Here's a rural cross-section of Poland, from the progressive northwest to the backward but beautiful southeast.
Northwest of Warsaw and Plonsk, a fine highway zips through that countryside toward Stettin, the old German name for a city in the western and formerly German part of the country.
The dark forests of European folktales: a patch survives northeast of Poznan (Posen).
The equipment here—northeast of Torun—is a generation behind the times, but far ahead of what one sees in the east and south of the country.
Northwest Poland—here near Ostromecko, between Torun and Bydgoszcz—is the most technologically progressive but visually dull part of the country. As usual, the two are related inversely.
The Kansas of Poland.
Poland's leading agricultural-research institute has long been at Pulawy, southeast of Warsaw and on the Vistula. Yet not far away, on the road east toward Lublin, mechanization falls away. A horse takes a rest after pulling a harrow down an exceedingly long row, suggesting that the medieval fields here have been reorganized, even if production technology remains little changed.
Back to work.
No combines here: sheaves in shocks. There's a word you don't hear much in the United States these days. Of course that's because you no longer see the things.
Narrow medieval strips, just about a furrow long—which is to say, a furlong, 660 feet. Northeast of Cracow, near the Vistula.
Southern Poland, east of Cracow, is full of log cabins befitting such fields. The fence is a pity.
This sequence is from near Dabrowka, between Krakow and Tarnow. The garden is typical, a riot of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Even in sober places like Poznan, the city folk have gardening plots. They put up tiny huts, surround them with growing things, and remember their own agrarian roots.
A log cabin, dressed up.
Timber buildings are an old, old craft here. Church near Sandomierz, between Kracow and Lublin.
