Author: Kevin McCartney

We are preparing for a week-long short course on siliceous
microfossils, with speakers from 5 and students from at least ten
countries.  I am here in Berlin to meet a colleague at the airport.

Halloween is just past – in the USA.  In Poland this is All-Saints
Day, and a very serious matter.  It is a holiday, and many people have
spent the previous days buying candles and flowers to put on the
graves of loved-ones (a display in my local grocery store is shown
here).  This is a day of remembrance; no tricks, no treats.

Two silicoflagellates!  I got some time on a scanning electon microscope while in Warsawa.  The sample was not a clean as I would have liked, but here are two silicos, a large Corbisema constricta and a three-sided silicoflagellate in the middle.  We will likely see more of these later.

Most of my time this first month is spend in sample preparation.  This is a laborious task, the samples go through many steps, everything must be carefully labeled, inventoried, measured.  Few appreciate how much work it takes to get data.

In 1970 there was a protest against the Russian occupation.  Shots were fired and 16 were killed, most aged 16 to early 20s.  This is a monument in downtown Szczecin to them.  Very evocative.

Hard to believe, but this the building in which Catherine the Great (Czarina of Russia, late 1700s).  When Catherine was born, Szczecin (then known as Stetine) was part of Prussia.  Catherine was none too great for the Poles, she split up the country between Russia, Germany and Austria and ruled harshly (using the word “Poland” was a criminal offence).  The building, obviously, has been renovated.

Ryan and I went up into the belfry – no bell there anymore – of the big church from yesterday’s photos.  Again, the weather is not very good but this is the view of the Stare Miasto (old city) area.  The Stare Maisto area is stores and restaurants, and I think the buildings are mostly of modern construction, but still attractive; this area was heavily bombed during the war.  The second picture is of Ryan and I, not great picture but something for my Fulbright colleagues who view this blog.

I am back in Szczecin after a few days in Warsawa, and am giving a tour to a fellow Fulbright, Ryan.  The weather is not too good, so did not take many pictures, but here is a group of four from a little park area near a church in the central area of Szczecin.  The four picture are intended to paint a picture:

1. Pretty view, church in the background, fountain in the foreground
2. to my immediate right, one of the nice old German buuildings
3. to my immediate left, fine architecture from the communist occupation.  This style is popularly known as “Stalinist Gothic” and you see it everywhere in eastern Europe and Russia.  Raw cement slab sides that does not weather well, but makes a good background for graffiti (and the graffiti does make this look better).
4. this is the pavement, also common in Eastern Europe.  Squared cobble-sized rocks, looks quite nice though not you would want to walk around on in high heels.

Adama Mickiewiszka is the national poet for Poland (also Lithuania and Belarus).  His poetry and Chopin’s music kept the flame of Polish nationalism alive during the long 120 years of partition between the Russian, German and Austrian Empires.  This monument was destroyed by the Nazis, but the pedestal is original, and still shows its pullet holes.  (I live on Mickiewicza Ulica in Szczecin)

Very pretty storefront selling amber.  There are a lot of such amber stores in Warsawa (and Polish tourist locations in general).