They say there are all sorts of animals roaming wild in the primaeval forest at the border of Poland and Belarus. Bison, lynx, deer, wild boar, donkeys, Shrek. They say that if you’re quiet, and if you wander far enough into the forest, you might be lucky and get to see one of these rare creatures in the oldest untouched forest in Europe.
If you’re quiet...some chance of that, with two marauding children. There wasn’t an animal this side of the Urals which wasn’t alerted to our presence, and had legged it to the nearest cave to get away from the screaming menace of a six year-old wee nipper on the charge...
We spent a Saturday morning in Bialstok in eastern Poland, waiting for the kids to fall into a fountain. It was large, with an impressive array of displays, and it seemed inevitable that at least one of our kids would take an immediate header into the water. Amazingly, as if the benign water gods were smiling upon us, neither of them did, despite playing beside it for almost an hour.
Eventually we managed to drag them away and headed off in the direction of Bialowieza national park. We were to spend the night in a small wooden shack with dead animals on the wall and no heating, in the small town of Hajnowka.
We arrived in the peaceful country idyll, were served fantastic steaming bowls of soup made from forest mushrooms, and settled back to relax as the kids roamed free and safe in the unspoiled countryside. So we thought. Instead, they stayed about twenty yards away from us playing in a hammock strung between cherry trees, which would have been fine, except they were producing a level of noise equivalent to the whole of Italy when Fabio Grosso scored the winning penalty in the World Cup Final against France. The peaceful county idyll was shattered. We headed off into the forest in an attempt to wear them out, or distract them long enough that they forgot to keep shouting.
We wore them out, sure enough, which helped by 9pm that evening. For the time being, however, they kept up the noise levels. Had there been any kind of dramatic animal life anywhere near the spot where we entered the forest, it would have had time to pack its bags, put its house up for sale, eat some lunch, watch the first three series of The West Wing, have a bath and then catch a late train to the Black Forest, so much warning did we give them of our presence.
We walked for forty minutes, crossing numerous paths and wondering if we’d find our way back. We’d been leaving a bread crumb trail, but discovered deep into the undergrowth that Two of Two had been scoffing it, along with a light chianti he’d brought along for the trip. Soon they were agitating to turn back. You can fight that kind of thing off for a certain amount of time, and then it becomes unbearable. We caved in and marched back to the shack.
By the time we’d found our way home, Two of Two had three hundred litres of mud in his boots. The rest of the day was wet and cold, no heating, Two of Two going through clean clothing like sweets, so that by the time night fell every inch of the shack was covered in soiled/damp/washed clothing.
Sunday morning we took a horse and cart ride into the forest to an orthodox church, painted vivid blue. The perimeter was fenced off with barbed wire, the gates were locked, and we were shown to the huge hole in the fence as means of entry. Behind the church was a sacred well. We’d been told to take a bottle to fill with holy water, for those awkward child demonic-possession occasions. The area was covered with the signs of pilgrimage and prayer, accompanied by a signpost on the neighbouring fence saying that it was a military area and everyone should keep out. In four languages. That whole military-religious mix. There’s nowt more sacred than that.
We took a trip to the tourist centre at the edge of the forest in Bialowieza, mainly to get lunch and take a hike up to the top of the park tower. In the near distance we saw Belarus. There were a lot of trees. Hard to believe they beat Scotland 1-0 at Hampden last year.
When we headed home that afternoon, we stopped off at the orthodox shrine in Grabarka. The story goes...in 1770, when the town was being ravaged by the plague, the townspeople were directed by a heavenly sign to erect a cross on the nearby hill. They called in the marketing consultants, who advised them at $40,000 a day, to put the contract out to tender. Following a five month process, plagued by corruption and claims of cronyism, the contract was placed, and three years later, and miles over budget, the cross was built. The plague vanished overnight. Of course, everyone was already dead. The hill became a holy place, and is now covered in thousands of crosses. There is a burial area, a church, and large areas where visitors on pilgrimage have planted crosses to commemorate their trip. A remarkable sight. We left the kids playing in a ditch by the side of the road, as they’d had enough religion for one weekend.
And that, apart from the dreary drive back into Warsaw along with everyone else who had been in the country for the weekend, was that. We had seen and enjoyed a lot of memorable things, and yet as always, the weekend was dominated by having two spawn at every turn. One day they may thank us for having taken them to an orthodox wedding, a former Nazi death camp, a primaeval forest, a sacred well next to a military installation, and a holy orthodox shrine, all in one weekend...but they probably won’t.
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