Like most things in Poland, antiques are horribly expensive. The weekend markets are full of hideous rubbish and the people pushing their way round are hard to deal with. So I've been looking online at the Polish auction site Allegro which is similar to ebay. Ebay.pl arrived in Poland three years ago but has not made any headway at all - there is hardly anything on it... it is difficult to get Poles to change their ways.
So, browsing Allegro.pl I can't believe that I will have to fork out 600 pounds for an old wardrobe which you could pick up in the north of England for 25 quid. New furniture is slightly cheaper but ghastly to look at and poorly put together. Capitalism is still in it's infancy here. There are no bargains, indeed, sellers want a fortune for everything.
Scrolling down the Allegro items for sale, even the tat is described as UNIQUE!!!!!!!!! and has a ridiculously high starting price and/or reserve price. Invariably every sentence ends in dozens of exclamation marks and the majority of antique furniture is listed as ART DECO!!!!!!!!! no matter what it looks like. They do not know what Art Deco means but have latched on to this term as something meaning 'old.'
It is the same for cars. Even write-offs are advertised online at ludicrous prices. An 12 year old Jaguar which you could pick up in Blighty for a couple of grand would set you back 14 thousand pounds in Poland... laughable. And it would need a respray. Many Poles shoot across the border to Germany to buy stuff there including cars. Mobile phones and smaller goods are bought in the UK and often resold here for extortionate prices.
So shopping is tedious and expensive and the choice is minimal. Ikea has at last arrived in Lodz and should be ready by August 2009. I can't wait.
