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Published: July 12th 2014
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You have to change you mind set as an English person travelling in Central Europe.
The UK was last invaded a thousand years ago and even before that the coast has defined the country and how we define nationhood. In Central Europe with no watery separation it is quite different. Borders and tribal lands have moved over the millennia and right up until the present day like the tides in the sea. There are no coastal boundaries in Central Europe only, arguably, arbitrary stakes in the ground. Except they are not of course arbitrary as the Ukrainian soldier patrolling his border when we were hiking on Tuesday underlined.
No where is this more apparent than in the Bieszczady mountains and presumably the surrounding countries. It seems to impact the very soul of the land with the past of previous tribes exposed if you scratch the surface of the modern landscape.
What is particularly unique about the Bieszczady region is that these tribal waves have left it depopulated. As well as the abundance of pristine beech forest which stretches into Slovakia and the Ukraine by the late 1950's there were very few liveable
The Sanok coat of arms
Note the poor chap being eaten by a snake houses in the area.
A hundred or so of these along with some remaining churches have been preserved in an impressive 'Skansen' open air museum in Sanok (www.skansen.sanok.pl). It is an ethnographic park which is important as you need to understand the ethnography of the last 500 years to understand the buildings.....and the religions. As far as I understand it, a hundred years ago there co-existed different groups: to the South, Greek Orthodox 'Russians'; to the East, Russians Orthodox, to the North and West Polish Roman Catholics, Jews (particularly of the Chassidic tradition) in Lesko and some surrounding villages and a smattering of other ethic groups around. Each had their own churches and way of life. It was never a rich or populated area for anyone and hence bears, wolves, bison and lynx have survived in the woods.
We had an English guide, carefully booked for us by Renata, and her explanation of the difference between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions was probably the most fascinating part. (We had been to a Greek Orthodox wedding in Cambridge years ago). They had two Greek 'Union' churches that had been rebuilt at the centre and
the guide took us through the format of the 'alter' as apparently they are all similar. Everything is wood and for houses the traditional roofing was thatch. The museum grew its own special wheat for thatching to reduce costs.
Almost unfathomable to an Englishman the borders have changed significantly in the last seventy years. In World War 2 the Nazi deported to Russia (no fun but the one route to survival), ghettoised and exterminated the significant Jewish population. At that point the Russian border had been along the San river so somewhat East of where it is today. There were major battles between the Polish and the Ukraine forces after the war and this led to the expulsion of Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox communities and the desertion of their villages. After the war at around the same time the Ukraine (then the USSR) acquired/occupied/liberated (delete as applicable) 200km of what was then Czechslovakia. So the point we visited where Poland Ukraine and Slovakia meet today has only been defined as such for sixty years. The last border change was some sort of land swap with the USSR which moved the border of Poland further East of
the San river in 1951.
In all we spent around two and half hours with the English guide which was well worth it. One impressive exhibit was a large bell which had been buried when the Orthodox Church members were being expelled from their village and their houses destroyed. I guess they thought they might be coming back. In the end it was forgotten and only recently found by workers by accident.
The landscape is now littered with deserted villages ( the map shows them in brackets). In some just the church facade survives like Bachlawa with the hangers for the bell clearly visible. Other wooden churches like at Polana are now Roman Catholic with same exterior and reconfigured in that tradition from the walls (but not the ceiling) down.
Very little of the Jewish tradition survives. Remarkably the old Synagogue in Lesko had enough remaining to be rebuilt and it is now a gallery space for talented local artists. Again it is highly recommended. Lesko has also one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries dating back to the 16th century which was when they first started to populate the area.
We had a brief chat with a Western Pennsylvanian who was staying at Walter and Alicja's hotel and whose grandparents all came from this same region a hundred years ago via Ellis Island to work in the coal mines. He had been successful in finding his roots back to the late 1700's because of the church records.
So by the late 60's the Biesczcady mountains were pretty empty and left to the wildlife. More recently tourism has been encouraged and quiet rightly so. The hill walks are beautiful without being lung busting. A mountain bike is probably the best form of transport. Walter and Alicja had lent us a very old VW Polo which was ideal and not suitable for the many remote untarmaced roads.
One could easily spend much longer in Bierszczady. Even after a week we felt had but touch as if it were a tablet screen. There is so much more to see. It is one of those places where the longer you look the more you see and probably the greater you are rewarded.
So Bierszczady is many miles from England in many ways. We met Czech, Danish, American, German and no English. It is not difficult to get to being 4 hours from Krakow and I am sure everyone would benefit from the experience.
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