Hello and a good day to you! Today we are traveling down to the streets of Warsaw, but not just any streets, one spot, “The Palace Of Culture And Science”. One could argue that this needled building is the center point of the Polish capital. A building gifted by the Russians, during the Soviet era, a palace with 4 brothers and sisters just like it – We know Russians like to stick to what they knew. I asked Kuba Kaczmarczyk, the Grey Area filmer what he felt the building stood for because one could imagine it being representative of a time of oppression. Although he felt some type of way about it for a long time, now he is happy it stayed around. They use it for good things now and obviously, it is a good skate spot. So Kuba and his Grey Area gang went all the way in and explored all the different nooks and crannies of the Palace.
Intro by Roland Hoogwater.
All photos by Kuba Baczkowski.
After skating this spot, for so long, I just need a fucking holiday!
Michal Juras, about skating the Palace.
Kuba Kaczmarczyk
Grey Area was formed in order to explore new and un-obvious locations. Our goal was to see new things in something old and do as much as possible. Back in the day, if we got footage at the palace grounds it mostly happened during our warmup sessions.
Even though we spent a lot of time there over the years, I’ve been wanting to film a Culture Palace edit for years now. When we started this project I thought about setting a limit on how far you could go outside of the main square and onto the streets surrounding the Culture Palace. It was all up to the creativity of the skaters, them trying to find new options. I reckon it is very interesting to show a group of people known for skating very rough spots in a slightly different light compared to the usual. I was more than stoked when they accepted the challenge – some of them really loved the idea.
And, in the end, it worked out, I’m really happy with the result. So now, after this, we can go back to our obscure and unknown areas of our Polish towns.
Agata Halikowska
Culture Palace is the main skate spot in Warsaw. It has a lot of spots inside and around the building, everything is made of skateable stone, it grinds and slides great. The main challenges are the police officers and some of the skate stoppers. But we know how to get rid of those things 😂
The first time when I skated this spot, I felt like everything was too rough for me, and at that time I didn’t skate too many street spots. Now I’m an adult skater (laughs) and the streets have spoken to my soul 🤷♀️. These days the Culture Palace is definitely my favorite spot and it is a place where I can meet other skaters and we can spend a full day together. I like the fact that there are so many different sections on the palace grounds, places like,,kongresowa”, ,, parapety” or ,,bej murek”. Kongresowa my favorite place to warm up, and I like the atmosphere there, we can all meet there, sit on the stairs, talking shit and skate ❤.
When it comes to may own favorite skater to watch skate the Palace grounds there is onl one, Tomek Ziółkowski a.k.a. Tomi Gunz! 👊
You might wonder if like the others I need a break after this edit? I need to change the spot for a while, but probably we will be back at the Palace after a few days anyway. Because through this process of making the video I started to see other, new ways to skate certain things, and to me, that is awesome. The Palace Of Culture And Science is an endless spot ❤.
