Communist-era Warsaw milk bar pressured to shut in pandemic added to monuments register

One in every of Warsaw’s milk bars – low-cost, state-subsidised cafeterias that had been widespread in the course of the communist period – which was pressured to shut down throughout Covid lockdown has been added to the regional register of historic monuments to protect its authentic Fifties inside.

Złota Kurka (Golden Hen) was a well-liked eatery on Maszałkowska Avenue within the centre of Warsaw. It operated underneath that identify from the early Nineteen Sixties till 2020, however had initially opened a decade earlier, in 1952, when it was merely generally known as the Bar Mleczny (Milk Bar) for the newly opened Marszałkowska Housing District (MDM).

Its decor survived nearly unchanged from that interval, when a neon signal exterior depicting a bottle of milk and cow’s head marketed the presence of a budget restaurant, studies TVN24.

The inside “possesses nice documentary worth as certainly one of few such utterly preserved service premises from the interval of the development of the MDM,” wrote Jakub Lewicki, historic safety officer for the Masovia Province that Warsaw belongs to, explaining why he had added the location to the monuments register.

The MDM residential space within the coronary heart of Warsaw is an instance of early socialist realist structure, constructed within the early Fifties. The Polish capital was nearly totally rebuilt within the aftermath of the Second World Battle, when 85% of it was diminished to rubble.

“The inventive worth of the inside is elevated by two large-format animalist wall mosaics by Hanna Żuławska, a number one artist whose works had a major affect on the looks of reconstructed Warsaw,” Lewicki continued.

Every of those mosaics, on the window pillars, measures round 310 x 165 cm, with one depicting teams of goats, sheep and birds, and the opposite cows, hens and chicks. The opposite partitions function mild beige, handmade tiles with photos of home animals and animals.

A plaster ornament continues to be in place on the ceiling, whereas the bottom flooring vestibule retains its authentic terrazzo flooring. The ornamental ceramic tiles combining socialist realist type with people artwork present excessive inventive worth, in accordance with Lewicki, with the 400 tiles comprising a novel assortment of ending ceramics with a person aesthetic expression.

Although Poland’s milk bars – which, regardless of the identify, additionally serve quite a lot of non-dairy dishes – first emerged across the flip of the twentieth century, they turned significantly widespread in the course of the communist period.

Since 1989, the rising wealth of Poles and the unfold of latest varieties of delicacies have seen a major decline within the variety of milk bars. However some proceed to function – typically with décor and menus which have hardly modified over the a long time – whereas new ones have opened amid a nostalgic revival.

Nearly 100 milk bars presently obtain state subsidies in Poland, however rising meals costs are making it laborious for them to outlive as to obtain the subsidies they can not put up gross sales margins above a sure degree, studies Fakt.

The federal government allotted 20.3 million zloty (€4.35 million) this yr, a rise of 0.5% on 2021. Nonetheless, client costs are predicted to rise 6.8% in Poland in 2022.

Most important picture credit score: Mazowiecki Wojewódzki Konserwator Zabytków