A few men have stolen 4 WW2 T-34 tanks (made in USSR) from a military training ground of a Polish army. Those 4 old wrecked famous WW2 soviet tanks were used as a training targets in the military training ground in Jagodne. They have illegally entered military area with big lorries with the carriages and they intended to bring those tanks to the scrap metal purchase center.

T-34 Source: Wikipedia. Photo: Antonov14

In terms of scrap metal those 4 tanks are worth of 60,000.00 PLN roughly (about 13,333.00 Euro). The thievs were spotted in Lublin city and the one of the tanks was found about 40 km away of the military grounds.

One of the sources in Polish: http://www.tvn24.pl/12690,1585972,0,1,czolgi-jechaly-na-zlom,wiadomosc.html

According to Onet.pl, kids of the former Polish emigrants have problems in school due to the differences in the education policy in Poland and in the UK and Ireland. Kids that left Polish schools couple of years ago, had to get used to the completely different system in UK and Ireland, and now, they have to go through it again, here in Poland after they returned to Poland with their parents. Ministry of Education is working for special act that will assure the program of adaptation to the Polish system that will also help the kids to make up at school. However the Polish schools are facing the problem right now. The costs of additional courses for each kid of former emigrants are rather high – 5000 PLN (1250 Euro) per year. Those costs are not refunded by school-board, so the help is reduced to those schools that can afford. it

Source in Polish (onet.pl): http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/1903769,28350,wiadomosceu.html

During my stay in Ireland I was the active blogger and my blog Ireland From a Polish Perspective is still quite popular in Ireland, both amont the native Irish and Polish emigrants. Both on that blog and here – on MacKozer.com – I am dealing with the issues of the Polish emigration to Ireland, the problems of integration or sometimes lack of the integration at all. I have been always very critical, trying to be not biased on anyside favor – which is obviously quite dificult, since I am Polish myself. However, I have been always trying to understand both my compatriots and those Irish who are rather don’t happy hosting so many of us. The lack of understanding creates many problems and myths on both sides and some negative tendencions are present in both communities. The interesting case is the reflection of the attitude of some Irish to the Polish emigration in the search keywords that led them to my blogs. Today’s example is: “how to get rid of poles“: (here is the link to the refferal Irish search site)

One of the oldest news agencies – Routers – is making a reportage about Dell in Lodz (Poland), its movement from Limerick to the second biggest city in Poland (or third now). According to Gazeta.pl, Routers’ journalist went first to Warsaw to the Dell HQs in Poland to find out why Dell chose Poland and Lodz. The have also filmed the revitalized commercial, cultural and art complex of Manufaktura – the former factory of Izrael Poznanski. The reportage will be available for the other news agencies.

Source in Polish: Gazeta.pl

Recently MacWorld started to publish articles about the 25th anniversary of Macintosh that is due to be this Saturday 24th January. 25 years ago first Macs were born in the Cupertino. At the same time Poland was in the middle of the worst economical crisis after the 2nd World War. The Martial Law had been just canceled couple of months before and the state was ruled by the communistic army regime, being a satellite state of the Soviet Union (but Poland was never a part of the SU which is mistakenly and commonly taken for sure). In 1984 – the Orwell’s year – there was nothing in the shops, just a vinegar. Everything was rationed and available only via the special system of coupons that were the second legal tender aside of the Polish Zloty. The black market was on rise and the queues was the important part of the daily life of almost every citizen of the state (apart of the prominent members of communist party). The only places of wealth where the Dollar Shops (Pewex) both groceries, electronics, toys and cosmetics. Poland was also a part of COCOM embargo (Reagan’s embargo of export new technologies to the so called Soviet Countries). There was no new technologies to be imported to Poland using the legal means. Computers were traffic to Poland avoiding both West German and Polish custom officers at the borders. At that time just introduced Macs were rather unknown in Poland and most of us had rather limited access to the 8bit machines like ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 (or in some cases Amstrad Schneider CPC 464/6128). The first Macs aif there was any – were used along with PCs rather in the state companies (all of them were owned by the state). In the big communistic estates of concrete block houses started to appear the places with arcade machines. I spent a fortune on the games like Moon Patrol, Donkey Kong, Commando, 1942 or Defender. In 1986 I got my first computer Atari 65 XE, by that time Macs were still rare and unavailable. At the end of communist era they probably stared to appear in the DTP sector and in the newspapers editors’ offices. One of the friends of my friend, who is a graphic designer and artist, sold the apartment to buy a PowerMac. It was in the middle of Nineteen nineties.

Today, reading the articles about Mac’s 25th anniversary I have just grabbed the old book “Komputery Osobiste“, published in 1986, that was a compendium of knowledge about the computer manufacturers, brands, specifications and the description of the whole available systems and operating systems. Here are some shots of the pages about Macs and the parts of the system. There is more in that book, actually the descriptions of the software are based on the applications available in the classic Mac. The author was probably a MacUser, one of a few in Poland at that time…

According to the TVn24.pl (website of Polish news and business channels) thsouands of jobs to be cut in Poland in the fothcoming months. The massive job losses are predicted in industries such as electonics, wood production, cars, metalurgy and banking. The one of the Polish banks – PKO BP is going to cut 1,7 thousands of jobs. In the Masovia region there job cuts will affect about 10 thousands of employees in 53 companies. 1500 employess is going to loose their jobs in Szczeci, and about 9500 thousands in Katowice, 1116 thousnads in Zielona Góra. Many of mentioned employees have lost their jobs already.

Two Poles were attacked by the group of 8 or 10 men in the Bush Manor, a north part of Antrim City, Northern Ireland. According to the site of the Polish newspaper Dziennik – dziennik.pl, the attackers were armed with knives and the hammer. One of the Poles were stabbed and wounded. Policemen suspect that it was a racist attack. Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating the case and looking for the suspects.

I have mentioned the other racist attack on Polish community in Northern Ireland on my Irish blog (Ireland From a Polish Perspective)

Couple of days ago I got a email from one of my friends, an Irish blogger (PrimalSneeze), who asked me if the rumour that has been recently picked up by the Irish press is a true or not. The rumor is that in Poland in the building sites appeared “No Irish workers” banners. I have been living back in Poland for over 15 months now and I haven’t spotted any of them so far. Of course in the time of economical crisis and the fall down of all of the building sector the idea that Polish builders would eventually come back home would be quite reasonable but from the other hand all of the people I have asked what would they do if they lost their jobs in Ireland, would they come back to Poland or not, the answer was always that they would rather stay in Ireland. The socialwelfare benefit they can get in Ireland is about 200 Euro a week instead of 150 Euro a months in Poland. 200 Euro a week is 800 Euro and you can survive quite easily, even you can afford the same quality life as many Polish people that earn in Poland. Remember that average salary in Poland is about 2000 PLN (which is about 500 Euro a months). That is the salary of my wife, and she is the secretary (doing actually also some broker job and manpower manager) in the broker house in Lodz, Poland. And this is the another most important factor that will keep Irish workers miles away off Poland. The average salaries for the builders are not enough for the Irish workers. They won’t imigrate only to get half or even third part of the average Irish salary. There is no Irish immigration to Poland and I don’t expect it to be in at least couple of years (I am rather of the opinion that it will never happen). I guess the more possible scenario is the signs like “No North Korean workers” (they work in the shipyards in Gdansk) or at least “No Ukrainian workers” – whichs is now more possible due to the gas crisis between Ukraine and Russia.

It seems to me that we have a fines example of another Irish urban legend about the Poles after the swans to be our primary meal in Ireland.

Mac users’ community is not a monolithic, at least in Poland. It is due to the fact that it has been overwhelmed by something much wider and more specified – the Apple Users’ community, with the majority of iPhone and iPod users. The different perspectives on such Apple gadgets users and the old users (that started with Mac Classics and Performas) and the switchers (who switched to Macs from Windows) makes this Polish user community divided and even turn both parts of Mac users against each other.

I wonder how the Mac users’ community looks and works in U.S. I guess it is a bit crazy. All those queues in the front of the Apple Stores and Keynotes, private Apple museums and so on. This is for sure completely different to the Polish reality when for many years Macs were unreachable by the almost all Polish computer users. Almost nobody could afford them.
I wonder if the Mac users in the US help each other, do they socialize, are they friendly to each other? Maybe I will get some answer watching MacHeads The Movie

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This year, so far 118 Polish immigrants (of a entire number of 511 citizens of EU) decided to come back home to Poland with the financial help of Irish government. The program, conducted by The Reception and Integration Agency is dedicated to the immigrants fro the other EU states, who are homeless, unemployed and without the money. Usually those don’t speak English, they have neither savings nor contacts (like friends).

I remember when two years ago, during my stay in Ireland (Carlow), me and my wife went to Dublin for sighseeing. It was july and 2 weeks before I tried to book two beds in a hostels. All of them were full for entire holiday season. We finally decided to go to Dublin for one day and took the last bus to Carlow. On the O’Connell’s Street we met many Polish immigrants who just left the airlink buses (Dublin Airport <-> Dublin City Centre) and they were asking us about the accommodation and work. Many of them came to Ireland with 200 or 300 Euro. Try to imagine what would they do after staying couple of days in B&B. Some of them have run out of money very quickly.

Some people can not understand my very critical point of view over the Polish immigration, but I was always of the opinion that we should be able to communicate in English – at least, before we will pass the customs at Dublin airport. It would prevent many sad stories of happening and, what is also quite important, of closing ourselves behind the ghetto walls.