The Guardian's New Europe series continues with a week-long look at life in Poland
Population
There are 38.4 million people in Poland and its population is falling – the birth rate has plunged dramatically since the fall of the iron curtain and many of the million or so Poles who left after EU accession in 2004 have yet to return. Compared with most other European countries, Poland has not attracted many immigrants either. According to the last census in 2002, 96.7% of the country are Polish, with the main ethnic minorities hailing from Germany, Ukraine and Belarus. Though the proportion of foreigners is thought to have increased slightly in the past nine years, Poland remains an almost exclusively white, Catholic country.
Economy
Poland is currently enjoying its second "economic miracle". Twenty-one years after Solidarity leaders gambled successfully on the "big bang", ushering in free market capitalism overnight on New Year's Day 1990, the economy they created has beaten the odds. Alone in the whole EU it continued to grow through the recession of the past two years. Last year the economy grew by nearly 4%, and is projected to do even better this year. The country has EU investment to thank, as well as a construction boom driven by the need to prepare for the 2012 European football championships.
Government
Poland negotiated its way out of communism at the famous "round table" talks in 1989, but it only got round to drafting a comprehensive new constitution for the "third republic" in 1997. It is a self-conscious casting off of the communist past, rejecting the failed experiments in collectivisation by explicitly making the "family farm" the foundation of the agrarian economy. The system is semi-presidential. The presidency has more power than Germany's but less than the French Elysée. The proportional representation elections to the lower house of parliament (the Sejm) produced two decades of shaky short-lived coalitions and continual spats between parliament and president. By those standards, the current period counts as the most stable in modern Polish history.
Politics
Polish politics is currently a two-horse race. The party now in power is the liberal Civic Platform, led by the football-playing prime minister Donald Tusk. The president, Bronislaw Komorowski, is from the same party. These two took over from one of the world's more eccentric political double acts, the identical Kaczynski twins Jaroslaw and Lech, child actors who grew up to become prime minister and president respectively. Lech was killed in the Smolensk air crash last year, which his grieving brother still believes was more than an accident. In the general election this autumn, Jaroslaw will try to regain the premiership with his conservative Law and Justice party. Minor parties have names which hark back to bygone days, such as The League of Polish Families and Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland.
Food and drink
Surely one of the underrated gems of European cuisine, Polish food is distinctive, and can be superb. The classic soup, zurek, is made of rye flour left to ferment in water for a few days. Mixed with stock and marjoram, with bits of kielbasa (sausage) and hard-boiled egg floating on the bottom, it can be addictive. Pierogi (ravioli) are a food group of their own – arguably the best variety being stuffed with minced cabbage and wild mushrooms (the object of a near-mystical reverence). Apart from the ubiquitous kebab, the Polish fast food of choice is the Zapiekanka, a baguette topped with melted cheese and mushrooms and smothered in ketchup. Vodka is not the dominant drink of yore. Its place has been taken by imported wine and excellent local beers, like Okocim, Zywiec and a crop of new micro-breweries.
Entertainment
Poland has succumbed to the same guilty pleasures as much of the rest of the world. Billboards in the cities are advertising the new series of X Factor, and Taniec z Gwiazdami (Dancing with the Stars) is one of Poland's biggest shows. Though the majority of Polish cinemas spurn homegrown films in favour of Hollywood blockbusters, the indigenous film industry is in passable health. The National Film School in Lodz is still producing decent directors, though none of its alumni have ever replicated the worldwide success of Roman Polanski, Krzysztof "Three Colors" Kieslowski and Andrzej Wajda, whose film school in Warsaw now rivals his alma mater. Polish pop music does not travel well, but dominates the charts at home. Probably the most popular Polish band is Kult, whose thoughtful (if unusual) mix of punk, rock, jazz and poetry has been popular for almost 30 years. Poland's answer to Britney Spears is Doda, a busty and litigious 27-year-old (pictured top right) with a hellraising reputation.
Love and sex
Polish men think of themselves as chivalrous and romantic, which is true up to a point. Women certainly shouldn't expect to have to open any doors during a visit to Poland, and will very likely receive flowers from any suitors. These days, though, men tend to shake rather than kiss a woman's hand when they meet. Premarital sex goes on but is not talked about much – outside the increasingly secular Warsaw, at least – and many parents are often unhappy when their offspring move in with their partners before getting wed. Abortions are illegal (apart from in rape cases or for health reasons), and contraception is not promoted. Sex education in schools is still referred to euphemistically as "education for life and family". Homophobia is still a problem: this year the ruling party had to expel an MP for abusive comments about gay people.
International relations
Foreign policy has understandably been shaped by the repeated experience of being invaded (see below). An attempt to put history to rest ended in disaster a year ago when the plane taking President Lech Kaczynski to a joint Polish-Russian commemoration of the Katyn massacre crashed at Smolensk, killing not just the president but much of the military leadership. Ex-prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski outraged the Germans by suggesting that Poland's 6 million war victims should be taken into account when apportioning EU voting rights. Last month, the foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, called for historic resentments to be put aside and for Poland to do business with its neighbours like a normal country. It is still too early to say if that will work.
History
It would be fair to say that history has not treated Poland kindly. Occupying the flat space between Germany and Russia, Poland is near-impossible to defend. The Commonwealth, as it calls itself, was swallowed up entirely in 1795 by the Russians, Prussians and Austrians and did not resurface until 1918. The "second republic" between the wars was an uneasy experience. Soviet conquest was narrowly averted in a 1920 battle on the outskirts of Warsaw, now known as "the miracle on the Vistula". The hero of the hour, Jozef Pilsudski, went on to stage a coup and dominated Poland between the wars. What followed was unmitigated disaster. Poland was carved up by Hitler and Stalin, who turned it into a killing field. Six million Poles – 3 million Jewish and 3 million Catholic – were exterminated, including in the Soviets' execution of almost the entire officer corps at Katyn in 1940, a massacre Moscow blamed on the Nazis. At the war's end, Stalin swallowed Poland whole. One revolt after another was crushed until a now famous electrician climbed over the wall of the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk and called for a strike. Lech Walesa and Solidarity were instrumental in bringing down communism not just in Poland but across eastern Europe, and Poles are not about to let Europe forget it.
Character
The Polish psyche is not given to optimism – perhaps to be expected given the centuries of oppression, invasions and foreign rule. This pessimism is best demonstrated in the common title of the Polish national anthem, Jeszcze Polska nie zginela, which means Poland Has Not Yet Perished. Be warned that if you ask Poles how they are, they will probably tell you the truth, and it may take some time. The classic Polish answer to "How are you?" is "Stara bieda" which literally means "old poverty". Poles are also less afraid of conversational silences than Britons. Most of all, Poles are generous and hospitable and proud of their country surviving against the odds.