More features:
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Lech Wałęsa
Credited as the driving force behind the Solidarity movement, as well as the man who revived a post-communist Poland, Lech Wałęsa remains, for many, the gloriously mustachioed public face of Poland, as well as Gdansk’s most famous resident....
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Władsyław Szpilman
Born in 1911, in Sosnowiec, south Poland, Wladyslaw Szpilman studied the piano in Berlin, before embarking on a successful career as a composer and concert pianist for Polish national radio....
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Creepy Poland
You have not come to Poland to visit a pyramid, but that’s exactly what you can do if your journey takes you up north....
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Euro 2012 In Your Pocket
With the Euro 2012 finals in Poland and Ukraine now just days away, there has never been a better time to check out In Your Pocket's guides to the host cities....
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Solidarity
Although Solidarity was officially christened in 1980, its roots can be traced some ten years earlier....
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Wolf's Lair
To the English it’s Wolf’s Lair, to the Poles Wilczy Szaniec. Adolf Hitler, however, would have used the term Wolfschannze....
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Rubinstein
Born in Łódź in 1887 the dapper Jewish pianist Arthur Rubinstein made his debut in Berlin in 1900 and spent much of his life touring the world and dazzling audiences....
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Hot Beer
There’s a number of ways to survive winter in Poland, and we’ve tried them all; from dressing up like Eskimos to eating loads of fat and staying home....
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The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity
Sunday 8th of January sees the 20th edition of The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. No, Charlie ...
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Polish Friends of Beer Party
Sure, it started out as a joke: In 1990 satirist Janusz Rewinski formed the Polish Friends of Beer Party (Polska Partia Przyjaciol Piwa or PPPP in Polish) to promote the country’s second most beloved beverage during the new shift in government....
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Max Factor
Max Faktor (or Faktorowicz), born in Łódź in 1877, has come to be regarded as the father of modern day cosmetics....
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Midsummer's Night
A devotedly Catholic country, Poland still shares some traditions with its Slavic and Scandinavian brothers which seem to have some roots in old pagan traditions....
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Eugeniusz Bodo
One chap you’re unlikely to have heard of is Eugeniusz Bodo, the veteran of thirty films, and director of two....
Marek Kamiński

Born in Gdańsk on March 24, 1964, Marek Kamiński ranks as Poland’s greatest living explorer, and in 1995 became the first person in the world to reach both Poles unaided in the same year. It was a childhood accident that originally inspired him to travel the world; having nearly lost his arm the blank days spent recuperating in hospital saw him make a personal pledge to live a life of adventure. And so he did. His expeditions have seen him become the first Pole to make the 600km trek through Greenland, circle the Baltic (approximately 2,000km) in a rubber dinghy in a time of five days and scale Mount Vinson – the highest peak in Antarctica. His most high profile moment, however, came in 2004 when he set off to conquer both Poles once more, this time with 15 year old Jaś Mela from Malbork. Mela managed the feat in spite of losing an arm and a leg after being electrocuted a couple of years before. Battling temperatures of –30 degrees Celsius, and winds of 200km per hour, the pair just managed to hit their target, arriving at the South Pole on December 31. In the process Mela became the youngest and first disabled person to conquer both Poles in one year, and the expedition raised funds to provide artificial limbs for around 65 Polish children and adults. Awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta for his travels, Kamiński is also the co-author of three books and the founder of the Marek Kamiński Foundation (www.kaminski.pl) - an organization set up to promote exploring the Poles and planet in general, as well as increasing environmental awareness in young people. The foundation also runs an educational project (www.nabiegun.pl) aimed at helping those less fortunate.
fot. Peplowski111