Yet on the ninth floor landing a door opens onto an unexpectedly brighter world. In a tiny flat, Nawojka and Jarek Jamroz are practically glowing with optimism about their future.
In three months they will move to a new life. Jarek has already bought the one-way airline tickets. There is no going back. He and Nawojka are moving to Glasgow.
Neither of them has been to Scotland before or met anyone who has been there. They are taking a leap of faith based solely on an instinct that the Scots are a welcoming people and Scotland is a place of promise.
“About a year ago I read an article in a newspaper about Scotland,” says Nawojka, a blonde 34-year-old business studies graduate. “It said it needed people because the population was declining. Well, we want to have babies!” She catches her husband’s eye and they both laugh. “We want to procreate!”
Nawojka spends her days honing her English by watching Antiques Roadshow and Changing Rooms on television. The couple has booked a room in a Glasgow city centre hotel for nine days during which they hope to find a room to rent. Their hopes are tempered by anxieties.
“My first concern is those first few days,” says Nawojka. “We won’t have references. We won’t have a bank account. I don’t know if people will rent us a flat if we don’t have work or references. It will be difficult, but I know we will get the hang of it.”
They needn’t worry. On arrival in Scotland the couple can expect to be welcomed into a thriving and industrious expat Polish community. In Glasgow there are an estimated 10,000 Poles working in all areas of the city. Across Scotland the community has grown to about 45,000 and runs its own clubs, radio stations, churches and websites.
There are Polish workers in just about every profession and business.
But what about the impact on the country they are leaving? The Polish invasion may be benefiting Scotland by helping stem population decline and filling job vacancies. But the loss of so many young, talented people must be alarming for an emerging country that shrugged off the yoke of communism 16 years ago.
Despite scant knowledge of their destination, the couple has no qualms about leaving Poland and are confident they will be able to regard Glasgow as home.
“I get the feeling Scottish people are similar to Poles,” says Jarek, also 34, an architect who does not yet have a job in Glasgow. “They are friendly, I hope. They are open to different cultures.”
Nawojka chimes in: “The Scottish are people from mountains, just as our people are from mountains. They are tough.” Her preconceptions derive largely from two fictional sources. One, somewhat bafflingly, is Wuthering Heights.
The other is the film Braveheart. “I can see Jarek in a skirt,” she says with a teasing glance at her husband. “I’m not so sure,” he says, knitting his brows in mock concern.
Poland’s entry into the European Union last year presented young Poles with the tantalising opportunity to work abroad — for so long an impossible dream. More than half a million have seized their chance and hundreds of thousands more are making plans. An estimated 450,000 Poles have come to the UK where the average wage is almost five times the Polish average of £4,814 a year.
A substantial number of the incomers are thought to be in Scotland. Tending bars in Edinburgh pubs, plying their trade as plumbers in Inverness, working as chambermaids in Glasgow hotels, Poles have become a familiar part of Scotland’s social and economic fabric.
Polish delicatessens such as Deli Polonia, on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk, are opening in big cities to offer these exiles and their new hosts a taste of their homeland. Every Sunday at 11am a mass in Polish is heard at St Simon’s RC church in the Partick area of Glasgow.
About half the Poles in Scotland are under 25. In Edinburgh, with a Polish population of about 20,000, the Cenzor bar opened in York Place to cater for the exiles. Every month a club night called Polished attracts more than 400 people to the Venue in Calton Road to listen to DJs flown in from Warsaw. A Scottish-Polish radio show is broadcast every week on the web-based station HeyNow.
The influx is accelerating. A few weeks ago the eighth air link between Scotland and Poland was launched with Ryanair announcing flights between Prestwick and Wroclaw.
Most of those who arrive are here to stay.
Scotland’s politicians hail the Polish incomers as a welcome answer to some of the country’s most pressing problems — a declining population and a shortage of willing workers in key jobs. Last week the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland announced it was looking to Poland to recruit trained police officers. Last month the Scottish government signed up 40 Polish dentists to plug gaps in the NHS caused by so many Scottish dentists going private. The news release containing the announcement was headlined: “Scotland smiles better.”
But better than what? What are the hopes and concerns that have driven these young Poles to leave friends and family and become “new Scots”? We know what their arrival is doing for us in Scotland — but what is the real impact of their departure on Poland?
MATEUSZ TOMALA knows exactly what he thinks of departing Poles such as Nawojka and Jarek. He believes they are betraying their motherland. Tomala is one of the newly ascendant rightwingers in Polish politics, an influential figure in the Law and Justice party, which took power seven months ago in a coalition government with a decidedly conservative outlook.
“Young people are not naive and politicians know that,” he said recently in an interview when asked about the brain drain. “The problem is their lack of patriotism.” Many young people, he said, would soon discover “the myth of the wonderful western world”.
Concerns about a haemorrhaging of the ambitious and the skilled may yet prove to be an over-reaction, but that does not stop the niggling worries. The Saga Foundation, a pro-western think tank, has warned of the consequences of “losing the best minds in Poland”. The worry is that the country could end up acting as a “brain factory” for richer nations in western Europe.
Could Scotland’s immigration windfall be at the expense of damaging one of the emerging nations of eastern Europe? So far no dramatic skills gaps have emerged in the Polish workforce. Its health service can afford to lose some dentists as it has traditionally been overmanned, with twice the number of medics per head of population than is common in western Europe. But the stampede to the West among specialist consultants and nurses is expected to bite soon. There are strains showing in the construction and retail industries and growing alarm in the IT sector as the UK, US and France poach the sharpest prospects.
For some in Poland’s political and economic elite, just sitting back and waving the emigrants goodbye is not a good response. Their answer is refreshingly direct — bribe people to stay.
An incentive scheme called Stay With Us has been started by the country’s leading current affairs magazine, Polityka. Financed by generous donations from some of Poland’s biggest corporations, it is aimed at the country’s top academics in their late twenties and early thirties. It offers a one-off payment of about £5,000 — 10 times the average monthly salary — to those thinkers who resist the temptation of lucrative academic posts abroad.
Stay With Us scholarships have already been awarded to 100 top scientists and researchers, and the scheme now carries considerable cachet.
One of the most recent recipients is Grzegorz Jankowicz, a 27-year-old specialist in the philosophy of literature and a leading cultural commentator. On a gloriously sunny morning he is sipping tea in a pavement cafe in Cracow’s main square.
He personifies the confident Poland. In his designer spectacles and suede coat there is a swagger about him and he speaks with confidence about everything.
He turned down the offer of a job as a professor at Harvard to stay in Cracow and started a school of international studies at the city’s Jagiellonski University. As an associate professor in America he could have earned $50,000 (about £28,500) a year. That is more than twice the salary of a professor in Cracow.
“This is a moral question,” he says. “The Stay With Us programme is not just one of money and self-promotion. Highly educated people who do good work deserve to get good money for what they do. But if all the young people think it is best for them to emigrate to the States or Scotland, England or France, so they can get what they deserve, then this country will slowly fall down.”
As he speaks the sound of a trumpet blares out over the square. Every hour, on the hour, a lone trumpeter plays the hejnal (hymn to Our Lady)from the window of one of the gothic towers of St Mary’s church. Each time the bugle call is cut short. This commemorates the moment in Cracow’s history when a lookout tried to warn the city of approaching Tartar invaders, but as he tried to sound the alarm a Tartar arrow lodged in his throat. Over the years the symbolism of the warning has been used by Polish writers to signify a variety of threats to the nation. Inevitably it has recently been the turn of the departing young and talented. It has become a national preoccupation — how many good people can Poland afford to lose?
Despite Jankowicz’s concerns, his view is a world away from the Law and Justice party rightwingers who question the patriotism of those who choose to leave and see the world outwith Poland as a threat.
In fact he has been abroad to teach at North American universities including Indiana, Toronto, Ohio State and Harvard, and he expects at some stage he will spend a long period in the UK or US earning good money. The answer, he says, is not to dissuade young Poles from going abroad but to convince them to bring home their new skills to better the country of their birth.
“We cannot just close the borders of this country, physical and intellectual,” he says, the disgust induced by the idea seeming almost physical to him. “That would be the worst thing. It is not a question of patriotism and this kind of rhetoric is something I have a problem with.
“The current government is using that style to shame people. If you dare to think about going somewhere else, doing something in co-operation with some people from abroad you should feel ashamed. This is absolutely stupid — there is no subtle way to describe it. This country needs relationships with people in other countries, in academic and other fields.”
MONEY and status are not the only motivating factors for young Poles seeking a life in the West. Fun, adventure, new cultures and experiences are irresistible for many. For others it is the lure of fresh ideas.
To Malgorzata Reiter’s mind there is much Poland can be taught by the West, and she intends to begin learning those lessons in Edinburgh in July.
The 24-year-old, who is about to sit her law finals, sits sipping a hot chocolate in her favourite cafe, a shabby warren of shadowy rooms in a Cracow street called Bracka that boasts an eclectic assortment of student hang-outs.
A specialist in human rights law, Reiter’s area of interest is the treatment of women who have been victims of domestic violence. In a country such as Poland it is an issue that desperately needs an injection of new thinking from the outside world.
“It’s very hard to do anything about it in Poland,” she says in broken English. “So I wonder, if I go to Scotland I may find new ways that women are handling this problem and perhaps come back and start something in Poland that reflects those ideas.”
With graduation approaching, routes out of Poland are the sole topic of conversation among her classmates. “All my friends want to go, it’s just a stream of people. To the West! To the West! We have a culture of this now and it is just the beginning.
“Smart people in Poland can have problems finding good jobs and realising their dreams, so they are reaching out to other countries. It’s what my friends and I talk about all the time — whether to go, whether to come back.”
For Reiter, who is passionate about Poland and its future, coming back is non-negotiable.
“I hope I will come back with optimism to start something new here,” she says. Scotland is her chosen destination simply because a friend has been living in Edinburgh for a year. “One day I wrote to her when I was in a bad mood. I said, ‘Oh my God, I can’t stand it here in Poland any more! I want to go and see new people, new places!’ And she just said, ‘Come to me!’ And she booked me a ticket.”
Reiter will be landing in Scotland just as Nawojka and Jarek are nearing the end of their first week in their Glasgow hotel. The differences in what these three want from Scotland are striking.
The Jamrozes want a new life, Reiter wants new ideas. The Jamrozes are determined to stay in Scotland, Reiter is determined to return. Who would dare judge which of them is right?
Nawojka is in no doubt that their move is a permanent one. “My children will be Scottish children,” she says in a tone of quiet certainty. “That doesn’t seem strange to me. My family — my sister and all my cousins — are now spread all over the world, in Germany, South Africa, the States, Canada, Mexico. So it does not seem strange to start a new life somewhere else.”
Their motive, they say, is their unborn children. In recent years the couple have struggled to make a successful life for themselves in Cracow. A grocery store set up by Nawojka went bust. Jarek’s job paid the Polish equivalent of £5,000 a year and to earn extra cash he spent evenings and weekends making models and drawings for other companies.
He reckons he could earn five times that in a junior position in a Scottish architectural practice. The Polish economy is on the move, but still lagging behind western Europe — its GDP per head is almost one-fifth of the UK’s.
Nawojka and Jarek refuse to feel guilty about wanting to leave. “Our country was closed for so many years,” says Nawojka. “The political and economic situation is not good and it won’t be getting better.
“If you want to live, work or get ahead in Poland you have to have connections. The politicians don’t do anything to make the economy better, they just play politics. They are the ones being unpatriotic. We can’t wait. We are almost 35. We will take our chances.”
The couple are ready for the inevitable hardships as they find their feet in Scotland and are willing to do whatever work is necessary to get by.
“I think it will take five years for us to make our new life,” says Nawojka. “We will be strangers. We don’t know the people. We don’t know the culture and the customs.
But we can learn.
“It will be difficult to assimilate, but we will try our hardest.”
She worries about the Scottish capacity for accepting this new wave of incomers. “What scares me a lot is how people will see us. I wonder about people not liking us and turning against Polish people. I can understand how people might feel uncomfortable with the situation. It is a huge number of people in a short time. But we are people too.”
Asked to imagine herself in five years’ time, Nawojka describes a terraced house in a Glasgow suburb with two young children playing in the garden and Jarek with a good job in a local architectural practice. Her face takes on a wistful look as she pictures her future.
Again the plate of biscuits is offered round and more tea is poured. Outside, through the drizzle, there is a striking view of the spires and rooftops of Cracow, a city that for this couple will soon be just a memory.
“I have chosen to make my life in Scotland, so I will be a Scot,” says Nawojka. “Of course I will always be Polish in my heart — I was born here and I know its traditions. I can be half-Polish and half-Scottish, I have no problems with that. I only ask that the people of Scotland will include me.”
Inverness
Life has been hard for Katarzina Weizynczek and her family since arriving in Scotland from Poland 15 months ago. She and Kristof, her husband, both 36, gave up jobs as teachers respectively of English and philosophy to start a new life in the Highlands.
But in Inverness, where they have made their home with their children Kasper, 11, and Olga, six, the couple have only been able to find work as care assistants in the Kingsmills Nursing Home for the elderly. “We work alternate shifts, so we hardly see each other,” says Katarzina. “It makes us really tired sometimes. Since the new year we have been looking for different jobs but it is hard, especially for my husband because he is having trouble improving his English.
“We’ve tried to find a language course at Inverness college, but all the classes are full and we are told they have no more money for new students.”
However, the Weizynczek family believes their new beginning is worth the heartache. “Despite everything we are still happy we have done this and made the move to Scotland,” says Katarzina, who with her husband has created a cosy family home in a rented flat near the Caledonian canal.
“We are much happier than we were in Poland. The kids are fine — they think it is exciting. Everything is new for them and they are curious about it.”
Glasgow
In the summer of 2004, Kasia Maroszek was celebrating her graduation from university in Cracow after completing a degree in the history of religion. At the same time Poland was celebrating being accepted into the EU, opening up the country’s borders.
“To be honest I didn’t know what to do with my life,” she says, “but I felt like I wanted something different, to experience other cultures and new places. So I decided to come to Scotland on the recommendation of a friend.”
Glasgow was her destination and Maroszek found work as a sales assistant in the showroom of Hurry Brothers, a company specialising in stained glass and furniture. It was a good enough job while she found her feet in a strange land but now, at the age of 28, she is ready to move.
“I’ve been to university, so working as a sales assistant is not what I want to do with my life,” she says. “In October I’m going to college in Paisley to train as an interpreter. With so many Polish people coming to Scotland, I think it will be a good job in the future.”
Edinburgh
Karol Chojnowski has become one of Scotland’s internet entrepreneurs. With Albert Fret, his friend, he set up www.szkocja.net, a website aimed at Poles in Scotland. It is currently clocking up 114,000 visitors a month.
The two men came from Poland six years ago as part of a student placement programme with Fife college in Kirkcaldy. After studying for HNDs in telecommunications they enrolled in degree courses at Napier University then decided to set up in business, aware of the commercial opportunities presented by the influx to Scotland of their fellow countrymen.
The website provides advice on housing, education and employment, as well as providing a forum for the Polish émigré community across Scotland.
Chojnowski is often asked by Poles what they should expect of life in Scotland, particularly about the reaction incomers can expect from native Scots. “I tell them Scottish people are friendly — there is no reason for them to worry that they will be second category citizens,” he says.
“But I also tell them the blending-in process will always be smoother and faster if they have the language skills to make themselves understood.”
Historic links
- Over the years, bonds between the two countries have been strengthened by Polish footballers playing for Scottish teams, such as Darius Dziekanowski and Dariusz Wdowczyk (Celtic); Dariusz Adamczuk (Dundee and Rangers); Kevin Rutkiewicz (Aberdeen), whose father was born in Warsaw; Artur Boruc and Maciej Zurawski (Celtic) and Zbigniew Malkowski (Hibs).
