A district of Krakow built after the second WW from scratch and under instructions from the Soviets. Already by reading Wiki, one gets a taste of the architecture there: Nova Huta was planned as a huge center of heavy industry. The town was to become an ideal town for the Communist propaganda and populated mostly by industrial workers. In 1951 it was joined with Kraków as its new district. The city consists of large grey concrete blocks, geometrical built around a huge square, all for the workers of the nearby melting factory (whose fumes corroded the nearby centenary old city center of Krakow.) I lunched at the Cafeteria STYLOWA, which in its hey days was the most stylish place around ... and now stuck in time so much and real I was expecting to see Stalin and Lenin coming out of the toilet any minute. Instead I saw the lady working in the kitchen which judging by her age and her hairdo (including a transparent, stylish and yellowish hair-net) surely had meet Lenin. From STYLOWA we crossed the road and went into the historic museum of Nova Huta, which literally had been opened that very same day. At the entrance we were served communist "Coca Cola" and biscuits as a wellcome. We were the only visitors (and I am sure the first foreigners in the museum) and got the full attention of the three employees, that were still arranging some of the exposed items in the small room. For instance a bike that had been put in the 60 as sign of protest under Stalin's statue in Nova Huta's center with the message "(Stalin) take this and ride home." By the way, the original 3m metal statue of Mr Stalin has been removed in the 80ties and bought by a Swedish millionaire and is now there in a museum. Nova Huta, definitelly worth visiting if only for its soviet "charm"!
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