Poland is a beautiful country in Central Europe that houses nearly 38 million residents. It’s likely that you already love Poland for giving us pierogies, paczki, Marie Curie and Frédéric Chopin, but thanks to Pictures From Polish Profiles on Facebook, the country has also gifted the world countless hilarious pics. This account has amassed 192k followers on Facebook and over 9k followers on Instagram since its creation in 2018, sharing hundreds of photos that speak to the hearts, souls and funny bones of Polish people and non-Poles alike.
To find out more about how this quirky and beloved Facebook page came to be in the first place, we reached out to the account’s creator, Igor Walczak, who was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda. Igor shared that he was inspired to create the page after coming across another account called Pictures from Italian profiles and “immediately thought that such a formula would be perfect for Polish photos.”
“While their content relied more on retro photos, I focused more on humor with a dose of nostalgia and Polishness in the broad sense,” he went on to explain. “To be honest, I did not expect such a success. As you probably know, the beginning of any page is the hardest time. You need a certain amount of luck to succeed, and I was very lucky.”
When it comes to what makes Polish social media special, Igor shared that “Polish social media reflect what Poles themselves are like. We do not take ourselves too seriously, and we really like to make jokes about our flaws and shortcomings. However, we don't really like it when others make fun of us."
“We absolutely love it when someone mentions Poland abroad," he added. "That makes us feel very appreciated. It may be a matter of complexes that Poles as a nation have. We are not a country of great international importance, therefore every mention of Poland in foreign media makes us happy and proud.”
We were also curious about what Igor loves most about his home country. “The thing that I like most about Poland is the aforementioned ability to laugh at our flaws and joke about our problems,” he told Bored Panda. “Polish history was not a bed of roses. We have faced many problems over the centuries. The most important of them are, of course, the Second World War and the post-war times. Our sense of humor has always been a kind of coping mechanism that helped us get through the hard times.”
Igor noted that he finds many of the photos from Polish profiles to be hilarious, but his favorites tend to refer directly to Polish culture or pop culture. “A foreigner might have trouble understanding many of them,” he noted. “An example can be memes with Pope John Paul II, which are very popular among young people in Poland. On the other hand, we have pictures that are very Polish in nature and yet they are able to amuse anyone, regardless of whether you are from Poland or not. These are usually pictures showing grotesque situations from everyday life of Poles.”
He shared that some of his favorites include one of a “football hooligan contemplating a painting,” “some teenagers cosplaying John Paul II,” a pizza with the pope’s face on it, and a Żabka store, a very popular chain of convenience stores in Poland, recreated in the game Counter-Strike.
When it comes to what makes Poland unique, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the language. Spoken by only about 40 million people worldwide, native speakers of Polish make up about 97.6% of the residents in Poland. Outside of the nation, however, you can find significant numbers of Polish speakers in the United States, Canada, Germany, Lithuania, Czechia, Belarus, Ukraine and Latvia.
Polski is the only official language of Poland, and it’s notoriously tricky for foreigners to learn. According to Autolingual, “Languages such as Czech and Slovak are close to Polish, but if a Czech and a Pole were to have a conversation, they'd still need to make an effort to understand each other. To find languages that are closer to Polish, we need to look at minority languages such as Silesian, Kashubian and Sorbian."
If you find yourself making a trip to Poland (which you definitely should!), there are plenty of great spots to visit. In fact, the nation has their own list of “seven wonders” that are certainly worth checking out. These include the Wieliczka Salt Mine, one of the world’s oldest salt mines; Torun Old Town, a historic settlement in the northwest of Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage Site; Malbork Castle, the world’s biggest castle; Wawel Castle and Cathedral, 13th and 14th-century buildings exhibiting various different architectural styles; Elblag Canal; Zamosc Old Town, a 50-mile canal and one of Poland’s official national Historic Monuments; and Krakow Market Square and Old Town, the largest Medieval town square in Europe.
