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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

People relying so much on horses in the 1980s is a pretty surreal thing to see.

Was anyone here alive in Poland in the 80s (doesn't seem like such a long shot)? Would love to hear your experiences with transportation.

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I was, but I lived in east Silesia in the south which had the best infrastructure of Poland because of the coal mines and a lot of industry. As far as I remember only really old farmers still had horses. My parents once borrowed our neighbors (who must have been around 70 years old) horse to plow their field because they didn't have the money to pay someone to do that with a tractor. But the poor horse was old too and not used to such hard work, so after a couple of rounds he was so exhausted that he needed to lay down and their were afraid that it would die of exhaustion. So at least in Silesia you would rarely see horses used for transportation.

Instead both of my granddads bought this weird half a mini-tractor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoGGe9PBQWo but they both changed it to a custom version with 4 wheels, they came up with totally different designes for it. Actually I have a home video which showcases the one which my dads dad designed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN0J7Wg_V54

That tractor is wild, thanks for sharing!

From memory as a western kid on vacation in 1980's Hungary: transportation use of horses existed, but as a bit of an outlier. But photogenic outliers tend to be wildly overrepresented in travel photpgraphy, I know what I would have aimed my camera at, had I had one.

The first time I was in Romania, in 2013, we drove on a provincial road and there were people in BMWs driving 100km/h taking over horse carriages going 10km/h. It was "pretty surreal" to me (I'm Dutch) and it also seemed extremely dangerous.

Ah well you can get the same experience in Amish country today in the U.S. Midwest. I pass a horse and buggy every couple of weeks at least; rider on a horse less frequently but still occasionally. It's best to drive slower. Most people in cars are idiots though.

I was in rural Romania in 2013 as well and I remember thinking that the horse carriage just has a much easier time avoiding all the potholes.

In big cities, the sight of horses was not common at all and horses were actually banned in Warsaw (except for tourist carriages). Overall, the cities were fairly modern, but gray and in constant state of mild disrepair. On one hand most big cities had electrified suburban trains, trams and very extensive bus network, while on the other hand, small towns and villages operated steam locomotives and people commonly used horse carriages. Also, the country side was quite diverse. Most small village farms operated with 19th century technology, even into the 1990s (in a style that we would today call organic). However, the large collectivized govt owned farms were fully mechanized. Overall, it was quite a 2nd world experience - we had a bit of the 1st and a bit of the 3rd world all crammed into one!

Selection bias. Photographer primarily captured the unusual/interesting things that stood out to him.

No horses in cities, tons of mostly domestic cars. New sedan was ~$1500-2000 in the eighties/early nineties. Average 1986 wage was $350/year, but by 1992 went up to ~$1500, so the cheapest Polish sedan, Fiat 125P, was 60 to 12 monthly wages. Western sedan would cost >$15000 before 1989 (end of Russian occupation). Officially only a handful of people made enough money to afford a car. You had privileged blue collar jobs like miner, foundry worker, sailors on border crossing ships, airplane crews. Then there was totally separate, protected class - high ranking party officials, directors of state run companies, security apparatus, diplomats etc. Unofficially almost everyone had an angle, smuggling, making moonshine, running unregistered slaughterhouse, farming on a side, stealing from state owned enterprises, taking bribes etc. My father got first car, brand new domestic sedan, as a present from his parents, paid by bribes (undertaker). Crashed it promptly and was forced to start working, we moved to Silesia for a year which made enough money to buy another new car and rent big apartment in the capital city. After that he started smuggling crystal glass, jewelry and furs to Germany/Turkey, making ~100x average official wage, but that ended quickly after communism fell.

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