Hangover square
The cream of Poland's young educated middle classes took time out from their studies last week to drink themselves into a jovial stupor at the annual Krakow Juwenalia Festival.
The seat of the country's ancient kings was awash in a sea of beer and student hordes in a weekend-long bash that took over much of the Old Town. The celebrations began in a frenzied drinkfest on the medieval town square, or rynek, on Friday night, followed by the more soberly "Nicest Female Student in Krakow" contest on Saturday.
Juwenalia is a Cracovian tradition that stretches back to the middle ages when students were given the run of the city each year as a kind of extended holiday.
Ever since then they've been allowed to take control for a weekend each year, with a few notable exceptions such as during martial law in the early 1980s.
This year was no different. On Friday, students picked up the keys to the city from Krakow's mayor and took off in small groups intent mainly on harassing police officers in the nicest possible way, of course. It was a lesson in mild-mannered Cracovian tolerance. While in other countries the officially recognized harassment of police officers would probably lead to the "Assault on Precinct 13," in Krakow the nearest the police came to being victimized was when a swarm of drunken students dressed as bees danced about and pulled faces at them.
The main event of the weekend started in the "student village," about one kilometer from the Old Town. The center of the student enclave, purpose-built in the early 1970s to keep the city's 85,000 aspiring intellectuals safely housed in one area, resembled a huge barbecue love-in, with thousands of little stoves grilling sausages for red-eyed, lascivious youths hell-bent on partying and procreation. Once the dining finished, the drunken army, dressed in a spectacular array of different garb, then stumbled its way into Old Town. The procession was accompanied by a tank made of cans lobbing full tins of beer into the melee.
Once on the rynek the students gathered in front of a makeshift stage while a look-alike of Adam Malysz, Poland's ski-jump hero, was hoisted on a sea of hands and passed across the square gulping beer as he went. Later, the bands Kult and Lady Pank heralded the start of what would become an all-night happening.
Saturday was a far more sober affair. An association of Christian students, the religious alternative to the party swingers, sang carols on the rynek to tourists while everyone else nursed crushing hangovers.
The final fling for the students was the Nicest Female Student in Krakow" contest. Held in a small hall in the student village, the event was as nice as it was naff. Young women dressed in a variety of guises, witches' gear for example, and had to prove they were pleasant individuals to a panel of serious judges (mainly the beer sponsors) and an adoring crowd (mainly their friends). One girl admitted she preferred this event the most "for its general craziness." Fresh-faced and clearly not party to the events the night before, she was presumably singing in the choir on the rynek earlier while her less-restrained contemporaries were desperately necking aspirin and crawling off to bed.
