Credit: Julia Szyndzielorz |
Sister Faustyna is a little hunched from the strain of the Christmas rush. She has spent every day of the past few weeks outside in the cold, running up a few steps to the scales with bags full of fish, weighing them and handing them out to customers. At Christmas, Poles are obsessed with carp, a freshwater fish that is mandatory on every Christmas table, traditionally served fried or jellied with vegetables. |
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In Staniątki, where Benedictine nuns live as they have done for centuries in 800-year-old St Adalbert Abbey, the customers pay whatever they think appropriate for their festive fish. “It’s a voluntary contribution,” says sister Stefania Polkowska, the abbess on a mission to save her nunnery from ruin.
For this idyllic medieval abbey, in a village of roughly 3,000 people, 16 miles south-east of Kraków, is also the site of financial trouble. Where 60 nuns used to live, only 13 are left, and most of them are well over 70. Despite that, the nuns are welcoming and generous, treating their guests to homemade gingerbread and tea. |
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