Plenty of Nothing

Cymburgis of Masovia

A member of the Polish Piast dynasty, Cymburgis married Ernest the Iron, Duke of Austria, in 1412. She is the ancestor of all modern Habsburgs, and could crack nuts with her bare hands.

Dürer Wrocław

Source.

Street Art, Łódź

Łódź is rich in street art. Source. Do a Google Image search.

The Doors of Płock

Detail from the doors of Płock Cathedral in Poland. Source.

Wojtek the Soldier Bear

Wojtek the Soldier Bear was bought by members of the Polish II Corps in 1942 in Iran. In order to secure food and transport for him he was formally enrolled in the Polish Army as a private soldier. He served in Italy as a transport animal and was promoted to corporal. (The emblem of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company is a bear carrying an artillery shell.) After the war Wojtek lived in the Edinburgh Zoo, and now there's a statue to him near Edinburgh Castle. Source.

Cow Candy

A Group of Poles

Grupa z Polski (1995) by Andrzej Mleczko. Go to the Muzeum Karykatury website and teach yourself about Polish caricaturists. There's an alphabetical index of the artists with examples of their work under the heading Nasza Kolekcja.

Śmieszek

The Polish translation of the ancient Roman joke book Philogelos. I offer this as evidence that Poland must be counted as one of those nations that could preserve civilization single-handed if need be.

The Line AB

Joseph Conrad attended school in Cracow in the 1870s, and returned for a visit in 1914. He and his son took a walk around the Main Square.

    "We are now on the line A.B.," I said to my companion, importantly.

    It was the name bestowed in my time on one of the sides of the Square by the senior students of that town of classical learning and historical relics. The common citizens knew nothing of it, and even if they had, would not have dreamed of taking it seriously. He who used it was of the initiated, belonged to the schools. We youngsters regarded that name as a fine jest, the invention of a most excellent fancy. Even as I uttered it to my boy I experienced again that sense of my privileged initiation. And then, happening to look up at the wall, I saw in the light of the corner lamp, a white, cast-iron tablet fixed thereon, bearing the inscription in raised black letters, thus: "Line A. B." Heavens! The name had been adopted officially! Any town urchin, any gutter-snipe, any herb-selling woman of the market-place, any wandering Boeotian, was free to talk of the line A. B. It had become a mere name in a directory. I was stunned by the extreme mutability of things. Time could work wonders, and no mistake. A Municipality had stolen an invention of excellent fancy, and a fine jest had turned into a horrid piece of cast-iron. (From "Poland Revisited".)

He hadn't counted on his classmates growing up to be city fathers.

2014 Men's Hockey Playoff Champions

KHL: Metallurg Magnitogorsk

Finnish: Oulun Kärpät

Swedish: Skellefteå

Czech: Zlín

Slovak: Košice

Swiss: ZSC Lions

German: ERC Ingolstadt

Asian: Nippon Paper Cranes

EBEL: Bozen

Belarusian: Neman Grodno

British: Sheffield Steelers

Dutch: Tilburg Trappers

Danish: SønderjyskE

French: Briançon

Italian: Ritten-Renon

Norwegian: Stavanger Oilers

Polish: Sanok (Pictured above.)

Canadian: Dundas Real McCoys