YO-HO-HUM?
The Christmas spirit finally hit Warsaw on Saturday evening as the Christmas lights from Nowy Swiat all the way down to the Old Town square were officially lit up. Thousands of people headed down to Castle Square in order to watch a huge Christmas concert featuring loads of acts which I had never heard of, but based on the rapturous applause must be very popular indeed; acts included Kasia Cerekwicka, Lukasz Zagrobelny, Patrycja Markowska, Andrzej Lampert and Pin.
Over 570 thousand lights burst into life, lighting up the newly restored Krakowskie Przedmiescie, three light ‘fountains’ are also in place along the route at Hoover square, by the Siostr Wizytek Church and a rather splendid blue and white light ‘fountain surrounding the Syrenka monument in the centre of the market square. Outside the Royal castle stands the tallest Christmas tree in Poland, sadly a fake one but the organizers of the Christmas decorations like to point out that it is far more eco-friendly and easier to look after. As I already mentioned in the events section of Warsaw Life, how can 27 metres of plastic, metal and weird artificial materials possibly be eco-friendly, perhaps someone can enlighten me on that point?
The Christmas market finally appeared during the weekend and although pretty small in scale, only taking up part of the market square, attracted huge crowds all trying to pick up some traditional Christmas goodies with food and drink stalls doing particularly well, probably because everyone has to eat and drink! Compared with Christmas fairs in other European capitol cities such as Vienna, Berlin and Paris the Warsaw market is pretty disappointing. The products on offer in Warsaw are very good quality but the small number of stalls, around 30-40, would not make it worth travelling from other cities to visit. Compare this to the Vienna Christmas fair, which has been a city fixture since the 13th century and comprises of 140 stalls in front of the town hall, plus many stalls at other historic locations throughout the city, a Santa’s grotto and a manger scene. The Viennese authorities estimate that around 3.5 million tourists will visit this year’s Christmas market!
Perhaps it would be a better idea to develop the concept of a Christmas market in Warsaw. I know that at Warsaw Life we regularly have enquiries from abroad asking about the Christmas market or the availability of traditional Polish products at this time of year. The market is a great platform for small and traditional businesses to sell their products and present them to a wider public particularly in light of the renewed public interest in organic, natural food products and also a great opportunity to generate money and contacts for small and interesting companies. It would be great to see the city encouraging such a plan which would be beneficial to various smaller initiatives and help generate money for them and the city itself rather than just spending 2.5 million zloty on a rather pretty light show.
