Sanok: Village People

If Krakow was synonymous with tourism in Poland, then Sanok was the great unknown. Sanok seems to belong to a different world, far away in the southeast and close to Poland's borders with Slovakia and Ukraine.

Below: Little Red Riding Hood sits on the threshold of the Greek Catholic Church of St Onuphrius the Hermit. Greek Catholics still very much practise the Orthodox rite, but recognise the Pope as the head of their church.

For some bizarre reason, we were alighted on the road across from the bus station instead of within it. (We were the only ones to get off there; and apparently the only non-Polish passengers on the bus.) Perhaps there was some toll the driver wished to avoid. In any case, there didn't look to be anybody at the bus station who could levy it. At 8.30pm, we were the only people in the compound.

Shortly after, Dorota arrived with Bono. Dorota owned the property on which we would be putting up for two nights. Bono was her German Shepherd companion, as friendly as its name was iconic. He led the way forward, and Dorota removed the leash once we turned into the home stretch. The guest quarters are set at the back of the house. It was en suite, had a kitchen and could sleep five in two rooms - and we had it all to ourselves.

Sanok: the Bieszczady blend

Set amidst the Bieszczady Mountains which contain one of the easier passages across the Carpathians, the area's strategic value saw it contested centuries ago between Hungarian, Ruthenian (which once referred to the people in the lands corresponding to today's Belarus and western Ukraine) and Polish kingdoms. The movement of people this facilitated also contributed to the area's diversity - Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Vlachs (a Romanian-speaking people, many of whom were subsequently Slavicized) and various highlander groups that subscribed to neither of the above identities all made their homes in the lands around Sanok.

This all disappeared (like in Vilnius) in the wake of the Second World War. The Jews were murdered. The Poles (who won here) and Ukrainians went hammer and tongs at each other - Stefan Bandera's Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (the red and black of which we met at Lviv over two years ago) actively participated in ethnic cleansing operations in these parts. Many highlanders were uprooted and their hitherto distinct identities nationalised according to the state in which they were resettled.

Below: Sanok and the undulating Bieszczady from the edge of the rynek.

Sanok: imagined communities

We came to Sanok to see its open-air museum, which represented an attempt to collect and enshrine a cultural richness previously washed away in blood. The jewels in the skansen's crown are its four wooden churches, carefully reassembled originals from elsewhere in the region. Many of the other buildings exhibited were also made of wood, lending the museum a quaintness which even the day's dour weather could not douse.

Above (top to bottom): Pretend docent checks her facts in front of the Roman Catholic Church from Baczal Dolny; onion domes of the Greek Catholic church from Ropki through bare January woods and its interior.

Bottom (top to bottom): As revealed at the start of the post, the Greek Catholic Church of St Onuphrius the Hermit, originally from Rosolin; its small interior, into which a small village could still pack; a Greek Catholic church from Graziowa, to its left the church belfry from Sierakosce.

We thought we were the only visitors when we arrived, and weren't far off from the truth. In the summer, employees played the part of villagers by dressing up as farmers and blacksmiths within the exhibits. Yet even without them, the guides and workers within the compound easily outnumbered the four other visitors who also chose to come on a grey January afternoon. As we went around looking like we owned the place, we weren't sure if we pretended to stumble across an empty village or if an empty village pretended to be lively.

Above: Panoramas of a reconstructed Galician market square, the first sight after the ticket office.

Below (top to bottom): Romance blossoms as we wait for the tailor outside his shop; Mary frowns as the day's discontent is disgorged into the town well.

The museum provided an idyllic picture of rural and small town life in this part of the world. It couldn't do any more than that. There was nothing (except us) to spoil the peace behind the ticket office - no tax collectors, no brigands, no war, no billeted soldiers, or unruly mercenaries, no plague, flood or fire, no failed harvests or debilitating famine which inevitably ensues, no mice and no lice. (Alright, perhaps the last two were hidden from sight.)

Below (top to bottom): Idylls - the set for Animal Farm, sans animals; the miller's not home; city bumpkins grinning stupidly outside a cottage from Skorodne.

Friends know I'm not a fan of museums. Mary isn't too, and she's got an even shorter attention span than I have. Museums really have their jobs cut out to engage visitors. For me the glass panels, whatever the technological wizardry conjured up to make them bright and noisy, are barriers in more ways than one. Plain and simple, outdoor museums may be judged as no different from their indoor counterparts. Yet at least an outdoor museum dispels the sense of sanitized claustrophobia. This liberation in turn leads to other convictions that, having set aside well-founded doubts of authenticity, believes the mustiness to be truly ancient.

Imagination is a funny thing. It suffers itself to be led knowingly to fantasies.

Logistics

There are straight buses from Krakow to Sanok, which take about four hours to make the journey. The Old Town is built atop a hill overlooking the San River, with the skansen a 20-minutes' walk northwest and across the San. The helpful staff at the tourist information office, within the old town hall building, will gladly assist with questions.

Above: A map which shows how the exhibits in the skansen are arranged. A more detailed map labelling individual exhibit is available on site.