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IN MOURNING

As Poland prepares to bury its president, Lech Kaczynski, who died in an air crash on April 10th, The Economist's Central and Eastern Europe correspondent takes the country's temperature ...

From THE ECONOMIST online

Warsaw's candles are short and thick, and protected from the wind by little lanterns made of red or yellow glass. Each evening, thousands of them are left outside the presidential palace. The visual effect is of a sea of lava. On a chilly spring night they create a warm breeze that welcomes pedestrians on Krakowskie Przedmiescie, one of the city's main thoroughfares. Thousands have walked here to add their flame: second world war veterans in uniform; young career women in heels and suits; tattooed, thick-necked heavies in leather jackets; children being taught history by their fathers; angelic nuns, in spectacular clothing; punks.

By morning the street resembles a gigantic bottle bank. Loud crashes of glass accompany the clean-up. Firemen check the scene for safety. Street sweepers scrape wax off the pavement. Then street vendors begin to turn up for another day of business. They open the backs of vans, set up makeshift tables and wheel in supermarket trolleys packed with fresh lanterns. T-shirts, mugs and even stitch-on “Katyn” badges are already available for purchase. Stalin was right when he said communism would never really take off in Poland. The Smolensk air crash, again, is demonstrating this country’s unique blend of mysticism and resourcefulness.

Religion plays a complicated role in Poland. The country has plenty of devout believers, who go to confession and pray at night. But most of the people leaving candles at the palace probably aren’t especially good Catholics. Many Varsovians are as liberal, cosmopolitan and agnostic as Londoners or New Yorkers. But in moments of tragedy, like this, Poles turn to religion for hope and for unity.

At the same time, Warsaw life carries on as normal. Coffee shops and cocktail bars are as full as ever. Conversation turns to Bronislaw Komorowski, the acting president, and how in the presidential election originally scheduled for the autumn, but now brought forward to June, everybody would have voted for him instead of Lech Kaczynski anyway. In one pub last night, there were drunken protests over the plan to bury Kaczynski in Poland's most sacred mausoleum, the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow. “He wasn’t like the Polish kings I grew up learning about,” said a Polish-American from New Orleans. “He was just a president, and an unpopular one. This is ridiculous.”

At Zlote Tarasy, Warsaw’s Xanadu of shopping, screens usually blurt out adverts for computer games and handbags. This week they have been switched off. News and bank websites are black. On street corners, red-and-white Polish flags have been topped with black ribbons. Billboards at railway stations carry a mosaic of photographs of all 96 victims of the plane crash. Commuters who travel to work in mourning clothes receive nods of approval.

Conversation turns to the foreign reaction to the crash. “Obama, Prince Charles, Merkel and Sarkozy are coming to Krakow,” says one gentleman to his friend. Receiving sympathy from international statesmen matters to Poles, who feel that throughout history they have been let down and even betrayed by the West. Passengers within earshot murmur their approval. “No they won’t,” butts in a teenager. “Didn’t you hear about the volcano in Iceland? The ash is going to stop them.” The youngsters laugh at the mayhem in the adult world. Older passengers can’t believe the unhappy coincidences taking place. “What a curse,” says an old lady. “God is angry.”

(This is an instalment of a correspondent's diary about mourning Poland's president, published on The Economist online.)

Picture credit: Szymon Nitka (via Flickr)