Administrative fees for burying a loved one in the cemeteries of the rural municipalities of Bolesławiec County (Bolesławiec, Osiecznica, Warta Bolesławiecka, Gromadka) range from just under PLN 200 to approximately PLN 500. If, however, we want to bury the deceased in the Municipal Cemetery in Bolesławiec, and in a new plot, we will have to pay nearly PLN 1,900. (These are also administrative fees alone.) Consequently, fitting within PLN 4,000—the amount of the funeral benefit paid by the Social Insurance Institution—becomes nearly impossible. This money must also cover, among other things, the coffin (usually the most expensive item). If we do not pay for it, ZUS will not pay us the benefit.
Why is it so expensive in Bolesławiec? The mandatory 20-year fee alone is PLN 690 gross (which comes to more than PLN 30 per year). In the opinion of Władysław Bakalarz, head of the Municipal Communal Services Company, which oversees the Bolesławiec cemetery, this is not a large sum when one considers the enormous amount of work carried out by the approximately 15 employees of the local cemetery: ongoing repairs, waste removal, supplying water, lighting, maintaining the paths, cleaning, winter and summer maintenance, inspecting the trees (twice a year), as well as maintaining the website through which, from anywhere on the globe, one can check where their loved ones are buried.
Moreover, tens of thousands of people visit the Bolesławiec cemetery. More than 25,000 people have been buried here, and an average of two funerals take place there each day. As W. Bakalarz emphasizes, this is a completely different scale from, for example, Iwiny (Warta Bolesławiecka municipality). The municipal company also wants this place to be properly maintained and look exceptional. Besides, as the president of MZGK adds, the prices at the Bolesławiec cemetery “result from a cost calculation” and have remained stable for approximately six years.
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