Ukrainian tells how quarantine is going in Poland
Hello, everyone. The “Ukrainian” in the title is me. It’s just that headlines that Google loves and attracts at the same time are important :-). Unfortunately, the photo is not from the apartment where I was quarantined :-). Now to the heart of the matter.
Today is July 2, 2020, and I’m writing this article knowing that starting today, those traveling by plane from Ukraine to Poland are exempt from mandatory quarantine. That is, if I had taken a Wizz Air ticket from Kyiv to Gdansk, as I did before, I would not have been required to quarantine.
Correction: as of July 3, the quarantine has been reintroduced for those traveling by air
But I need to go to Krakow. Here I need to resolve many issues that have remained in limbo due to the closure of the borders, namely, to pick up my Polish language certificate and to pick up my residence card (because I have already received a text message from Uzhhorod).
It would have been expensive to fly to Krakow or Katowice for the dates I needed. And getting from Gdansk to Krakow is not cheap either. But let’s leave those “airplane” things aside. Nothing can be changed anyway, and I am writing these lines from a quarantined apartment in Krakow.
Of course, there were several options to avoid the quarantine. In my case, I could go to seasonal work. For example, picking blueberries or cherries. Then you spend the quarantine directly at work, but at the same time you still earn something. I have never worked seasonal jobs in Poland, although I have changed about 15 different jobs. However, I will probably try it this year, because after an unpaid 2-week quarantine, I need to start earning money right away, because the next time I need to pay for the apartment is at the beginning of next month, and if I find any other job, I will only get paid for incomplete 2 weeks of work in early August.
I didn’t go to the seasonal job right away because I REALLY needed to go to Krakow to pick up a Polish language certificate, for which I passed 2 difficult exams at the Jagiellonian University, paid 200 euros, and to register I sent an email at 12 am on September 24, because in the morning all the places were already taken.
I also needed to pick up a residence card in Krakow, which was already made in Ujęd and was waiting for me.
Therefore, if I went “for a season” and in 2 weeks I would rush to Krakow, I might not be let go, or not paid all that I had earned, or not accepted back, etc. Therefore, I first decided to go for observation to an apartment in Krakow, look for a job at the same time, solve the “paperwork”, and then either go to work or go to agricultural work in the hope that they would give me a new kick (a new start) to look for something better.
An apartment for observation
From the intermediaries
To be fair, there are groups on Facebook where you can find announcements about accepting people for the duration of the observation. There are such apartments in Krakow, Bielsk Biała, Warsaw, Wroclaw and other cities. The rent for such an apartment is 300-400 zlotys for the quarantine period, i.e. for 2 weeks.
People live in rooms for 3-4 people. These apartments are mostly rented by agencies for their future employees. The fact is that newly arrived workers undergoing quarantine cannot live together with those who go to work at the factory or elsewhere, otherwise all those workers would also be quarantined.
That’s why agencies put quarantined workers in separate rooms during the quarantine. And since they don’t always have full places, they are happy to accept someone else for a fee. You may be one of the lucky ones. But I took a different approach and I’ll explain why.
Separate housing
I lived in Krakow for a whole year before the quarantine. My housing was modest, but it was separate. It was a small apartment, far from the center (25 minutes by tram), but without roommates. The only disadvantage of this apartment was the semi-basement and a small window. Since I was at work most of the time, I would come there to wash up, make a fresh vegetable smoothie in a blender, watch YouTube videos, and spend the night.
I often liked to travel on weekends (for example, to Zakopane), so I was rarely at home. And if I wasn’t traveling, I could sleep in a pleasant semi-basement darkness until 1 am. It was fine with me.
However, 12 days without going out due to quarantine was another matter. I have never stayed in my Krakow “basement” for so long. No amount of willpower could help, and such a long stay in a closed, dark space could be a threat to mental health, and even meditation would not help ???? So my decision was as follows.
In March, before my birthday, I left for Ukraine to return soon. At that time, I was already working remotely on the Internet, and I had constant work assignments and everything was fine.
But in mid-March, panic, quarantine, and closed borders began. This also affected remote work. Even the fact that I was “in demand” and competent in this field did not help me lose a good piece of the pie. The tasks were getting smaller, the pay was getting worse, and I had to pay for the apartment in Krakow because I still had some of my things there, such as bedding, a kettle and a blender, as well as honey, flax seeds, nuts, and even my “painting” painted with acrylic paints from a YouTube training ????
I paid for April, and in May I explained that I couldn’t leave, it was getting harder to pay, and I asked to hide my things somewhere for a fee.
The owner was sympathetic to the situation and did just that. Moreover, she didn’t charge me anything for storing my belongings and said that when I returned for my things, she would give me a cautionary deposit of 1100 zlotys, which I paid her a year ago when I moved into the apartment.
However, the stars aligned differently and circumstances led me to make an adequate choice. No, I did not go to the basement apartment, because that would have been an inadequate choice.
I sent a text message to the owner (in Ukraine, when roaming via Vodafone, my Play card is charged 1 zloty for a text message) to ask if she could offer any accommodation with an adequate price on the 1st floor for quarantine.
She said that in the neighboring building she has a similar “gentleman” on the 1st floor. But it costs 1000 zlotys (I rented the previous one for 800). She also had another apartment for 1200 zlotys. I chose the 1st option for a thousand.
The advantages for me were as follows:
- I knew exactly where I was going and where I would be quarantined, so I could tell them this address without any doubt when crossing the border. I don’t trust agencies, they can let me down at the last minute and leave me on the street with the need to quarantine;
- I still had the lease from my previous apartment, so I just had to come, pay for a month’s rent, and live in peace;
- “The day before I arrived, the owner texted me and asked if I needed to do any grocery shopping. She asked me that herself. It was very nice. I wrote a list and when I arrived, everything I bought was on the table. She also told me that if I needed anything, I could write or call and they would deliver it (for free);
- By living alone, you do not endanger other people and you are not endangered personally;
- You can finish many unfinished tasks related to the Internet and computer in peace without neighbors;
- Not every homeowner in Poland will accept a Ukrainian for quarantine, especially knowing that the Ukrainian is still in Ukraine. For example, after my arrival, the owner’s husband (who gave me the keys to the apartment and with whom I signed a new contract) said that he had heard that the situation with the coronavirus in Ukraine was bad and that many people were sick. I told him that he shouldn’t trust Ukrainian statistics, because they take a lot of things from the ceiling, and the situation may actually be even worse than they say.
We laughed, but the fact is the fact. And if you are from Ukraine, this can be a reason for not wanting to settle you.
Crossing the border
Residence permit, Pole’s card
It all depends on your documents. If you have a permanent residence permit or a Pole’s Card, they will only ask for the address where you are going.
Also remember the zip code of the city you are going to. That is, not just Krakow, street and house number, but 31-758. This is the Polish “postal code”.
If you have a temporary residence permit (temporary residence card) issued by Poland, you will be allowed to enter Poland. If you have a temporary residence permit of another EU country, you will most likely not be allowed to enter, because this is a so-called transit entry.
Seasonal agricultural work, seasonal visa
If you are traveling with a seasonal visa for harvesting, you need an invitation, insurance, and you must know where you are going to work.
Drivers
If you are a driver, in addition to an invitation (and preferably an employment contract, although it may not be necessary), you MUST be driving a car. That is, you must cross the border by car. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your own car, a car with Ukrainian license plates or other license plates, or your employer’s car, but you must be driving. A friend of mine who was traveling by bus with a driver’s invitation to the base by car was not allowed to enter at the Polish border because he was traveling as a bus passenger.
Visas and residence cards of other countries
My husband, who was traveling to work in the Czech Republic, was not allowed in. He had a Czech work visa and all his documents were in order.
A woman traveling with a Czech residence card was also not allowed to transit through Poland.
Both the man and the woman were advised to fly directly from Ukraine to the Czech Republic.
Let me remind you that this was on July 1, 2020, and the situation may have changed as of today.
What does quarantine look like in private?
So far, I’ve only been in quarantine for the first day and am writing this article. If there is something interesting, I will definitely add to it.
I will only say that there were days in Ukraine when I stayed at home for several days in a row and worked a lot at the computer. But I have never stayed for 14 days. It’s a kind of challenge, but I need to plan the mandatory activities that I will do every day, including exercise, meditation, yoga, prayer, and what I will do with my laptop. I think it will go better that way.
Installing a mandatory app
I’ve heard about the app on my phone that I need to install. But my friends told me about it. No one at the border or anywhere else told me about it. So I didn’t install it at first.
But the next day after my arrival (the 1st day of quarantine), at 9 am, I received a text message saying that I did not have the “Kwarantanna” application installed and I had to install it.
I found it in the Android Market, the publisher is the Polish Ministry of Digitalization and installed Kwarantanna. The app has 4 languages – Polish, Ukrainian, English and Russian.
It is simple and easy to use. The main purpose is that they have access to your device’s geodata and can see where your phone is now.
And realizing the fact that you can leave your phone at home, from time to time you get a text message saying, “Check out the Quarantine app, there is a MANDATORY task to complete.”
You never know when a message will come. Today, I received a task to take a selfie 3 times. By the way, they require the phone to be constantly on, with sound, charged and with Internet access.
As a rule, you need to take a selfie in the room so that your face is clearly visible. The photo is geo-tagged and can be determined when and where it was taken. You have 30 minutes to complete the task.
If you do not complete the task within this time, the police will come to the address you provided to check if you are really not at home.
And if you are not, it will be very unpleasant. The fine, if translated into hryvnia, is from 35,000 UAH to 21,000 UAH. This is how the system works in a reliable country. Not in words, but in deeds.
Useful features of the app
Right through the app, you can order the necessary things – food and drink – for free. All of this is free.
You can also call from the app if you feel sick or have any symptoms.
Not the only app
I am already writing additions based on the experience of the 2nd day of quarantine. Today, the app has been quiet since the morning. There are no tasks to take a selfie, no texts. Given this, I thought that the police would come after all.
And so it happened. I was just editing this article on the website when I received a call from an unfamiliar number. They introduced themselves as the police, and when I looked out the window, I saw a police car. I said I could see them and looked out the window. The police saw me, thanked me, and drove away right away.
What if I don’t have a smartphone, but a regular phone?
Then, most likely, the police will come to your house at least twice a day to check if you are home. They may ask you to look out the window, or they may ask you to go outside.
Is it possible to undergo observation in Poland in a hotel?
I had this question when I was still in Ukraine. There was no information anywhere, so I wrote a letter to the Polish Border Guard Service (Straż Graniczna) asking if I could undergo observation in a hotel room if I was the only one in it and I would not leave the room during the quarantine.
In response to my request, I received a reply that I could be observed in a hotel only with the written permission of the hotel. That is, the hotel must write a letter in any form stating that they accept a citizen of ***** **** with a passport number ********** for the period from *** to *** and undertake to provide all conditions for quarantine.
In other words, in theory, such an option as quarantine in a Polish hotel or hostel is possible, but in practice it is not. None of the hotel employees will want to take responsibility for a potentially sick person who may harm other hotel guests and lead to an investigation and proceedings (which may be negligence, endangering other people, etc.) In addition, the letter must be sent by mail and will take about 2 weeks to arrive.
This is how the Polish quarantine works. Thoughtful, balanced, but unusual, and no matter what conditions it takes place in, it still looks like a test, because in fact, it is similar to house arrest and a completely involuntary restriction on movement. We will break through! ????
