John Biggs is a New York-based writer who, after spending years as a programmer, decided to become a full-time journalist. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Gizmodo and Men’s Health . Biggs is currently a writer for TechCrunch and is the CEO of stealth bitcoin startup Freemit. I had family that lived in Rypin, Poland. We went to visit every few years during the 1980s and 1990s, the whole American side winging over to Warsaw in an LOT 747 with a wonky overhead projector that played third-run movies and a staff that was at once kind and surly.
We’d ride from Warsaw’s airport in a taxi piloted by a mustachioed man who asked for about $60 to carry us 155 kilometers in his FSO Polonez – popular in the 1980s because it fit more than two people and wasn’t quite a death trap.
When we finally got to the small town in the middle of nowhere we would end up in what looked like an abandoned settlement. A delicate skein of coal smoke fell over the streets at night – people were home – and dogs barked in the distance but there were few people visible in town.
Then there were the rows of empty houses.
The 1990s brought a post-soviet drain that sapped Poland of its professionals, and in 2004, when the EU opened the border, Poland lost many more. The resulting exodus emptied out towns like Rypin, leaving homes desolate and construction unfinished.
Row after row of houses were left incomplete, plastic billowing in empty windows and wooden floors ruined in the rain.
The plan for many was to send cash home to complete the job but, in the end, it was easier to abandon all their hard work. Movement of money
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