With one long excruciating squeal, the train pulls slowly into Warsaw’s Central Rail Station. The air is cold and stale. The dimly lit platform bustles with a variety of people and languages. Like pigeons on a telephone wire, babcie huddle closely on the benches, guarding their red & white checkered burlap bags stacked precariously high.
I fight my way onto the escalator leading up to the main hall. Along the way, I am mesmerized by the continuous flapping on the train schedule board suspended in front of me. At the top I push through the greeting party of beggars, gypsies, drug addicts, homeless and taxi drivers until I am finally outside on Emilii Plater. Creating an immediate and dramatic impression of the city, the mighty Palac Kultury i Nauki (abbreviation, PKiN), the Palace of Culture and Science, towers above from across the street.
Kiosks and bazaars surround the building on all sides. An old, rickety amusement park occupies the south-east corner. At first I think it is one of those traveling carnivals, yet after several months it is still there. The area is Dirty. Shady. Dangerous. Exotic. This is the starting point for late night buses, after the trams shut down. PKiN is my compass to the city.
PKiN has a troubled history. Upon its completion in 1955, it was presented to the city as a gift from Joseph Stalin. Varsovians did not welcome the building and felt its domineering presence was a symbol of Russia’s attempt to wield control over the country. As a result, it earned many epithets, such as “The Russian Wedding Cake”, “Stalin’s Syringe”, and “Pekin” (derived from the abbreviation). Varsovians also adapted French writer Guy de Maupassant’s claim about the Eiffel Tower to PKiN, whereby “the best view of the city is from atop PKiN, as it is the only place in the city from which it cannot be seen”.
I, on the other hand, have no association with the building’s history and tend to romanticize it. I love PKiN for its embellishment, its power and its austerity. I loved its mystique and the energy drawn around it. For me PKiN will always symbolize a place of adventure, where anything and everything could happen.
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