STADIUM THREAT
by John Todd

Warsaw Business Journal, Poland
Sept 26 2005

>>From Warsaw Business Journal

Law and Justice (PiS) has Warsaw’s world-famous stadium bazaar in
its sights.

Will the Russian market be closed down?

The traders at the stadium market – described by organizers as the
biggest in Europe – are under threat from the conservative Law and
Justice (PiS) party set to form a coalition government after last
weekend’s election.

“The stadium is known for unsanitary conditions, crime, a lack of any
standards. If we want to be a modern capital city, it can’t go on,”
says Jan O³dakowski of Law and Justice.

Traders from around the world hawk everything from sofa sets to
pirated DVDs and icons to baby ferrets at the defunct football stadium
in Praga.

Warsaw’s mayor Lech Kaczyñski, a fellow PiS member and the party’s
candidate in next month’s presidential election, wants the central
government to shut down the illegal traders, move the legal ones to
a new site and rebuild the stadium.

It’s estimated that 4,500 merchants ply their trade, compared to the
estimated 4,000 at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. Music, film and software
groups say the stadium accounts for 25 to 30 percent of all pirated
material – excluding internet piracy – sold in the country.

Once known as the Russian Market, dominated by traders from the former
Soviet Union selling souvenirs such as nesting dolls and Lenin pins,
today the stadium is a global village.

A Polish woman, who gave her name as Ma³gorzata and who paid her
way through four years of university by selling pirated DVDs, said
the Armenians, Poles and Vietnamese who control the three main areas
don’t stray onto each other’s turf.

Dominic Kinoulty of market-research firm Kinoulty Research says people
who do their daily shopping in expensive malls still visit the stadium
for black-market bargains.

“The people buying clothes there are bazaar buyers because that’s
where you get the cheap stuff,” he said.

“The others are really saying ‘Why am I paying Microsoft … when
I can get 63 programs on a CD-ROM for five z³oty?’ It’s more an
anti-establishment thing than a lack of money.”

The traders aren’t the only foreigners at the stadium, listed in
guidebooks as a tourist attraction, says Janusz Grobicki of the Adam
Smith Center, an economic think-tank.

“I used to live nearby, and I would meet employees from Western
embassies and even the odd ambassador. I don’t think they were there
out of economic necessity.”

In a 2005 report on crime in Warsaw, the stadium was mentioned as a
reason for high crime rates in surrounding areas.

Bazaar operator Damis estimates the market’s annual turnover at
z³.1.5 billion.

After several previous attempts to shut the bazaar failed, Ma³gorzata
is skeptical about the new drive to close it down. “The stadium is an
embarrassment for Warsaw. But there’s just too much money involved –
they’ll never shut it down.”

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