Poland 3: Baba Pruski Scores!

The mysterious lady reproduced below is one of the more intriguing fragments of Poland's past.

I first encountered the Baba Pruski - as the figure is called - in the grounds of the castle in Olsztyn. This small attractive city is the hub of Warmia and Masuria, an attractive region with numerous post-glacial lakes, green countryside and not that many international tourists.

The region also has a history of being traded between Polish and Germanic rulers, having spent centuries under both the Teutonic Knights and the Kingdom of Poland, later being part of the German Empire and modern-day Poland.

Baba Pruski (Prussian Woman) goes even further back than that, however, being connected with the pagan Prussian tribes who predated the Teutonic Knights' rule.

No-one's really sure what the statues were for, though one romantic theory says they were used to honour heroes who died far from home. Other explanations link the figures to legends of people turned to stone by witchcraft.

Whatever the truth, Baba Pruski has become a local icon, and fibreglass reproductions like the above are often used by Olsztyn to mark special occasions.

And what's the big special occasion in Poland right now? It's co-hosting, with Ukraine, the Euro 2012 football championship. Hence, wandering through the city centre, I happened across these figures in a park...

1. Here are the two Euro 2012 co-hosts, Ukraine in traditional garb and Poland a bit more fanciful in the national colours (and you can just see Denmark doing a Viking in the background):

2. It's interesting that the Babas representing nations which have once invaded Poland tend to be given a military theme. The German Baba is done out in the garb of the medieval Teutonic Knights, arch-enemies of the Kingdom of Poland. Behind him, by contrast, is the Irish Baba being green and cute:

3. Similarly, the Dutch are given a light, bright treatment:

4. As are the tasty Italians. You can just make out the Greek Baba behind this one, and the Croatian one in diving gear:

5. Russia is given some of Churchill's "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" treatment, rather than the expected warlike garb:

6. As is the Czech Republic (anyone know who the mouse is)?:

7. Finally, we're back to the warrior look. Sweden may make you think of such harmless things as IKEA and Volvo, but possibly the artist had as inspiration the destructive Swedish invasion of Poland in the 17th century, known as The Deluge.

And the girl is in that shot because her mother was having no luck at all in getting her to move on. When you have a Viking to point at while sitting on a beanbag, why would you?

Poland 3: Stalked by Copernicus

Wherever I go in northeastern Poland, I inevitably encounter a man in a robe holding a globe of the world. This is none other than Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who first proposed that the Earth orbits the sun.

He’s also a member of an exclusive club - famous Poles who outsiders sometimes don’t realise are Polish. I think of them as the Four Cs: Copernicus, Curie, Conrad and Chopin.

In fact the first three of this group were christened Mikołaj Kopernik, Marie Skłodowska, and Józef Konrad Korzeniowski. Chopin really was Frédéric (or Fryderyk) Chopin, by the way, as his dad was French.

No chance of mistaken identity within Poland though, especially in Copernicus' old stamping grounds in Pomerania and the neighbouring region of Warmia & Masuria.

Here are a few snaps of the great astronomer that I've taken over my years of researching for Lonely Planet in Poland...

1. A Star is Born. This is the most striking statue of Copernicus, in front of the Gothic town hall in Toruń. This is where he was born, and there's not much danger of this fact escaping you as you stroll around this attractive city on the Vistula River - there's a Copernicus Museum and a Copernicus University, for a start.

Toruń isn't only famous for Copernicus, though. It has an age-old reputation as a manufacturer of gingerbread. And you can buy this gingerbread baked in the shape of Copernicus, if you like.

2. Rebel With a Cause. Copernicus looks a little sinister here I think, as if he's about to peel away from this wall in Toruń, trap the little beggar kid within his globe of the earth, then give him a good sharp lesson in astronomy.

3. Do You Want Cosmology With That? I spotted this Copernicus figure outside a hotel restaurant in the little town of Frombork, east of Gdańsk near the Russian border.

It was here that the great man made many of his observations and wrote his revolutionary work, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ("A cracking read... guaranteed to make you question everything you've ever believed about an earth-centred model of the universe." - Nuremberg Times, 1543).

4. Touching Genius. I took this photo three days ago outside the drawbridge of the former Teutonic Knights' castle in Olsztyn. Copernicus was the administrator here after the Kingdom of Poland captured Olsztyn in the 1460s. The astronomer finally gets a chance to sit down here (must be tiring carrying that globe everywhere) and visitors sit with him and rub his nose for luck. Hence the shiny hooter.

5. You Say You Want a Revolution? The final shot is one I snapped in February 2006 on my first-ever Lonely Planet assignment, when the weather was very very cold. In those days this Copernicus statue sat in the centre of a roundabout - quite appropriate really. Recently the area surrounding him has been closed to traffic and repaved, creating a pleasant square in which to marvel at the Copernican achievement.

As you can see, I run into Copernicus everywhere. But is he stalking me... or am I stalking him?