Erdogan’s Endgame

Turkey’s All-Powerful President Grabs for More

The elections in Turkey on June 24 will determine President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s future and his legacy. He is currently at the zenith of his power and is looking to add even more. But he remains desperately afraid of losing it all.

Photo: Laurent van der Stockt, Getty Images

The president begins his day with prayer, usually between 5 and 6 a.m. depending on when the sun rises. Then he spends half an hour on the treadmill and lifts weights. He has a light breakfast since he suffers from diabetes and drinks tea from the Black Sea. He reads memos from his advisers and the newspapers, usually the Islamist ones along with Sabah, which is run by a relative. At 8 a.m. Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets his chief of staff and his spokesman to go through the agenda for the day. At 11 a.m. he makes his way to the presidential palace.

Erdogan lives with his wife in a villa on the grounds of the palace, which is located on a hill on the outskirts of Ankara. He had the palace built in 2014 and it’s a fortress that encompasses several buildings with a total of 1,000 rooms, a bunker and a clinic. Visitors are collected by car and brought by tunnel to the respective wing. The building is symbolic of the reign of this president: terrifying, powerful, isolated, controlled.

In February, Erdogan turned 64. He still wears the same moustache he did as a younger man, but his cheeks have sunken and his brow is marked by wrinkles. In 2011, he had, it is said, a benign tumor removed from his large intestine. And he still sticks to an extremely tough schedule. Every day, he meets with cabinet ministers, legislators and mayors and controls every action taken by his government, no matter how insignificant. He always carries a notebook with him in which he is constantly jotting things down. He seldom returns home before midnight, and he expects the same of his employees.

He has governed Turkey for 15 years, first as prime minister and then as president – longer than any previous Turkish politician. And now, on June 24, the country will go to the polls for parliamentary elections. The presidential election is on the same day, and Erdogan hopes to be returned to office with more power than ever before. It would transform him into an autocrat, any semblance of separation of powers would be essentially passé. Turkey would become synonymous with Erdogan.

But who, really, is this man, whose destiny is so closely entwined with that of his country? He is a person about whom we feel we know a lot, yet so little is actually known about him. How does he rule? Who does he trust? How does he behave among his closest confidantes?

Over the past several months, DER SPIEGEL has spoken with more than two dozen of those closest to the president, including advisers, government officials, party members and ministers. Most insisted that they not be named: They are eager to talk about Erdogan, but they are also worried about angering him.

Nervous and Wary

Combined with internal government documents which DER SPIEGEL has seen, these interviews have made it possible to paint a profile of the Turkish president: Someone at the height of his power who is nevertheless obsessed with the idea of losing it. A man who feels misunderstood and essentially only trusts his family, a state of affairs that has led to tumult within the government. He has become a patriarch surrounded by silence. Nobody laughs in his presence. Ministers lower their voices when speaking with him, their faces becoming solemn, almost stiff. They look towards the ground, nervous and wary.

“He has become a patriarch surrounded by silence. Nobody laughs in his presence. Ministers lower their voices when speaking with him, their faces becoming solemn, almost stiff.”

Erdogan, they say, is quick to lose his temper. His fits of rage – slapping an employee or throwing his iPad at them – are legendary. Sometimes, he uses these outbreaks deliberately. At the World Economic Forum in Davos a few years ago, he was part of a podium discussion together with then-Israeli President Shimon Peres. He became visibly agitated, calling Peres a child killer, arguing with the moderator and ultimately storming off the stage. His advisers were embarrassed by the performance, but Erdogan’s supporters celebrated him when he returned to Istanbul.

Despite having been in power for 15 years, he is still able to present himself as a man of the people. He is a populist, able to captivate people and appeal to the masses. When he speaks on the campaign trail, such as at a recent, early-June appearance in the Black Sea city of Zonguldak, supporters are brought in from across the country to see him. An anthem, written especially for him, blares from speakers and the streets are lined with his portrait. Prior to delivering his speeches, says a former speechwriter, he has a memo compiled including facts and figures so he knows everything important about the town where he is speaking. And his audience is left to wonder: How can he possibly know all of that?

As a young man, Erdogan played semi-professional football for a club in Istanbul and he still likes to surround himself with footballers. Players like the German national team members Mesut Özil and Ilkay Gündogan, with whom he was photographed back in May, an event that caused significant hand-wringing back in Germany. His circle of advisers also includes a wrestler and a basketball player. Until around two years ago, he would regularly play basketball with his bodyguards and staff on the grounds of the palace. There’s also a video of him playing football with other prominent people. It shows the opposing players reverently moving to the side when the president had the ball.

Erdogan doesn’t read books, but he does watch a huge amount of TV. The channel A Haber, known for its conspiracy theories, is constantly on in his office and limo. He uses the internet rarely and considers social media to be “poison” – something that hasn’t stopped him from deploying a troll army to torment his critics. Since he doesn’t speak any foreign languages, his press office translates the foreign news for him. Erdogan wants to know exactly what is being said and thought about him around the world.

Brash Loud-Mouth?

Like so many leaders, he is a big fan of history, particularly that of the Ottoman Empire. He admires the “bloody sultan” Abdülhamid II, and never misses an episode of the popular Turkish TV show that depicts his life. He has even visited the set.

For Erdogan, the establishment of the republic by Mustafa Kemal in 1923 was an historic mistake. He’d prefer to emulate the period of Abdülhamid II, an era when the empire stretched from the Middle East to the Balkans. But his efforts at expansion have failed: His attempt to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar Assad has not borne fruit and Turkey has alienated countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt rather than solidifying closer relations.

“To the outside world, he wants to look like a strongman, a brash loud-mouth who prefers conflict to conciliation. But those who have known him for a long time say he’s actually indecisive, basing his policies almost exclusively on public opinion polls.”

Erdogan’s demeanor is marked by similar contradictions. To the outside world, he wants to look like a strongman, a brash loud-mouth who prefers conflict to conciliation. But those who have known him for a long time say he’s actually indecisive, basing his policies almost exclusively on public opinion polls. He has surveys conducted almost weekly to work out what Turks think about various issues, from economic policy and the military deployment in Syria to the popularity of individual politicians.

The survey results that he is receiving these days are likely to be causing him no small degree of consternation.

In April, Erdogan brought forward the elections by almost a year and a half, convinced that victory was guaranteed. But his lead in the polls has since shrunk and some opinion polls make it look as though he may not receive an absolute majority in the first round of voting. Should that happen, a run-off election would be held two weeks later. But even then, the unthinkable has become thinkable: that he might actually lose.

Government politicians describe the elections as the “endgame.” If Erdogan wins, then his autocratic rule will be cemented for years. If he loses, then Turkey could be facing an uncertain period of weeks if not months. No one knows if Erdogan would accept defeat and allow for a peaceful transfer of power. Were he to lose, it seems likely that he would be prosecuted and imprisoned. In other words, it’s all or nothing for the president on June 24.

TRUST
Why His Son-in-Law Is So Powerful

Erdogan grew up in Istanbul. He has never felt comfortable in Ankara, the city of government officials and the army and he still spends weekends at his home in Istanbul with his family. His wife Emine is always by his side; she has no career of her own and rarely speaks in public.

Erdogan wants to stay in power for at least another five years, until the 100th anniversary of the republic in 2023, if not longer. Nevertheless, no other issue preoccupies him as much as his legacy. Confidantes say that his preference would be for one of his four children to follow him as president.

But his eldest son Burak withdrew from public life 20 years ago after he was involved in a fatal car crash. Bilal, the younger son, has disqualified himself through a series of embarrassing appearances and Erdogan doesn’t trust him to pursue a career in politics. His two daughters, Sümeyye and Esra, are more likely to be eligible for office. Indeed, Sümeyye has often accompanied her father and was said to have exerted a moderating influence during the Gezi protests of 2013. Still, it remains unthinkable to have a woman as head of the Islamic-conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Erdogan is a strict head of family, sometimes yelling at his son Bilal on the phone. Nevertheless, there has never been any public conflict between him and his children. Esra dedicated her Ph.D. in sociology at Berkeley, California, to her father “my all-time hero … who taught me to take pride in who I am.” He is, she wrote: “A true visionary, a beautiful, humble soul.”

“Erdogan’s fixation on his family has led to the rapid rise of a man who was previously a political outsider: Berat Albayrak.”

Erdogan’s fixation on his family has led to the rapid rise of a man who was previously a political outsider: Berat Albayrak, Esra’s husband. The families have been close for years, with Erdogan and Albayrak’s father Sadik having their roots in the Islamist Milli Görüs movement. Esra got to know Berat at Berkley in 2003. In an email that was later hacked and put online, she wrote Berat that her father had agreed to their meeting: “It is quite an interesting process, particularly interesting that we are taking such an initiative when we are so far away from our elders.”

‘A Burden for the Party’

Albayrak worked for Calik Holding, a Turkish textile, energy and construction company, in New York. In 2007, at the age of just 29, he became CEO. A year later, Calik bought the daily paper Sabah. From then on, Albayrak had political power to go with his economic strength. In 2015, Erdogan named him energy minister and today, his brother Serhat runs Calik Media. Erdogan and the Albayrak brothers now dominate the country. The president’s staff refers to them as the “triumvirate.”

Erdogan seeks his son-in-law’s advice on almost every important decision. He has placed him at the top of the electoral list for the Istanbul 1 voting district for the June 24 elections. And Albayrak makes sure that party members and ministers are aware of his particularly close relationship with the president. Unlike other officials, he travels together with Erdogan in the presidential limo. At cabinet meetings, he lays a hand on the president’s shoulder and chats about his wife and children.

Albayrak acts as if he were president himself, complains one government official, who is – like so many others – critical of the son-in-law’s influence. He issues instructions to his cabinet colleagues, tells them how they should run their ministries and even who they should hire.

After the election, Erdogan wants to continue transforming Turkey into a family business, laying the groundwork for a political dynasty. He has placed relatives in important party jobs and Albayrak is considered to be a candidate for vice president, which would give him even more influence.

“He’s a burden for the party,” one government politician said.

CONTROL
Why the Party No Longer Has a Voice

Politics has always been a fight for Erdogan. The son of a strictly religious Black Sea sailor, he first crushed the secular elite. He then he turned his sights on the community of the Islamist preacher Fethullah Gülen, who had made Erdogan’s ascendency to power possible in the first place. The power struggle between Erdogan and Gülen reached its climax in the attempted coup of July 15, 2016, which the government continues to blame on Gülen and his followers.

On the night of the coup, Erdogan was on holiday with his family on the Turkish Mediterranean coast and apparently only just managed to escape an assassination attempt. In a FaceTime interview on CNN Türk, he called on his supporters to resist: “Go out onto the streets and squares and give them your answer.”

Today, it remains unclear who exactly was behind the attempted coup. Erdogan, after all, has never truly tried to investigate. Instead, he has used the coup attempt as a pretext to go after Gülen supporters and anyone else who opposes his rule: opposition politicians, human rights activists, Kurds and journalists. Moderates within the presidential palace have consistently tried to rein in Erdogan, arguing that the mass arrests would damage the government’s credibility. But the president has refused to listen, convinced as he is that he will lose power if he gives even an inch to the opposition.

“With every crisis – the Gezi protests, the attempted coup – he has become more authoritarian.”

Early in his political career, Erdogan presented himself as a reformer. He sought to improve relations with the Kurds, he negotiated with the EU about possible membership and he modernized the country. But with every crisis – the Gezi protests, the attempted coup – he has become more authoritarian. He is now only interested in appealing to his Sunni nationalist core constituency, one former minister complains. “Erdogan wants 51 percent, he doesn’t care about anything else.”

There’s a siege mentality at the presidential palace. Erdogan was always distrustful of external forces, but since the attempted coup he has become paranoid, those close to him say. He sees enemies and conspirators everywhere. His staff use encryption apps on their smartphones and the president himself rarely communicates by phone at all out of fear that Gülen supporters could somehow be listening in. He has his meals tested for poison.

At a recent reception, he called on village leaders to keep a close eye on who spends time in their communities: “In the name of our martyrs, we will break the arms and legs of those who want to damage our flag,” he said.

‘No Turkey Without Erdogan’

Erdogan no longer appoints advisers based on ability, and even their political views are of secondary importance. The only thing necessary is unconditional loyalty. The result is a president surrounded by people who assure him every day that he was chosen by god to rule Turkey. The elections in June are intended to send a message to his critics at home and abroad, says one government politician: “There’s no Turkey without Erdogan.”

“Erdogan no longer appoints advisers based on ability, and even their political views are of secondary importance. The only thing necessary is unconditional loyalty.”

Erdogan has also recast the AKP in his own image. His weekly appearances in parliament are like a football match: the legislators roll out banners and chant battle songs. Anyone who tries to contradict Erdogan or raise their own profile is punished.

AKP politicians recall with a mix of awe and horror how Erdogan destroyed the former prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. In 2014, after Erdogan moved from the prime minister’s office to become president, he installed Davutoglu as prime minister against the will of the party. Two years later, though, after Davutoglu’s public profile got a boost from negotiating the refugee deal with the Europeans, he became a nuisance to the president.

In May 2016, the “Pelican Dossier” appeared online, in which Davutoglu was denounced as a “traitor.” The prime minister, it claimed, had conspired with the Europeans against Erdogan. “In the chess game that the global powers are playing with our country, he (Davutoglu) has accepted the role of the pawn dressed up as a queen,” the text stated. Internal documents and statements indicate that Berat Albayrak, the president’s son-in-law, was behind the campaign. Shortly after the appearance of the Pelican Dossier, Erdogan replaced Davutoglu with his long-time confidante Binali Yildirim.

Unlike his predecessor, Yildirim shows no signs of seeking the limelight. He stoically accepts the president’s reprimands and insults. “Binali doesn’t even notice when he is being humiliated by Erdogan,” one AKP politician said.

Under Yildirim, the power of the prime minister has migrated completely to the presidential palace. Beyond his family, Erdogan trusts a group of 25 “chief advisers,” which he has handpicked and who form a kind of shadow cabinet.

The result is that the Turkish government appears as a monolith from the outside, but behind the scenes, ministers, advisers and parliamentarians are all bitterly jockeying for the president’s attention and favor. And he enjoys playing them off against each other. Two factions are embraced in a power struggle: the agitators around Albayrak on one side and the moderate forces such as spokesman Ibrahim Kalin or Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek on the other.

Erdogan has always tended to attack adversaries rather than try to bring them into the fold. He is contemptuous of compromise, seeing it as a sign of weakness. Albayrak encourages this stance. He is also said to have been the one behind the prosecution of German journalist Deniz Yücel, according to a Turkish official familiar with the case.

Albayrak is convinced that if the EU is confronted with the choice between Erdogan and instability, it will opt for Erdogan. He wants the Europeans to treat Turkey the way they treat Egypt, a country that one can do business with, while keeping out of its internal affairs. His people deride politicians such as Simsek who seek dialogue with the EU as “Westerners.”

Under Erdogan, a cult of strength has been established in the palace. In April the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet reported that Albayrak had ordered the tapping of the phone of the interior minister, an important rival in the party. The minister, meanwhile, insiders say, has compiled a dossier with compromising material about Albayrak.

CRISIS
Why the Lira Is Collapsing and Erdogan Is So Rich

In the 1990s, critics gave Erdogan the nickname “10 Percent Tayyip” because as mayor of Istanbul, he was said to keep a 10 percent cut of all business deals. His daughter’s studies in the United States were paid for by a businessman and between 2008 and 2017 the Erdogan clan is said to have earned 20 million euros in an offshore deal, according to internal documents.

Erdogan, who worked his way up from a childhood in Istanbul’s port district to the head of the Turkish state, is convinced that he has earned his wealth. A former minister said that the president considered Turkey to be his property: “He believes he can take everything.”

“He believes he can take everything.”

For long these stories of corruption had little resonance in Turkey, since there was enough wealth to go around. But the Erdogan system now appears to be reaching its limits.

The president likes to brag to friends that he has modernized the economy. And early in his tenure, GDP growth in Turkey hit 10 percent annually. Furthermore, between 2002 and 2016, foreign investors plowed over $180 billion into the Turkish economy. More recently, however, the growth rate has slowed, investors have left the country, companies have filed for bankruptcy – and now, the currency is collapsing.

At the end of May, Prime Minister Yildirim and his deputy Simsek, held a crisis meeting in Ankara, searching for a way to halt the lira’s decline. They agreed that only an increase in the key interest rate could stabilize the currency, a measure that Erdogan had consistently rejected. Yildirim managed to have a private talk with the president and persuade him to give up his resistance to the interest rate hike, but the move ultimately came too late and the lira only recovered slightly.

The lira’s weakness can’t exclusively be blamed on Erdogan, but he certainly shares most of the responsibility.

Investors are no longer prepared to accept the president’s erratic style of rule, his repression of critics, the cronyism, the curbing of the central bank. They have lost faith in Turkey. “It’s like an avalanche that can’t be stopped,” one Turkish politician, who specializes in economic policy, said.

This is the real reason for the early elections, one insider said. The president wants to be sure he is re-elected before a recession takes hold. The previous government was voted out of office as a result of the economic crisis in 2001. Inside the presidential palace, there is growing concern that history could be repeating itself.

POWER
Why Some Erdogan Confidantes Are Planning Their Escapes

Erdogan has taken far-reaching precautions to make sure he wins on June 24: He has formed an alliance with the ultranationalist MHP party; he has extended for the seventh time the state of emergency that was declared after the attempted coup, which makes it harder for his opponents to campaign; and he has placed more pressure on the media. Since the sale of the H ürriyet newspaper to an Erdogan loyalist, the press is almost completely controlled by the government and the opposition parties have been hushed.

Nevertheless, the election result is not the foregone conclusion that Erdogan had expected in April. After 15 years in power, the president seems tired. And there’s little of the euphoria that used to be seen at his rallies. One AKP politician says that the party lacks an issue to mobilize the masses. In the referendum on presidential powers last year, the attacks on Germany gained him four or five percentage points. “But we can’t repeat this strategy.” The damage to the economy would be too great, he said.

At the same time, the opposition is coming together: The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the new nationalist IYI party and the Islamist splinter party Saadet have forged an alliance. Only the pro-Kurdish HDP is going it alone, with a lead candidate, Selahattin Demirtas, who is still in jail.

There appear to be two possible outcomes for the election, and either would have dramatic consequences.

The first possible outcome is that Erdogan wins. Then he will complete the transformation of Turkey from a democracy to a one-man state. Erdogan would be both head of state and government, he could decide on the majority of constitutional judges and hire and fire any ministers he liked. Civil society, which despite all the repression has mounted fierce opposition, would be completely demoralized. His opponents would probably withdraw into private life or emigrate.

Possible Chaos

Some in Europe seem to think that once he won, Erdogan would relax and try to make peace with his opponents. But Erdogan advisers dampen such hopes. “If Erdogan wins on June 24,” they predict, “then he will really reign supreme.”

“If Erdogan wins on June 24, then he will really reign supreme.”

In foreign policy, Erdogan will remain a difficult, unreliable partner. A victory could lead to even more self-confidence – and more unilateral action in Syria and Iraq. And advisers indicate that the government may also try to renegotiate the refugee deal with the EU.

The second possible outcome is that Erdogan loses. That would be a triumph for Turkish democracy but could push the country into chaos. Erdogan has told confidantes that he fears being hanged by the military, like former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, once he is no longer in office.

In the palace, there’s already a sense of end times. Of course no one in his immediate circle dares to even discuss a possible defeat. But some members of his staff have begun preparing for flight. He has little hope for himself, one high-ranking government politician said, but he’d at least like to make sure his wife and children could escape abroad.

It can therefore be expected that even if he were to lose, Erdogan would do everything possible to cling to power.

Opposition politicians are preparing themselves for a number of different scenarios: He might manipulate the election result; he could force new elections; he could ignore the result and continue to rule using the state of emergency laws. That would inevitably lead to mass protests and clashes between the president’s supporters and opponents.

“No one knows what exactly is going to happen on June 24,” one opposition politician said. “Only one thing is certain. After this election, Turkey will be a different country.”

With additional reporting by Eren Caylan

Prisoners of the fourth floor

Those most won’t ever see, because they haven’t left their homes for years.

Most of the mugs in Danuta’s kitchen have lost their handles. She often forgets that she’s holding a mug, and that’s when it slips out of her hand… and crack! When she wants to drink tea, she takes an empty mug and puts it on the table. Then she returns to the kitchen, pours boiling water into a thermos, hangs it on her walking frame, and goes back to the lounge. After all this effort, she does not have any energy left. The only thing left is to sit and watch the daily TV soap opera Na dobre i na złe (For Good Or For Ill).

Illustration by Joanna Karpowicz

“I can see what’s happening to me. I dropped the kettle not that long ago. The water was already cold, but if it had still been hot, I would have scalded myself. So now I don’t have a kettle any more. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed, when I go to pick up a book to read a little I manage no more than a few lines, and my eyes close,” she says.

Next to her lie copies of Augustine’s Confessions and the Catholic weekly journal Niedziela (Sunday).

Danuta is 75 years old, has lean hands, transparent nails and silver-white hair that’s pinned up as if she were a ballerina. She’s so tiny that when she sits at her dining table the furniture appears to be of enormous size. Everything around her seems larger than life… only a reproduction of the Last Supper is so tiny it’s actually hard to spot Jesus huddled among the apostles.

All colours appear brighter against the white-washed walls of her apartment. The lilac of Danuta’s jumper nearly hurts my eyes. The paint flaking off the walker, parked behind her, is intensively blue. The green and red of an angel’s dress instantly draw my attention – her neighbours received this figurine from an aunt living in the US, but they didn’t like it, so they passed it on to Danuta. She accepted the sacred gift in the same way she accepts the curse of old age.

“You can’t see yourself as a victim. Raging against the world won’t do any good,” she says.

When was the last time she went outside? Five years ago? Even then she didn’t know what made more noise, the creaky stairs she had to walk four floors down or her own joints and bones. It’s not surprising – the stairs and she are almost the same age.

“Even then she didn’t know what made more noise, the creaky stairs she had to walk four floors down or her own joints and bones. It’s not surprising – the stairs and she are almost the same age.”

A caretaker used to store her other walking frame on the ground floor. It was a walker with a seat, weighing a whole 37 kilograms. She would grasp it with both her hands and push it to the nearest shop. Sometimes someone offered to help her carry things, but how to respond to such offers when you can see how much hurry people are in? Seen from a walker with a built-in seat, each and every person seems to be in a hurry. She used to be able to traipse to the nearest shop, buy groceries, and go back home. For a healthy, young person the equivalent of this trip would be like climbing a mountain with milk and bread in a handbag.

There is a faded poster on her wall showing mountain peaks covered in snow and Scandinavian fjords, and next to that a framed photo of her granny in a Huculian folk costume. It was taken during a holiday in the Carpathian Mountains. Danuta too used to like visiting the Polish highlands, once upon a time.

But today she no longer dares to go outside. People like her are called “Prisoners Of The Fourth Floor”, being trapped by buildings which lack elevator facilities (due to old Communist Era planning laws). They don’t stand up for their rights because they simply don’t know what those rights even are. State-sponsored care workers know the ins-and-outs of this problem. They’re the ones who take calls along the lines of: “I can’t make it to the shop. I’m too high up the stairs, and the shop is too far below me.”

Illustration by Joanna Karpowicz

Danuta herself asked for help once. She told her social worker on the phone that she had osteoporosis, had recovered from uterine cancer, had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and that she was aware that it would only get worse. After that one call, a care worker appeared in person at her door. The aim of this visit was clear—to set up a plan so that Danuta would be able to stay living independently at her flat as long as possible. They agreed that she would be visited three times a week by a senior care assistant who would pick up her mail, buy groceries, do the cleaning, do the laundry, and—if necessary—wash her head, feed her, or change her diapers.
One of their initial duties however was to go to the outpatient clinic and get a copy of Danuta’s health certificate.

Receptionist: “This lady has to come and ask for her medical history herself.”
Caregiver: “She never leaves her house.”
Receptionist: “Then someone from her family.”
Caregiver: “She doesn’t have any family.”
Receptionist (outraged): “What do you mean to say she doesn’t have a family?!”

“Is it that strange?” Danuta tries to both defend her right to solitude and justify the course her life has taken. “I didn’t get married, I don’t have children, and my extended family is scattered all over Poland. But I’m not the only one living like this.”

She was born in 1942 – two years before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. The tenement house she lived in was completely destroyed by the retreating German armies. Until the 1970s she lived with her parents and grandparents on the outskirts of Warsaw. Cold running water was their sole luxury. When her father died, and her grandmother required increased attention, they moved into the building in which she still dwells.

She worked in the Manufactory of Communication Equipment, then the “Wamel” Factory of Electrical Machines, in the Revenue Service, and in the Savings Bank. She has plenty of experience of loss. First she lost her mother and granny, then her job. Later on, she started losing the feeling in both her legs. The problems with walking began in 2000. Muscular degeneration. She was on a waiting list for hip replacement surgery, but her orthopedist finally crossed her off of the list because he considered the surgery unnecessary. Now she can only battle the pain.

She is sick and alone. The only walk she can take is from the kitchen to her balcony. No one brings her down the stairs or drives her to the park. She waited for two years for a place in a sanatorium, but when it was finally her turn to go she gave it up because she couldn’t get to the facility on her own. Not that long ago her walker got somehow stuck in the kitchen; she pushed it once, twice, a wheel came off, then she fell. She crawled through the room, reached the phone, but she didn’t have anyone to call, so she spent two hours climbing up upon her bed.

A month ago she decided to move out of her prison. Now she is trying to get used to the idea of change. She thinks of it as a holiday. When you leave for a month, there is a lot to pack into suitcases, but even more to leave at home. This time is different. She will be allowed to take her small chest of drawers made of dark wood and an old armchair. The chandelier will be of use to someone else – she will give it away, because she will not be back from these holidays, having finally applied for a place in a nursing home.

“Every organism gets old. You have to reconcile yourself with that fact when there is no other choice,” she says. “I’m deeply religious, and I know that there is more to life than the pursuit of pleasure. Everything, including pain, is the fate awaiting us all.”

Wooden stairs and celadon handrails. Pictures of cats and crocuses hung on the third floor of the staircase. On the second, there is a sticker “We wait for freedom.” It’s not certain that she will notice it as she leaves her home for ever.

Warsaw’s population keeps getting older – one-tenth of all those residing in the capital is more than 70 years old. Help for them can be found in each of the eighteen Social Welfare Centres. When one can no longer live on one’s own, it’s possible to ask for a place in one of the city’s fourteen nursing homes (seven of them for the chronically sick).

The Warsaw Office for Help and Social Projects finalized recruitment for a two-year project called Zaopiekowani (Lookedafter). Elders had rarely asked for help before. A “telecare” system was also introduced. Each participant was given a device to measure their temperature as well as heartbeat. The device informs appropriate services when something undesirable happens. A senior can press an alarm button and call the police for help. The cost of this program was a few hundred thousand euros.

In Poznan the telecare system is used by more than 250 people, and the aim is to provide this service to 550 other people in need of it. The same project in Warsaw covers 40 seniors – the number of those who are over the age of 70 exceeds 230,000.

Irena has been working in a social welfare centre for 21 years and asked for her name to be changed before speaking to me.

Before she begins telling her stories, she takes me to meet Alicja, another “prisoner” who has been living on the second floor for 59 years. In 2019 she will celebrate her 100th birthday – on the same date as Poland regained its own independence an even century ago.

She is wearing silver earrings, a ring with a gem, a silk neckerchief, sat at her table like an empress.

“So what if I don’t go out? Thousands of people don’t. My neighbours are no longer alive, but when they were here, they didn’t go out as well. For how long now? I don’t remember,” she says, and then launches into her own story of ageing.

“Six years ago a care assistant tried to walk me down the stairs, but she failed and pulled me back. And that’s how I ended up trapped here. In the meantime, I had two strokes. A pretty weak one and a serious one. Paramedics drove me to the hospital. I was supposed to stay longer but – honestly speaking – I preferred to come back home as soon as it was possible. What do I do during the day? I wake up at 4.30 am. I wash myself, make my bed, pray, do a crossword, I read magazines: Przegląd, Agora, and Newsweek. Mrs Basia comes to visit. She’s a caregiver. Apart from that, I look out the window. Oh, here I can see a tennis court and a park. When lindens and jasmines bloom, I can smell them. Back in the day you could spot wild hares and grouses, but they’re now gone. Sometimes I get up and go to the staircase to look out from a different window. Little birds fly close to me. Little larks, woodpeckers at times. I throw them some lard. My daughter-in-law drops by, my son might give me a call.”

“Six years ago a care assistant tried to walk me down the stairs, but she failed and pulled me back. And that’s how I ended up trapped here.”

“But it’s a fairly good situation, she has family,” Irena whispers to my ear. Some framed photos stand on a shelf: her mother and father separately. Her father has a moustache. Then her son and daughter-in-law. In the middle stands the only one in colour, which is from her grandson’s wedding.

“My grandson is all grown up now. I didn’t even go to his wedding. And he’ll have a daughter soon. He took a loan to buy a house outside of Warsaw, so he rarely visits. Of course, I’d love to see the house. I’ve seen it only in photographs. But, after all, I won’t ask them to carry me down the stairs. Yes, they have a car, even two. They’re young people, it wouldn’t cross their minds that I’d love to go outside. Mrs Basia always encourages me to stand up for myself, says I should demand and articulate my needs. She repeats that my grandson is a big man, that he could carry me on his hands. But how could I ask that he take me outside? What would it look like if I intruded on their privacy?” she bemoans.

“Obviously, we spend Christmas and Easter together. We celebrate Christmas Eve on the 23rd of December, and we eat Easter breakfast on the Holy Saturday. You ask me why?! We do it all one day earlier than the calendar dates, so they can then have proper celebrations in the comfort of their own home!”

Irena sighs.

“I could move to a small room in my son’s house, but it’d be bothersome. For some time, I had horrible diarrhoea. I cleaned up after myself. I prefer to be here because I’d be a stranger there, after all. The only worry is to die peacefully, not to bother anyone… You see, it’s awful when you’re unwanted, and you’re still kept alive. And you’re aware of the former. But you never know when it will come. That’s what I’m afraid of most. I have thrombosis. At any time, I might, you know…”

We leave.

“Have you noticed that she doesn’t rage against her fate?” Irena asks while we are still at the staircase. “This is typical – elderly people round her take it for granted that this is how it has to be. In any case, to whom should they complain? And what good will it do? Her home will be passed down to her grandson—he should take care of her. He should carry her downstairs. Or maybe she could swap the apartment for one on the ground floor, so that she could step outside her own door? She thinks only about him, not about herself. Believe me, elderly people are of no use to anyone.”

We sit on a bench in a park which smells of blooming jasmines in June. Irena complains about outsourced companies hired by social services to take care of the seniors. There are no clear rules when it comes to requirements in becoming a caregiver. Having a basic education is enough. Many companies participate in a tendering auctions, where price is the most crucial factor in winning contracts. Social welfare centres often offer around 18PLN (a bit over €4) for an hour of caregiver’s work, though caregivers are then paid no more than 6PLN per hour (less than €1.5) because they are employed under temporary contracts.

Last year Tomasz Pactwa, director of the Office for Help and Social Projects, openly admitted in an interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that “care services are the weakest point in the entire social welfare system.” This is the reason why City Hall established a Centre for Care Services (Social Warsaw in English), which has developed uniform standards of elderly care and will supervise their implementation. These will enter into force on February 1 2018. From that day on, each caregiver will be obliged to undertake supplementary training, and to comply with the code of ethical conduct which, among other things, requires them to address all seniors using the traditionally respectful honorific Mr. or Mrs. Moreover, a regular employment contract will become the norm, not a rarity.

“Very often we just can’t manage our employees,” Irena confesses. “A typical example: I know that a caregiver should be at one senior’s flat from 8 till 10 am. I come to check around 9, and she isn’t there. A senior says ‘Well, she was here but has already left.’ I go to the next home, and I hear: ‘She came, brought the groceries, and left… that’s enough for me.’ I rush to the next one, and it’s the same. Elderly people usually cover for our employees because they’re afraid. These caregivers are often the only people who visit them.”

There are obviously exceptions—caregivers who are committed and honest. But it’s rare. Irina continues, saying, “I asked them several times if they had completed a training course. The answer was always the same: ‘No, not a single one.’ The Ministry [of Family, Labour and Social Policy] should understand that care is the most fundamental element in a social welfare system for elderly people. A caregiver has to be qualified and sufficiently paid. For the entire 27 years our social welfare centre has been in operation no one has ever been interested in improving these services. Is telecare a solution? A life alert button will not replace an empathetic caregiver nor an efficient health-care system. Can’t we really afford to take care of the elderly who live in our towns and cities? We watch their lives fading from our eyes.”

At the Office for Help and Social Projects I look through past issues of a magazine titled Głos Seniora (Seniors’ Voice). It was co-founded by the Governmental Program for Seniors’ Social Activity. The program is meant to improve the quality of seniors’ lives through several kinds of activities. It is meant to mobilize, and Głos Seniora does exactly that: it encourages seniors to live life to the fullest. Regular columns like Stylish Senior Women and Senior Gardening are there to help this cause. Every issue features advice on how to take care of one’s health so that someday one’s grandchildren might say: “Our grandparents lived long and active lives.”

I read an interview with DJ Wika—the oldest DJ in Poland—Wirginia Szmy, who was born in 1938 and is an icon of active seniors. Asked how she avoids having mental breakdowns, she answers: “There are periods in which I don’t have the energy to do anything. I’d rather stay at home, but I’m aware that if I stayed two or three days, I’d stay there forever. My routine is it to force myself to be active – to go to the city centre, to the cinema, to the senior club.”

A report created in 2012 by the Institute of Work and Social Affairs (a research facility under ministerial supervision) stresses that equating dignified ageing with physical fitness might exclude those who are sick or require assistance. It says that “focusing too much on physical activeness of seniors (…) might create a false image and excessively positive model of ageing which is deprived of any illnesses and sicknesses. Such an image is not far from the everyday reality of being middle-aged and is not within reach of many seniors.”

Alas, copies of Senior’s Voice rarely reach “fourth floor cells”.

Joanna Mielczarek has been analysing the problems facing the elderly for 13 years. She sees the reality of their lives every Friday when she visits Maria, an octogenarian. And every other day when she directs the activities of the Little Brothers of the Poor Association. She works in Warsaw, Lublin and Poznań. When an open telephone line for seniors was launched in 2013, she worked twelve hours a week. Now she makes at least a dozen calls a day. Often she does it at night when there is no one at the office. Seniors leave messages on her voice mail. They say that they are lonely, that they want to have a friend, that they want to go for a walk. The association sends a coordinator to a senior’s flat to ask about their image of an ideal volunteer. And volunteers are asked what their image of an elderly person is. Around twenty new people offer to help every week.

“Seniors leave messages on her voice mail. They say that they are lonely, that they want to have a friend, that they want to go for a walk.”

“Many of them have a stereotypical image of a warm, kind, elderly lady who sits in an armchair, wears soft slippers, is covered with a blanket, cuddling a cat. But they are truly flesh-and-blood human beings who have their better and worse days,” says Joanna. The aim is to create real relationships that will last for years.

A relationship which is similar to the one she has with Maria who lives on the sixth floor. There is a lift in her building, but it stops at the top of some steps on the ground floor. Although Maria’s legs work well, her eyes do not. She started losing her eyesight gradually, and now she can’t see at all. She managed to learn which button to press, where the railing is, where the stairs begin and end, and how to walk to the shop. But she cannot overcome the mental obstacles hidden deep within. She is afraid of anyone who might be walking behind her. She is stressed because of the possibility of slowing down. A person whose actual presence is uncertain. Not wanting to bother the neighbours, she prefers not stay at home. She awaits every Friday and Joanna’s next visit.

Is her fear of bothering her neighbours an overreaction? Some of the seniors the Association looks after live in five-storey buildings without elevators in the districts of Bielany and Żoliborz. Stairs are often slippery and dangerous, but seniors manage to reach the ground floor. The association asked the neighbours if they could put small chairs on every half-storey. An elderly person would sit, rest for a second, and continue climbing. The idea was accepted in only half the blocks.

In the other half, the conversation went something like this:

Neighbors said: “It’s unnecessary.”
Volunteers: “She has been living here for 60 years.”
Neighbors: “So what? A caregiver can buy her groceries. She doesn’t have to leave.”
Volunteers: “But what harm can it do to you?”
Neighbors: “It’s unaesthetic” or “You could easily see that sick people live here” or “Someone will come and steal them.”

So Maria awaits Joanna’s visit.

“It’s not about buying potatoes,” Joanna explains. “I could do that for her. But the act of doing your own shopping is all about dignity. There’s enough time to carefully select every product she wants to buy. Enough time for Maria to hold tomatoes in her own hand, to touch apples, to decide which are the ones she wants to buy.”

Afterwards they drink tea, read letters, discuss plans for an upcoming week. Joanna always returns to the same topic: she reads out-loud the duties of a caregiver and asks which were fulfilled by the woman who comes to help with everyday life. Every time she reads the list, Maria seems to be totally surprised.

“Her caregiver doesn’t iron because she dislikes it. Doesn’t peel vegetables because she doesn’t want to. Doesn’t cook because she can’t. She arranges doctors’ appointments and vacuum-cleans when she knows I’ll be there,” Joanna reports. “We’ve noticed that caregivers fulfil their duties best when they know that a volunteer will come as well. Because there’s someone who truly cares about the elderly person and who won’t hesitate to stand up for their rights. I try to convince Maria to ask her caregiver to finally start doing what she is being paid to. But Maria is afraid of offending her and that it can only get worse. Besides, the one who comes to help her at this moment has already mentioned that in the past she would always resign when facing complaints about her work.”

The “fourth-floor prison syndrome” affects more than just Warsaw. Social workers say that the same problem is very much a reality in smaller towns, especially the ones industrialized during Communism—these are the places to which the rural population emigrated in the search for jobs. They moved into tiny apartments in hurriedly built tower-blocks. Now they are around seventy years old. Their children long gone, their lives awfully lonely. A report published in 2012 by the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw found that every third elderly capital city resident complains about architectural barriers which make it difficult for them to leave their homes. The most common complaint is the lack of an elevator. Nevertheless, they do not want to move anywhere. Their attitude is still largely influenced by trends and customs — “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“A report published in 2012 by the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw found that every third elderly capital city resident complains about architectural barriers which make it difficult for them to leave their homes.”

In Warsaw’s Praga district there is a place commonly known as the “Neighbourhood of Homeless Lovers.” It was 1956 when workers from fourteen factories (including those from the Warsaw Factory of Motorcycles, Warsaw Automobiles Factory, the Factory of Electric Lamps named after Rosa Luxemburg) decided to establish the city’s biggest housing co-operative and erect the entire neighbourhood themselves. The newspaper Sztandar Młodych (Banners of Youth) reported: “Every honest and emphatic person has his heart warmed by the image of a shelter for homeless love, a kid’s corner, and a decent roof above the heads of our parents.” These were truly heartfelt words, seeing as many newspaper employees also suffered from a lack of available housing allocations. The name “Neighbourhood of Homeless Lovers” seemed too immodest, so it was finally nicknamed the “Youthful Neighbourhood.” Twenty-eight blocks of flats (nine five-storey and the rest three-storey) instantly filled with young residents. Most of them were childless or with children as small as the trees they planted in their own backyards.

While the trees grew tall and proud, most of the lovers hunched over in time. One-fifth of the district’s residents today are above 80 years old. One of them, Stefan Ciechanowicz, is one of the neighbourhood’s architects and still lives in the building he designed.

“We started from the principle that we were designing not blocks of flats but a way of life. We wanted you to move in and live until you passed away in the very same home,” he says.

He also mentions that they planned to build a primary health centre and, right next to it, flats designed for elderly people.

The idea was simple — special accommodation seniors could move into once they had surrendered their previous apartments. They’d stay in familiar surroundings and be under the supervision of a doctor and a nurse.

“You couldn’t imagine anything better than that, could you?” Stefan asks.
The idea never came to fruition. Communism collapsed, and young people weren’t bothered at all. They didn’t imagine that they’d get old.

The lifts turned out to be a bone of contention among the neighbours. It was possible to add them to five-storey buildings, but not to three-storey ones. Estate administrators found out that installing a new elevator shaft would cost around 315,000 Polish zlotys (€70,000), and thus, monthly rent would increase by around 16.00 zlotys (€3.5) per resident. But the residents living in the lower buildings protested against paying for the luxuries that would benefit others. 64 lodgers submitted official letters stating: “I do not agree with the proposals to install lifts founded by money belonging to all residents…”

The building administration abandoned the idea.

And because the neighbourhood is large, rumours started circulating.

A lady dressed in a white tunic, 50 years old, living in a lower block says: “Who told you all that rubbish?! I don’t want my neighbour from the fourth floor to have a lift? Nonsense! The truth is that the administration promised to install lifts just to get votes at an official residents’ meeting. No one even checked if it was possible. They told people porky pies – lies!”

Another lady, with a shopping trolley, 83 years old, reports: “I’ve been living here for 57 years. When choosing my apartment, I purposefully selected one on the ground floor, with a garden. I was pregnant and expected the baby to be born soon. If people bought their homes later or inherited them from their grandparents, why should I pay for their lifts?”

A man in his late 60s with a dachshund lives on the third floor. When he broke his leg in several places, he had to walk the stairs on crutches. But in spite of his troubles, he still sings a classic “bad-boy” song from the early 20th century: W tym jest rzeczy sedno, że jest mi wszystko jedno, już taki jestem zimny drań… (And that’s the heart of the matter, I should care but I’m a rotter, for I am a cold-hearted-cad)…

A young couple gets out of an elegant BMW, a Warsaw Uprising symbol sticker plastered to the trunk lid, along with the caption Pamiętamy (We Remember) on the bumper.

“Yes, it’s true. Residents decided at an official meeting not to install any lifts because it’s costly. No, I don’t know exactly how much…” she says.

I ask her what the seniors who cannot leave their flats should do now only because of the lack of lifts. She answers: “I don’t think that there are people round here who cannot leave their homes because they lack elevator access.”

There sure are.

Most likely it was Weronika who began the discussion on installing elevators. She owns a studio on the third floor. First, she asked her neighbours for medical certificates which she put in an envelope and handed to the administration. The envelope was pretty thick. She keeps a copy of each certificate in a binder. Here is one from the top of the pile: “Marianna, born in 1992: severe osteo-articular degeneration which makes it impossible for the patient to walk…” Next one: “Romuald, born in 1935: considerable mobility impairment…” Another: “Bożena, born in 1935: rheumatoid arthritis, vertigo, blurred vision, mobility impairment…” On every certificate the same statement of fact: “Cannot go outside.” On some of them: “Elevator essential.”

Weronika’s flat is full of pot plants, decorative plates and figurines. The bathroom has just been renovated and shines like a pink gem. No sign of dust. A book lies on the table. Its title: Healthy joints, better life.

“I remember our first day here. We had a wooden stool, a small Czech TV set, and a couch for two. My husband and I sat and cried with happiness for half an hour. Did I think back then about any future troubles with being able to go outside?” Weronika cries but quickly wipes away the tears. Then she says with unexpected confidence: “I played volleyball, danced… boys adored me. I’m 77 now, the skin of my cheeks still taut, yet some energy is still inside me. When Zosia, who lives upstairs, sees me on the staircase, she kisses me and asks for these elevators. But there’s nothing I can do.” She cries again and after few seconds stops herself crying any further. “Let’s go to Zosia. I’ll show you what things really look like.”

Fourth floor. Two elderly people: Zofia and Romuald. He has not been outside for four years.

“Romuald keeps falling over and is bruised all the time. He’d love to go downstairs. Yes, I have a wheelchair… but what of it? I can’t manage to use it,” Zofia’s voice trembles. “We used to live in a worker’s hostel. Four of us crammed into a 9 sq.m room. I accepted the first apartment which they offered us. And now…” She shows us photographs of her and her family. “These are my babies. My girls. That’s how I remember them, always smiling. God then took one after another. And my husband’s sick.” She bursts into tears.

Weronika sobs and whispers to me: “You see, the girl does what she can with the last of her strength. Just look at how tidy her home is! She’s suffering from vaginal prolapse because she keeps carrying heavy bags. They wanted to keep her at the hospital, but he’d die here without her.”

“The doctor told me that it’s too late for surgery. That I’m 88. That I have to rest. When I go to the supermarket, I tell my husband: ‘Stay in the chair. When I’m back, I’ll give you something as a reward. Coffee or chocolate.’ Then I leave.”

We go one floor below. An 82 year-old woman with tired eyes opens the door for us.

“Can you please just show your little hands, neighbour?” Weronika kindly asks. She’s holding a potato between fingers twisted like tree roots. “I have an incurable rheumatic fever and a broken spine” she explains.

We move on. Second floor.

“I want to show you what life in a building without an elevator really looks like,” Weronika explains.

Three elderly people sit in a dark room in front of a TV set. Maria (105 years old) is sat in an armchair, her daughter Halina with her husband Tadeusz (both over 70) slumped on the sofa.

“It’s quite a miserable life,” Tadeusz says. “This apartment has become an old people’s home.”

Halina chimes in. “Mum only walks to the bathroom and back. With a walker, of course. Not more than five years ago we were together in our summerhouse. But she fell, and they replaced her hip. Since then she hasn’t been outside at all. She tells me all the time: ‘I’d love to go to the pharmacy with you…’ But she can’t.”

“When we were young, we built the road you see outside our window. We are somehow becoming a part of history now, Miss,” Tadeusz finishes.

The next floor down.

“My neighbour at no. 7 won’t open the door. She’s just been through more spinal surgery.” Weronika rings a bell next door. For a long while there is only silence. Finally, an elderly lady, visibly uncomfortable and confused by our presence, opens the door. She straightens her skirt and buttons up the last button of her shirt. She can hardly stand.

“It’s difficult to walk these days,” she apologizes and doesn’t say anything else.

Weronika sums things up before saying goodbye. “It makes you cry when you see it, doesn’t it? I myself have troubles with sciatica and my spine. My doctor said not to lift more than 2 kilos. If I go shopping, I take my trolley with me and then I drag it up the stairs. When I return home, I’m covered in sweat. This is the life of old people. Tragic.”

But not everywhere. There’s an apartment in Warsaw where it’s possible to see elderly people’s plight from a brighter perspective. It is located on the ground floor of a building equipped with a lift. Hydrangeas grow next to freshly cut grass all across the courtyard. Jan Cieśla and Agnieszka Cieśla, both architects, designed this apartment with the future of their ageing parents in mind – both of whom have always loved the seaside. This is the reason why the walls are painted blue and white – colours they’ve always associated with wavy seas. Vacation pictures decorate the walls, though for now their parents are both well enough not to have to think about moving into this specially-designed space.

“We made a mistake. A P-R mistake. We told them that it’s an apartment for elderly people” tells Jan. It explains why it’s sat empty ever since then. Nevertheless, everyone is welcome to make an appointment, to come and take a look around.

They call the armchair “the command centre.” A little push is enough to move it around. To lift the footrest one has to press a button. Both legs go up, and one feels like lounging on a sunbed. Just as it was back in the days when sunbathing used to bring their parents great joy.

There’s also a couch. The young always sit, while the old usually fall into it – but not here. Seniors will not hit their heads against any walls and will get up easily.

In the bathroom there is neither a bath nor shower cabin, just a comfortable chair with a shower head on the wall. A shower curtain is heavier on its bottom so it will not stick to a wet body. The floor is heated to prevent slipping. And even if one’s legs fail, one can grasp the curtain which works like an ABS system in a car—it will slow down a person’s fall by gradually detaching itself from the rod.

The toilet seat has been specially designed, too. It’s as comfortable as the armchair in the living room (though it doesn’t move). The armrest has a couple of buttons built into it. The first flushes the toilet. The second turns on the bidet with warm water. The third activates a dryer. The forth is to eliminate unpleasant smells.

The kitchen: the height of the countertop can be regulated. Cupboards open with a press of a button.

The hall: big enough so one can easily greet all guests.

The bedroom is equipped with a mattress which adjusts itself automatically to body temperature. The nightstand has a place for a phone which can be charged wirelessly. The curtains open automatically when the sun rises. The lighting changes depending on the time of the day – becoming warmer in the evening, before going to sleep.

Developers, seniors, and social workers make appointments to view the apartment. They look, touch, and ask: “How much does this cost? And that?” The armchair—from which one can command the world—is 8000 PLN, or around €1850. The bed with the mattress: 7600 PLN (€1760). Shower chair: 4000 PLN (€930).

“It’s not necessary to have everything installed all at once. We just want to show that the best solutions for seniors is to live independently as long as possible. In an apartment equipped like this, it is more than possible. Expensive? A nursing home in Warsaw costs more or less 5000 PLN (€1160) for a month-long stay” Jan explains.

He makes the point of stressing that for everyone above 65 years of age a change of dwelling is a nasty shock to their lives. This is the reason why the Ideal Senior’s Apartment—as he officially calls his project—is aimed at younger seniors and those aware of impending old age.

“We should design our apartments in a way that allows us to remain independent,” he says. “Only then will our sense of dignity not be at risk. The moment you are forced to be looked after by others like a child is the beginning of that slippery slope. There can be no doubt that the Prisoners Of The Fourth Floor should be helped, and their lives should improve. But the problem is that they have already entered a vicious circle,” he added before I left.

Halina, 86 years old, hasn’t heard about the Ideal Senior’s Apartment. She worked in the bookshop at the Warsaw University of Technology for half a century. Having retired, she had regularly been meeting her ex-colleagues. Yet for the past two years they haven’t been able to visit her because she lives on the fourth floor. She argues about it with her husband all the time. Despite the fact that he died 28 years ago.

“When we were assigned this apartment, I asked him what would happen when we get old. He answered: ‘Don’t worry. We will change the place before this time comes.’ Often I look at his photograph and I complain to him: ‘And what? You lie somewhere comfortably, and I have to struggle with living here.’ After the Uprising of ’44 there were only piles of rubble. We went down to the streets and cried. People lived in basements. There was water and electricity and nothing more. Here I have a gas cooker, central heating and lavatory. It’s beyond belief,” she says quietly, but with courage in her voice.

Her hands shake, and every move she tries to make seems to be a separate problem. Nevertheless, she somehow manages to put white-and-red zigzag napkins, cake plates and cups on the table. Then she carefully places some biscuits on a serving plate. “A small fork and a little spoon.” Looking at her, I also want to speak using diminutives. I would say that her tiny sweater has a small collar and little buttons.

When her husband died, she decided to do what the designers of the Ideal Senior’s Apartment advise: prepare for getting old. She changed the tiles for ones that are easier to keep clean; installed plastic-framed windows which she does not have to disassemble for cleaning, and the bath for a lower edged model, easier to get in and out of.

“But I never imagined that my back would hurt so much…” she says, weeping a little again. Still, she finds enough optimism inside of herself to tell me a joke: “After the War, I couldn’t have a bath because I didn’t have one in my home. Now I do, but I can’t get into it. Honestly, I’d really like to renovate this flat, but I don’t have anywhere to go during the building work.”

“Why didn’t you exchange your home for another on the ground floor, ma’am?” I ask her.

Halina keeps silent for a longer while.

“I didn’t expect to live so long after my husband’s death. I was so depressed that I thought the best thing to do was to die too. But I didn’t die, and it’s not that easy nowadays to change apartments – who’d be interested in swapping with me? No one would want to change their life to make it worse.”

She shows me a notebook in which she keeps track of all her doctors’ appointments. The dates are scheduled a few years ahead. Every month she has at least six appointments. Each month has its own page. She’s had surgeries on both hands, a mastectomy and also suffers from back problems – for the past five years she’s regularly been visiting the hospital to get a “nerve block” procedure done; an injection which relieves pain by desensitizing nerves. It helps for a little while.

When she says that she sometimes cannot use public transport because it is too far away from her front door, forced to take taxis instead, Halina starts crying. And immediately apologizes for it.

“You know, the worst sicknesses or diseases are nothing when you compare them to war” she says. Halina had eight brothers and three sisters. All are now gone – she was the youngest. “I tell myself that if everything was okay and there was no pain, then everyone would like to live a thousand years. These things have to happen so that people lose their will to live.”

The Senior Festival took place in September 2017. Nine days, 360 events in nearly 150 locations all over Warsaw. The program included:

– Japanese calligraphy workshops.
– “Smartphones hold no secrets”. Individual computer classes.
– Ballroom dancing with seniors – free entry!!!
– “M like Motivation” workshops for those who want to reach their goals.

“Sometimes our volunteers are older than the seniors they visit,” says Joanna from the Little Brothers of the Poor Association. “Healthy and energetic seniors take care of those less independent because they genuinely understand what it feels like to be alone or when one’s life loses meaning. And besides, many elderly people suffer from depression. They would not go to see a psychiatrist in a million years.”

According to Poland’s Central Statistical Office, in 2016 exactly 646 Poles over 70 years old took their own lives.

Translated by Wojtek Wieczorek / edited by Marek Kazmierski.