The Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve revelries are already behind us. Throughout the world, as well as in many Polish cities, the Christmas and New Year period stands out in the streets with a fairytale atmosphere, fantastic decorations, musical and lighting effects, and so on.
It seemed to me that after visits to “the West” (for example, Siegburg) by representatives of the city, someone would want to transplant some fragment of otherness onto our soil. Why, in Siegburg (and earlier, it seems, in the so-called wider world), there was, among others, the President of the Association of Bolesławiec Merchants.
One might have expected that this year, having the statutory and financial means, he would encourage our merchants with, for example, a competition for an impressive Christmas shop window, decoration, or colorful trade fair, so that our own merchants could show that we are indeed worthy of cooperation with Western traders and that we too are making our way to that Europe (even if perhaps on all fours).
That did not happen, however. Instead of decorations and a blaze of lights, we had a Christmas tree in the market square as poor as the Bethlehem stable, a dug-up old town, and dark streets. That was the city’s gift. The Association’s gift, meanwhile, was posters plastered over shop windows (instead of decorations), in poor taste and with confusing content, beginning with the words: “On the occasion of the Holidays, Buy Cheaper, Dear P.T. Customer from Bolesławiec.”
Well, sometimes it is easier to perform a clever populist volte-face than to do something worthy of the times...
The holiday atmosphere—or rather, the pre-holiday and post-holiday atmosphere as well—was emphasized very loudly by children. Given explosive presents by their rich and loving parents, from the early morning hours until late at night, regardless of location and regardless of the time of year, they set off firecrackers as much as they could. Never mind that someone in an apartment might have a heart condition, or might have wanted to sleep after a hard day.
The firecrackers exploded with a bang magnified by the nighttime silence, while the parents of the firecracker enthusiasts, pleased with themselves and their offspring, watched satellite television. The district officer likewise saw nothing wrong with this noisy amusement, even when, on Starzyńskiego Street, a child frightened by a firecracker thrown under their feet fell face-first onto the concrete, losing teeth and injuring their face.
What else was worth noting during the holiday period? Plenty of dirty, not even washed for the holidays, stairwells. A gift from the administrations of SM and MZGM. It is a pity that, at least during the pre-holiday period, those responsible for cleaning were not alerted to matters of hygiene, order, and cleanliness. Once again, some residents were “humiliated” (as someone rightly wrote to Głos Bolesławca) and disregarded by the slobs and those above them.
Perhaps one of the councilors could raise the issue of cleanliness at one of the sessions. The voice of the people somehow does not reach the heads of SM and MZGM. The subject is surely no less important than a milestone toward Europe. Especially since civilized Europe is reluctant to let slobs in.
And that is all for now.
Cheers! (Bolesławiec welcomes the countryside—or the other way around).