In my last blog post I wrote about the top 10 things to see if you were visiting Gdansk, Poland. Well, situated about 65 miles southwest of Gdansk is a charming area in Poland where the culture and customs are different than the country it resides in (they even have a slightly different language than the rest of Poland). In fact, you can spot street signs with both languages present throughout the region. Although they look similar to me, I’m sure it makes a huge difference to the people who live there. However, the highlight of the region is the Open-Air Museum in the village of Szymbark, which is where I’m taking you today!
First a little background on the area before we jump into the tour: The Kashubian region is actually known as Poland’s little Switzerland because of its magnificent alpine valleys. The drive was absolutely gorgeous for this reason, as living in California, we don’t get this kind of scenery super easily. Not only is the landscape different, but the Kashubian people have managed to retain some of their early ethnic identity expressed in their distinctive culture, dress, crafts, architecture, and language as I mentioned earlier. So, let’s head to Szymbark!
Szymbark is one of the most beautiful tourist places in the Kashubian region. The highlight of the town is the Open-Air Museum…technically it is called The Center For Education and Regional Promotion (whew, that’s a mouth-full) but we’re just going to call it the Open-Air Museum. In addition to interesting and important information about Kashubia, you can learn about its traditions and customs here.
The first thing we noticed walking around the museum were all the small and interesting houses. Apparently, Poles had built these houses in other countries but decided to bring them back to this region We even saw a copy of an old Polish manor among the smaller houses of the museum.
But the most interesting and, by far, the most famous was the Upside-Down House (not only upside down but crooked also…just in case it wasn’t confusing enough). The reason this house was built was to symbolize communistic reality where everything is confusing, turned around and different than what you expect it to be. And they did a very good job of portraying that. To start out, you had to crawl through one of the attic windows, in order to get into the house, where you end up standing on the houses ceiling inside. From there you can walk around the ceiling exploring the house. They even decorated the inside with furniture from the 1970s. When you’re done with that floor, you are able to go upstairs to the second floor (or should I say “downstairs” to the “first” floor) and explore that. But, to be honest, I already felt queasy enough and just stuck to the first (or “second”) floor. In fact, the workers who built the house had such a hard time with getting disoriented that they had to step outside and take frequent breaks which caused the production of the house to take longer than expected. After visiting, I don’t think I can blame them though.
From there, we went to St. Raphael’s church near the Upside Down House. Religion is very important to the Kashubian people and this very small Roman Catholic church depicted that very well. In fact, it is still used to this day, holding mass every Sunday morning for the people in the area. Not only is it interesting for that reason but its construction has a unique history too. This all wooden, tiny church was actually built entirely from the wood used in other important historical Polish buildings most likely destroyed during WWII. From there the remaining wood was used to build this beautiful little church here in Szymbark.
Now looking at some of the harsher realities of the Polish and Kashubian people. After WWII, many of the Polish nobles and intellectuals were sent by the Soviets to live in Siberia. They were transported in horribly crammed locomotives where they were dropped off and forced into labor camps. In fact, one of the train cars was displayed in the village so we got to walk through and see how horrible it was. And that was only the transportation side of it. The Gulag labor house where 144 Polish prisons lived in a tiny little room at the camp is located here. Photos on the wall showed some of those that suffered there during that time. Those that ended up needing to fend for themselves in Siberia lived in a freezing cold house that was smuggled back, piece by piece, into Poland and is now on display in Szymbark. The harsh realities of these people moved me to tears, so if you do visit, just prepare yourself mentally to witness some of the atrocities here.
On a happier note, the Kashubians are known to have great snuff (tobacco that you inhale through your nose). The Kashubian people make it themselves and give it to visitors as a sign of joy, good luck and an invitation to meet again. A local welcomed us with some snuff to try and I had already sampled some Polish vodka so decided, in the spirit of travel, to give snuff a shot as well – my nostrils will never be the same but if you like it, there are many flavors you can purchase to take home as souvenirs.
Later that evening, we went to a fun restaurant where the locals taught us their version of the alphabet song for their language called the Kaszebszcze note. The restaurant was decorated with their language in their beautiful, tradition design. It was interesting because I recognized the designs on the plates and napkins and throughout the restaurant but never realized that the style of design had originated here! The famous designs utilize seven colors that symbolizes the Kashubian landscape. Of course, you can purchase some fun items with this specific design at the gift shop to take home.
After dinner, we made our way back to Gdansk and had a chance to reflect on the happy and sad parts of this interesting visit to Szymbark in the Kashubian region of Poland. It’s unique culture and history was fascinating to experience and learn about. If you need a day trip out of Gdansk, this would be a good place to put on the list.
Thanks Elizabeth -- how interesting (and sad) you knew of a family who had to deal with the severity of Communism on Poland. This area was an unexpected surprise for us and we learned so much (positives and negatives) on our visit.
Such an interesting region of Poland. Your explanation of what happened to the Polish nobility make sense to me now as to why a Polish titled family I knew no longer lived there. Those designs you showed are pretty as well as the houses and scenery. The Upside Down House would be disorientating, but a good way to show what people had to live with.