Foto: Katarzyna Stołpiec
Transform4Europe Week took place in Poland, Silesia from the 9th-13th of May. Seven Universities were represented and we visited the 3 important cities in the region: Katowice, Cieszyn and Kraków. Students went on field trips, pubs and of course discussed a lot about various topics concerning the development of our universities.
Mikael Kelomees is studying Arts Science and Visual Culture (BA) in EKA, he is a member of the Student Council in EKA and a member of the Student Council of the Transform4Europe Alliance. His responsibilities include representing the students of EKA at the Alliance and furthering the development of the universities as a whole.
Transform4Europe Student Council meeting. Photo by: Katarzyna Stołpiec.
One of the first meetings of the T4EU Student Council is depicted in the photo. On the agenda were mostly joint courses that one can take from any university, regardless of which university he or she comes from, and also a very important point was helping the Ukrainian students and providing a good enough environment for them to study. We are even working together with the Mariupol State University, even though the university building itself ceases to exists becauses of Russian bombing. We have tried to find ways of working together with them and inviting the university to our Alliance.
Transform4Europe Student Council. Photo by: Katarzyna Stołpiec.
The T4EU Student Council after the first meeting. I’m the 5th from the left and Eerika Niemi who is also an EKA student and a member of the Student Council is 5th from the right.
The Silesian Parliament in Katowice. Photo: Mikael Kelomees.
The Silesian Parliament was grandiose. Katowice is a city with about 300 thousand people – that’s less than in Tallinn and more than in Tartu. So it would be logical to assume that their parliamentary building wouldn’t be modest from our perspective. Our rector, Mart Kalm even talked about the building itself in his speech to the Alliance, where pointed out the visual and special experience that has upon entering the Assembly Hall.
Transform4Europe Student Council. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
The T4EU Student Council after the opening ceremony in the Silesian Parliament. The organizers din’t hold themselves back – we felt like members of the EU parliament. Campagne, wine, everyone wore suits and high attire, we were filmed by various photographers and cameramen, they even had an orchestra that played the European Anthem – so many emotions, what a spectacular experience!
Students at Mariacka street. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
In Katowice, Mariacka street is the main street where we went out to eat. There are local bars and restaurants. In the photo you can see a student council member eating ramen. You could even drink Japanese beer there. I don’t recommend it though, it’s too watery.
The city of Cieszyn in Silesia, Poland. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
The second part of the programme was visiting the city of Cieszyn. It’s a border city between Poland and the Czech Republic. The city was amazing. Similar to Kraków it was mostly untouched by the Second World War, so you could see a lot of architecture from the 18th and 19th century. We even went to the Czech side of the city and had a beer with a few doctoral Students and Student Council members. PS: A beer on the Czech side of the city cost 1 Euro.
The Polish 20 zloty. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
The Polish 20 zloty which depicts one of the most important building of the country’s history, Cieszyn fortress in the 13th century.
Rotunda of Saint Nicolas in Cieszyn. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
Here you can see the old residency of past Polish kings. The building itself is unique because the king slept on the second floor which meant that the guests had to sleep on the third floor. But that was a clever trick from the king’s architect because the sun shines more upon the third floor than the second and because of that the second floor is about 2 degrees cooler than the upper one.
Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
We visited the church in Kraków where most of the Polish kings were baptised and crowned.
Saint Mary’s Basilica, Kraków. Photo by: Mikael Kelomees.
This is one of the most important churches at Kraków’ city centre, St. Mary’s Basilica. In its highest tower every 60 minutes a fireman plays a trumpet out of the window towards the crowd embodying the legend of a once killed watchman who spotted the Mongolese tribes as they were approaching Kraków. The legend says that upon seeing the tribes the watchman blew a horn and caught the attention of the city dwellers below, but upon blowing he was struck by an arrow and fell to his death. Because of him many lives were spared and they honour him with this custom to this day.
Photo by: Mikael Kelomees. Photo: Students on their way home. On the left the student form the Lithuanian VMU university and Germans from the Saarland University. On the right: Students from EKA.
On the left you can see Germans and Lithuaninas going home, on the right you can see some of the representatives from EKA from the left: Eerika Niemi, Laura Ustav and me (Mikael Kelomees). The departure to home doesn’t mean the end of communicating with each other. We still discuss and communicate via the Internet and we keep up the work. The T4EU Student Council will meet again in October!