Warsaw From a Stall

There are heaps of them on stalls and in small shops in the most attractive corners of the city-little statues, flags and souvenirs: Chopin in Royal Łazienki Park, a plaster figure of the Warsaw Mermaid, a miniature Palace of Culture and Science.

Tacky mass-produced items enjoy unceasing popularity year after year. The ingenuity of producers knows no limits. By using only a couple of key words, like Chopin, the Royal Castle or names of kings, they flood the capital with various items, from bottle openers with an engraved panorama of the Old Town and glasses carrying the white eagle of Poland, to less useful colorful painted plates to hang on the wall. Perhaps you need a key purse with "Chopin" printed on it, or a set of mugs and beer glasses-everything with an appropriate image of the capital. Such souvenir trash feeds on patriotic-historical themes as well. You can buy a complete set of knives, too dull to cut anything, but nice and shiny. Souvenirs aren't always cheap and made of plastic-you can buy a "genuine" uhlan saber for "only" zl.300.

Compared with heavily visited places like Cracow and the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, the capital does not abound with spectacular themes to present. Fortunately, souvenir manufacturers aren't worried about trademarks-neither the emblem of Warsaw, the Mermaid, nor the city colors are protected by law. The city authorities say they are going to settle these issues, but for the time being, the souvenir industry flourishes.

Along with Warsaw souvenirs, stalls around the Old Town are piled up with handicrafts of all kinds: glass and fimo figures, sacral folk images and paintings aspiring to be art. Next to them you can find original African art, Indian plait works and "real" Roman coins. The Medieval carnival tradition, the town market, is here deprived of all of its traditional holiday elements, becoming an ordinary, everyday thing, treated with contempt by local citizens. On the other hand, tourists will still feel the mysterious urge to bring home the smallest bit of the place they have visited. Perhaps they have no other choice, being offered only such tacky, plastic and golden souvenirs from Warsaw.

Agata Szymborska

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