It was my third visit to the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa. Not that the Polish city – population 240,000 – has that much going for it, as cities in Poland go, that it warranted three visits. Częstochowa is not particularly pretty or even interesting, though if you dig deep enough into the beginnings of any place you could come up with plenty of factoids to snag your interest. But on the surface, Częstochowa is the sort of place a traveler breezes through on his or her way to a town abuzz with far more excitement. Yet, must every city be exciting?
Częstochowa does have somewhat of a nightlife. On my first night in town, friends and I hit a local bar where I downed my share of beers dispensed from a tall clear-glass beer cylinder. The bar, it’s atmosphere calm and relaxed, brews its beers in-house, and two that I tried were actually quite good.
The Black Madonna – as close as I got – aided by my camera zoom
There is a place in this world for cities that are meant simply for relaxing and a good night’s sleep. Częstochowa is such a place. Great for weekend getaways from the hurried madness of larger cities such as Warsaw, which is just 2-plus hours north, give or take traffic congestion and how fast you dare to push your speed. Częstochowa is also blessed with nearby scenic beauty. You can explore the ruins of a 14th Century castle in Olsztyn, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Częstochowa city center.
I climbed to the top of the bell tower – all 310 spiraling steps
The medieval ruins rest atop a hill that overlooks the city of fewer than 2,500 people. Several kilometers away, you can spend a lazy afternoon by The American Lake – origins of the name unknown to me and my local hosts – eating trout freshly fished right out of the waters and grilled in minutes. With a crust of almonds and a touch of garlic, delicious! Choose one of several side dishes and if that isn’t enough, dessert. This tranquil setting about 40 minutes from Częstochowa attracts people from near and far. It’s perfect day trip from Częstochowa, which is largely a place for families and traditions that hold together communities. So while there isn’t much to Częstochowa itself, there is much to do if you cast your net wider to include its surroundings.
Where Częstochowa lacks in certain areas, it makes up in it’s nearby natural beauty. And yet, Częstochowa draws more visitors than many places in Poland. How is that? Simple: the Jasna Góra Monastery.
The monastery is home to many treasures, but none so precious as the iconic Black Madonna of Częstochowa. The Madonna is indisputably the city’s top draw. The revered image of the Virgin Mary and the Jasna Góra Monastery itself were chief reasons behind my three visits to the 631-year-old monastery founded by Pauline monks who came from Hungary. The Jasna Góra draws millions of visitors from around the world, and millions more during an annual religious pilgrimage to the shrine. During that period in August, the religious faithful walk for hundreds and even thousands of miles from all points across Poland to demonstrate their devotion to the Black Madonna, whose origins and creation has befuddled scholars. Experts have not been able to agree on the age of the piece because the original image was badly damaged then painted over. In 1430, the icon was severely damaged by Hussite invaders. Early history documents have the icon arriving in Częstochowa from Jerusalem in 1382, but others have argued that it came to the city even earlier. No matter, it is very old, priceless and a fountain of strength and inspiration to many in every corner of the world.
So it is then no surprise that on three tries I couldn’t get near the icon and only manage a blurry photograph captured with my camera’s zoom lens. On my first visit more than a month ago, huge crowds kept me at bay.
Almond-crusted trout
On my second visit, even larger crowds attending some special Mass. And on my third and final try the next day, smaller crowds, but still big enough. I pushed – or rather I was pushed forward with the crowd surge – toward the Madonna inside the tiny, cramped chapel. I was carried just shy of a black and gold wrought iron gate that protects the Madonna when closed off to the public. The crowds trying to walk up to this Black Madonna, some on their knees, were too much. I snapped a few photos from afar and turned back, after it became obvious that it would have taken far more time than I could afford to stand in the crush just to inch a few feet closer. I simply did not have enough time. I would be returning to Warsaw in just a few hours. Someday perhaps I will return, determined and with an abundance of time on my side to get my closeup of the Madonna. It will take a lot of perseverance, which generally I have – and likely more being pushed and shoved about.
All and all, my time in Częstochowa was amazing. I spent the entire weekend with the family of a couple of friends and their friends. It was my golden opportunity to spend time in the home of a real, live Polish family, and the Nowaks – four generations in all – did not disappoint. I ate, and ate and ate – and ate some more, until I could no more. 🙂 Of course, there was some delicious Polish food. I may not have seen the Black Madonna up close and personal, but I saw the love of family, and sometimes family is all you need.
MY GRACIOUS HOSTS, FOUR GENERATIONS
My most amazing, fantastic hosts,the Nowaks
Mike Tends To Travel 
POLAND: Stop Staring At Me!
Many Polish people have only seen black people on television or in movies or in other media they are fed. Here, a billboard in Gdansk, Poland. I was actually once asked on the street if I am Jamie Foxx
I have traveled to a lot of places around the world and I know that even in an interconnected world made smaller by mass communication, transportation and technological advances, in this the 21st Century there are people on Earth who have never laid eyes on a black person. I accept that I remain “exotic” in many corners of the world. The reaction I get from those persons who are coming in contact with a black person seemingly for the first time ranges from smiles to frowns. Sometimes there’s lighthearted laughter, sometimes visible anger. No matter, all stare, some quietly while others go one step further and make racist comments or gestures. As a person who has been privilege to travel the globe, I can accurately and confidently report that racism is alive and well just about everywhere in the world, thanks in large part to those very same communication and technological advances that have been the engines of the global economy.
In South America, with large numbers of people of African descent, I still got stares, mainly because people could tell I was a foreigner and they were simply curious about me and where I had come from. In Asia, the stares came because I was the exotic one, not them. I was indirectly the cause of a bicycle pileup in Beijing, China, because dozens of Chinese cyclist transporting all sorts of goods were riding their bikes and simultaneously staring at me. The result, a huge crash involving several bicycles. In some countries and towns more than others, the stares were epic. Some acted as if they had seen a ghost or an alien. Others dared to approach to chat and ask questions – some of those questions very telling about the individuals themselves, mainly about their lack of education. They were also very telling in general about television and mass media having done a very good job at exporting racial stereotypes to places where masses of people had never seen a black person – at least not in real life. On a constant basis as I travel, I hear and try to dispel generalizations about whole groups of people conceived in Hollywood for overseas consumption. Some are open to hear. Others are unapproachable.
When I came to Europe – and I have been to Europe many times – I never expected to draw stares. It’s simply something that has never happened in places such as London, Paris, Rome and many other cities where they are accustomed to seeing people from other ethnic groups and nationalities. In such cities, people are long over being surprised when they see a black person – or a person of any other ethnicity, for that matter – on the street or on public transport. Most of Europe is enlightened. That’s not the case in Poland.
There is beauty in diversity
Poland, Poland, Poland. What can I say about Poland? What I can say is that I generally like the country and the people I’ve met along the way. They are travelers and are among a new breed of Poles who embrace and relish ethnic differences. In Poland I now count so many of them among my friends. They are truly the coolest. But they are a minority in a country that not so long ago was closed off to the rest of the world. The communist kept Poland shuttered and sheltered. Travel was almost an impossibility. And visits by foreign tourists was unheard of. Then communism fell and the gates were flung open, and Poles began to travel – and the world began to discover Poland – and while there are black people in Poland, they are very few. You can go for days, sometimes weeks, without seeing a black person in some of Poland’s largest cities. And it is in these cities that Poles seem in shock – stunned, really – by people they come across who are not white or don’t look anything like them.
I must say I have never experienced anything like what I have been experiencing in Poland for the past 6 months. If you are black and you walk the streets of Warsaw – the capital, Poland’s largest metropolis – the stares are so intense they would burn a hole through your brain if they packed such powers. Poland trumps any place I’ve ever been. It wins the staring contest hands down. Not even China has anything on Poland in this regard. If you look different in Poland, you will be stared at from the moment you leave your home to the moment you return. But in Poland, not all stares are alike or mean the same. Here are the main types of stares I’ve identified”
THE “WHAT THE F*&^%$#@! IS IT!?”: This most of intense stare is usually from elderly people. They’ve lived long lives in a historically closed country and are beginning to see black people, some for the very first time. Their facial expression is one of pure fright. They look startled and barely blink, eyes wide open, their brains churning a mile a minute with so many thoughts, the first of which is very likely “WHAT THE HELL?!” No matter how you stare back, they will not look away. They are in a trance. Or maybe just in shock. Makes me want to go “BOO!” to force them out of it, but that would be mean. They are scared enough. I can just imagine the first thing they do when they get home is to report the sighting of what they believe was a black person to a spouse or closes kin or neighbor.
THE “I HATE YOU JUST BECAUSE”: Oh, let’s not kid ourselves. Poland has its share of racists, hooligans, neo-Nazis, skinheads. Call them what you will. I’ve crossed paths with a few of them, but none of them have been gutsy enough to take it to the level of violence. But their brand of stare breathes fire. It’s one that says “I don’t like you…What are you doing in my country?” with a few racial epithets thrown in for good measure. The thing about these types: They are big cowards. They will only act in groups, which means if they are alone, they are not interested in a fair fight. They’d rather beat the crap out of people they outnumber. Alone, all they can muster are nasty stares.
Of all of this type I’ve come across in Poland, the one that has stuck with me is a guy on the metro. He was a big guy, more than 6-feet tall and beefy, but flabby. As soon as I boarded the train he locked his pale blue eyes on me. His stare was filled with such hate, he never once diverted his eyes away from me. Sometimes you feel someone’s staring at you and you look in that direction and sure enough. It was the same with this guy. At first I decided to ignore him, as I do so many of these starers. But then I felt his stares had shifted into high gear and an attempt to intimidate. And so I made the decision to look him directly in the eye with equal disdain. And when I did that, guess what? The mad hater looked away. Still, he from time to time would glance at me, and each time I caught him staring, he’d look away.
World-class cities act like it: In places such as Budapest and Krakow, who cares if you’re pink, black or blue. Some things are given much more thought, like whether to have your picnic in the park or on the living room floor.
When he brushed past me to leave the train, he gave me one last dirty look. And as the train rolled away, from the platform he telegraphed another mean look. Yeah, whatever, fool!
THE “IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY?”: This from women and men who have sex on the brain. They believe the hype and think all black men have big you know whats. They inevitably are caught shifting their stares from above the waist to below. They usually sport a mild smile, as if to say “I’m cool with you, I’m interested down with it”. To them you are nothing more than a sexual fantasy. And given the right circumstance, you are perhaps their best hope of experiencing something possibly monumental. Seriously. You would not believe to what lengths some will go. Recently, one woman at a Starbucks tried just about everything to grab my attention and when I showed no interest – sorry, definitely not my type – she walked over to my table and bent over to expose her assets. Oh-kay, got my attention, now what? As she left down a set of stairs with her chuckling girlfriend, she gave one last look with a big smile. Yeah, sister twister, you’re just the sort of girl I would take home to mother. Move along.
THE “ARE YOU JAY-Z?”: Yep, I’m Jay-Z riding a public bus in Poland with you, because I abhor my limo. This stare comes mainly from children, and teenagers to 20-somethings who think you are either a Hip Hop star, an NBA player, or just someone they’ve seen on television, in the movies or on MTV. Their stares usually looks like a mix of constipation and puzzlement, a struggle to recall where they may have seen you before. And don’t start speaking English. Then they will be completely convinced they saw you on BET – late-night.
Okay, so I get that I am the oddball in Poland and as my Polish friends like to gently put it, “exotic” in a land of fair-skinned society still emerging as a player in Europe. And I understand that if I visit a small village I am guaranteed to draw curious stares. That I get. But that these stares happen in Warsaw, Poland’s capital and largest city, full of well-educated and well-traveled professionals, is beyond me. And it’s not just Warsaw. Many of Poland’s other large cities, same thing, with the exception of Krakow, which seems comfortable with cultural and ethnic diversity perhaps because it’s a city that draws tourists by the millions and it’s teeming with university students from all parts, including from abroad.
It’s fascinating to me that if I go just across the border into say Berlin, Germany, the staring ceases. It just doesn’t happen there. My most recent trip to Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; and Prague, Czech Republic, made this fact clear: Poland may be a member of the European Union, but it is anything but world-class in its behavior. I am told by my Polish friends that in Poland, staring is considered rude. But people still do it. They do it because they are not comfortable with people who look different. How do I know this with such certainty? Because not long ago, I was walking in the center of Warsaw and getting the usual stares. Then I caught up with a woman walking ahead of me. Suddenly, it was as if I did not exist. Everybody was staring at the woman, who was white and Polish. Nobody now seemed to notice the black guy next to her. The woman was getting all the unwanted attention because she was a “little person”, and stood barely 4 feet tall. Her height difference was apparently more jarring than my ethnic difference. That was the moment I realized that for the vast majority of Poles, the stares are less about racial differences, and more about people who simply are physically different… I think.
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