whom we spoke about the riots on November 11, when on the day of Polish independence (let me remind you, more than 100 people took to the streets, about 000 detained, 300 police officers in the hospital), said that in Poland and, in In particular, what is happening in Kyiv and Ukraine is impossible for Warsaw.
If a problem arises, people sit down and negotiate. Yes, there are plenty of idiots - football fans, hooligans, city crazy people are everywhere. But it doesn’t come to a total confrontation - no one wants blood and war. Radicals are being reined in by the police.
Carolina does not particularly understand the intricacies of the Ukrainian war, but she wished for it to end quickly, because in Poland the fringes are prophesying that the war will flare up throughout Ukraine, and the Poles do not at all want a hot spot near their cordon.
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