Krakow Euro 2012

A dragon descends upon Krakow, cutting through clouds before hovering over the Wawel castle…
In the modest offices of Krakow’s Euro 2012 organizers, the chief director Barbara Janik has just shown a Power Point re-imagination of Krakow’s legend, one linking the fire-breathing dragons of Krakow’s mythical roots to the burning, living reality of present opportunity--a chance to host matches of the Euro 2012 football championships. After Ukraine and Poland won the joint-bid to host this significant event, UEFA’s initial selection of host cities (four in each country) designated Krakow with “reserve” status. To Janik and other key members of her young staff that I meet there is nothing “mythical” about the eventual hosting of Euro 2012 matches by Krakow. However gimmicky and kitsch the dragon video is (complete with a soundtrack anthem, Go! Krakow!), in my interview with them I learn that Krakow’s preparations and work expand far beyond promotional videos, and are far from the readiness problems that haunt the other potential cities.

“[UEFA’s] criteria are based on the understanding that everything is a series of interconnected vessels, everything must be considered as complimentary to each other,” Barbara Janik explains. “For example, it is not enough to have a decent stadium if there is not an adequate number of beds, or if there is not an airport terminal large enough to satisfy all the football fans.”
Janik and her colleagues know that in order to satisfy UEFA and hold a successful tournament there is more to be done than simply flaunt Krakow’s cultural clout and tourism capabilities. Apart from the evident stadium priority (see section), Krakow’s most pressing projects involve transport issues, including a building of new airport terminal, important road works, modernization of the key railways into the city, expansive underground parking lots. It’s a load, but the Krakow office assures that they’re on top of things. Even security dynamics are already being anticipated, although, as the Security Coordinator, Marcin Plachno, explains, Krakow enjoys a quite expansive history of large-scale security as a result of frequent visits from pope John Paul II.
The planning and progress of these projects are presented to me with a various charts and graphs and video animations, but even more impressive is the knowledge gained that contracts and the financing for these substantial projects have been secured. An essential difference between the infrastructure projects in Krakow and the Ukrainian cities that our Open It! team has covered is that many of the projects in Krakow were pre-existing projects before the development of Euro 2012. Indeed Wisla Stadium renovations had begun as early as 2004 with a long-term plan. As Janik says, “these projects are labeled as Euro 2012 projects so that they can be coordinated together, furthermore everything must be considered according to how it fits the long-term needs of the city as well.” Unlike in Ukrainian cities, one gets the sense that Krakow looks at the Euro 2012 tournament not as a reason for development, but as an opportunity to showcase its development and to push even further. And whereas UEFA applies the pressure to other cities, Krakow is waiting impatiently for UEFA. “Once they give the official announcement can we really work, we could be doing even more.” As if they weren’t doing enough already.

Stadium

If there’s a single reason that Krakow was originally designated a reserve city it was because it didn’t possess a UEFA-standard stadium. When asked if he is pleased with the progress of Wisla Stadium project, Stadium Coordinator, Szymon Michlowicz dispenses with the formality and beams like a proud parent. “I feel great,” he says, “I feel great.” Ironically, Krakow stands above the capital cities Warsaw and Kyiv in terms of its stadium progress.
Having finished the tendering process, construction of the new east stand of the stadium began in February, and after that construction will begin on the west stand. All additional expansion and modernization is scheduled to be finished June 2010, at which time Krakow should boast a stadium completely in line with UEFA “Elite” stadium standards, with a capacity around 33,000 (about the same as Dnipropetrovsk’s new stadium) and featuring expansive VIP areas and modern business conference rooms. Until now the stadium has not needed to be closed for construction, but this coming June it will be necessary to close for one year.
“Our stadium is not the biggest one, in fact,” Michlowicz clarifies, “it’s the smallest in Poland, but we’re on time and I think it will be perfect for our Wisla Krakow Club.” Something in this statement is indicative of a major difference between the Wisla Stadium project and the stadium projects in Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk. Whereas in these Ukrainian examples, funding for the stadium came largely from local oligarchs, the 90 million Euro budget of Wisla’s construction is coming entirely from city and federal money as Wisla Stadium is a municipal building, owned by the city and operated solely by the Wisla Krakow FC. Echoing Krakow’s long-term planning beyond the one-month Euro 2012 event, the stadium project is more largely a city project, with the future interests of its local team in mind.

Twins (?)

Barbara Janik and her staff are understandably concerned with Krakow. The latest announcement (one that the Krakow staff does put much credence in) is that UEFA will make its final designation of host cities in mid-May. Until the Krakow office confirm their confidence that their city will be chosen and until they know what host cities will be in Ukraine, it is hard for them to speculate about how they might be able to work with their Ukrainian counterparts, but the willingness is certainly there.
“There has been some discussion about twinning of Ukrainian and Polish cities,” Janik says. With close physical proximity and shared history, even sharing statues of the Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, without doubt, Lviv, is Krakow’s most likely twin. Janik reiterates this, “historically, Lviv and Krakow have close ties. We have a hundred year history of football in Krakow; Lviv’s is even longer.” Stadium coordinator Szymon Michlowicz quickly fills in the details: “fifteen years longer.” One could only imagine the dynamic coordination of travel, accommodation, and tourism programs that the Lviv-Krakow twins could conceive. Janik tells me that last year the mayors of Krakow and Lviv signed a letter agreement to work together. But about coordination between other cities she states “to some extent this work is being done, but cooperation will be defined after UEFA makes its host designations and we know the match schedule.”
Whereas Lviv and Krakow make quite a natural pairing, it seems unclear to me how other Ukrainian-Polish cities could twin, not only because of geography, but more so because and the completely divergent identities. In nominating Poland and Ukraine to host this event, UEFA stressed their desire to expand the sphere of football into Eastern Europe. In May, Poland will celebrate five years in the European Union; Ukraine, for reasons largely political and economic seems far away from EU membership (if they want it). From the vantage point of Ukrainians it certainly feels like there is more of a national symbolic stake involved for Ukraine than for Poland.
When I relate these feelings to the members of the Krakow office, Janik replies with her only break from the calm pragmatism than she’d met other questions. “If I can use such lofty words,” she says, “this event will be the most pro-social, pro-national project ever carried out by UEFA. Poland is still a very young European country and we still remember the process of harmonization with EU standards. And I believe it can be designed as such that we [Poland] can serve as a kind of road sign to Ukraine because we share a similar cultural and historical experience. We have to bear in mind we are both Slavic nations with a Slavic character.”
Twins? If other Polish cities were as well prepared as Krakow, we might easily redefine this relationship as big sister-little sister. “We are talking about parts of the world neglected by previous political systems. We can’t impose our [Poland’s] ways upon anyone, but rather the main point is to combine our potentials.”

Out of all the ethnic food that Dnipropetrovsk has to offer, there is none more prevalent than sushi. From the "Japanese Kitchen" to the "Sushi Bar" I've tried much of it, and have to say that, apart from the Atlantic salmon, sushi made by Ukrainians isn't all that different from the sushi I've had in Seattle, made by actual Japanese people. Sushi here is sushi, as well as pizza is pizza, however much it may differ in the thickness of crust and cheese. Mexican food, however, is another story. There's a fast food institution throughout Ukraine that advertises its selection of burritos, tacos and the like, but the actual product is something that even a Seattleite like myself, closer to Vancouver than Tijuana, can easily say is certainly not Mexican. Who's ever heard of a burrito filled with shredded carrots and potato, or a taco with pickled red cabbage and, again, potatoes. Potato House, of course! If the name didn't already tip you, Potato House serves *Ukrainian* and can only claim itself as a "Mexican" restaurant by the fact that its transliterated the words "burrito" and "taco" on to it's Cyrillic menu. Don't expect to find any guacamole or Corona here. No, they only serve the local brews--Obalon, Slavutich. Oh and there's nothing about Potato House. Somehow it's managed to confuse Mexicans with indigenous Americans. No, you won't find mustached, Sombrero-wearing caricatures on the walls of Potato House, but you will find the most absurd characterizations of Native Americans this side of a Cleveland Indians ball cap. Not only is there logo a silhouette of a ceremonial-garbed Sitting Bull, the interior of the place prominently features wood-carved statues of Sioux and Mohican figures smoking the good old peace pipe.

As much as the Ukrainians confusion (assimilation?) of Mexican and American Indian cultures makes for a good laugh, it's blatantly indicative of a kind of culturally ignorant assimilation and novelization of all those who are non-White that happens in Ukraine.

A frequently played commercial for a popular brand of crunchy bread snacks advertises a new variety made from dark rye. Dark brown in color, they are distinctly different from lighter colored varieties. The commercial of course plays upon this obvious distinction by depicting a scene in which two dorky white kids gain entrance to all black hip-hop club by way of showing there packages of the new "black" snack packs. The slogan uttered by the narrator at the end can be translated as "pure black."
The racial subtext here is clear and exactly what they wanted: our new dark-colored bread snacks are as new and exotic and cool, just like black people. This is the kind of underlying racism that perpetuated in American media in the '60s or '70s, now they still exist, our racial subtexts are much more sophisticated and moved beyond snack mix--at least to sneakers.

No Ukrainian would argue that Ukraine isn't a White country. They know it, and they readily admit it. The unsettling part is that ever since I've been here, just about every Ukrainian I've had this conversation with has attempted to assert to me that because their country is void of much ethnic diversity that somehow they are immune to racist inclinations. Their claim is that because they don't have a modern history of ethnic populations to oppress and marginalize (save for Jews and Gypsies, of course) their country couldn't possibly hate other people. Right. Maybe they don't *hate* other people, but they fail to see that there isn't much distinction between hatred and the ostracism that inevitably comes from such an explicit focus on the otherness of all those non-White.