The
2004 Selected
Archive News Stories from Krakow Info
Year
2004 in News from Krakow Info
Fly
Cheap
SkyEurope opens cheap air connections between Krakow
and London (Stansted), Rome (Fiumicino), Paris (Orly
Sud), Amsterdam and Milan by the end of September. It
believes they will entice some 200,000 passengers a
year. Other no-frills carrier, British EasyJet, is to
fly daily from Krakow to London and Germany’s
Dortmund from late October. It’s just for starters
since the airline wants to launch regular air
connection
to Berlin in January and later on to other European
capitals. It hopes its ticket prices starting from
euro 19 for a one-way trip will lure 80,000 passengers
per year to each destination. Two other budget
airlines, Italy’s Volareweb and Germany’s
Germanwings, have already launched flights
from Krakow
airport to Rome and
Cologne/Bonn respectively.
Krakow
Airport to Double Its Capacity
Krakow’s Balice international airport has secured
grants from EU and Poland’s Ministry of
Infrastructure to the tune of $3 million and $1.1
respectively for extension of its passenger terminal.
Its construction, scheduled to start this September,
is to be finished by next April. Once operational the
enlarged terminal, with its floor space almost doubled
to 18,000 sq. m from current 10,000 sq. m, will be
able to handle two million passengers per year. Last
year it received some 600,000 of them.
Czeslaw
Milosz Dies at 93
Great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz has died at 93 in
Krakow on August 14. The winner of the 1980 Nobel
Prize in Literature was both the honorary and the
actual citizen of Krakow.
Late
Poet Czeslaw Milosz Honored With a Tomb In the Skalka
Sanctuary
Great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, the winner of the
1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, has been laid to rest
in Krakow’s Skalka
Sanctuary’s crypt alongside a
handful of other Poland’s luminaries that deserved
the honor. The Skalka crypt is the country’s second
most prestigious burial ground after the nearby Wawel
Cathedral where the Polish royalty and the greatest
national heroes have their tombs. Czeslaw Milosz died
at 93 on August 14. He was both the honorary and the
actual citizen of Krakow.
Krakow’s
Robert Korzeniowski Confirms His Supremacy
Krakow’s athlete Robert Korzeniowski has won in
Athens his third Olympic gold in row in the
50-kilometer walk. In sum he is owner of four Olympic
gold medals, the fourth one for prevailing in the
20-kilometer walk in the 2000 Games in Sydney.
Krakow’s
Square to Bear Late US President’s Name
Krakow’s city council has renamed central square of
the Nowa Huta district to Ronald Reagan Pl. The square
was meant once to be the heart of a model proletarian
city that the communist regime had envisioned to be
built from scratch on a greenfield site east of Krakow
in the 1950s, next to giant steelworks.
The
EU’s Money Needed Elsewhere, Local Politicos Said
Krakow’s municipality has failed this year in its
bid for over $17.5 million of the EU’s structural
funds to finance six infrastructure projects in the
city. The city hall sought the grants for street
modernization, drainage of a fringe neighborhood, zoo
improvement, construction of a culture complex in the
Kazimierz downtown district, and creation of city
information system. As the Krakow projects vied with
302 other presented by the rest of municipalities in
the Malopolska
province, whose capital as well as the
biggest city by far is Krakow, they fell victim to
regional pork barrel politics. The province’s
steering committee consisting of local politicos
resolved that needy backwoods areas should be served
first while the metropolis is rich enough to take care
of itself. So no Krakow municipality’s project has
qualified among the 24 successful schemes that will
tap an equivalent of some $58 million in the EU’s
structural funds appropriated for the Malopolska
province this year. Nonetheless some $10.5 million is
to go to the construction of a brand-new opera house
in Krakow, the venture of the Malopolska province’s
government.
American
Basketball Star Strengthens the Krakow Team
USA’s Shannon Johnson, 30-year-old WNBA warhorse,
has joined Krakow’s Wisla Can-Pack women’s
basketball team after a season with the San Antonio
Silver Star club in the States. She and Tangela Smith
of Sacramento Monarchs, another WNBA team, have been
signed up to help the Krakow side sail through Euro
League and Sharp Torell Basket League this season as
well as Poland’s premier league. Johnson is this
year’s Olympic gold medallist with the USA team and
the 2002 World Champion. She counted among the top ten
WNBA players in 1999 and 2000. As the WNBA games end
when the basketball season starts in Europe she
managed to play with Turkey’s Fenerbache Istanbul
team in the years 1999-2001, with Spain’s Valecia in
2002 and 2003, and in Russia’s Dinamo Moscow earlier
this year.
Architects
Hold Their Feast in Krakow
Krakow’s 10th Biennial of Architecture has drawn
nearly 150 entries, from Poland and abroad, for its
two competitions, one to design a downtown museum, the
other to provide blueprint for a bridge-gallery over
Wisla river. Poland’s architectural couple Marcin
and Katarzyna Charciarek won the former contest, while
Germany’s Tobias Eckert and Sabine Kukel prevailed
in the latter. All entries are on display at the
Bunkier Sztuki gallery at Szczepanski Pl.
Krakow
to Attract Nearly 6.5 Million in 2004
This year the number of visitors to Krakow will total
some 6.4 million, nearly a million more than in
2003–recent estimates say. Foreigners make for 57
percent of the figure–51 percent in 2003–and over
three-fourths of them stay overnight or longer in the
city. An average tourist from abroad spends roughly
$230 in Krakow while a Polish one just $90 or so, and
the aggregate windfall for the city amounts to $700
million yearly.
Krakow’s
Focal Square Is Half Done
Western half of Krakow’s huge central Rynek Glowny
square has undergone $3.6-million refurbishment of its
pavement, long overdue. Over fifteen weeks till
December 9 some 10,000 cubic meters of soil and mortar
have been removed, old underground installations
replaced and some new fixtures added, archeological
excavations done, and 9,000-square-meter pattern of
pale and dark granite slabs put in place. Similar
renewal of the square’s other half awaits the city
next year.
Square
Charity
150,000 raviolis with wild mushrooms and cabbage
filling, Polish traditional Christmas
Eve’s
specialty, fed crowds that turned up at Poland’s
biggest Christmas party on December 19. Also six tons
of hot sauerkraut with beans, 6,000 liters of wild
mushroom soup with noodles, and 50,000 rolls featured
prominently this year in the open-air free meal Krakow
restaurateurs organize every December amid the
city’s central Rynek Glowny square. The charity
event was an occasion, too, for distribution of warm
clothes to the needy.
Party
to Remember
This year’s huge open-air New Year’s Eve party
amid Krakow’s central Rynek Glowny square is to cost
million zlotys (some $320,000), the bill split 50-50
between the municipality and commercial sponsors. The
yearly party, Poland’s biggest, has repeatedly lured
up to 150,000 revelers to date but the record may be
easily broken this time. The four-hour show, broadcast
live by Poland’s biggest tv network, starts at 9
p.m. and will feature Polish top pop stars of various
generations among other attractions, to culminate in
an eight-minute fireworks show.
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