Opole Lubelskie

Opole Lubelskie is a market town with some fading industry in the west of the region. If you approach from the north you can see the large lakes of the town, and also the rails of the now disused narrow gauge railway that formed a communication network in this part of the region between the end of the 19th century and 2001. There are no steep hills, the land is undulating and there is a fair amount of forestation on the northern and eastern sides, thankfully concealing some of the collapsed industry.

In the centre of the town is a triangular park, the old market place. For anyone arriving by bus this the most likely spot you will alight, and you can tell that the bus station is close as some of the buses park down one side of the park. Overlooking the eastern end of the park is the Baroque Roman Catholic parish church, which is unexpectedly richly ornamented on the outside and having far more than the normal size and number of attendant buildings. It was both a local church and a Piarist monastery, and was certainly well supported by the church authorities and local aristocracy in the past - but it is quite obvious that the success is now well in the past. to reach the church you can pass through a gatehouse, and on the left is what looks like a classic monasterial block, and on the wall of the church there appears to be the coat of arms of a local family or of Opole itself.

Down the northern side of the old market there is a row of late 19th century, two storey brick terraced shops, while on the other two sides there are various styles of wooden houses and shops with a few later brick buildings interspersed. It is all rather pleasant and just what you would expect of a rural town in Lubelskie. The surrounding streets still show their original grid pattern, when a village in the past received town rights, setting up a grid pattern of streets around a central market place was de rigeur in the past - Lublin itself being one of the rare exceptions in the region. This grid gives you a choice of directions to take, all of them equally interesting although varying in character. The southern side of the old market has many fine and also many decaying timber buildings, either in the 'improved' log cabin style, or timber framed. Grey seems to be the most popular colour for these buildings, although there are a few showing remains of whitewash and some in the more pleasant golden-brown.

On the western side of the square there is a brick building of the 20th century, and unusual in being exposed brick, that looks like it will be a kind of small hotel, or at least a guest house. Next to these are a series of wooden buildings all built to a similar pattern: two storey with shops on the lower floor and a balcony on the second. In the corner of the market here is the taxi rank, along with a taxi telephone box - popular in the past but nowadays quite unusual. From this corner we can see the bus station down one of the streets, very 1960/70 in style with part of the upper floor above the pavement so that the station staff can observe the buses. although we had arrived by one of these PKS service buses, we had no intention of leaving on one as they are so slow. The waiting room was grimly Soviet in style, with dark cream and dark brown painted concrete and steel interior, showing just how little the builders cared about what they were doing. We tried asking where the private bus stop was, but the woman in the ticket office was extremely rude in her reply. Luckily a man in a nearby kiosk was completely the opposite, even though we did not buy anything from him. After he had given us instructions to find the private buses we asked if there was a local newspaper, he said that there was but it only came out irregularly and he never knew when he would see it next.

A short distance from here was a small market full of stalls selling clothes and local produce. In the centre were two rows of permanent stalls, but these were woefully inadequate as around the outside other marketeers had a hotch potch of temporary stalls. This market is obviously only for the locals as it was tucked away behind some shops, and only the presence of people leaving with bulging bags indicated that it existed. Beyond this was the high rise block part of the town, not as grey looking as some places but still not terribly exciting. We found our first kawiarnia here and so stopped for a cup of coffee. Out the back on the patio was a group of drinkers, they were no problem except they were sitting beneath the open window to the unisex 'bathroom'. It was almost pleasant, but the table we sat had a mat bonded to the table by spilt beer, and when the coffee arrived the whitener was in one of those small catering packs with a paper clip holding it closed.

Swinging around we met the main road in from the north, lined as it is by shops, offices and homes of various ages and styles. There were a few wooden buildings, a line of 19th century single storey shops, another 19th century brick building that could have been the former town hall, and a variety of Soviet style buildings - including the 1970's town hall in the soviet 'ugly' style. Outside this building there was a fairly recent street map, but like most it was not that informative except that it did show the locations of the cemeteries.

Near here was the 'new' market square, although if it was not for the name you would have to be an expert to recognize it as such. Buildings have been encroaching on it since at least the beginning of the 20th century, and while it is surrounded by fairly original style buildings, the pinnacle form market shrine (kapliczka) can now only be viewed from two sides. On the front face there is an amateur painting of Jesus, and on the second visible side there is one of those pictures of Mary you can pick up in one of those shops that deal in religious goods, in other words quite a poor picture. I do not know why, but these shops always seem to offer the kind of thing which few people would ever choose to buy, but because it is 'religious' people throw any taste they have straight out the window. I am not sure any deity would choose to be represented by such poor quality articles, especially as most of it is way overpriced. If you ever come to Poland there are much better places to buy things as the country abounds with craft workers producing much better things, hand made too.

One other street off the old market is Strazacka - Fire Station street. Yes, there is a fire station building here, in brick, although the fireman's orchestra is the only part still in residence. The original entrance can still be made out, although it has been filled in and a shop entrance made out of it now, but on the wall is a depiction of the patron saint of fireman, saint Florian, as well as the station coat of arms.

By following a winding road down to the southwest you can find the cemetery area, this low lying part of the town was once mainly meadows, but is now one of the most popular parts for house building these days. The Roman Catholic cemetery is still in use, although much expanded now over former fields behind the enclosed old cemetery. Like most old cemeteries most of the burials are fairly recent as the ground has been reused many times, but there are still many 19th century tombs here, especially off the more important locals. In the centre there is a square chapel, and in the back of this is the tomb of one of these families, and on one side are plaques to another of Germanic origin. Plastered over the iron entrance gates to the cemetery are many signs, and one of them tells you that you are not allowed to ride bicycles or motorbikes in the cemetery, not that this deterred anyone and we saw more bicycles being ridden here than anywhere else in the town.

A couple of hundred yards further along the road, and on the opposite side was a wood. The wood was once fenced in, but this fence is much broken down and the gates have disappeared. The only sign is one saying that you should not dump litter in this place - and of course as with the no cycling sign in the RC cemetery then this wood has a lot of rubbish dumped in it. The ground is sandy and one can make out that a very long time ago this was an area of sand dunes. The wood is used as a shortcut for people walking or cycling from the housing estate on the opposite side and a preferred site for drinkers and night time parties. A few pieces of building rubble form convenient seats for drinkers and the sandy areas among the trees suitable places for fires. However, if you look very carefully you will see some bone fragments here and there - we saw the joint of a femur and part of the frontal lobe from a skull. Yes, this uncared for wood is the former Jewish cemetery, all the gravestones have disappeared except for the odd brick or unrecognizable piece of stone, and even though it still appears on the town map it is still being desecrated to this day.

The Opole Lubelskie region has an official website (http://www.opole.lublin.pl/opole.html), and under 'nowosci' you will see a copy of the town plan. On this particular map it shows both cemeteries with little crosses but no words - so the Jewish cemetery is improperly marked - which is a bit like marking up a Christian cemetery using Moslem symbols... For those who would like to know, the cemetery above where it says 'Jozefowska' is the Jewish one, the other (with the 'Cmentarna' road near it) is the Roman Catholic one.

Opposite this is PKWN (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego) street, and a former market garden operation. There are a few small businesses in operation, but also a lot of house building. One house is a bar with a limited range of food - the normal kotlet, bigos and flaki style of food. Not an inspiring place, but we ordered some Tyskie beers (better than the 'Zywiec', in our opinion) and then went and sat in the very large porch. This was very pleasant as their black Spaniel puppy was very pleased to see us, there were marrows, a large bag of carrots, two budgerigars, a child's bicycle, a butcher's block and various other clutter to make it seem very homely. It was quite obvious that some family members were going off to a wedding as they were dressed in the finest village fashion - modern village fashion, that is. They were considered themselves very well dressed, though sad to say even when they come to a 'Poland B' city like Lublin they stand out, especially the men in their grey check or striped jackets. While we were there a bride and groom went past on the main road in a horse and cart, with a man sitting up alongside the driver playing an accordion. September and October are considered good months to get married in, as are any month with an 'R' in. This time of the year particularly so, probably because now farmers will have sold their crop and be able to afford to pay for a wedding.

Opole Lubelskie, like many small towns, never really lets go of the past. Take the street names: PKWN celebrates the early communist faction after the Second World War, the ones who persecuted members of the wartime partisan army 'Armii Krajowej' (AK). These days in Opole, if you turn off Jozefowka down PKWN you do not go far before you find the new 'Armii Krajowej' street - ironic! In the centre you can still find what on the website map is marked as '25 Lecia' - (25 years...) but if you go to the street in question you can see it is actually '25 Lecia PRL' - 25th anniversary of the People's Republic of Poland!. And yes, just around the corner from that street (where you can also find the police station - perhaps this is why the street has not changed its name), is another recent AK memorial. One can almost feel the political battles going on in the local council even today.

Talking of which, if you go to the local website (http://www.opole.lublin.pl/opole.html) you can see how much the region has to learn about selling itself. At the top of the page it says 'Witamy w powiecie opolskim' - welcome to the Opole powiat (county). Fine so far. Click the top link on the left, where it says 'o powiecie'. This will bring up a page of the districts (gminy) within the powiat - click the link for 'Chodel'. Now Chodel is a pleasant little village, strong on agriculture and most known for the tower of the parish church and a former monastery church on an island on one of the local lakes. OK, what do you think of the picture at the top? Ugly, isn't it, the least likely place to attract attention in the whole village I should think, but it gets pride of place because it is the LOCAL COUNCIL BUILDING! Ego over intelligence. They are the council, therefore their little monstrosity of a building must take pride of place on their site. This is what you are up against when you try to improve the region's profile, petty officialdom gone mad. Luckily, further down the page you will see a picture of one of the finest church towers in the region - great, isn't it!

Finally, if you like trains then this website is recommended: (http://nkd.w.interia.pl/). It has been written by a local lad about the whole narrow gauge railway system in the area, and includes many photographs, both old and new. The sugar factory the railway was originally designed to link to the main system is still in operation and is one of the main employers in the region now that the local electrical factory has closed.
 

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