Days flies but it seems like Bieszczady, not high part of the Carpathians Mountains, maintains the same charm and untouched nature like many decades ago. I visited this beautiful almost a year ago and even now I remember numerous interesting places I saw and how mysterious they are. Reader may obviously highlight that the photos can always help to recollect everything but as The Little Prince once told: “What is essential is invisible to the eyes”.
Bieszczady National Park according to Wikipedia is the third largest national parks in Poland, located in Subcarpathian Voivodeship in the extreme southeast corner of the country, bordering Slovakia and Ukraine.
Such location is a bliss for a tourists seeking of quiet and loneliness. In contrast with Tatra or Beskid Mountains, over there it is almost impossible to stumble over bigger group of people or even find good passable roads to reach park entrance. Whereas rare tourist who risked to hit the spot is rewarded with endless montane meadows with overgrown lakes and occasional traces of former human settlements.
This area was inhabited by Lemkos ethnic group before The Great War. Afterwards, they were settled out to the other bank of the river of San, presently within Ukraine according to Vistula operation in 1947. Nobody was sent back over there to fill up a population, as a result, several villages faded out. Now, only on the other side of state border in Ukraine old villages are alive, Polish part of Lemkos settlements is conquered by intangible wild nature.
On the picture above we can observe a cross dated on the end of XIX century. It is set as a penance for sins of some affluent entrepreneur of that remote times. Caption is written in Lemkos dialect of Ukrainian.
The lonely oak often serves as shelter to wandering tourists while pouring rains. It is said that once it covered group of 40 scouts during intensive rain. Looks majestically!
The border pillars reminds us about closeness of border. Owing to newest technologies every rehearse of crossing it is preventing and penalizing but yet few decades ago lots of people might reach another bank of the San without bigger problems. But it is still unbelievable that the end of European Union is just marked with several tinted pillars.
The source of San river. This river is symbolic for both Polish and Ukrainian as place from where the countries begins, one stretches to the west while another to the east. Despite this place is not highly safeguarded, there is no wall or barbed wired fence there is also no sign of illegal migrants or smuggle channels. This area seems to be offline filled with authentic nature and minimal human interference. I always was fascinating by country borders, where one country finishes with its own law, regimes and people approach and another starts. It is worth to keep in mind regardless of citizenship or belief that we share our common home and constrains or borders are only temporary and should serve us as reminder about respect to others home and existence.
