The Cult of Death in Poland and Other Funny Tales!

The first of November – All Saints day – is National Holyday in Poland. Tradition wants that if you are Pole you go to the cemetery. And this is what a bunch of non-polish Warsaw-based expats also did, including my colleague Aart Jan (Netherlands), Tom (Norway) Pekka (Finland), Lena (Germany) and I. We went to Powązki – commonly considered as the nicest Christian cemetery in town. Powązki is never-ending and so much better than the cemetery you could expect from a big Capital. All graves are on the ground and pretty old. They are all different and the people for the occasion leave dozens of candles in sign of respect or just because everyone does so. I even left one in one of the very few graves that didn’t have any. Families go to the cemetery, young and old couples do so, grandparents go to the cemetery, singles do so. The cemetery attracts much more people than any other place in the country on such day. I’ve heard that some 80% of Poles go visit their dears on this day. This would mean about 30 millions of people flooding on cemeteries in just one day. All shops are rigorously closed. And the general mood is incredibly relaxed to be in such an environment.

In the late afternoon - at the sunset - the atmosphere reaches its scenic peak and you can walk through these crowded lanes of graves, guided by thousands of candles and think about everything (but really everything) on earth but death.