The Warsaw Voice magazine, Issue 1216, Summer 2018

Indeks 381063

This publication is part of The Warsaw Voice Multimedia Platform in Poland

GDPR CHALLENGES ARE HERE /page 6/

BLOCKCHAIN – POLAND’S EUREKA MOMENT? /page 10/

LIMITED EDITION

POLAND – EU DISPUTE CONTINUED

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Published since 1988

Summer 2018 (1213-16)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ROBOTICS /page 12/

VOICE

3

POLITICS & SOCIETY

AUTO

• Poland–EU Dispute Continued

4-5

BUSINESS & ECONOMY • GDPR Challenges are Here 6 • Hotels and Music – A Perfect Duo 8-9 • Blockchain – Poland’s ‘Eureka Moment’?

10-11 • A Brief History of Robotics 12 • At the Forefront of Audio Innovation 14-15 • To Host and Inspire 18

REAL ESTATE • Record First Quarter

34-37

GREAT GEAR

38-39

• • • • • • • • •

Timeless Sunbathing Star Sign on Your Wrist Powerpuff Handbags Eight & Bob - JFK’s Favourite Fragrance Meizu M6 Smartphone Armani ART 5005 Blaupunkt HOS 1800 Voyager 8200 UC Sony MP-CD1

16-17

TOURISM

OPINION

40-46

• The Island of Lemurs

• Ready to Surprise the World – Again

THE BUZZ

• SUV Segment Still Growing

19 20-33

• Lifestyle • Exhibitions • Theater

Published by WV Marketing Sp. z o.o.

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Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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VOICE - POLITICS & SOCIETY

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Poland–EU Dispute Continued May 28: The Polish government may face further complications in the ongoing dispute with the EU, the daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna wrote against the background of the approaching visit of the Council of Europe delegation to Warsaw.

The delegation will look into whether the provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government are adhered to.

Polish local governments reps plan to raise such issues as the recent pay cuts, re-centralization of the state and the growing burden of new tasks they are assigned without receiving new funds for the purpose, they told the daily.

May 28: Polish beneficiaries signed 35,400 deals for PLN 187.9 billion in EU funds from the 2014-2020 budget pool as of May 27, 2018, with the value of deals signed up by PLN 3.1 billion month on month, Investments and Development Ministry said. A total of 83,800 motions for PLN 317.7 billion in EU financing were submitted by that date, for projects worth PLN 515.3 billion.

May 31: Poland could be facing a ca. EUR 24 billion cut in EU cohesion funds versus the previous EU budget, to EUR 64.4 billion, under the block's new multi-annual budgetary framework, according to a statement from the European Commission.

Poland will still receive the biggest share of the EU's entire cohesion policy budget for the years 2021-2027, seen at EUR 373 billion in commitments, the EC statement shows.

Poland will thus receive EUR 64.4 billlion in 2018 prices, or EUR 72.2 billion in fixed prices (taking into account future inflation).

For the 2021-2027 budgetary framework, EU proposed to modernize its Cohesion Policy with a view to focusing on "key investment priorities" and providing "a more tailored approach to regional development", along with "fewer, clearer and shorter rules and a more flexible framework", EC said in the statement.

PM Mateusz Morawiecki said May 29 Poland will definitely object to the European Commission's proposal of

PAP/EPA

European commission Vice President Frans Timmermans (L) chats with Konrad Szymanski, the Polish European affairs minister (R) at the General Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, 26 June 2018.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - POLITICS & SOCIETY

slashing cohesion policy funds in the new EU budget, along with all the other countries facing such cuts.

Earlier in May, Investment and Development Minister Jerzy Kwiecinski told public radio that Poland could suffer a 10% decline in cohesion funds and a 15% in common agricultural policy funds in the new EU budget pool, citing his ministry's calculations.

June 3: Poland faces a ca. 1% cut in direct subsidies for farmers and a ca. 25% slash in rural development funds, the 20212027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) draft budget proposed by the European Commission (EC) shows.

June 4: The Polish government will not agree to a cut in cohesion funds for the country by 25%, cabinet minister Jacek Sasin told broadcaster TOK FM. The government has "strong arguments" as the budget is approved unanimously, he added.

June 5: Poland will have to fill the gap from reduced EU funds in the coming years with financial instruments such as instruments offered by the EIB, Investments and Development Minister Jerzy Kwiecinski said during a conference.

June 6: Poland is "well prepared" for the negotiations on the new EU budget, deputy foreign affairs minister Konrad Szymanski assured, adding that the budget won't be adopted in the currently proposed shape.

June 7: Poland is not the only EU member state dissatisfied with the new EU budget proposed by the European Commission so the budget "will certainly be changed," deputy foreign affairs minister Konrad Szymanski told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily in an interview.

June 7: Poland willy likely soon find itself under more pressure from the European Commission with regard to observance of rule of law as deputy head Frans Timmermans plans to discuss the issue during his visit to the country in the coming weeks, according to unofficial information accessed by daily Rzeczpospolita. Timmermans wants Poland to make further concessions and is backed by the so far more consensual EC president Jean-Claude Juncker, an unnamed EC rep told the newspaper off the record.

June 8: Poland is "very concerned" about possible cuts to the EU's cohesion budget and "cannot accept" the latest proposed allocation of funds, Minister of Infrastructure Jerzy Kwiecinski said in Sofia.

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June 15: Poland has likely finished its charm offensive versus the European Commission and will likely harden its stance at a meeting of PM Mateusz Morawiecki with EC deputy head Frans Timmermans, Polska the Times speculated, pointing to recent shifts in rhetoric by government officials. Poland may go as far as demanding a formal vote of article 7 procedure, PiS MEPs suggested.

June 19: Poland may avoid a debate in the Council of the EU on observance of rule of law in the country if it signals readiness to further tweak its judiciary reform before June 26, unspecified sources in the European Commission (EC) told daily Rzeczpospolita following the June 18 meeting of EC deputy head Frans Timmermans with PM Mateusz Morawiecki in Warsaw. By contrast, forcing certain Polish supreme court judges to retire on July 3 will make reaching a compromise even more difficult, they warned. Neither of the two sides showed willingness to make any concessions on Monday, according to unofficial information cited by Rzeczpospolita.

June 20: Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki moved during a Tuesday meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to secure Germany's support in Poland's continuing conflict with the EU over rule of law issues. Morawiecki spilled all details of his recent discussion with European Commission's deputy head Frans Timmermans to Merkel during the Berlin meeting, the daily Rzeczpospolita wrote of own findings.

Berlin has so far abstained from openly backing the EC in the conflict, and if that situation continues, Poland might escape further consequences connected with the Article 7 procedure as German restraint will likely halt the proceedings, the daily speculates.

Merkel will ultimately take the side of Brussels, Konrad Adenauer Foundation's Olaf Wientzek said in his comment for the daily.

June 26: Polish government’s delegation headed by Konrad Szymaƒski, vice minister of foreign affairs responsible for European affairs, presented its contested judiciary reform during an unprecedented hearing in Luxembourg. The European Commission still believes there is a systemic threat to the rule of law in Poland as Poland failed to inform about any new steps aimed to address these concerns, EC first vice-president Frans Timmermans said after the hearing.

Poland might not escape the Article 7 procedure after all as Timmermans is an ardent supporter of the proceedings in spite of EC lawyers' conflicting opinions on the issue, the daily Rzeczpospolita wrote citing an unofficial comment from a EC representative.

Source: Polish Press Agency (PAP)

VOICE - BUSINESS & ECONOMY

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GDPR Challenges are Here Twenty fifth May 2018 has come sooner than we wanted and has gone equally quickly. The world did not stop turning, business did not grind to a halt, and the day did not end in disaster, despite the concerns of many.

All

this was due to the EU Personal Data Protection Regulation, or the GDPR, that became applicable on 25 May 2018 and represents one of the most significant changes to personal data protection over the past 20 years. The GDPR provides for a number of new personal data protection obligations, applies to us all, affects how business is carried on, and is supposed to protect us, average citizens, against abuses of our data and give us full data autonomy.

Over the past few days, we have seen many absurd situations related to application of the GDPR: doctors refusing to tell parents whether their children have been admitted to hospital, hospitals using numbers instead of names to refer to patients, and church offices not issuing copies of documents to relatives.

The GDPR is not responsible for any of them; they were all due to lack of knowledge or information.

Personal data have often been neglected (even though Poland has had a Personal Data Protection Act for 21 years). As there has been no threat of high fines being imposed by the Inspector General for Data Protection (unlike, e.g. the Competition and Consumer Protection Office or the Electronic Communications Office), apart from fines for repeatedly (!) failing to comply with administrative decisions issued by the Inspector, and the risk of inspections by this authority has been relatively low, some entrepreneurs have not paid sufficient attention to the matter. So now that a regulation attracting as much media coverage as the GDPR has come along, a large part of the market is trying to implement the new regulations, but interpreting them too literally in some cases.

The GDPR is a challenge for many firms in view of the IT, legal and organisational changes that companies will have to make in their businesses. The

new legislation also introduces the accountability principle, which requires an entity that processes data in connection with its activity and determines the purposes and means of the processing (called the “data controller” for data protection purposes) to demonstrate that it complies with the GDPR. Compliance is usually demonstrated by amending documents (introducing relevant new clauses and provisions), introducing new procedures (e.g. for notifying data breaches to the supervisory authority), and changing IT systems. If personal data have been managed in any way at a firm, this should really not be a major challenge, but if the firm is starting from scratch, rather more work will be needed. The greatest challenge may be changing people’s approach to personal data protection. We all have to realise that personal data, including customers’ or employees’ data, are becoming a real currency that in some cases may operate like the magic phrase “Open Sesame!”. This is why the risks and requirements under the GDPR must be discussed.

Ever since the GDPR has become enforceable, there have also been many problems with practical application. Examples include requests to exercise entities’ rights under the GDPR (e.g.

to obtain information from a data controller (such as a bank) on whether and how it is processing our personal data).

It can be seen on the market that customers/contractors/employees are indeed exercising their rights under the GDPR. This may be one of the biggest challenges arising from the GDPR after 25 May: education and demystification of regulations whose interpretation at the start of application has sometimes given us greater cause for astonishment than admiration for their effectiveness. The regulations of the GDPR have deliberately been drafted so as to leave as much room for interpretation as possible. The EU legislator intends the regulations to be as flexible as possible so that they continue to be relevant in future years. So a situation arises where we have “as many opinions as people” when it comes to interpreting the regulations. This results in absurd situations, e.g. where a cemetery is closed “because of the GDPR”.

The fact that there is no established practice is also a challenge to the business community, which now relies on its own interpretations of the regulations.

Coupled with a lack of sector-specific regulations, which are critical for the operations of, e.g. the banking, telecommunications and healthcare sectors, this means that we can expect inconsistent practice and many questions over the interpretation of the regulations over the next few months. Let’s hope we will find answers to many of these questions.

The Ministry of Digital Affairs has announced that a working group will be set up to prepare interpretations of the regulations to make it easier for, e.g. schools and healthcare providers to rationalise application of the GDPR. This is a good move and one that meets the needs of citizens and the business community, which is always positive. We secretly hope that both the Ministry of Digital Affairs and the new supervisory authority will follow the example of the UK supervisory authority, ICO, and will soon issue instructions or guidelines enabling businesses to apply the GDPR reasonably so that it fulfils its basic function of protecting us and our personal data.

Agnieszka Kaczmarek Associate, Domañski Zakrzewski Palinka sp.k., Data Privacy Team

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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Hotels and Music – A Perfect Duo Luc Gesvret, Chief Top-Line Officer AccorHotels Eastern Europe talks about music as the brand’s passion and how to market hotel offerings to millennials.

Why did you decide to promote hotels with music?

The ibis family hotels have a very competitive offer, the advantage of which is wide availability of facilities in convenient locations and at a moderate price. The hotels are modern and comfortable, and they are distinguished by a free, creative atmosphere. Thanks to this, they are an attractive proposal for the 20-30+ generation for whom these aspects are especially important. We try to get young people interested, involve them in a shared adventure and encourage them to use our services more often. We selected music as a factor that rejuvenates the brand and offers many possibilities to popularize it among millennials.

How does a passion for music make itself visible every day in the case of ibis family hotels?

Music accompanies our guests every single day. As part of the ibis Stage project, chamber music concerts are held regularly at the hotels. Local artists present their talents there, and so do... employees of the AccorHotels Group. We also discovered we have talented performers in our team.

Opening the hotels to music allowed us to create a unique experience. We are proud to see how this initially brave concept is starting to have a life of its own, to develop and produce more and more positive emotions. But concerts are not everything. Thanks to the Jukebox by Deezer music system installed in our hotels, guests can select songs played in common spaces by themselves. We believe that music is an important element of good mood – so we make all possible efforts to ensure that a stay at our hotels is fully satisfying.

The Get to Sziget campaign currently in progress is another example of a music-related activity. What is the idea behind it?

Get to Sziget is first and foremost a competition in which you can win a two-week trip – 7 days of travel across Europe in a musical bus specially designed for this purpose and 7 days

Katarzyna Kraska & Rafa∏ Krajewski, ibis Warszawa Centrum

of stay at the Sziget Festival in Budapest. Contestants have to record a short film to convince voters that the filmmakers should take part in this musical adventure. Participants in the competition also have a real impact on which cities will be visited on the trip to the festival – planning a creative route to Budapest is part of the competition application. You may apply both individually and in groups of up to three people.

The competition is run via a dedicated website: ibis.com/gettosziget. The campaign is being carried out in the whole of Eastern Europe: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and in Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia.

ibis Kraków Centrum

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ibis Wroc∏aw Centrum

ibis Styles Budapest City

What attractions await the winners?

The most important one, of course, is the ultimate destination of the whole journey: the Sziget Festival. It is a true celebration for all music fans. It is enough to mention that concerts are to be held over one week, on nine stages at the same time. But we also took care for the road trip itself to be filled with multiple attractions. The winners can look forward to lots of surprises in addition to visiting fascinating cities. We invited the BEMY band to act as ambassadors for the campaign. This is an additional incentive for young people to experience an unforgettable holiday in the company of their idols. What’s more, during the trip the band will compose a song which will have its premiere at the Europe Stage Presented by ibis within the Sziget Festival 2018.

Do you plan to open new hotels in the nearest future?

Of course. The ibis family hotels, which are in the budget segment, are definitely that part of the AccorHotels Group portfolio which is developing the fastest. Even this year, we plan to open several hotels in Eastern Europe, which will be an attractive choice for people travelling either privately or in connection with their job. They will additionally help us strengthen our position among young customers. A second hotel of the ibis Styles brand will be opened in Warsaw in November. Its theme is going to be the Vistula riverbank – a unique combination of nature and a city bustling with life.

Work is nearing completion in Poznaƒ to launch a combo – an ibis operating in the same building will be added to the existing Novotel hotel. New hotels are soon to be opened in Bucharest, Budapest and Vilnius. The demand for hotel services is still growing in the region, and our task is to respond to this need.

ibis Gdaƒsk Old Town

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

ibis Styles Warszawa City

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Blockchain – Poland’s ‘Eureka While there is no doubt that blockchain is one of the newest and hottest technologies, its adoption is yet at early stage and at Polish public sector not even planned.

However, from managing registries of identities, trusted document exchange, to data and currency transactions, the technology has the potential to make a huge impact.

This impact is two-folded.

Its

benefit is clear - embedded technological trust. For public sector organizations and governments the notion of trust is critical. Blockchain inspires trust through decentralization. As a distributed ledger, data or monetary transactions are transparent since they need to be verified by members of the network. Record-keeping becomes immutable as it is almost impossible to change data without others on the network detecting that a change has been made. Users can have confidence in the permanence of records and they become owners of their own identity and related digital assets.

The second most obvious reason to explore blockchain as the underlying technology is cybersecurity. It brings the change in the paradigm to handle data. Instead of protecting data centers where data is stored, it cryptographically protects the data that is dispersed in the distributed ledger. All kind of attacks become extremely difficult and costly. Data leakage or theft is challenging. A successful ransomware attack becomes a big problem too.

It is for these reasons that a number of countries have started to explore the potential for blockchain to overhaul government processes and create new nationwide infrastructures whereby trust and security need to be inherent.

These are initiatives that put citizens back in control of their digital identities, alleviate the burden of data management for compliance purposes and bring significant improvement into countries’ cyber defense strategy.

With recent deployments at publicly-backed institutions such as the Biuro Informacji Kredytowej (the Polish Credit Bureau), Poland has already hit global headlines and shown itself to be a pioneer of an emerging blockchainpowered world. With the right support, Poland has the potential to achieve so much more. Here’s why.

Blockchain on the international stage As with any new technology, blockchain has been met with both excitement and skepticism. While some countries have provided a favorable environment for innovation, others have created roadblocks. Tomorrow’s blockchain inno-

vation hubs are likely to be where governments encourage this technology today. During Impact 18 conference in Kraków, Noah Raford, COO at Dubai Future Foundation, announced that the emirate will move all the critical records onto a blockchain based country IT solution. The reason is the need to build a digital country that is safe and built on trust.

Estonia – a foreword tech-thinker on many fronts – is another example. In Estonia, blockchain has been in active use since 2012 for data registries including its national health records, as well as judicial, legislative, security and commercial code systems. Having the country’s critical infrastructure on the blockchain means that neither a military nor cyber-attack could compromise or destruct the country critical records; particularly important for those countries with volatile foreign relationships.

Our close neighbor - Lithuania - is currently tendering a LB Chain where its Central Bank plans to develop a country’s blockchain structure to manage various records that are either critical for security or for business agility. According to Marius Jurgilas, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, blockchain technology has particularly great adaptation possibilities in those areas where high data transmission security and credibility is required, e.g. financial operations or electronic voting.

Blockchain and its uses in the public sector On the blockchain system, the data (a digital value) once it is being created at a trusted organization it then is encrypted and secured in a distributed ledger with no central administration. Consequently, the distributed nature of storage means that it would be almost impossible for an attacker to know the exact location of the data. To do so would involve connecting scattered fragments across numerous server systems – by design it is therefore much more costly and at the same time less attractive for attackers to compromise the data.

What’s more, with added robust encryption, multi-level encryption keys would need to be retrieved to gain visibiliSummer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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Moment’? ty into the data. This takes time, which attackers don’t have when they’re launching the likes of a ransomware attack.

The more time spent on the network, the greater chance of identification and interception; consequently making attack becomes even less attractive.

The granular control of data afforded by the blockchain also has the potential to give people control of their digital identities. A huge issue when it comes to governing.

Citizens will decide who they want to share their own information with. They will also have a full control on when to revoke the access rights. When moving data from one institution to another, instruction or permission control will stay with the data owner, rather than a third party (administrator). From banks to mobile carriers, citizens could use the blockchain to store, share, change and prevent access to their details; control that has typically sat within complex legacy structures. This can also help towards GDPR compliance, as data is able to be indexed and granularly managed.

form. And as mentioned, one of the most significant blockchain development this year has been the project sponsored by Zwiàzek Banków Polskich (the Polish Banking Association) to move a trusted banking documentation onto blockchain to comply with EU regulations. This is also thanks to the large pool of technology geeks and experts able to design and deploy our own, Polish blockchain for critical and mass scale use. This is clearly a trampoline into areas demanding even more critical trust and security.

In an age where threats of foreign interference have never been as high as today and political volatility remains frequent, there is no doubt that gaining citizens’ trust and securing governmental processes could transform the world we live in. For Poland, blockchain could be its ‘Eureka moment’.

The foundations of blockchain’s potential are clearly already in place. Technically it has already been proven.

Some pioneering countries spare no efforts in adopting the technology into its public services. What’s needed now is an appetite for change and an environment where a new innovative structure can flourish. This is where Poland comes in.

The opportunity for Poland Poland has a unique opportunity to apply its experience and technical expertise in building cutting-edge blockchain solutions to its public administration. Using blockchain, Poland could put its citizens in charge of their own digital identities and, in doing so, generate an unprecedented level of trust that could rival any other country in the world.

By taking the first step in moving parts of its public infrastructure to the blockchain, Poland is already ahead of the game and it should now seize the opportunity to broaden the use of blockchain within the public administration. In doing so it could transform not just Poland, but become a blueprint for other countries wanting to implement a digital infrastructure designed for trust and cyber security.

Poland has been famous for its cryptologists and mathematicians and continues to have extremely talented people in those fields. In Poland there has been significant investment in blockchain. From the Polish Accelerator of Blockchain Technology – designed to invest in startups innovating the technology – through to established banking giants like Santander choosing Poland as one of the four countries to launch its blockchain foreign exchange platSummer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Jacek Figu∏a Chief Commercial Officer of Billon, a company that reinvented technology behind data and money flow. Before 20 + years’ of experience in sales leadership in global corporations, like Cisco most recently.

VOICE - BUSINESS & ECONOMY

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A Brief History of Robotics (and what we can learn for the future workplace)

By Edward Gover-Isaac, Vice President, Business Process & Application Services, Ricoh Europe

W

hen you hear the word ‘robot’, what do you think of? A set of mechanical arms? The ability to obey commands? The simplification of a process? Now, we’re living in a time when robots (both in the physical and digital sense) are disrupting how we do business.

For this blog, I thought I would look at the history of robots.

The term was coined by the brother of Czechoslovakian author Karel Čapek, and used in the play Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Debuting in 1921, this was before science fiction was even known as science fiction – and it would go on to inspire a whole new branch of science and engineering themed productions.

Here are a few key moments in robotics history which have brought us to where we are today: 1942 – US author Isaac Asimov has his Three Laws for Robotics codified in science fiction short story Runaround.

1949 – William Grey Walter built what are thought to be the first electronic autonomous robots called machina speculatrix. Fun fact: these turtle-like machines were called Elsie and Elmer.

1950 – Alan Turing devises the Turing test, which tried to see if a machine could show intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human.

1969 – Robotics technology is used when NASA land Neil Armstrong on the moon.

1977 – Robots enter mainstream consciousness with the characters C-3PO and R2D2 in Star Wars.

2000 – ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is released by Honda – the humanoid machine can understand voice commands; interact with its surroundings (and even kick footballs).

A digital machine for the modern day A huge area of interest for me now is the application of robotic technology within the world of software (also known as bots).

The idea of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is not a new one; its first practical application was in ATMs. The world’s first cash machine was installed in Enfield, North London in 1967.

In the same way you can use robots to do the heavy lifting on a production line, they can do this also within your business processes. RPA technologies are now coming to the fore, creating a new breed of “cognitive enterprise”.

They are leaner, more efficient, and are much more capable of addressing the needs of the customer.

When you combine RPA with the likes of natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine learning, it means tasks normally completed by a person can instead be automated by machine.

But it’s not about taking humans out of the equation – in fact it’s quite the opposite.

The cognitive enterprise allows for the creation of an integrated workforce, where bots work alongside humans.

While the software machine picks up simple activities it allows humans to focus on more complex, strategic, or higher value interactions.

Customer service chatbots and automated invoicing is only the start. As computing processing power increases (along with the complexity of the algorithms the bots are made of) the line between human and machine capability is only going to shift further.

I firmly believe that the growth in the use of RPA will fuel the rate at which cognitive automation takes hold. We will soon see the next evolution as we expand robotics activity towards even more complementary cognitive technologies.

We’ve come along way since William Grey Walter built his machina speculatrix, but with integrated workforces set to grow you may have a few more bots in your team very soon.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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At the Forefront of Magdalena Wàsiewicz, Key Channel Account Manager Poland at Plantronics talks to the Voice.

What is the history of Plantronics in Poland? What can you tell about the investments that the company Key Channel Account Manager Poland at Plantronics has made so far in Poland?

Plantronics was founded in 1961 when two airline pilots set out to invent an alternative to the conventional headsets of the commercial aviation industry. Eight years later, and thousands of miles away, Plantronics made history when Neil Armstrong spoke those legendary words from the moon, transmitted through a Plantronics device. Today, Plantronics has more than fifty years of history in leadership, innovation and evolution within the technology market with more than 400 engineers, 700 patents, an award-winning design team and globally recognized manufacturing excellence. In fact, our communications devices are used by the majority of Fortune 100 companies.

The Plantronics range of headsets and other communications products is available throughout the world and our presence in Europe is very strong. In Poland specifically, we have more than twenty years of rich history, working alongside authorized local distributors that include Plantronics as one of their brands of choice. In the last two years, Plantronics’ presence in the region has grown. The company now has an established business entity in the country and has added local staff to enhance its already global team.

What are the products/services?

For more than 50 years, Plantronics has been at the forefront of audio innovation; always driven by a single obsession: to remove the barriers to simple, clear communication. From unified communications (UC) and customer service ecosystems, to data analytics and Bluetooth® headsets, we deliver high-quality communications solutions to businesses and consumers.

Plantronics has designed technology for some of the most diverse use cases – from air traffic control to competitive gaming. Regardless of the sector, our design approach incorporates three key elements: human needs, long-wearing comfort and premium sound quality.

This has been essential to our success in both Poland and the wider market.

Today’s workforce is very different from what it was just five years ago. With new technologies that enable greater mobility, the concept of a traditional workforce has changed and this change isn’t isolated to just one segment or industry — it crosses geographic, generational and cultural lines. Plantronics delivers business solutions that integrate perfectly into a global business phenomenon; leading enterprises call this smarter working. One example of this is our Voyager 6200 UC, a headset which has professional-grade audio in a versatile Bluetooth neckband with earbuds and active noise cancellation designed for versatility that goes beyond the office.

Plantronics also offers consumers a range of products, from BackBeat Pro 2 for those wanting to block out the sound of commuting with active noise cancellation, to BackBeat FIT 500 with its waterproof design, perfect to blast through the weather during your morning workout.

For those who have a passion for gaming, we have recently launched the new RIG series, which incorporates Dolby Atmos technology in the headphones for a premium user experience.

What about the company's position on the domestic market? What is driving the market forward in Poland?

The company has more than two decades of experience in the market and we have recently opened a Plantronics business entity in the region. We believe the Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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Audio Innovation market offers huge growth opportunities in many dimensions. For example, in the region, the contact center market is particularly important for Plantronics. We work with a host of major banks and large contact center operators and we are continuing to grow our presence in this area.

In terms of specific products, we’ve found that Plantronics Voyager UC series has been a great success in the region. Its advanced Bluetooth technology allows users to connect with their laptops, mobile phones and a plethora of multimedia content, utilizing the noise cancelling features at their disposal. European customers really appreciate the flexibility that Voyager UC offers.

What can you tell me about the corporate culture of the company?

Plantronics encourages a global culture, rich in diversity and inclusivity, with innovation at its heart. Across the globe, associates are united by a shared purpose to help people listen, communicate and create more effectively.

The company also embraces the principles of smarter working. For Plantronics, this is about giving our associates greater freedom and flexibility in how, when and where they work. It’s about creating environments that foster productivity, collaboration and innovation. By giving our associates the tools, environment and freedom to contribute to the company’s success, we believe it increases their engagement and ultimately impacts the bottom line.

What are the company's plans for 2018 and beyond?

Plantronics will continue to offer cutting-edge audio solutions to businesses and consumers. One of our focuses for this year is software and services. Plantronics Manager Pro, for example, harnesses the power of analytics to deliver insights that drive the adoption of UC for more successful customer engagements. Additionally, Plantronics will continue to discover and invent the tools and technologies that help provide a focused and distraction-free environment for customers.

Paul Clark, Managing Director and Sales Globalization Leader at Plantronics: “Poland is a key market for Plantronics. Over the past two decades we’ve continued to develop our presence in the region, and I’m especially delighted at the progress we’ve made in Poland.

We’ve seen excellent engagement in both the contact center and consumer space. Our software solutions – such as Plantronics Manager Pro - are helping companies digitally transform their businesses, while our headsets like BackBeat Pro 2 offer consumers a cutting-edge audio product.

With the ongoing demand from businesses for solutions that help their digital transformation, coupled with a hunger from consumers to have the best quality headsets, we see Poland as an exciting market for the future”.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - REAL ESTATE

16

Record First Quarter As a result of large portfolio transactions, the first quarter of 2018 on the Polish real estate investment market closed with a record investment volume of ca. EUR 2.05 billion, according to Savills. Taking into account the number and volume of ongoing transactions, we may expect another very good year on the investment market.

The

acquisition of EUR 1 billion retail portfolio of M1, Auchan, Power Park and Praktiker centres by Chariot Top Group, comprising PIMCO, Oaktree and Redefine, and the first part of the resale of a selected part of this portfolio to EPP (starting with four M1 shopping centres for EUR 358.7 million) are with no doubt the transactions that contributed the most to the record volume in Q1’18.

The largest single-asset transaction in Q1’18 was the acquisition of Galeria Katowicka, a prime shopping centre located in Katowice, estimated for nearly EUR 300 million.

Tomasz Buras, Managing Director in Savills Poland says: ‘In recent months the amount of time required to finalise transactions has significantly increased, mainly due to legal and tax reasons. As a result, many transactions have been closed later than planned and thus, instead of an even more spectacular result in 2017, we have a record Q1’18. The first quarter of the year closed under the sign of retail transactions, which is with no doubt a continuation of complex processes that started last year.

Currently, we observe more activity in the office and industrial sectors and those are the sectors where we expect the highest number of transactions in the nearest months with regard to both regional cities and Warsaw.’

In the first quarter of 2018, office transactions accounted for only 6% of total investment volume. However, the number and volume of ongoing transactions and properties offered for sale will result in a much higher activity in this sector over the next few months.

Tomasz Buras Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - REAL ESTATE

17

Marek Paczuski, Deputy Head of Investment Department in Savills in Poland says: ‘Investors are continuously interested in regional office markets. In the first quarter of 2018 two transactions were closed in Wroc∏aw and there are pending deals on each of the major regional office markets in Poland. We expect much higher investment activity on the Warsaw office market that recently reflected rather a ‘wait and see’ type of approach, resulting mainly from a changing landscape of the Warsaw office market and increased new supply. Investment sentiment on the Warsaw market has improved significantly, driven by positive signs coming from the office leasing market, mainly by a relatively high net absorption and first signs of rental growth.

Investors are currently interested not only in prime assets, but also in older properties with a well secured cash-flow or value-add potential.’

Industrial sector is still on the target list of buyers. In Q1’18 three assets in this sector changed the owner: Prologis Park Sochaczew (acquired by Ares), Ideal Idea IV (Segro) and Good Point II (Hillwood). We expect more industrial transactions including portfolio sales and large single-asset acquisitions in the nearest future.

Marek Paczuski

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Micha∏ St´pieƒ, Associate in the Investment Department of Savills in Poland says: ‘Following a record 2017 in hotel investment, when ca. EUR 340 million was spent on hotel assets, we expect this trend to continue. In Q1’18 one hotel transaction was finalised – the acquisition of Holiday Inn Warsaw City Center by Union Investment. Besides, we observe a rising interest in alternative asset classes, mainly residential, student housing, senior housing and medical centres. These types of assets will be subject of trading in the coming years.’

Savills reports that increased investor activity on the real estate market in Poland has been leading to further yield compression. For leading shopping centres in Warsaw and in major regional cities, prime yields amount to 5.00-5.25%.

Prime office yields in Warsaw may break the level of 5.00% while on major regional markets prime yields range from ca.

6.00% (Cracow and Wroc∏aw) to 6.50-7.25% in other leading regional markets. Prime yields in industrial sector amount to 6.50-7.00% for multi-let or smaller BTS assets and are significantly sharper in the case of assets let for at least 10 years to such global giants as Amazon.

Marek Paczuski

VOICE - BUSINESS & ECONOMY

18

To Host and Inspire Rupert Simoner, CEO of Austrian hotel group Vienna House, which operates a network of hotels in Poland, talks to Witold ˚ygulski.

What will be the strongest advantages of the Vienna House Mokotow Warsaw hotel compared to rivals in the Polish capital? How are you going to attract potential customers?

Vienna House Mokotow Warsaw is a higher-standard business hotel which joins industrial design with an ecofriendly approach to hospitality and an outstanding culinary offering based on sustainable development ethics. What distinguishes this hotel from others is the combination of a relaxed atmosphere with business professionalism. This atmosphere shows especially in the lobby, which serves as a working space, a place to take a rest and to feast together. The lobby blends with the bar and the restaurant. The design of the lobby may be freely modified so that guests are surprised each time they come here. Moreover, the Green House restaurant is a peaceful green space amongst the concrete jungle of the district of Mokotow. Here, workers from nearby offices and hotel guests will have an opportunity to take a rest from their daily routine and to talk in peace over lunch or business dinner. We put quality in first place – quality of both the food and the service as well as the offer, thus offering lots of modern technologies and proecological solutions.

Charging electric cars for free - is it not too early to offer such a service, given the fact that there are very few cars of this type in Poland?

The electric car market is indeed still fledgling in Poland.

Nevertheless, our mission consists in enchanting and inspiring our guests. I believe that electric vehicles are the future of the automotive industry – according to forecasts, the market share of such cars will increase to 50% by 2030. As Vienna House, we want to be part of this future. I am also aware of the fact that the first thing needed is an expansion of the charging station network. That is why we are consistently adding these charging points to the offering of our hotels. From March this year such stations are available, among others, at Andel’s Cracow, and soon at Easy Katowice, Andel’s Lodz and Amber Baltic Miedzyzdroje.

What other innovative new services are you going to offer your guests at Vienna House hotels in Poland?

We always look at our offering from our guests’ perspective and do our best to adjust this offer to their expectations. A mobile concierge is an example of such an approach. After logging into the hotel Wi-Fi, guests get

access to an application which will not only acquaint them with regional attractions but also enable them to check in or check out, order room service with breakfast, book a massage or read recent editions of the international press.

A growing number of our hotels offer, for example, checkin using a smartphone or the possibility to rent bikes.

You have been active on the Polish market for some years: what can you tell us about the feedback you receive from clients?

Poland is one of the key markets for us to invest. Apart from opening a new hotel in Warsaw, as we have already discussed, this year we have opened a new restaurant: Mavericks in Cracow, and are renovating all of our buildings in Cracow, Katowice and Miedzyzdroje. Business and conference clients praise this vibrant activity, the flexibility and creative offering of meetings: organising a training course in the lightning talk format or a conference with participants sitting in lawn chairs is no problem for us.

What is more, we hear very positive opinions about our gastronomical offer – our breakfasts are among the best and our a la carte range is unique at each of our hotels and references local cuisine.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - OPINION

19

Ready to Surprise the World – Again A few years ago overseas visitors came to Warsaw and were surprised how elegant and modern it was. Not many had heard about its incredible recent progress and very dynamic growth. Now many of them are returning - Warsaw is being rediscovered.

In

2016 this city applied for the first time to host the giant Convention of Rotary International. We lodged a very professional bid of 5 volumes of documents containing over 500 pages of beautiful graphics plus facts and figures to impress the decision makers.

The inspectors and international assessors who subsequently visited Warsaw in August 2017 were surprised by its great infrastructure and modernity. We were assessed very highly and actually got into the final 5, together with such already famous cities like Singapore, Calgary, Gothenburg and Dubai which were selected from more than a dozen international cities which originally applied.

This was a great achievement because people were amazed by Warsaw’s unique features. But there were only 3 dates available and the decision makers overseas, many of whom had still not been to Warsaw before, chose the first 3 of these cities for the dates of 2023, 2024 and 2025. They still needed more time to analyse and understand more fully Warsaw’s amazing growth.

We found out later that no new entrant had ever won the honour of winning this competition on their first attempt.

But we have been invited to bid again. This is an opportunity not to be missed because the tens of thousands of well-heeled visitors who come to such a Convention all together spend on average more than $100 mln (nearly 400 mln zlotych) on such an extended visit. They usually spend 5 days at the Convention and then tour around the whole country. Poland will become a new magnet for international visitors, investors and business partners from many walks of life.

Rotarians all over the world number over 1,230,000 members which means that together with their families and friends they are indeed a very large and influential group of people. They comprise business and intellectual leaders of societies in over 200 countries. Together they carry out humanitarian projects focusing on health, education, growing local economies and promoting peace with over 130,000 projects being carried out all over the world at any one time. The eradication of Polio is one of their biggest projects and this disease is now almost totally eradicated from our planet with millions of lives having been saved.

Members of Rotary included such famous people as Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher and many others.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Warsaw is soon going to apply again for the honour of hosting this giant Rotary International Convention. This time we are applying only for the year 2026 and there are now many new and strong indicators that this will be Warsaw's year for success.

Already many influential people have come back for a return visit and Warsaw has already been selected for a Rotary team leaders’ seminar in April 2019.

The world is finally starting to appreciate all the great features which Warsaw has to offer. The marketing and financial benefits for this city will be enormous both during the main event itself as well during all the years leading up to that RI Convention. “The Rotarian” monthly magazines are delivered to over 150 countries world-wide and there will be a great number of featured stories about Warsaw and Poland after this competition is completed.

In addition to Rotary’s electronic media and many social media channels which are also all growing at a very fast rate.

We must now all work together to achieve this very important success for Warsaw and win the right to host an RI Convention in 2026!

Mark Krawczynski President of Rotary Club Warszawa City 2017-2018 Acting Chair of Host Organisation Committee for RI Convention in Warsaw.

20

Warsaw Holds Grand Annual Celebration of Mozart’s Music Warsaw is hosting the 28th Mozart Festival until July 14. The event, organized by the Warsaw Chamber Opera (WOK), aims to stage performances of the whole corpus of Mozart's works, including pieces for the stage.

This

year's highlights include the operas Cosi fan tutte (on July 6 and 7) and Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio – July 10,11,12). The festival features soloists working permanently at the Warsaw Chamber Opera as well as guest artists. They are accompanied by the WOK orchestra "Musicae Antiquae Collegium Varsoviense", which plays original period instruments or their replicas.

As every year, Warsaw audiences can also hear Mozart’s great symphonic works, masses, chamber pieces, the famous unfinished Requiem (July 8), and violin concertos in the interpretation of Giuliano Carmignoli (July 13). Traditionally there are also performances for children.

An hour and a half before performances start at the Warsaw Chamber Opera, the audiences are treated to free concerts in Cafe Mozart, in the WOK’s foyer, where,

while drinking coffee, they can listen to Mozart's arias and songs in a cosy atmosphere.

The festival venues also include some of Warsaw’s finest historic sites, including the Royal Castle, The Wilanow Palace Museum, Basilica of St. John the Baptist and the Seminary Church.

The festival will end with the final gala concert, on July 14, at the Polski Theater. Solists, including Joanna Freszel, Joanna Moskowicz and Artur Janda will sing the most beautiful arias from Mozart’s operas. The artists will be accompanied by the WOK’s orchestra, which will also play several instrumental pieces.

The Mozart Festival, a flagship project by the Warsaw Chamber Opera, was first held in 1991 to mark 200 years since the death of the great composer from Vienna.

The idea for this unique event came from the Warsaw Chamber Opera’s founder and director Stefan Sutkowski and stage director Ryszard Peryt. As a result of their efforts, Warsaw is the only city in the world where all the pieces Mozart ever wrote for the stage are performed every year.

Festival performances in the WOK headquarters start at 7 p.m. every day. Tickets are available from the WOK box office.

For festival program details go to www.operakameralna.pl

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

The Addams Family Comes to Warsaw The Warsaw Syrena Theatre, in coproduction with the Musical Theatre in Poznaƒ, will perform “The Addams Family”, a great hit musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2010.

The

Warsaw premiere of The Addams Family is scheduled for September 8, 2018. Two weeks later, on September 22, the musical will be presented to audiences in Poznaƒ.

The show, featuring a fusion of the Broadway tradition and excellent Latin American style, had its first Polish premiere in March 2015 on the stage of the Gliwice Musical Theatre in southern Poland. The musical was then directed by Jacek Miko∏ajczyk, a longtime literary director of the Gliwice theatre and currently the director of the Syrena Theatre.

Miko∏ajczyk is also directing the Warsaw-Poznaƒ show.

“The Musical Theatre in Poznaƒ is among the top musical theatres in Poland,” Miko∏ajczyk said. “I am honoured that its director invited the Syrena Theatre and myself to co-produce the "Addams Family". I spent two seasons in Poznaƒ directing two premiere shows there, so I can say that in recent years, this theatre has been my artistic home. Now Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

21 that I have "moved" to Syrena, we have the opportunity to combine forces and passions. I am sure that both groups will create a completely unique performance,” he added.

Przemys∏aw Kieliszewski, Director of the Musical Theatre in Poznaƒ also expressed his satisfaction over the coproduction with Syrena. “Jacek Miko∏ajczyk accepted our invitation for another cooperation, which previously resulted in great performances of "Sister Act" and "Nine". I am convinced that Polish audiences will be delighted,” he said.

Since its Broadway premiere The Addams Family has always attracted good crowds. The musical has been shown almost all over Europe and America. It tells the story of a ghostly family living in the swamps in an old Victorian castle. The main characters are Gomez and Morticia, whose daughter Wednesday, called the ultimate princess of darkness, grows up and falls in love with a lovely boy named Lucas. She asks his father to keep it secret from his beloved wife. Everything changes one evening when the two families from two different worlds meet at one table.

The Addams Family was created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. In the 1930s, the adventures of the ghostly family began to appear in the form of a cartoon in the popular American weekly The New Yorker. The cartoon inspired a TV series broadcast in the years 1964-1965, and later, in 1991, a movie starring Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia and Christina Ricci.

The Polish production has two music directors - Tomasz Filipczak in Warsaw and Piotr Deptuch in Poznaƒ. Ewelina Adamska-Porczyk is responsible for the choreography, Grzegorz Policiƒski is the set designer and Ilona Binarsch designs costumes.

M.R.

22

The House of Oud – an Olfactory Journey Andrea Casotti, an Italian master perfumer, cofounder of The House of Oud niche perfume brand came to Warsaw’s Quality Missala Perfumery to launch his fragrances.

He spoke to Voice’s Marzena Robinson.

You are a nuclear engineer by education but you have been involved in perfume business for 15 years now.

How did it all happen?

It all happened by chance, when a company I was working for at the time sent me to take over the management of a perfume oil factory. When I entered the perfumery world it was really difficult for me to part with it. So I decided to leave all the other businesses behind to focus on fragrance oil development, and since then I have never stopped doing it.

How did your own brand originate?

It began with a story of friendship between Mr Mohammed Nashi and me. He is a Saudi from Jakarta and produces oud. It’s been now more than ten years that we have been both working in the perfumery business, travelling and spending a lot of time together in the Middle East.

The collaboration that began with business quickly turned into a very special friendship. So after years working with many brands, making compositions to embody their stories in perfumes, three years ago, we decided to embody the story of our friendship and make perfumes for our friends, to tell them this way about the Middle East experience. Thus our brand was born from a Christmas gift for our friends.

So this is how the idea of your first collection came about.

Yes. We created our first, the Desert Day collection to explain what you experience in the desert from the morning to the night. The first fragrance, Breath of the Infinite, evokes a lazy wake up in a desert late in the morning. With a longlasting musk and peach accord, and oud from Papua, it is like a second skin ready to receive the new day. The next in the collection, powerful and spicy Wind Heat, with oud from Myanmar, seeks to capture the hot intensity and movement of a dashing wind in the desert to give you a feeling of freshness. After a few hours spent in the desert you are totally exhausted, even doing nothing, but happily enjoying the silence and beauty of nature. The third fragrance, Golden Powder represents the special moment of the sunset, when the hot, dense air envelops the skin while the oriental, woody and spicy notes of the composition take shape.

Finally, around 9.30 the night settles over the desert. In the absence of the sun, there is a much-needed coolness and calm. Woody and balsamic notes of sandalwood, rose, Indian oud and patchouli move together inducing a deep feeling of well-being, embodied by the fourth fragrance, Blessing Silence.

There is also a rare moment in the desert when it starts snowing. To celebrate this magic occasion we made a fifth addition to this collection and called it Wonderly, because

snow in the desert is like wonder. The fragrance’s notes of iris and vanillic myrrh are in a beautiful contrast like snow falling in the Sahara.

And what stories does your second collection Klem Garden tell?

Again, it is another chapter of our book, about special moments you experience in an Arabian garden, where you are treated to its pleasures and blessed fruits - dates, grapes and almonds.

In the first, gourmand fragrance, Dates Delight, based on the freshness of the dates, with amber and honey, we were looking for totally different sweetness. To boost the top notes we let them play with oud from an Indonesian island of Kalimantan.

The second fragrance, Almond Harmony, is based on another addictive fruit. We combined the richness of the almond with the richness of heliotrope to make a simple but very noble and elegant perfume. Grape Pearls, with the main accords of grapes and coffee is the fragrance of the highest level of instant liking. It is a tribute to grapes which add craziness to this simple scent.

Cypress shade is the most complicated scent in the whole collection. It’s a tribute to a cypress tree, typical of Arabian garden, whose shade brings relief and refreshes the soul.

The citrus notes combined with fresh mint, vetiver, coriander and mimosa capture the cool, herbal dampness of the ground under a cypress tree.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

23

to the Middle East The Klem Garden Collection closes with Empathy, a tobacco-fruity fragrance, celebrating the shisha time, a moment when everyone stops talking and just enjoys the presence of friends, the beauty of being together.

When you decided to share your stories with more people than just friends what message did you want to convey with your perfumes?

As my main job is being a nose (a perfumer – WV), this brand for me is like a garden in which I can play with whatever I want. What we are looking for is not luxury but excellence, and this word best describes our brand, in the meaning that excellence is the joy of knowing how to do things.

Creating fragrances is like writing a book, the ingredients for us are like the words. Every time we create a new perfume it is like writing a new story.

We use more than 1,000 ingredients in our fragrances but the oud is the most beautiful one in our palette, the most special in terms of complexity. In the beginning there was a fight between Mr Nashi and myself because we had a different approach to oud. I didn’t want to use oud like Arabs do so that it totally dominates the fragrance. Being a Westerner, I wanted to show him a different way of using oud, to let it create a bridge to boost the beauty of all the other ingredients. Every time we compose a fragrance we use the most beautiful and expensive roses or irises so I don’t want them to be overpowered by oud.

The reason why we called our brand The House of Oud was to show that we use oud in a different, Western way so that it becomes the soul of the fragrance.

So what is this oud anyway?

Oud (agarwood) is formed in a tropical evergreen tree called Agar tree or Aloes tree. When this tree is attacked by certain fungi or bacteria in its heartwood, the tree responds to this attack by releasing a dark aromatic resin to defend itself. This resin is known as oud, valued in many cultures for its distinctive fragrance, and thus used for incense, in religious and festive celebrations in India, China, Japan and other Asian countries. It is also one of the most expensive ingredients used in perfumery as there is a very big human effort behind its production. There are people who risk their lives to hunt the infected trees in the jungle. The tree needs to be sourced, cropped and boiled and

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

producing one kilogram of oud can cost from 30,000 to even 200,000 euro. Oud is really incomparable with all the other ingredients in the perfumery. It is so powerful that it is not easy to leverage it with other ingredients in a fragrance so that it does not dominate. Its aromatic qualities are influenced by the age, species and geographic location of the trees and the extraction method. The Indian oud is considered the most primitive, the one from Indochina is the sweetest, most noble and user friendly, while Indonesian oud, my favorite, is more balsamic.

What is the story behind the Crop, considered to be a signature fragrance of The House of Oud? It’s more than a fragrance, it’s an experiment, our limited edition, annual Crop collection. It means a truly one-timeonly production with each year's edition specifically tailored to the unique properties of the latest harvest of oud oil.

The quality and quantity of oud differs over years so the amount of fragrance will also vary. So every year we launch a new experiment, we pick what’s best in our factory and we boil it all together. The first Crop 2016 was built around a green Kalimantan oud and featured mint.

The 2017 edition was based on licorice and now we are waiting to see what Crop 2018 would bring.

Who designed these unusual, egg-shaped flacons, resembling precious stones and standing up-side-down on their stoppers?

We did. When we started thinking of packaging for our fragrance we wanted to do something unusual and decided to make it top down design to show our different approach to oud. With this concept, the atomizer, had naturally to be leak-proof.

Each bottle is handmade and hand-painted. Each is oneof-a-kind and inimitable with their ornament ink and paint.

The desert collection features flacons with a characteristic cracking coating, embodying the desert sand. To have this effect, a special process is applied to let the air break the mix of ink and solvent.

In the garden collection a mix of interacting ink and solvent is used. The colors embody the beauty and joy of different elements of the Arabian garden. The shape of the flacon is inspired by the palm of the hand, because we wanted it to be comfortable to use.

All the bottles are crafted by an Italian artisan and each one is absolutely distinct. We thought it was the best way to give our customers something really unique every time, and at the same time it is a tribute to the originality of the Italian art.

24

The Jubilee 15th Jewish Culture Festival – Singer's Warsaw International and multicultural.

Stars and young artistic discoveries.

25 August - 2 September 2018

Dorota MiÊkiewicz

Music - from cantors to the Japanese street marching band

E

xtremely lavish, full of stars and young artists. 9 days of the cultural feast, more than 200 events, over 250 artists from Poland and other corners of the world.

Every year the areas surrounding Grzybowski Square, the Synagogue and Pró˝na Street become an epicenter of festival events. Our guests will come from Israel, USA, Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, Spain and Japan. It is a multicultural feast!

As every year, we will host stars and young, original artists. The Festival will be inaugurated by the grand concert of cantors – Yaakov and Shulem Lemmer and choir Kolot Israel – in the No˝yk Synagogue. The Festival's finale will feature the show of the gripping and charismatic violinist, Ara Malikian. Malikian's concert is a show, a force of nature!

We will hear 9 concerts given by the outstanding Polish and international musicians. The Jubilee Festival will host and feature: Dominique Pifarély, Kenneth Dahl Knudsen's quintet (Denmark), Dorota MiÊkiewicz with Atom Street Quartet.

We will also hear Gary Gutman with Sasha Strunin, as well as W∏odzimierz Nahorny, Marcin Wyrostek, Adam Ba∏dych, Mateusz Smoczyƒski, OleÊ Brothers & Theo Jörgensmann and we will hear Jazz Band M∏ynarskiMasecki. We will have an opportunity to meet an unusual group from Japan Jinta-la-Mvta, and also MazicDuo, S∏awa Przybylska, Janusz Tylman, WoWaKin Trio.

Singer Theatre Festival

This year, the theatre program is particularly plentiful. We announce Yiddishpiel Theatre and their stage show “Only Fools Never Get Sad”. Also from Israel, we will be hosting Nephesh group who will present “Gimpel the Fool” and “Hana's Suitcase”. Warsaw’s Jewish Theatre will present the best currently played stage shows, including: “Ida Kamiƒska,” “The Last Son,” “Wiera Gran,” “Itzik's Midrash,” “Just Like the Old Cabaret,” “A Few Foreign Words in Polish,” “Kasrylevka Town”.

The versatility of Festival’s offer

Ara Malikian

In addition to concerts and theatre shows, the Festival will offer a great number of other kinds of events, including Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

25 Sasha Strunin

Teatr Yiddishpiel

Marcin Wyrostek

30th Anniversary of the Shalom Foundation The special appeal of this year’s Jewish Culture Festival Singer's Warsaw is additionally highlighted by the fact that its founder and organizer, Shalom Foundation, is celebrating this year the 30th anniversary. Headed by Go�da Tencer, the foundation is pursuing the mission of cultivating and promoting the Jewish tradition in Poland and its abundance. The Festival is one of the Foundation's most important ventures. book promotions, meetings with artists, film screenings, cooking workshops, workshops for children, educational walks around Jewish Warsaw and many others.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Welcome!

A detailed program will be available soon at: www.festiwalsingera.pl and on FB www.facebook.com/FestiwalSingera

26

Royal Treat to Ancient Art Ancient pottery and Egyptian artifacts from the collection of Aleksandra and Stanis∏aw Kostka Potockis and their descendants, can be viewed in the newly opened Rooms of Antiquities at the The Museum of King John III's Palace at Warsaw-Wilanów.

K

ostka Potocki was an outstanding collector and expert on the history of art, an enlightened politician and reformer of education.

In 1805, he made his collections available to the public at the Wilanów Palace, thus creating the museum in the historic royal residence. A magnificent miscellanea of antique vases, paintings, sculptures, engravings and books formed the basis of various collections of ancient art offered later to the general public.

The collections, ripped apart in the twentieth century, return systematically to the palace in Wilanów, where they are integrated and supplemented with publications of source texts to bring back the great Polish tradition of collecting Greek and Latin antiquities.

During the Enlightenment era, experts valued ancient works of art as

an expression of humanistic values and classical harmony. Kostka Potocki started buying ancient vases while traveling to Italy (1785-1786) with the intention of completing new

furnishings for the Wilanów Palace’s interiors. The current presentation of the collection allows the audience to see the items as planned by the Wilanów Museum’s creator – in carefully restored cabinets in the historical interiors of the palace.

Visitors to the Rooms of Antiquities will be able to see the head of Osiris, a fragment of Egyptian sculpture from 595-570 BC, two alabastrons - vessels with images of gods and animals among orientalising ornaments from about 600 BC, a red-figure amphora from Greece with a moving scene showing a warrior saying goodbye to his wife and father from around 440 BC and a bell crater - a black dish adorned with the image of the god Dionysus in a laurel wreath and with a tyrse in the hand from 400-380 BC.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

27

Once in Warsaw ■ "Once" is the most recent production by the Musical Theater Roma in Warsaw. The story is known to the Polish audience mostly from the 2007 film of the same name, by John Carney, in which the main roles were played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who wrote the music and lyrics, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song Academy Award-winning song "Falling Slowly".

The musical premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2011, before transferring to Broadway in 2012. The production won eight prestigious Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Actor and Best Book as well as the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

The Polish production, directed by Wojciech K´pczyƒski, premiered on the Nova Stage of the Roma Theater on May 12.

Because in the musical, the cast also serves as the orchestra. K´pczyƒski had a difficult task having to find, for the main roles, singing and dancing actors, who can play instruments at the same time, as well as eight members of the orchestra, who can also dance, sing and act in supporting roles.

"Once" is a moving story about the power of youth, love, dreams. The action takes place in Dublin, where a Girl, a Czech immigrant (played by Marta W´grocka or Monika Rygasiewicz) meets a Guy, a talented Irish guitarist (Adam Krylik / Mariusz Totoszko).

Guy says that "to live, you have to love," though this feeling is not always easy between the main characters who are unable to leave the past behind them.

Without stunning costumes or special effects, and with a minimalist set, the show's strength is in its captivating music and clever lyrics complemented by witty and reflective dialogues.

The show is playing until July 17, to return on the Nova Stage after the summer holidays.

M.R.

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Bacciarelli's Best Portraits on Show at the Royal Castle

On

the 200th anniversary of death of Marcello Bacciarelli, court painter of the last king of Poland Stanis∏aw August Poniatowski, the Royal Castle in Warsaw has put together an exhibition showing the 45 master paintings. The works on display represent the entire chronological cross-section of Bacciarelli’s portrait oeuvre, from the early, Rococo-style compositions from the late 1750s, through intimate images of the royal family from the late 1770s or spectacular depictions of royal friends from the 1780s to the last works of the artist, created in the early nineteenth century. Some of the works exhibited have never been shown in Poland before.

Among the works displayed for the first time is a portrait of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, until recently, considered missing, from the Paris collection of Izabela d'Ornano, two beautiful portraits of Lord and Lady Stormont from the Mansfield Counts collection at Scone Palace in Scotland, an excellent image of Stanis∏aw August with an Hourglass from a private collection in Paris or the king’s famous portrait "with a gesture of discussion" from the Uffizi collection.

Although some of the paintings are part of the permanent display at the Royal Castle, most were acquired specifically for the exhibition from the National Museums in Warsaw, Wroc∏aw, Cracow and Poznaƒ, the Royal ¸azienki Museum, The Wilanow Palace Museum, collections d'Ornano in Paris and Earls of Mansfield collections in Perth or Uffizi gallery in Florence.

Marcello Bacciarelli is one of the iconic figures of the Polish Enlightenment period, an Italian who consciously associated the greater part of his adult life and artistic career with the Polish Republic, the creator of numerous works that still adorn the royal residences. He is considered the precursor of the national school of Polish painting.

The exhibition can be viewed until September 9, 2018.

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A Brief History of Polish Industrial Design on Show The “Ineffable space” exhibition at the Zach´ta National Gallery in Warsaw presents works by Jerzy So∏tan, Lech Tomaszewski and Andrzej J. Wróblewski, artists associated with the Faculty of Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, the precursors of the industrial designer profession which had its beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The

exhibition presents selected works of artists gathered around three interwoven fields of their interests and activities: art, architecture and design.

The boundaries of these fields, not always sharp, as well as broad interests of artists in the form, mathematics, natural sciences, psychology, philosophy or semantics, have determined the nature and richness of their achievements.

"This is a historic exhibition,” Agnieszka Szewczyk, curator of the

exhibition said. “It talks about three designers, crucial for the formation of the designer’s profession in the shape we think about it today.”

"At the same time, they created a component of the artistic language typical of that period, understood as the ability to respond to the dynamic changes, progress and innovation," she added.

The exhibition opens with the “Art” room with drawings made by Jerzy So∏tan in the POW camp in Murnau, and a series of works showing his fas-

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

cination with the great classics of the twentieth century avant-garde.

Next to them are mathematicsinspired works of Lech Tomaszewski and still life photographs by Andrzej J. Wróblewski, which give a good insight into the interests and creative personalities of the artists.

The SPACE room hosts modernist architectural designs such as the Warszawianka sports complex (1956-1964), the Polish Pavilion in Brussels (1956), the Zach´ta extension project (1958) or a Auschwitz - Birkenau Monument design competition entry (1958). All the works related to public facilities with very diverse functions - introduced innovative architectural and construction solutions, as well as a modern approach to the role and social tasks of architecture understood more broadly than construction.

The last exhibition room is devoted to “Industrial design showcasing three design systems followed by the three pioneers of Polish modern design: Corbusier ‘s Modulor concept, drawn by Jerzy So∏tan, a visual lecture on mold morphology, inspired by topological theories, as well as a fragment of an exhibition “Variability of seeing nature in art”, revealing a designer’s interest in natural forms and the natural world as universal models.

The exhibition can be viewed until August 5.

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What’s New in the New Arts The works shown at the exhibition include recordings of groundbreaking performances directed by Marta Zió∏ek or Anna Karasiƒska, the Chorus of Women, fragments of eccentric stage sets by Aleksandra Wasilkowska, interactive installations by Krzysztof Garbaczewski, sound projects

by Konrad Smoleƒski and Wojtek Blecharz, sculptures and photographs by Aneta Grzeszykowska and films by Karol Radziszewski.

Bartek Górka

The

title of the exhibition refers to the production put on in 1982 by one of the most important formations of Polish experimental theatre – Academy of Movement (A.R.), considered an important precursor of the present performative turn. Secondly, the phrase ‘other dances’ should suggests exhibition’s aim – to confront the viewers with what is new in art, what is changing the game plan, broadening out the scope for challenge, and what has not yet acquired a definitive description or been confined within a theoretical framework.

Thirdly, A.R., which for many years had been led by Wojciech Krukowski, the director of Ujazdowski Castle, has another meaningful reference to CSW as an interdisciplinary institution that has abandoned the formal departmentalization of visual and performing arts, instead keeping up with the current artistic praxis.

The artists taking part in the “Other Dances” are known for conducting a daring re-interpretation of the Polish tradition of performing arts. Among significant but usually negative points of reference is Jerzy Grotowski’s para-theatrical activity, the classical and happening legacy of Tadeusz Kantor as well as classical performance art. They are more eager to derive from the achievements of relational aesthetics, alternative music, the theory of performativity, postdramatic theatre or conceptual dance.

Bartek Górka

The exhibition “Other Dances” at the Center for Contemporary (CSW) in Warsaw takes on board one of the most significant phenomena of new art in Poland in the recent years - the bold experiments by the creators of dance, theater, performance, music and visual arts, which have combined into the phenomenon referred to as the performative turn.

Show Me Your Tango CD is an unique, international production in the memory of Astor Piazzolla, the legendary creator of Tango Nuevo, the most outThis standing modern Argentinian composer of classical music known as Mozart’s tango.

Songs of Astor Piazzolla are being sung by mezzo-soprano Izabela Kopeç accompanied by classic quintet. Her unusual voice gives excellent interpretations of Piazzolla’s songs.

The tunes include songs like Vuelvo al sur, Los Pajaros Perdidos, Milonga en ay Menor, Oblivion, Maria de Buenos Aires, Che tango Che, Balada Para El, Las Ciudades, Cinquilin de Bachin, Aire de la Zamba Nina, Balada para Mimuerte. I recommend.

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Wilkoƒ at Quadrillion On 6th June the vernissage of one of the most highly regarded Polish artists, winner of numerous national and international awards and distinctions, Józef Wilkoƒ, took place.

The

exhibition was officially opened by the owner of the gallery Carmen Tarcha who led a meeting with the popular actor and host of the hit TV show “Familiada" (Family Feud), Karol Strasburger. The guests were invited to enter the fairy tale world of nature, its biological and zoomorphic forms, the abundance of colours, patterns and compositions.

On display are the most recent works of the artist from the last few months, including a vast collection of illustrations, as well as a few wooden sculptures. Among the spatial creations the one-to-one scale elk aroused the most interest.

The extraordinary craftsmanship of the artist, who is able to magically conjure up his fantastic animals with just a few cuts of the saw, was also admired.

The other exhibits on the two levels of the gallery consist of three topically and formally coherent series of illustrations which refer to the land of the Middle East and the sea world. The figures of the horses, Ali Baba and his 40 comrades, as well as fish reflect Wilkoƒ’s skilfulness in capturing the ambience of the scenes and their dynamics. The elaborate strokes and perfect use of the colour, the diverse composition variants which are close to film shots reflect the craftsmanship of the author. What is more, in all his works the artist expresses his devotion to nature, love to animals and the respect for all living creatures.

WIlkoƒ is undoubtedly one of those few creators who is able to turn our attention to the forces of nature, not only as a biological phenomenon, but also to its mystical and aesthetic dimension. The characters of his works are the carriers of the truth about the universal laws governing the world. They are the mirror reflecting the human soul, which

makes one think of precious stones forming a multicoloured mosaic.

The exhibition in the Quadrillion Gallery is an overview of the previous achievements of the author who has been continually active on the Polish art scene for several dozen decades. His illustrations and sculptures keep on astonishing us with the multitude and diversity of artistic expression.

Through his attitude, charisma and creative personality Wilkoƒ touches, inspires and mesmerizes his viewers.

Carmen Tarcha, Karol Strasburger, Józef Wilkoƒ

Józef Wilkoƒ An illustrator, painter, sculptor, creator of posters and stage sets.

He was born on February 12th 1930 in Bogucice near Wieliczka.

He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (graduated in 1955) and history of art at Jagiellonian University (graduated in 1954 ). He illustrated more than 100 books for children and adults in Poland (including Pan Tadeusz in 1973) and more than 80 books for children abroad.

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The

W.Krynicki/POLIN

POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 6 Mordechaja Anielewicza St., on view until Sept. 24.

W.Krynicki/POLIN

Exhibition Warning Against Indifference

Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews is showing an exhibition: "Estranged: March '68 and Its Aftermath," explaining the causes and the course of the anti-Semitic campaign that culminated in the expulsion of about 13,000 Poles of Jewish descent from Poland in March 1968. The project has been organized by the museum to mark the 50th anniversary of the tragic events.

A metaphorical installation drawing upon the 1960s aesthetics of Warsaw's Gdaƒski Railway Station is the focal point of the exhibition describing the departures of the expelled. It is a space of saying goodbye to Poland, where visitors are able to hear oral history interviews.

In addition to historical materials, various works of art show the moods and experiences associated with the March '68 events, including Leszek Sobocki's lithography "Otarci" (Abraded) or a painting "Time of contempt" by Erna Rosenstein.

"The experience of March '68 is extremely timely today, providing a timeless warning against passivity towards discrimination, xenophobia and violation of human rights,” the exhibition’s curator Justyna Koszarska-Szulc said.

Separate sections describe the lives of refugees after leaving Poland. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of projects.

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Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - CAR REVIEW

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SUV Segment Still Growing The Polish automotive market follows global trends. For many years, SUVs have enjoyed unwavering popularity, and the sales figures keep setting new records.

C

ars with SUV bodies were a significant contribution to the high sales recorded last year in the entire automotive industry worldwide. Cars of this segment had the largest share of the market in the three largest regions – China, North America and Europe.

SUVs reached a record market share in 2017 – 34%.

The results for 52 of the analysed markets show that 27.85 million SUVs were sold in 2017 in total, i.e.

3.14 million more than in 2016 (+12.7%). In terms of body size, the compact models made up almost 40% of total SUV sales (+9.2%, which is the lowest increase rate out of all SUV subsegments). The increase in the SUV segment was largely driven by middle-sized mod-

els (D-SUV) (+16.6%). Large SUVs (E-SUV) recorded an increase of 15.7%.

The continued domination of SUVs also meant that the sales of conventional segments, particularly compact cars, medium sedans, wagons and MPVs kept decreasing. Compact cars recorded a minor drop. 14.92 million cars were sold (-4.5%). The sales of city cars continued to grow, particularly due to demand on the Japanese market, which recorded an increase by 14.4% in comparison to last year. The sales of pick-ups were also good because the demand in North America remained high, and their popularity increased in Europe, Latin America and in the Asia and Pacific area.

The growth of SUV sales on the new-car market in Poland is consistent with European trends. In 2017, 134.8 thousand SUVs were sold to customers in Poland, amounting to a 25% increase of sales in comparison to last year. Thus, the market share of cars with SUV bodies in Poland was 27.83%. For comparison, the same market share in Europe is 29.3%.

What are the perspectives for future growth of the SUV market? Certainly nothing indicates that the boom for these cars is going to end anytime soon. Both in Poland and in Europe, this segment is rapidly growing, and SUV buyers are mostly people who lead an active lifestyle and frequently travel, as well as entrepreneurs.

Wojciech Drzewiecki President of the Automotive Market Research Institute SAMAR

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The Customer is Always Right Attractive look, versatile interior and good driveability – these are the main strengths of SUVs. It is because of these advantages that they are now desired and in vogue.

O

ne of the quickest-growing segments on the global and Polish automotive market is the SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) class. This is another year in a row when these versatile vehicles prove to be a real bestseller.

According to research done by the SAMAR company, which monitors the Polish car market, 134,800 SUVs were sold last year, making up 27.83% of the overall number of cars sold. The dynamic growth of this segment is evidenced by the increase in sales, year after year (2017 in comparison to 2016), amounting to 25%. To think that barely a decade ago, the sale in this segment amounted to less than 30 thousand cars …

What makes these cars so interesting? There are many reasons: their attractive look and excellent driveability (with many models having four-wheel drive), spacious and versatile interiors, competitive prices of new cars and the large number of available second-hand cars.

In recent years, designers have become very creative to make sure that SUV bodies are as attractive as possible and resemble off-road vehicles and that their interiors are as spacious and functional as vans. Two in one?

Probably! Owing to this combination SUVs can successfully compete with all cars, particularly with their 4x4 drive. This is the only segment where virtually every model has a four-wheel drive. Everyone who has ever left a paved road or who has driven on wet or slippery pavements knows how invaluable this is. The four-wheel drive, apart from improving driveability, significantly improves safety, which becomes an increasingly important aspect when choosing a car.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Price is another reason to purchase SUVs. In recent times, the difference between SUVs and popular middle-class sedans was approximately PLN 20 thousand. Now, it is just several thousand, and a well-equipped sedan or SUV cost about the same. That is why so many customers choose to purchase a car that can serve more functions and provide more options. Even if you cannot afford a new model, you can always buy a second-hand car, both from the dealer or a private importer. Last year alone, several dozen thousand SUVs were imported into Poland., Something for everyone … and for every budget!

The selection is really extensive because virtually every make and every car company now offers several (!) SUVs. According to conservative estimates, there are over 70 SUV models to choose from on the market. In terms of body size, they can be found in all classes – among small city cars, compacts, large cars, executive cars and even luxury cars.

According to SAMAR, the most popular type of SUVs in Poland were compact cars, and the undisputed sales leader was … Dacia Duster. The biggest increases, in turn, were reported in the middle class, where the leader was Volvo XC60. These data are symptomatic of the growing wealth of our society.

Today, every car manufacturer is trying to grab a chunk of the SUV segment. Some keep improving their models and present new generations every few years, while others – without previous experience in design of such cars – use the know-how of others, adding their own engines or bodies. Still others extend the range of their products as part of brand unification and offer “smaller versions” of their SUVs. Even the manufacturers known for the most luxurious cars have decided to follow the trend and build their own SUV. Thus, there was much joy and little surprise after, for instance, the creation of the Bentley Bentayaga. After all, “the Customer is always right”.

Bartosz Grzybiƒski

VOICE - CAR REVIEW

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Alfa Romeo Stelvio: Sporting heritage â– The first SUV from Alfa Romeo satisfies all expectations of fast driving fanatics. Stelvio combines comfort and versatility of the SUV with the untamed, competitive spirit characteristic of this make.

The Stelvio model is available with various engines. The 2.0 Turbo petrol engine has the power of 200 HP or 280 HP. The top-of-the-line petrol version, Quadrifoglio, comes with a 2.9/V6 engine with the power of 510 HP. The 2.2 Turbo Diesel engine has the power of 180 HP or 210 HP. There are also engine versions with rear-wheel drive only. These include the 2.2 Turbo Diesel engine with the power of 150 HP or 180 HP. The drive units of all Stelvio versions use 8-speed automatic transmission and Q4 all-wheel drive.

Prices start at approximately PLN 160 thousand for the version with the 2.2/150 HP diesel engine and go up to over PLN 400 thousand for the Stelvio Quadrifoglio version with the 2.9 V6 / 510 HP engine.

DS 7 Crossback â– DS 7 Crossback is the first SUV presented

by DS Automobiles , part of the PSA Group.

The model is distinguished by its original body and interior design as well as cuttingedge technology.

It comes with five turbocharged engines: three petrol engines and two diesel engines. The primary petrol unit is a 1.2 l / 130 HP engine. There are also 1.6 l engines with the power of 180 or 225 HP. The car is also available with diesel engines: 1.5 l / 130 HP and 2.0 l / 180 HP. The drive is transferred to the front wheels through a 6-speed manual transmission or 8-speed automatic transmission. In 2019, a version with a hybrid 4x4 drive will appear.

Prices start at about PLN 125 thousand for the Chic 1.2 l / 130 HP version and go up to approximately PLN 195 thousand for the Grand Chic 2.0 l / 180 HP version.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - CAR REVIEW

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Lexus RX: Luxury innovation ■ Lexus RX is one of the forerunners of the segment, which has been present for 30 years on the automotive market. It is associated with luxury, extravagant design and … hybrid drive.

Lexus RX comes with a petrol engine in versions referred to as 200t. The engine has a capacity of 2.0 l and power of 238 HP. The car is also equipped with a hybrid drive. The operation of the drive involves synergy, i.e. simultaneous operation of two units: combustion engine and electric motor. The 450h model has a petrol unit and an auxiliary electric motor with a total power of 313 HP. In the petrol version, the drive is transferred to all wheels through a 6-speed automatic transmission, and in the hybrid ver-

sion – through a CVT transmission. In addition to the five-seat version, the manufacturer also offers the extended version for 7 passengers.

The prices of Lexus RX start at about PLN 250 thousand for the basic petrol version and go up to over PLN 440 thousand for the top-of-the-line hybrid model.

Volvo XC 60.

Safe like …

Geartronic 8-speed automatic transmission. Air suspension is available as an option. Prices start at about 163 thousand for the D3 150 HP Momentum version and go up to almost 280 thousand for the hybrid T8 Inscription version.

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Story and photos by Bartosz Grzybiƒski

■ Volvo XC60 is the essence of cool, Scandinavian design. It is a symbol of safety and comfort. A sales leader in the Premium SUV segment.

The XC60 comes with six available engines: two petrol units – T5 250 HP and T6 310 HP, three diesel engines – D3 150 HP, D4 190 HP and D5 235 HP (all with a capacity of 2.0 l) and one hybrid version – PLUG-IN HYBRID T8 with a total power of 407 HP. All versions have a four-wheel drive, but the D3 and D4 diesel versions may be bought with a front-wheel drive and manual transmission. Smaller diesel engines will come with a manual 6-speed transmission – all other versions will be equipped with a

VOICE - GREAT GEAR

Timeless Sunbathing

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Star Sign on Your Wrist

Powerpuff Handbags

Eight & Bob - JFK’s Favourite Fragrance

A new, luxury, collectible line of leather bags - SPxPowerpuffgirls is the result of the collaboration of designer Sabrina Pilewicz with the international Cartoon Network television channel.

The collection, inspired by the characters of the cartoon series The Powerpuff Girls, consists of three models in the shapes and colors of the cult heroines - Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup.

Made of top quality leather and with attention to the smallest detail, the handy bags are available in two versions – with an elegant chain or a thick belt. sabrinapilewicz.com

When American student John F. Kennedy met Parisian aristocrat Albert Fouquet on the Cotes d'Azur in the 1930s, not only was he charmed by the man, he was also intrigued by his handcrafted scent. Albert gave him a sample of his perfume - and the magic began. After returning home, Kennedy asked Albert to send him "eight bottles (of perfume) and one for Bob", his brother Robert (hence the name), as the fragrance was a hit with the Hollywood elite. Unfortunately, it would languish after Albert's tragic death in a car crash.

Decades later, thanks to the family of Philippe, Fouquet's loyal butler who knew the cologne's recipe, the formula was completely recovered, along with the carefully crafted production process.

This year, as part of the brand's cooperation with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation and to mark the 50th anniversary of the politician’s death, the scent is offered in a special, limited edition. www.missala.pl Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Compiled by Marzena Robinson

The Swiss Bellefontaine brand has developed Ultra Suncare Protection SPF 50 line composed of two unique products, face cream and body emulsion, which give an all-in-one solution, providing a sun protection and an anti-aging action at the same time.

Thanks to their lightweight and easy to spread texture, they protectively envelop the skin to effectively fight against damage caused by sun rays. They contain high performance UVA/UVB filters as well as a selection of cutting-edge botanical ingredients, such as stem cells of RedFlowered Silk Cotton Tree, Dolichos Biflorus and Sea Fennel as well as Sea Mayweed Extract, which help to provide complete anti-aging protection in terms of elasticity, firmness and moisturization. www.perfumeriaquality.pl

The Swiss watchmaker’ Rado’s exclusive new True Star Sign collection offers twelve individual diamondstudded timepieces, one for each sign of the zodiac. Crafted from one of Rado's signature materials, plasma high-tech ceramic, and powered by an automatic movement, the 30 mm True Star Sign features four diamond indexes and a blue mother-of-pearl dial inspired by the night sky. The zodiac constellation appears on the lower hemisphere of the dial, and the name of the sign is written out at nine o’ clock. The constellation shines bright against the celestial backdrop of the dial with a shimmering sprinkle of diamonds and tiny star appliques. www.swatchgroup.com

VOICE - GREAT GEAR

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Armani ART 5005

Featuring the brand’s most coveted designs with the added benefits of today’s wearable technology, the smartwatch lets customers stay in the know with messages and notifications delivered directly to their watch.

The smartwatch is compatible with both iOS® and Android™ phones, which makes it possible to deliver the experience customers desire and the functionality they expect.

Voyager 8200 UC Wherever you work, noise can be distracting. So whether you're in an open office or on a crowded flight, taking calls or listening to music, the boomless Voyager 8200 UC BluetoothR headset with active noise canceling ets you focus on what's important, in comfort and style.

Meizu M6 - super efficient smartphone with Dual SIM mode, 5.2" touch screen, 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM and two cameras 13Mpx rear, 8Mpx front. Device is very innovative and designed in "modern way". Smartphone is available in ND Sklep - online store owned by Nelro Data distribution company.

Blaupunkt HOS 1800 The Blaupunkt HOS 1800 wireless monitoring system is a great solution from the Smart Home Security category. If an alarm is activated, the HOS 1800 will send a notification, launch a Full HD camera, and turn on the siren (85 dB). The kit also allows contact with the household members by using a dedicated OMGuard application.

Sony MP-CD1 The MP-CD1 Sony Mobile Projector, which uses DLP® IntelliBright™ technology, is a perfect solution for on-the-go business presentations, gaming, outdoor events and movie nights with the family. Fitting easily in the palm of your hand, the MP-CD1 can project content up to 120 inches in size from a short distance of approximately 3.5m Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

Compiled by Bartosz Grzybiƒski

Meizu M6 Smartphone

VOICE - TOURISM

40

The Island of Lemurs

Antananarivo

Madagascar, which lies over 8,300 km from Poland, is a true paradise for nature lovers. Over 80 percent of animals inhabiting Madagascan forests are endemic species, not encountered anywhere else. The island also offers tasty cuisine, an interesting history, and the exoticism of a destination which sits outside the mainstream tourist expeditions. fourth largest island in the world (the only islands larger are Greenland, Papua New Guinea, and The Borneo) covers an area nearly twice as large as Poland.

However, it has only slightly more than half of Poland’s population. Most of its inhabitants are young people – the average age on Madagascar is just 19. The family model is usually two parents with four or five children, with families tending to be larger in rural areas; in cities women have the first child at the age of 18 or 19. The life expectancy is around 63 years.

The island is inhabited by 18 different national groups, usually peacefully co-existing. Their origins are sometimes difficult to determine; it is assumed that most migrated to Madagascar from the Malayan territories, which is evidenced for example by the fact that the Malagasy language, according to specialists, is in many aspects similar to a dialect of the Bahasa language popular on Borneo.

Although it is hard to believe, Madagascar and Poland have, from the historic point of view, some common experiences. For an educated Pole the first association would likely be Maurycy August Beniowski (1746-1786), a soldier, explorer, and condottiere-adventurer who entered various political and military alliances and arrived in Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - TOURISM Madagascar in 1774 as a French envoy, testing the possibility of colonisation of the island. Two and a half years later (he spent that time pacifying the resistance of the local people using rather drastic methods), he was even pronounced (by one of the ethnic groups) the king of Madagascar. However, not much transpired from the colonial idea and, disappointed, Beniowski left. He made another attempt at taking over the island – this time trying to convince the Americans to do so – less than a decade later, but he soon died in a skirmish with the French expedition corps. His legacy is a street of his name in Antananarivo, a monument on the coast of the Indian Ocean, controversial memoirs published in English, and in Poland, the famous poem by Juliusz S∏owacki, one of the Polish literary geniuses of the 19th century.

Another famous Pole connected to Madagascar was Arkady Fiedler (1894-1985), an explorer, naturalist, writer, journalist, and the author of the cult book “Squadron 303”, describing the heroism of Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain. Fiedler travelled to Madagascar twice (in 1937 and in 1965-66) and he wrote several books that still remain popular to this day, such as “Madagascar: The Hot Village of Ambinanitelo” or “The Island of Loving Lemurs”.

During his first voyage, Fiedler was a member of the crew sent by the then government of the Second Republic of Poland; its task was to investigate the possibility of colonisation of Madagascar by Poland through France which was to hand over part of the control of the island.

This was not the only fantasy concept concerning Madagascar at the time – the scenario concerning settlement of European Jews on the island was also considered quite seriously. It was only the outbreak of the Second World War that put an end to these eccentric ideas.

Today, not many people look for traces of Polish presence on Madagascar; tourists from the Vistula and Oder country focus more on taking advantage of the charms of local national parks in which, sometimes from very close up, you can look at mammals and reptiles which could previously be seen only in books or on the Internet. And in the cinema, a hit for young audiences – Madagascar, which has already had two sequels.

Polish travel agencies started offering holidays in Madagascar 3-4 years ago. It is still a niche direction; groups are composed of up to 20 persons, the season is under six months. The chief asset is the price, not much higher than the cost of a holiday in Kenya or Tanzania.

In order to reach the island you have to travel for a minimum of 20 hours: first around two and a half hours to one of the European airports (the most popular one is Paris and the Air France airline which maintains scheduled flights to the former colony), then an 11-hour flight to the Madagascan capital. When you get there, you may be surprised (in comparison with the geographically close and much richer Zanzibar) by the efficiency of the sanitary-visabaggage clearance; even when your command of English or French is minimal, all the formalities are dealt with quickly and without any problems.

We are welcomed by Dawid, the guide for our 18strong group, who informs us that “Madagascar is one of Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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the ten poorest countries of the world today; just a few years ago it was one of the six poorest”. He is 32 and a graduate of the tourism faculty of one of the Polish universities, continuing his education among other things in Australia; he has also worked as a rickshaw driver in Copenhagen. For the last few years, as a freelancer, he has been guiding tours for travel agencies. He has worked in Turkey, and for the past four years he has been working in Madagascar, and outside the local tourism season, also in Norway. He has a passion for motorcycles; several years ago he travelled the length and the breadth of the island on an old Suzuki he had bought there. Now he has a new project – Madagascan motorcycle tours for enthusiasts (www.moto600.eu). He is a mine of knowledge about local customs. When he is uncertain about something, he consults 28-year-old Ahmed, a guide in a Madagascan company working with European clients. Between them, they are always able to answer a query, or find a solution to any problem they are presented with.

The Madagascan poverty is paradoxically concentrated in the capital and several larger cities. The reason is simple – even when a very poor local has a small piece of land, it is relatively easy to provide sustenance for themselves and their family by growing local crops. In a city all you have left is begging or stealing.

Despite the clearly visible poverty (begging children are a common sight), it is striking in Madagascar that residents try to keep as clean and tidy as possible. There is much less litter than in Kenyan Mombasa, Gambian Banjul or Zanzibar’s Stone Town. This may be a consequence of the rule that nothing can be wasted; during the Madagascan trip we often saw children who asked for empty plastic water or soft-drink bottles and then happily disappeared in the roadside thickets.

The countrywide poverty is, of course, reflected in the conditions of sightseeing. Transport is the Achilles’ heel of Madagascan tourism. The state of local roads is usually catastrophic (this is compounded by regular cyclones ravaging the island), and traffic jams in the capital or larger cities are similar to those in the most crowded cities of the Western world or South-Eastern Asia. During our two-week tour we travelled over 2,500 km, sometimes at the speed of 5-10 km/h. The “Eliakim” cyclone got us stuck for two and a half days in a hotel on the ocean coast. To make matters worse this was the only time reserved for the beach in the tour program. The trip eventually required overcoming water obstacles on a military training ground. The minibus driver’s assistant simply rolled up his trousers and went into puddles to test whether they could be driven through without water getting above the exhaust. We managed – all we had to do is to remove the air filter from the ancient engine.

Today, Antananarivo has a population of over two million inhabitants. Buildings in the city rarely exceed twothree storeys (with the exception of a very small business district). It is therefore easy to imagine the area on which the city is stretched.

The Madagascan capital, almost the only such place on the island, is believed to be potentially dangerous for Western tourists (slightly alarming signals have been Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - TOURISM received in recent months also from the holiday resort of the Nosy Be island on the north-west coast). “This is a pickpockets’ Mecca”, says Dawid. “There have been cases when women’s earrings have been torn off in the middle of the city”. But you don’t go to Madagascar to show off your jewellery – all you have to do is put your valuables, wallets or expensive electronic gadgets away so they are not seen by strangers and you should not worry at all. It is also better to transfer passports to inside pockets or leave them in the hotel or minibus under the care of local guides. Most hotels, even the lodges in national parks, offer free-of-charge safes in rooms or in the reception.

Outside the capital crime is less common, but tourists travel during the day. This is because dahalo, armed groups of robbers specialising in holding up anyone who might carry something valuable, appear on roads after dark.

Their victims are often breeders of zebu – cattle which constitutes the basis of local farmers’ existence. On days when large zebu markets are held, and these are organised regularly in many regions of the country, the police and the supporting army units redouble their vigilance. Dahalo have not attacked tourist groups as of yet, but when the sun has gone down it is likely that in the provinces a minibus will not be let through a gendarmerie check point or the police officers or soldiers will offer an armed escort for the rest of the journey to the next stop, at a steep charge.

Dahalo have not been considered bloodthirsty gangs so far, satisfied with their haul and avoiding physical violence against their victims, but where the attackers are holding AK-47 assault rifles it is best to play it safe.

There are no more dangers to report on Madagascar (and we of course, did not have any alarming experiences during our 16-day stay). The rest was a fairy-tale tour with attractions which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Antananarivo does not offer too many architectural attractions to visitors. The few historical monuments are 100-200 years old at most. It is worth visiting two hills: the first one, Rova (Queen’s Hill), located in the city itself, offers great views over the whole area, plus the possibility of visiting small palaces which used to be seats of rulers, prime ministers on the island, or its colonial governors. You can learn the history of European influences in Madagascar, some historically unavoidable, some accidental, the result of unexpected French careers, British travellers being shipwrecked, or adventure seekers tempting local female rulers not only with their knowledge of advanced architectural or military technologies but also their male charms.

Unfortunately, fires consumed the original structures and now we can admire only their replicas or ruins.

The second hill, Ambohimanga, which since 2001 has been on the UNESCO's World Heritage List, is located a little under an hour’s drive from the centre of Antananarivo.

It is referred to as the "spiritual capital" of Madagascar. For around 500 years it has constituted the most important symbol of the cultural identity of the Malagasy community. It bears testimony both to the pre-colonial period and later history of the island. You can see residencies and burial sites of kings and queens, their rooms, presents that they received from European royalties, including Queen Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

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Victoria, and you can delight in unique views of the surrounding hills. For someone arriving from Europe, it is the size of furniture, particularly beds, that are a surprise; it is difficult not to wonder when the guide tells you that Malagasy rulers, both women and men, were on average about 5 foot tall. Indeed, to this day the Malagasy people are not tall, which is often surprising for tourists; someone who from a distance looks like a child turns out to be a grown-up only after you have seen their face.

In the old days the right to enter the royal palace through the main gate was vested in the current ruler and – zebu.

This animal bred on the island is something far greater than ordinary domestic cattle, even if it provides subsistence to people. The image of a zebu head may be found on an obelisk in Antsirabe, together with the symbols of 18 tribes populating Madagascar today. For centuries, zebu has been a sacrificial animal; the ritual killing ceremony is today a national celebration. It is also significant in the local customs – when a young man is seeking the approval of his chosen one’s father, the traditional way of convincing the future father-in-law that his future son-in-law has the desired virtues – is the theft of zebu.

Unfortunately, globalisation has reached Madagascar – the zebu trade business is taken over more and more by companies from China which are building large zebu buying centres on the island.

An other must-see point in the Madagascan capital is the bazaar with hand-crafted products where you can buy various objects made from rosewood, eucalyptus and other local types of wood, as well as the former railway station which can be found next door, turned into a shopping mall.

It is worth having lunch at the Cafe de la Gare, a nice restaurant with a unique (and clean) toilet located in a railway carriage.

After the stay in Antananarivo, the main part of the Madagascan tour starts. We travel to visit several national parks in order to have a close look at species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The travel is quite exhausting but worth the effort – several hours in the rainforest, climbing hills, swimming in an African lake or a natural mountain pool, and night escapades to find rare species provide us with unforgettable experiences.

We head to the south of the island, passing local centres manufacturing wooden handicraft (Madagascar has been famous for it for many decades) or aluminium products (under the already mentioned “recycling” of anything that could be still useful). Viewpoints are breathtaking – rice fields are almost just as beautiful as in Indochina, mountains stretching far to the horizon. After nearly 11 hours we reach a lodge from which next day we will start the “hunt” in the Ranomafana Park established in 1986, and from 2007 under UNESCO patronage. Here we can see three species of lemurs: the common brown lemur, red-bellied lemur, and bamboo lemur. Next day, at the crack of dawn, we are faced with a mountain trek in the Isalo reserve during which we encounter ring-tailed lemurs, the most famous ones, associated with King Julian from the blockbuster cartoon. Several days later, in another part of the island, we also meet fossa, a carnivorous mammal looking very much like a large cat (but belonging to a difSummer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition

VOICE - TOURISM ferent species), the main “villain” of Madagascar.

Unfortunately, we will see only one in an enclosure – it is very difficult to encounter the fossa in the wild as the animals are nocturnal.

During the return journey towards the capital, we visit Antsirabe, a city known for its thermal springs by which the Thermal Hotel, the first equivalent of today’s spa centre in this part of the world, was built in the 19th century. At one time, the king of Morocco, exiled from his country, resided there for a while; his son, the current monarch, is a frequent visitor to the city. The hotel, significantly run-down today, is waiting for an investor. We travel in rickshaws around the city – the ride in them is quite an interesting experience, but also rather tiring due to the souvenir or spice salesmen who continuously besiege tourists.

From Antananarivo we set out to the west this time, towards the coast. The first stop is the Peyreras reserve in which we have the opportunity to get acquainted with white sifakas, very friendly lemurs. We also visit the reptile zoo in which we see chameleons whose shapes resemble those from science-fiction movies, tree boas, or ubiquitous geckos.

In the evening we looked forward towards an exciting night walk in the Zombitse reserve in search of the smallest lemurs, the grey mouse lemur and the hairy-eared dwarf lemur. We were lucky – we managed to see both species, which according to Dawid only one group per season manages to do.

Early in the morning we were awoken by extraordinary sounds coming from the forest surrounding the lodge. These are indri, the largest lemurs living today, weighing up to 12 kg, calling to one another. Their “song” can be heard within a several-kilometre radius. In order to meet them we go to Parc National Antasibe Mantadia, where we also had the opportunity to see a six-strong group of the diademed sifaka, a variant of a species met earlier.

Vakona, the Lemur Island which we got to by crossing a narrow channel in kayaks, is the most recommended item on the agenda. No wonder; the group of lemurs residing on the island is completely tame, they cheekily demand treats and are happy to pose for photographs if there is a banana involved. The same complex contains a crocodile farm; many years ago crocodiles constituted a serious threat to local residents, however their numbers have dwindled so much that they are no longer a problem. Anyway, apart from one rare species of scorpion, there are no venomous animals or any that would be dangerous for human beings.

The last unusual specimen that we saw in the Palmarium reserve located on several islands on Lake Ampitabe was the famous aye-aye, a quite large nocturnal lemur. Thanks to an encouragement in the form of a coconut as well as special type of lighting provided by guides we could see it in its natural habitat as if we were in a zoo.

In all of the national parks we visited, we could not fail to notice the professionalism of our guides who were able to find animals using a small torch, or just spy them out in the thicket. This is a true art, for example if you are looking for a two-centimetre chameleon or a not much larger Madagascan giraffe weevil – a fabulously colourful beetle.

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Guides also provide comprehensive knowledge about their charges. Our group was fortunate – one of our members was 28-year-old Daria, an employee of the Zoological Garden in Gdaƒsk-Oliwa. On a daily basis she looks after primates, mainly the 18-strong group of mandrills, one of the largest in Europe. Her professional knowledge about animal behaviour was invaluable to us.

Although local fauna and flora are the main attractions of Madagascar, food enthusiasts can also find a lot of pleasure here. The Malagasy cuisine, contrary to popular opinions, is not dominated by hot or distinctive spices. On the contrary, most dishes need a little bit more seasoning, which means that people with delicate stomachs may feel more comfortable. Zebu reigns supreme in the lunch or dinner menu, in all possible forms and shapes – from steaks, through shashliks, or stews served with rice or pasta. Rice, the basic component of the Malagasy diet, is also served with a variety of soups, in vegetarian versions or with the addition of meat – i.e. zebu. It is worth trying romazava, an original broth with vegetables and cassava leaves. The universal dish for any time of day are miso noodles, served either with meat or vegetarian (with egg). Desserts include mainly fruit, flavoured with the omnipresent vanilla.

The influence of French colonizers is easily noticed also on restaurant tables; a cheese board with the addition of local fruit is sometimes suggested as a dessert, more ambitious chefs serve soufflés or fondants. In a small restaurant next to the Ranomafana Park I had the best frog legs in my life, phenomenally seasoned.

The best drink to have with your meals in the tropical climate is the local beer THB, Three Horses Beer – pale, mild, excellently thirst-quenching without going to your head. In the evening, there is no competition – local rum Dzama in about a dozen different variants entices you not only with its pleasant, slight or strong vanilla flavour, but also the price which is absurd from the European point of view: PLN 9-12 per a 0.7 litre bottle.

Poles, besides tourists, are present today on the Red Island as Madagascar is sometimes referred to, mainly through their charitable activity. Kasia and Patrycja, two Polish girls previously working as volunteers in one of the local orphanages, run the “Dzieci Madagaskaru” foundation (“Children of Madagascar”, in Malagasy, “Ankizy Gasy”) in Antananarivo, the aim of which is to help the poorest children from the island survive and acquire an education.

The girls operate the “Remote adoption” program which provides sponsoring the education of a specific child (this costs around EUR 150 per year – details at www.dziecimadagaskaru.pl ). They organise fundraising to acquire funds to build and refurbish schools and purchase classroom equipment. Thanks to their volunteering program, students, teachers and trainers from European countries conduct language courses, sports, dancing, art classes and more, for Malagasy children. The foundation participates in the battle against hunger, financing the purchase of rice for school canteens, conducting the campaign to provide extra meals for children at the Ambatomasina rural school as well as meals for the poor in the Tsinjohasina diner run

by Missionary Sisters.

Two weeks of the strenuous tour (after having travelled over 2,500 km) end much too quickly – the panorama of Antananarivo, the Indian Ocean coast, Lake Ampitabe, the landscape of rice fields, the touch of a sifaka’s paw, the sound of an indri song, the sight of an aye-aye eating its night-time meal, or a grey mouse lemur will remain in our memory for a long time.

Story: Witold ˚ygulski Photos: Kinga Multaƒska

Summer 2018, The Warsaw Voice magazine Limited Edition