I am a French student, just over a month ago, I left my country to live 3 months in Poland as an erasmus trainee. France is one of the richest and considered among the most advanced countries in Europe. Poland on the other hand, is a poorer and less developped country.

But is it really ? To me, it’s just a country of contrasts. I’m staying in Łódź, a city that isn’t touristic at all. It used to be the center of textile production in Europe until the industry was moved out of Europe. The city suffered a lot from those events. It looks a bit grey and sad. But like any industrial city.

On the other hand, Kraków, Gdańsk, Malbork or Warszawa are absolutely beautiful cities. Poland has this unique way of making you feel like you’re walking in a village when really you’re in the old town of a big city. It’s beautiful, very green and really nice overall.

That’s just tourism. Now let’s talk about transportation. All the cities I have been too had a wide bus/tramway network that allowed me to move efficiently anywhere. Warszawa has the most recent metro in Europe with the second line opened since 2006. Overall, the train network covers the country pretty well. The trains are modern and comfortable, they also offer power sockets, free wifi and free bottles of water for high speed trains.

The choice of food is just as large and the quality is equivalent to what we have in France. At the restaurant you can pay by card like anywhere else.

I am a research trainee and the university lab are very well equiped with high-tech machines and the education seems good.

I can’t tell anything about infrastructures as I haven’t used them. But what I’m trying to say is that if I showed you a picture of a street in Poland, you wouldn’t be able to guess where it is. Life is similar to France. I have noticed differences like the wide use of gas (nuclear eneegy is the main source of energy in France) and the price of life overall.

What makes Poland poor to the eyes of everyone is the level of life. The monthly salary is low therefore rent, food, restaurants and life overall is less expensive. But please, stop picturing Poland as an “uninteresting 3rd world country” (I’ve heard people refer to poorer country as it). It is a truly beautiful country with a rich and inspiring history, cool food and beautiful cities. A very nice country !

Edit : I’m tired of people mocking France in the comments. This post is all about seeing the good side of countries, why do you guys feel the necessity to just mock a nation ? Besides, that is not MY point of view but just the statical point of view. If you look at stats, France is indeed wealthy and developped. But then again, I don’t care. What I do care about here is Poland !

Also to those saying I’m wrong, you’re right ! As I am not Polish myself, I have a very narrow view on the country. But it felt like justice defending Poland when it’s looked down by so many

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With all due respect, you couldn’t be more wrong.

First off, I’m from Hungary, and I can provide a view from “below”: Poland is not only the most developed country in Central-Eastern Europe, but also has one of the most robust economies of the world:

Poland has a HUGE internal market (pop: 37,75 million people, according to the 2021 census), and a thriving industrial, agricultural, and technological sector, so the Polish economy has little dependence on export and import. Add to that a powerful military and services (mainly in the IT sector) that are sought after even outside of the country.

These factors also make Poland’s currency one of the most resilient currencies in the EU. Poland isn’t a member of the monetary union (using Euro as currency) because she’s better off with her own currency.

From a global politics perspective, Poland has been, and is playing an integral role in aiding Ukraine: Poland was able to manage to successfully advocate her interests even against Germany, the de facto leader of the EU (yeah, the EU is said to be a roundtable, but no man in their right mind believes that): Germany was reluctant to support the idea that the EU should provide financial and military aid to Ukraine, but poland can do however she pleases and given aircraft (along with other weapons and weapon systems) to Ukraine, forcing other key political players to act, including Germany and France.

Poland is already the richest of the V4 countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic), and is quickly becoming an unavoidable factor in both regional and global politics.

It is worth noting though, that the Polish had suffered a lot throughout their history:

• They had hyper inflation shortly before the Soviet Union started to fall apart.
• They were under Soviet reign before that. Although Poland was not formally a part of the Soviet Union, she was a henchman-state, just like Hungary or Eastern-Germany. In general, such henchman-states had a better quality of life that SSR’s, but Poland was an exception as Stalin was bent on ERADICATING the Polish culture entirely.
• Before being a Soviet henchman-state, Poland’s borders were moved after WW2, without any consideration of the affected population’s ethnicities and cultural identity, just like you would move a misaligned table in PowerPoint.
• During WW2, Poland was simply divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (Molotov-Riebentropp Pact), and both parts invaded by the aforementioned powers.
• And that’s not all. I could go on for a day, going back in hisory…

However, Poland has eventually recovered, and is now able to self-determine without anyone being able to force foreign interests on her. Putler shutting off gas and oil? F#%c you, I’ll manage, I’m the strongest economy in CEE, says Poland.