The Joys of Polish Shopping

My favourite Polish shopping experience is provided by the kiosk. We don't have kiosks in the UK, they sell the same stuff in little shops called 'newsagents.' The idea of having a separate kind of building that sits on the pavement as if scorned by all the proper shops fascinates me. Were Poland's cigarette and newspaper sellers guilty of some terrible crime in the past, now forever condemned to sit in draughty wooden huts while purveyors of shoes and women's underwear gaze out at them from their lavishly heated shops in disgust? Additional evidence for this theory is provided by the fact that you are not permitted to see the people inside the kiosks. They all have tiny serving windows at waist height; all you ever see is hands.

You can buy almost anything in a kiosk. I've seen people walking away with 20 Marlboro Lights and 40 metres of premium grade railway track. The only thing you can't get in a kiosk is change. Nobody in Poland has change. Polish coins are worth almost nothing in monetary terms, but most of the nation's shopkeepers and till operators spend seventy five percent of their time trying to cajole it out of innocent shoppers. I know I’m going be asked, so I always have my hand in my pocket before I even get to the till. The habit has become so ingrained that I now do the same thing when I’m back in England. Shopkeepers watch me with that special look reserved for lunatics as I carefully count out £1.97 in change.

In fact there are just two places where you can always find change in Poland. One is a little kiosk I know on Łowiecka Street and the other is my trousers. I have developed thigh muscles the size of tree trunks from carrying the stuff around. I don't know how I manage to gather so much coinage given that six thousand till girls are constantly trying to get their hands on it, but it's starting to cost me in trouser material. Here's a good tip if you ever feel depressed in Poland: go into the nearest store, unload all your change on the counter and beg the shop girls to change it into notes. They will flock around like hungry starlings cooing with delight and you will leave a happier man with a renewed sense of usefulness.

When I tire of the thrills of kiosk shopping and till-girl baiting I like to wander along the streets counting shops. The main streets of Poland's towns and cities are dominated by shoe shops, travel agents, pharmacies and banks. I conducted a comprehensive survey of my main street the other day: there are 27 banks, 14 travel agencies, 13 shoe shops, five pharmacies and one grocer. This suggest that the average Pole spends much of his time borrowing money to spend on foreign holidays for which he then has to buy a whole new range of footwear. If he is unable to borrow the money for the foreign holidays, he simply visits the pharmacy to buy the anti-stress pills I constantly see advertised on television.

The final weapon in Poland's armoury of unique shopping experiences is what I like to call the 'odd shop.' Odd shop sell odd things and appear to circumvent all known laws of economics. There is a tiny shop near me that sells washing powder—nothing else, just washing powder. "All original products!" it proclaims, rather suspiciously, across its window: the idea that somebody might counterfeit washing powder had never occurred to me until I saw that sign. I've never seen anybody in there. Another shop, a few streets away, sells second-hand clothes, illuminated statues of John Paul II and offers translation services. I can't decide if this is extremely clever niche marketing or straightforward lunacy. I'm just popping out now to stock up on goldfish, scissors and U.S. government bearer bonds. Fortunately, there's a little place I know just round the corner.

Jamie Stokes