Poles revive ancient tradition of timber floating on longest river
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GASSY, Poland — A group of Poles have assembled tree trunks into a long raft and are streaming down the country’s longest river, the Vistula, to revive the ancient tradition of timber floating.
Their day begins at dawn with a prayer recited by captain Zdzislaw Nikolas in his bass voice while the whole crew stands around an image of their patron saint.
They sing it at night too like their ancestors, said Nikolas, who sports an impressive handlebar mustache.
“Saint Barbara was the patron of those with dangerous jobs, like miners and firefighters and also raftsmen, because that too was a dangerous job: there was a strong river current in the spring,” he adds.
For centuries, timber float- 25/31 25/30
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“As soon as the ice melted on the Vistula and the currents of the Vistula and the (tributary) San were flowing freely, raft makers got to work and sent the wood floating down to Gdansk,” Nikolas says while steering from the back.
“The whole village of Ulanow did this job and it was often a family affair passed down from father to son. It disappeared with the beginning of the war in 1939 when the German army’s bombs destroyed the bed of the Vistula river.”
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In 1991, Nikolas revived a brotherhood of Ulanow raftsmen who organized their first descent last year.
The crew left Ulanow, a village in the southeast of Poland, on July 2 and floated down the San. They hope to do the 724 kilometers between their village and the Baltic in 29 days.
Two weeks in, they were docked on a beach in Gassy, near Warsaw. 24/31 S 19/25 D 19/20 D 21/26 D 22/29 S 14/16 D 16/33 C 15/24 D 22/24 O 21/25 S 21/25 C 28/35 T 21/30 S 26/31 T 23/28 C 26/32 C 28/35 O 20/28 C 25/30 C 21/26 C 25/31 Sh 22/32 S 26/30 Sh 15/19 R 24/30 D 18/23 O 25/29 D 28/32 Sh 24/29 S 19/21 D 15/20 O 20/27 C 22/30 S 14/17 D 15/31 O 18/26 S 13/22 O 21/25 S 21/25 C
Their raft is made up of four smaller ones assembled by tying together long planks of pinewood. It weighs 50 metric tons and is 70 meters long. The first and last rafts are used to steer.
The raftsmen sleep in traditional tents and cook meals on an ever-burning fire.
“Two weeks into the descent, almost all our supplies are gone,” says Zygmunt Osip, as he added cabbage to a big cooking pot.
He did last year’s descent and joined the crew this year.
“I did everything to get time off work and for my wife to let me leave and I succeeded, I’m here,” he said.
“For me this trip is as beautiful as first love.”
The distance the group hope to travel on the raft between their village and the Baltic Sea. MONDAY TUESDAY
Abu Dhabi 31/44 S Bangkok 28/34 D Colombo 24/30 D Dubai 34/43 S Hanoi 26/34 D Islamabad 25/33 D Jakarta 25/31 D Karachi 28/33 D Kuala Lumpur 25/29 D Manila 27/31 D Mumbai 26/31 R New Delhi 27/32 R Pyongyang 23/28 R Riyadh 29/43 S Seoul 24/30 R Singapore 27/29 D Sydney 15/16 R Teheran 24/36 C Tokyo 25/31 D Wellington 8/13 D Yangon 24/31 D 32/43 S 28/34 C 26/31 D 33/42 S 26/34 C 24/32 D 25/31 D 28/32 D 25/30 D 25/31 D 26/30 R 28/33 R 24/31 D 27/44 S 25/32 D 26/29 D 10/16 D 25/35 S 25/30 D 12/14 D 23/31 D BuenosAires 12/13 D Caracas 27/27 D Chicago 20/25 C Houston 27/28 C Las Vegas 29/33 C Los Angeles 20/22 D Mexico city 17/18 D New York 17/24 C Ottawa 16/22 C Rio De Janeiro 19/20 S San Francisco 12/14 C Sao Paulo 13/17 C Vancouver 16/19 S Washington 18/23 C Cairo 25/36 S CapeTown 11/22 O Johannesburg 4/14 C Lagos 22/24 D Nairobi 12/26 D 11/14 D 26/27 R 22/26 O 25/30 C 29/33 C 20/23 C 17/19 D 20/26 C 18/21 D 19/20 S 13/16 C 10/17 C 17/22 C 21/26 C 24/37 S 10/15 D 5/13 D 22/26 D 15/24 D