A fascinating corner of Kraków is Nowa Huta…an enormous, planned workers’ town that offers a glimpse into an important chapter in Poland’s post-WWII story: becoming a Soviet satellite.

One entertaining yet informative way to get a peek at that is by looking through the windows of tiny communist-era cars.

Cornelia: Hop in…

And we’ll do the same, visiting the communist-planned workers’ town of Nowa Huta.

Rick: Oh, I love this little car.

Cornelia: Don’t get too comfortable.

And our guide is Cornelia.

Rick: This is such a treat. Tell me about this little car.

Cornelia: So we are driving a famous Trabant from East Germany, a very popular family car in Poland. Also one of few to choose from, so people had no choice and they were happy with what they got.

Rick: So tell me about this neighborhood. What is this?

Cornelia: We are in Nowa Huta district. It’s a communist model city from the 50s. The only place like that in Poland, actually. So, it’s supposed to be a showcase, kind of proving that communism works. People get jobs, apartments, and they’re happy.

Nowa Huta was designed around a new enormous steel mill, the largest in Poland. Called the Lenin Steelworks, it employed nearly 40,000 workers who worked in three shifts, 24 hours a day. It was intended as a high production factory to show off the Soviet Bloc’s industrial might.

Rick: How many people lived in Nowa Huta?

Cornelia: The design was for 100,000 people, but it was like a worker’s paradise. So most men had a job in one factory over here, steelworks, and families, women, you had jobs like services, hospitals so it was self-sufficient town.

Rick: So why did Stalin want to give that plan to Kraków?

Cornelia: Well, one of the main reasons for sure were to punish the Intelligentsia, to kind of contrabalance this society in Kraków with a lot of churches, universities, with workers which before were farmers and had quite simple lives.

Rick: So punish Kraków for having culture, education, and churches.

Cornelia: Yeah.

Rick: What was it like to actually live here in the 50s?

Cornelia: So after the war, this was a very attractive place for people to come. So they had jobs, they had apartments for free, and shops were even better than the center. They wanted to show people in Kraków that it’s working. So after the war, that was a good place to live.

Rick: What about now? What do people think of Nowa Huta now to live in?

Cornelia: It’s getting way more popular than in the past. now within 30 years’ time, this is a pretty nice place to live in. People are happy, people have beautiful space to live in, and they definitely prefer it more than being in the busy center. Probably one of the best districts to live in Kraków.

And the central plaza, reflecting the transition from communism to democracy and capitalism, is called Ronald Reagan Square.