Ryki

Ryki is a small town on the Warsaw to Lublin road, and hence has a lot of traffic going through it. Ryki is very difficult to really characterize as it is such a mixture of old and new, growth and decay. Ryki shows its history in a confusing mass and seems to have lost any sense of balance it ever had. The older part is unmistakably small market town, and it also has another post war part joined onto it and a significant industrialized zone. In the centre of this is a remarkable church in a style completely out of character for Eastern Poland and seemingly taking the Mariacki church in Gdansk as its model, even to the tolling of its bells.

One of the main streets of Ryki

2 storey brick housing in the older part of town.

This church is of brick construction and does not hide this under a layer of plaster, it is very much influenced by the German gothic with its tall, soaring and heavily fluted columns supporting the roof in an off white stone colour. The woodwork in the church is minimal and pointed in a subdued neo-gothic style. There is a minimum of decoration inside this spacious church, it is light and airy and somehow out of character with the low lying nature of the rest of the town. We were there on a Saturday afternoon and there was a series of weddings taking place there, they are very lucky as this church is far better than most in Lublin!

The tall Gothic spire of the church, as seen from the old rynek

Waiting for one wedding finish.

The old part of the town has two old market places, or ryneks, and neither of them are in use except as public parks. The older one has seen much better days and is located in the poorest district. The grass and the trees are overawed by an ugly painted 'Biedronka' supermarket at one end, and the few of the other late 19th and early 20th century buildings that surround the rynek could not benefit from major renovation.

The old rynek, with a carpark just off to the left.

A view down an alley from the old rynek

Late 19th, early 20th century shops on one side of the old rynek

Another old shop, in need of a bit or resoration but with most of the original external features of a corner shop still intact

The other rynek is sleepier and strangely raised above the level of the surrounding road, the buildings are in a better state and on one side are a series of well maintained timber cottages. In one corner, opposite an agricultural cooperative that has been there since 1908 is a fair example of a 'sad Jesus' kapliczka (roadside shrine), but it is almost completely hidden by the overhanging branches of a tree. The agricultural cooperative is of interest as it has not lost the communist period plaque commemorating the setting up of one of the first communist local governments in post-war Poland. In the center of the park is a monument to Stanislaw Poniatowski, not the last king of Poland but another one of the family, who was buried here in the 18th century. The streets that make up the rest of the older town are generally one or two storey and the frontages indicate that in the past there was a significant amount of business going on here: there are many places still with the traditional wooden shutters for both the door and single window and corner locations have entrances that face onto the road junction.

The building of the agricultural cooperative and...

..its plaque commemorating the establishment of a Communist powiat council.

Sad Jesus, in a sleepy park.

Old wooden houses line one side of the newer rynek.

Ryki is located on the shallow western side of the Zalesianka river, and along the valley floor are a series of large lakes, originally designed as commercial fish ponds but now mainly used for the casual fisherman and for boating. Paths lead along the valley beside the river and lakes, and other than the church, is the best part of Ryki. Here it is very rural with cows in the meadows and ducks on the river, and at the foot of the valley sides you can see many small farms with their wooden barns. Here, on a flat area that I suspect is a filled in lake is the present day market, which was bleakly empty on the day we visited and punctuated with only a few grey, corrugated iron sheds

One if the lakes in Ryki

Meadows lined with farms on the edge of the town.

On the southern side is the industrial zone, most of which seems to date from the 1950's to the late 1970's. If you come by bus from Lublin you have to pass through this area before stopping at the bus station and depot, which is divided from the church by a park. This is an important depot for PKS Pulawy and although the number of buses serving Ryki is relatively small there is a large compound for out of use buses and those due for repair. The industrial area is in the midst of change as many of the communist period larger industries appear in decay and many of the buildings have been bought of leased for new and smaller concerns. The rural nature of town can be seen by the number of agricultural related businesses here.

The fireman's building.

The post-war expansion we only glanced at as we were now short of time, but the layout and the buildings themselves are no different than those found in hundreds of other towns in Poland, there is even the obligatory 'Plac Wolnosci' (Freedom Square).

Well maintained wooden cottages like these are not uncommon.

Ryki is an exhausting place to visit, and it is good that the countryside is only a few steps away. The confusing and conflicting mass of buildings, the continual movement of cars in its maze of streets and the grossly oversized direction signs all shout action when in fact there is very little to do there. We found an oasis in the shape of a timber frame cottage converted into a bar and kawiarna just off the newer rynek. The service was very friendly, although at 3 pm it was very quiet we had almost all of it to ourselves. As it was a very hot day we ordered beers to go with our kotlet and szaszlyk. A strange thing about the Polish language is that the words for salad and lettuce are almost the same, salatka being a salad and salata being the lettuce. Well, maybe not strange, but it does lead you towards some kind of expectation. Along with the szaszlyk Ania ordered orgorki (small cucumbers, and served pickled) from the small range of vegetables, while along with my kotlet and frytki (french fries) I went for the salad. Apparently in Ryki, salatka means that your orgorki come sliced instead of whole, and I ended up with a dish consisting solely of sliced ogorki (pickled in vinegar), while Ania's ogorki came whole (and were pickled in brine). Still, the place was named 'Relax', and relax is what we did.

Relax... Perla is a beer from Lublin, meaning 'Pearl'.

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