a random, but pretty cool gas station near smołdzino. it looked so typically soviet in style.
on our last day in poland we decided to visit a little village called kluki, which is also an outdoor museum. kluki was the last village in pomerania in which the language of the slovincian tribe was spoken, which is now an extinct language. the slovincian people actually associated with the bigger tribe of the kashubians, they only differed in their belief systems as the kashubians were catholic and the slovincians were protestant. their language also was a bit different from the kashubian's, though not by much. it is considered a dialect of the kashubian language now, which is a language that is closely related to polish, but has low german and old prussian elements in it. it is sometimes considered as a dialect of polish.
learning about the slovincian people and their history was super interesting, especially considering that this tribe basically is an extinct one. it was a west slavic tribe, that assimilated into the mostly german society as far back as to the 17th century, thus giving up their language over the centuries. by the 1960ies only a few people were able to speak a little bit of the slovincian language, it completely vanished after the last slovincians emigrated to west germany in the 1970ies. the tribe itself is important for polish history, though, after world war 2 they needed a reason to legitimize poland's claim for pomerania ( which had been mainly german before 1945 ) and found it in the existence of the kashubian and slovincian tribe. for the slovincians this was a farce, though, because since they spoke mostly german, they were associated with being german and were not really welcome anymore when the war ended. only when the government realized that they were actually part of the kashubians once and thus important for the incorporation of pomerania into the polish state, the opinions changed, and suddenly the slovincians were looked upon as part of the society again. by that time, though, the last slovincians emigrated to northern germany, and it was too late to actually give them a home in the polish state.
before we made our way to kluki, though, we made a small stop in smołdzino, attempting to visit the look-out tower on rowokół hill, one of the highest hills in the area. we reached it, but didn't climb, due to heavy rain starting to fall, which would've made the ascend quite uncomfortable.
the look-out tower of rowokół hill.
down in smołdzino again, a remnant of the soviet past - a memorial to commemorate soldiers of the red army. they say it stands above a mass grave of 18 soldiers fallen during world war 2. it is not a very well-loved monument, it was in pretty bad shape. many people say that such a symbol of russian suppression should not be tolerated any further in the village center and want it removed and relocated to the local cemetery. it seems it's not so easy, though, since the basement of the memorial is a big underground one in the form of a soviet star and would need a lot of reconstructive works on the nearby road which the village has no money for.
i'd like to imagine that this cat we found roaming around the memorial was its secret protector ;P
the church in smołdzino which was built in 1632. it had been a protestant church, before 1945, now it is a roman catholic one.
i liked the boulder stones deliberately laid open in the plastering, showing off out of what kind of material the church had been built.
the main gate. the church is rather unembellished as was often the case with small village churches. the real gems of this building you can find inside, where centuries old furniture can be found, various valuable carvings and paintings.
i reckon that some elements on the church are still under construction, like the window openings suggest here.
since there was not much else to discover in smołdzino we finally drove to kluki to check out the slovincian village.
immediately i fell in love with the straw thatched farmer's homesteads, their timber-frame construction and the brightly painted windows! everything also was overgrown with moss, suggesting a harsher climate, due to sitting right next to lake leba - or łebsko lake - the biggest coastal lake in poland.
architecture that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale 😍 the houses you can see in the open-air museum are either the last original remnants of kluki, or were transfered from other nearby, but abandoned villages. all of them had the timber-frame construction in common, something that was heavily inspired by german architecture ( which the slovincians adhered to ). every homestead was enclosed with wooden fences, which gave them an even more homely and traditional feel.
loved the combo of green, white and blue!
kluki had always been a village that was rather secluded, which helped the preservation of these old buildings and also preserving the traditions and ways of life of the slovincian people living here. inside this village the main source of income was fishing and peat production, which was basically all you could get out of the scraggy and marshy landscapes surrounding the łebsko lake. those two professions are highlighted in the museum as well, there are even events when these traditions are celebrated and performed properly.
the way these houses were built are also part of the museum's exhibitions. here's what a slovincian timber-frame construction looks like. the wooden frames form the main constructional baseline and they're kept stable with even more wooden bars that will eventually be hidden underneath an organic filling ( here it was straw and adobe ). with half-timbered architecture it usually is a little different, a wattle & daub technique is used most commonly, where flexible twigs of trees ( f.e. willows ) are wattled into a panel and then daubed with clay or something equally organic.
this room was full of spinning and weaving tools. i am not super knowledgeable about these activities, and quite frankly i just made this photo because i loved the old photos on the walls 😅
every homestead on the site of the outdoor museum was named after some of their prior owners, this one is called 'reimann farm'. it consisted of 4 buildings ( a three-family residence and 3 more farm buildings used as working sheds, stables and barns ). this farmstead was saved in situ ( meaning it is original village architecture, not transfered from a different place ). it was probably built around 1850.
the jost & klick farm was built for two families and served fishermen as their home. it also stands on its original location, having been built around the first half of the 19th century. these homes were outfitted in a rather spartan way, the residents of kluki generally lived a very humble life, and couldn't afford luxurious add-ons. the łebsko region wasn't rich in resources, other than fish and peat, and it also has a rather harsh climate with heavy winds blowing over the landscapes which would blow sand all over, giving the wandering dunes around the corner fuel to move even more ( yes, the same wandering dunes we had visited at the start of our journey! ). and being rather remote from the bigger cities in the region the people of kluki lived a simple and laborious life, even far into the 60ies, when the last slovincians inhabited the village.
the white colour of the panels is achieved through lime mortar plastering. the wood used for the timber frame construction most often came from sturdy, weather-resistant trees like oak or fir, so it is safe to say that it is also the case here.
i loved the horseshoe geraniums sitting in the windows, providing a bright and colourful decorational element!
inside the fishermen's cottage. if there was something like cottagecore, i'm pretty sure this would perfectly describe the term.
in the 'backyard' of the homestead. all the houses in kluki were thatched, which seems to be a normal tradition in seaside villages. in northern germany many villages and remote homesteads are also often thatched, so it was not a new sight to me. i reckon that this is because of the shared history of german-populated pomerania and the 'motherland'. like with a lot of pomerania's architecture it is heavily inspired by german influences.
since the farmstead was a fishermen's one, you could also find a boat workshop ( or magazine ) and fishermen's huts on the ground. the magazine is a reconstruction of equal buildings that could always be found in fishing villages. a lot of equipment important for fishing was stored here and it was also at the same time a workshop to repair and prepare the boats for fishing duties.
the aforementioned fishermen's hut, with fyke nets in front of it. in huts like these, which could be found all over the place of coastal pomerania, the fishermen resided for the durance of the fishing season between early spring and late autumn. when the fishing season was over they returned to their villages ( and lived inside 'proper' houses, like the farmstead this hut can be found in ). the huts were really basic and plain, really just an accommodation for seasonal workers.
a look inside the hut. a hearth could be found in the middle of the hut, around which the beds of the fishermen were placed. you can perfectly see how rudimentary the construction of the huts were, basically just a wood construction with reeds covering the roof. i wonder if it was uncomfortable sometimes to live in huts like these, especially on cold and rainy days.
back to the farmstead. there were crop fields on every single one, probably providing the families that lived there all they needed for their daily use.
inside the house of charlotte klick ( which is part of the jost and klick farmstead ) you could find a kitchen, which is often used to show visitors how pomeranian cuisine is prepared. all the exhibitional pieces were used in the late 19th century and early 20th century. unfortunately there weren't any presentations while we were visiting, so i never found out what some of these devices could do.
charlotte klick's house was the oldest of the houses in the outdoor museum, it was built at the end of the 18th century. originally it stood more on the outside of kluki, and was later moved to its current place within the aforementioned homestead.
in a different part of the village we found a burnt down building, which was probably a really beautiful and almost stately one when it was still intact. it is an original inn building from wierzchocino which was moved to the kluki open air museum around 2009 and served as a hotel and restaurant for the visitors of kluki. in april 2019 ( only a few months before we visited! ) a fire broke out and basically destroyed everything, except the ground floors ( that still got heavily damaged by the extinguishing fluids of the firefighter brigade fighting against the flames ). i hope they'll eventually be able to reconstruct the inn at some point, it would be rather unfortunate to let such a 19th century gem disappear forever.
next on the farmstead menu is the home of albert klück. it was transfered to kluki from kluki żeleskie, an abandoned and non-existant former village close to kluki. this house was created in the 1920ies, after mister klück bought an old cottage and turned it into a more modern version. it's one of those houses that exhibits life in the early 20th century, equipped with electrical wiring and other modern inventions like a radio, a sewing machine, centrifuges and other things. the family specialized in livestock farming, in fishery and agricultural labor, and their home depicts the everyday tasks quite well.
by the looks of it you wouldn't think it was a more modern version of the old slovincian farm houses, right?
i just adored the rustic look of these houses so much! 😍 i'd move in immediately, they're basically tiny houses, and you all know how much i love those!
the livestock building next to the home of the klück family incorporated more than one function, being a stable and a barn, but also a workshop, pigsty and cowshed. goslings were roaming the farmstead and bringing a chitterchatter to the place that kind of catapulted you back in history.
of course a cat can't be missed on such an idyllic little farm, am i right?
inside the klück house you could find all kinds of treasures, such as this incredible trunk which was decorated in a way that i was reminded of the new art styles that developed in the 1920ies, like art deco, bauhaus & expressionism. i even thought of the art from the 1950ies and 1960ies, which is much more minimal and heavily patternered. the klück's left the homestead in the 1970ies, maybe this trunk was actually left behind and its origins indeed are from the 1950ies? either way, i totally would like to have something equal in my possession 😍
the trunk stood inside the kitchen ( which was the first room you entered when you stepped into the klück house ). already you could see that it was a very modern one, the oven was cast-iron and built in and looked already a lot like our modern pendants ( even though this one still had to be fired with real fire and wasn't electric like ours are now ).there were lots of tins and kitchenware made out of all kinds of metals, which would cast out similar kitchenware made out of carved wood from previous eras. also, can you spot the light switch?
three rooms for actual living existed in the klück house, two bedrooms and one living room. one of the bedrooms you can see here. people living in the country ( no matter in which part of the world you're in ), were often very religious so in order to maintain their connection to god you can find lots of religious memorabilia inside the homes of yore.
another bedroom presented itself as some kind of chimera, looking like a dining room / living room. i LOVED the flower shelf next to the windows! oh, and here's another detail hidden in the room, can you spot the electrical lamp?
back outside huge stacks of wood were piled behind the house. fire wood was of course super important back in the days, providing warmth for the ovens and hearths inside the homes, and of course for preparing hearty meals for the hard-working populace. but, it was not the only material used for lighting fires, peat was even more important to the poor population of kluki.
behind the home was a peat pit. peat is an organic sediment that is comprised out of vegetable remains and generally found in marshy and boggy areas. it indicates the beginning state of coalification. in historic times people mainly digged up peat to have fuel for all kinds of activities like cooking, keeping the places they lived in warm and cozy or using it to enliven machinery of any kind. it was a much cheaper alternative to wood and also coal, but to dig up peat was also a devastating process to many landscapes. in the early history of peat digging the areas were extensively drained and then burnt down ( which created air pollution in addition to the landscaping damage ). many marshy areas and bogs were destroyed and can't be revived because coalification is a very slow process and would need thousands of years to regrow. because of that peat digging increasingly grew uneconomic and unpopular as well. peat is still used today, but in a much smaller magnitude and the digging is only allowed under a lot of regulations that make sure the landscapes are not completely devastated. when an area is expended it is now common practice to revive the landscapes by waterlogging, regenerating and using them as agricultural or forestry operating grounds. i find the process of peat digging quite interesting, though of course i am glad that it's not done in such an extent anymore that millions of acres of marsh get destroyed. basically the most easy form to dig up peat is to take a shovel and dig it, then leaving it out to dry by the sun. it was surely hard work when there were no machines involved, which drain the earth of water with pressure and then easily extract the peat with rotary cutters. even though both extraction methods have long-lasting effects on the grounds, i still have more respect for the initial method, because the devastation process is much slower and i feel like it might plant at least some kind of respect for what mother earth has to offer into the heads of the peat diggers.
in small villages like kluki, the peat pits were also very small, as it was only dug up by the citizens and only for their daily use, not as a means to market it on a bigger scale ( with a few exceptions maybe ). the digging began in may, when the groundwater level was low enough. the whole community was involved in the digging, neighbors helped each other so that at the end of the digging everyone had enough to last for the coming winter. the end of these arduous activities was celebrated with a big feast and celebration called 'black wedding'. people celebrated it with dishing up lots of delicacies and alcohol, to honour the fact that they had gathered enough to keep warm and survive the winter. it also cemented the solidarity in the community, creating bonds and a feeling of belonging to the society. so you see, when i look at these pits i don't only see destruction, but i also see tradition, i see people coming together to celebrate life. maybe i am too nostalgic of a person, but the latter just really speaks to me on a level i would call 'yearning for old times'. you only celebrated when a wedding or a birth was happening, or when the harvest season was done, and when it was done you knew you had worked hard for it to deserve a feast like this. and this corresponds to my own perspective on celebrations, i feel we should only celebrate when something really big is happening that alters our lives or when we finished a project we worked hard on ( birthdays only make you one year older, but other than that you rarely feel altered by them, right? ). i'd rather celebrate like this than celebrate another year of my own existence. and then there's the aspect of celebrating mother nature and thanking for what she has given us. the old traditions of harvest celebrations also tell of a deeper connection to the natural way of things, maybe even in such a way that you will care differently about the lands you live on, not depleting the soil, creating a bond to your home turf and appreciating it. i think, our modern society kinda lost that connection to what surrounds us, lost the appreciation for what feeds us and nourishes us. so, in a way, i often feel myself yearning for those old times, where natural produce was given more thought and care and where you would be thankful for having enough of it to survive another year.
with that said, let's move on to the last house we looked at in the village, the home of the keitschik family. this particular home for two families had a special history. first, it stood in a little colony called 'pawelke' which was situated on wet peat bogs in 2 kilometers distance of kluki and was built in the mid-19th century. the keitschik family lived a good life there, until the political situation after world war 2 (with the soviet regime wanting to get rid of all the german and german-associated people ) made them leave their home for germany in 1962. lots of cities and villages were populated with refugees and escapees from other parts of the soviet republic, for example a lot of people from lithuania settled in kluki next to poles. these people brought with them their own traditions and artifacts, which you can find inside this home. in the 1990ies, after the keitschik home was flooded and chased the lithuanians away, the building went on a journey to the kluki open-air museum.
a little note again on the construction of these houses: i was surprised to learn that because of the marshy grounds of northern poland ( and particularly the area of pomerania ), the timber-frame houses are in fact very light-weight and therefore perfect for the local soil conditions. the whole organic material approach of wood, straw, reed and adobe without the use of rocks or boulders being a part of it, was specifically catered to the landscapes the people lived in, which i find incredibly fascinating. how much thought and how many errors and trys were made until people finally found out what was the best way and the best approach to build houses in their respective region, it is unfathomable to me. only confirming my opinion that people of history are often completely underestimated and their abilities underrated. they were inventive in ways that are often very surprising and i think we should actually give them more credit for things they achieved in times they weren't as industrialized as we are now.
since the keitschik home was made for two families, we could take a look at two very different appartments, one of them with lithuanian influences and one of them with original slovincian influences. inside the lithuanian refugee appartment you could find gorgeous handcrafted tapestry, religious icons, big trunks decorated and painted in lithuanian design, and brass vessels of all kinds, including a samowar ( lithuanians were heavily influenced by russia, which they were a part of from 1795 to 1918 ).
the appartment felt really warm and inviting and almost luxurious compared to the other homes we have looked at thus far. the tapestry in the back completely blew me off my feet, it was utterly beautiful! i'd totally hang something equal on my walls, the weaving was simply perfect!
a closer look at the weaving of the tapestry, which was so rich in structure and detail! i'm sure there's some symbolic background to it, as with many old traditions. the art of weaving seems to be a very special one in lithuania, upon researching i found out that geometric patterns & motives were characteristic for lithuanian weaving products and also the way colours were combined to create a form of expressive drawing. as you can see in the picture before this one, that is indeed perfectly valid! the region you were coming from also was important in how the end product looked like, there were different patterns and colour combinations specific for various regions.
for me, this woven tapestry was a revelation, i loved the geometric patterns, the insertion of the blossoms and the varied use of colours! it reminded me a lot of weaving products the bauhaus workshop created in the 1920ies, and i wonder if this particular tapestry actually was created around that time, too!
iconographic images of saints, by the way, were also something that lithuanians would bring with them into a new household. this image is a replica of an icon that can be found at the gate of dawn in vilnius. originally it is actually a black madonna, but this image seems to have been reversed ( i'm guessing for printing reasons? or maybe there's a racist underlying reason there, i don't know 😅 ). it shows that indeed former citizens of the vilnius region found their way to kluki and didn't want to bury their origins in the new space they found themselves in.
the other apartment was more inspired by slovincian customs, cozy, but cooler in design. it also felt kind of bourgeois, or middle-class for all you non-french speaking peeps out there. an old radio was prominently displayed in the room, it must've been quite a precious possession for the slovincians, especially in the remote village they lived in. everything inside this appartment indicated that the people living here were a bit better off, the lovely bobbin lace tablecloths and coats are surely another display of fine house decor that wasn't widely available ( and probably made by the slovincians themselves ).
german dictums could be found on embroidered fabrics throughout the appartment, also confirming that slovincians lived here ( as you can remember, they widely spoke german, the slovincian language was not spoken anymore ). this dictum here says: contentment in the heart is sunshine in the home.
another one of those awesome tiled stoves could be found here, i loved the beautiful decorated tiles and the dictum incorporated in these tiles was also interesting. there's a saying that to own your own stove is worth a lot of gold, but this one here seems to say that a peaceful stove does the same thing. unfortunately there's a bit missing from the first word, so it could also be a different one, but to my little mind only 'friede' is the possible answer. 'friede's herd ist goldes wert'. it could also be the name of the mistress of the house, so... what do you think?
and have you spotted the interesting baking form hanging on the wall? it looks like it was used to punch out christmas cookies, which i'm always here for. by the way, the stoves are all still working and are often used for presentation matters, to show people how the citizens cooked and baked. i really wish we had been visiting during a time were there was such a presentation ( preferably i would've loved to attend a black wedding 😂 ), but well, i will have to imagine it forever.
a storage room looked like this in a slovincian household ( though i doubt it was that untidy ;P ). they probably stored delicious preserves inside the cabinet!
another beautiful room - the bedroom. it is quite apparent that slovincians seemed to have loved bobbin laces. it might be possible that the pieces we could see everywhere were probably even made by the former residents themselves.
back outside, admiring the beautiful flaking of the window paints!
the goslings passed by chattering away, and they were the cutest sight ❤
an old water pump stood in the middle of the courtyard. in the back you can see the klück house, the wooden building on the left is a barn that was built in the 1930ies.
behind the farms some sheep were grazeing peacefully on the meadows.
i am always endlessly fascinated by reed roofs. how can such a hollowed out stem actually hold off all kinds of bad weather situations? i mean, i get it, the bundle of all the stems together is what makes it work and of course that they are built in a way so that it overhangs the house and moisture is not able to soak into the adobe walls, but dripping down on the grounds, but still, i always feel like vegetable material should idle in a matter of seconds. but these reeds? they last at least 25 to 40 years until they finally need to be changed. nature really is the best designer sometimes.
this one probably needs mending soon. since the air moisture by the baltic sea is pretty high and the łebsko lake is nearby as well, the roofs grow moss pretty quickly. moss saves water and eventually the moisture will seep into the roof, damaging it. i'm guessing that the roofs in kluki probably get repaired every 15 to 20 years in these circumstances.
the sun peeked for a moment and shone a light on these beautiful hollyhocks glowing against the white lime mortar partitions.
hollyhocks are such typical flowers for the northern coasts of europe, and they come in so many colours! i could not imagine visiting the north or the baltic sea without getting to see these beauties! they simply are a northern plant staple.
some dried peat blocks stacked against the wall in front of the house.
the keitschik family home in warmer light.
and a last look at these beautiful rustic houses!
after buying a slovincian bread ( a delicious heavy and dense and buttery rye/wheat/barley/oat bread that often has cooked potatos in the batter as well ), we made our way to łebsko lake. the landscape around this lake was really barren and flat as a flunder, the winds blowing here were rough and harsh. only now i was able to understand what it meant to live by the lake, how hard and consuming life must've been in such an environment.
as you are nearing the lake you encounter little canals that divide the reed section of the lake from the onshore.
these reed fields are probably harvested sometimes, providing the material for the slovincian house roofs.
calves greeted us on our way to the lake, standing picturesquely in front of a look-out tower. unfortunately the tower was closed due to being dilapidated, but it still served a nice background 😍
the mothers of the aforementioned cuties were not far away either!
there were smaller ponds as well, not attached to the lake. yellow water lilies were blooming and provided a little bright dot of colour.
an overhead crossing that led to a viewing platform over the lake! some serious storm clouds were quickly coming our way and the winds grew even harsher!
the łebsko lake covers about 72 square kilometers and the coastline spans about 55 kilometers. it is the third biggest lake in poland. from these piers boats and passenger ships usually cast off into the lake on warm summer days, but since our visit took place on a rather stormy and soon to be rainy day, no passage was taking place.
we enjoyed the wide views over the lake and the low clouds passing over us quickly.
a bevy of swans were bobbing up and down the increasingly stormy waters.
on the other side of the lake you could see the area of the wandering dunes which where illuminated by a bit of sunshine. i am not sure which dune this was, but judging from its height it might very well be the lontzke dune ( or łącka góra ) with its 30 meters of height.
the moving dunes are affecting the lake a lot, every year the flying sands are depositing on the northern shores of the lake and thus changing the lake's surface. it slowly shallows and silts up.
tried myself at some panoramic shots to capture the expanse of the lake.
it was pretty difficult to capture it well, but y'all probably get the gist 😅
it was time to sling our hooks and return back to the village. as it turned out, we weren't fast enough to flee the rain and got soaking wet halfway back...
... because yours truly had to take a photo of these surrealistic blossoms! ( yeah, it's always my fault whenever we don't arrive somewhere on time, because i constantly am fascinated by things appearing along the way 😂 ). these alien looking beauties are rather poisonous, in every inch of the plant are steroids that can be really dangerous when overconsumed. they are used for modern medicine in very low doses and are supposed to help with eczemas. but you know, i'd rather just gawk at them and admire them for their weird looks that are strangely alluring. it's the bittersweet nightshade!
a cute bird watched me take photos of the nightshade and tweeted at me curiously. maybe it wanted to warn me to not pluck the plant? it was a white wagtail!
passed by the cows again before the downpour began! i had to quickly say goodbye 😅
by the time we arrived in the village again the rain shower was over. typical for summer storms, they come and go quickly! close to where we parked i discovered this entanglement of roots of several pine trees! since i love tree roots and find them incredibly endearing i quickly climbed the little hill the trees stood on and took some snaps.
this is officially the final photo of 2019's baltic sea adventures in poland! incredible! i only needed one and a half years to get to this point! i still hope it was kinda enjoyable for anyone who stumbled upon this and actually reads this blog ;)
and since we are in the early beginnings of 2021, i want to wish everyone who follows this a healthy, and lucky new year! while we still are not finished with the corona virus yet, we can certainly hope that someday it's gonna be okay, and we can call it a nightmare that happened in the past, but isn't a tangent on our lives anymore. i look forward to visiting museums again, going on concerts and travelling to other countries, but until that happens, we have to be patient for a little while longer. i am pretty grateful that in this past year i was still able to travel a bit, even if it was just in germany. i am an advocat for travelling local, and to regions that are not far away from me, there are so many places that get overlooked because one is always just looking into the distance! right at your doorstep are some really neat places that only wait to be checked out, and often times they are not overrun by tourists. i cherish those 'forgotten' places and love to explore them. and that's something i want to continue in the future! appreciating all the things that await us around the corner and encounter them with a fresh perspective.
and even should i not be able to see more of what surrounds me ( because of sickness and lack of time ), i still have 1 and a half year of content to choose adventures from. huh, and maybe next year you will see something from two years ago 😂
anyways, for the new year:
continue to stay curious ❤
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