'This is it." Marcin Baniak holds the arm of his four-year-old daughter in one hand and points at an empty flowerbed with the other. I'm not sure what I am supposed to be looking at. The only things poking through the dirt are the stumps of a few rose bushes. Marcin senses my confusion and tries again. He turns round and points at another barren patch of mud. "Maybe this," he says, "is it."
Whatever "this" was isn't there any more. And with good reason, as Marcin finally explains. We are standing in a street near his home in Nowa Huta, a suburb of Kraków, and somewhere round here, or maybe over there, once stood a huge statue of Lenin.
The last few years have been an era of flux for both the town and the Baniaks. Nowa Huta, or "New Steelworks", was built from scratch in 1949 by the new communist government. It was to house the 30,000 workers at the factory from which the town takes its name; for decades, Nowa Huta, a place of vast grey housing blocks and wide, wide roads, was considered an icon of socialist town-planning, an up-yours to nearby religious, academic Kraków. The steelworks themselves were named after Lenin. The central square, when viewed from the air, formed a soviet star. And, for a while, there were no churches.
For Marcin, it's funny to remember all this, especially since Poland is often now considered a capitalist success story. The old admin offices at the factory house two banks: Polski and Deutsche. The flat he and his wife Sylwia bought six years ago for around 100,000 zlotys (£22,000) has trebled in value. Poland was the only country in Europe to avoid a recession during the global financial crisis. That statue of Lenin has been ripped down and sent to Sweden, where it's on display in a kitsch theme park; the central square is named after Ronald Reagan. The steelworks – its workforce cut to 2,000 – was privatised in 2003. And now there are churches. "More churches than schools," jokes Marcin.
The Baniaks moved here six years ago. Back then the family consisted of Sylwia, now 34, a clerk at the local council, and Marcin, 33, an up-and-coming music critic. Two years on, Amelia was born, then Olga. Sylwia took time off work to look after the children, though she wants to return this winter to her job. Marcin became a presenter on Radio Kraków, before losing his job in 2008. He now works in the PR department of a Polish publishing house.
The Baniaks have agreed to let me stay with them for four days in mid-March to catch a glimpse of suburban Polish life. But it's not until I arrive on a Saturday that I realise how generous their offer of hospitality is. They barely have enough space for the four of them, let alone an unknown guest.
The Baniaks' flat is less than 50 sq m, and consists of four small rooms – a kitchen, a playroom for the kids, a bathroom and a living room. They don't technically have a bedroom. At night, they turn two sofas into temporary beds and, during my stay, they all sleep in the playroom. I'm surprised, but, says Marcin, this setup is pretty usual for families living in flats. Some of their neighbours get by with only 30 sq m. Polish dwellings are, on average, some of the smallest living spaces in Europe. Many families use sofa-beds and, like the Baniaks, their bathrooms won't always fit a basin.
"It's my dream to live in a house," says Marcin. He has only ever lived in flats, even in Włoszczowa, the rural town where he and Sylwia grew up. But that might soon change. A few miles out of Kraków, in the shadow of a small forest, stands a small, grey, unfinished house. With luck, the Baniaks might live here by the end of the year. They bought the land four years ago for 80,000zl (about £17,000). At the time they saw it as only an investment; they would re-sell it, untouched, after it had doubled in value. But with flat prices in Nowa Huta rising steeply – 300,000zl gets you just 60 sq m – they realised it wasn't much more expensive to build a two-storey house of their own.
It's been hard work, and a big financial risk. "We don't go on holiday," says Marcin. "We didn't buy a car." Their parents have lent them some money, and the family are doing much of the labour themselves.
During my short stay, Sylwia serves an array of Polish delicacies that would silence anyone who has ever doubted central European cuisine: pierogi (dumplings), twarog (a soft, sweet cheese dish), barszcz (borscht, sometimes with rye and sausages), placki ziemniaczane (potato pancakes), smalec (a pork-and-lard spread), gyros (a layered Greek salad), and rosot (chicken soup, traditional for Sunday lunch). But Sylwia is wary of being photographed in the kitchen. She doesn't want to be considered a typical Polish housewife. She wants to go back to work. But, the Baniaks stress, this isn't a choice afforded to most Polish women: many employers find excuses not to keep new mothers on staff. Sylwia should be fine, because she works for the council, but private firms are more discriminatory. "I know women who are afraid to have children because they may lose their jobs," says Marcin. One friend, a pharmacist, was fired after having a baby because her boss thought she would be too tired. Child support is virtually nonexistent in Poland. The state gives families a one-off 1,000zl (£220) at birth, an amount the Kraków regional government matches for its own residents. But there is nothing continuous.
So the Baniaks count their pennies. They hardly ever eat out – most restaurants are just too expensive, and even supermarket prices are rocketing. Amelia, Marcin and I go shopping at the local Lidl, which the family visits about three times a week. They spend about a third of their household income on food and Marcin is slightly worried because he says some foods have doubled in cost in the last month. He picks up a pack of sugar that costs about 5zl (£1.10). A month ago it was not much more than 3zl (65p); now, in some places, it costs more than 7zl (£1.50). Poland avoided a recession mainly because an emergent middle-class kept on buying. But with prices rising, Marcin wonders how much longer that consumer confidence will continue. "I'm worried there will be strikes because if the prices keep going up, it will be very hard for a lot of people."
Marcin's job is at Wydawnictwo Literackie, a high-brow publishing house associated with Polish literary giants such as Czesław Miłosz, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Witold Gombrowich. Marcin enjoys it – "We support Polish literature, and that's why I like it there" – but it wasn't his first calling. He was a freelance music critic and broadcaster for several years, before getting a staff job in 2006 at Radio Kraków, who gave him his own show. But he was squeezed out because of political machinations. A new centrist government under prime minister Donald Tusk was elected, but the outgoing party, the rightwing Law and Justice, still controlled the state media. So when Tusk made the populist gesture of cutting the Polish equivalent of the television licence, Marcin says Law and Justice tried to highlight the financial cost of such a measure by sacking local broadcasters. Marcin was one of the casualties.
He now earns 4,400zl a month (about £960) in his PR job. More than 300zl goes on tax, around 600zl towards their pension, and 300zl on health insurance, leaving the family about 3,000zl (£650) for bills. A third of that goes on food, a fifth on gas and water, and most of the rest on the new house. Amelia's kindergarten fees used to be around 300zl, but the government recently began subsidising almost all of it. The Baniaks are worried about other government announcements, however. At the moment, Poles pay most of their pension savings to a state fund, and the remaining 7% to private schemes. People are suspicious of a plan to switch more into the state fund. "Many people are worried that our retirement [payments] will be lower," says Marcin. "And many people suspect it's because of public debt."
At the flat, Amelia and Olga are building things with Playmobil. Weekends are centred around the kids, though both Sylwia and Marcin love to read. Their living room shelves are crammed with Polish translations of JM Coetzee, John Banville, Doris Lessing, David Mitchell and Cormac McCarthy, as well as some of Marcin's clients: Ignacy Karpowicz and Jacek Dukaj. The family CD collection is large and varied, but Radiohead's entire back-catalogue takes pride of place, and a poster of a smiling Thom Yorke hangs in the playroom.
In the years following 1989, Nowa Huta was "considered something like a slum", says Marcin, and when the Baniaks arrived, their flat was almost derelict. Today, there is still graffiti inside the building, but the place is more gentrified. A re-paint is due, and the teenage girls who used to loiter on the stairwells have disappeared. Several have had babies, says Marcin. "There's a lot of religious education in Poland, but no sex education."
Catholicism's a vexing issue for the Baniaks – and increasingly for Poland. During communism, the church was a rallying point for dissent. Priests' sermons were often implicitly critical of the regime. Around 95% of Poles still identify themselves as Catholic, but, says Marcin, that figure is shrinking, particularly among the young. They don't like the way the church is still involved in politics, he says, or how it runs a reactionary radio station, Radio Maryja. Or how it campaigns against condoms and IVF. But, clearly, church-going is still popular. On Sunday morning, Marcin takes Amelia and me to a children's mass at the church where the Baniaks were married, a beautiful wooden chapel in nearby Mogila. Congregants are spilling out of the back of the building when we arrive.
Sylwia is religious, and a crucifix hangs in their living room, but Marcin doesn't know quite where he stands. He is not even that keen to talk about it, for fear of causing offence. "The church helped us to survive during communism," he says, diplomatically. But, he hazards, "this is a different country now." He'll still take his children to mass every so often and feels "a big social pressure" to do so. "If parents don't want their children to go to religious classes, they're considered a bit strange."
Poles returning from stints in the UK and Ireland, he says, have brought home "a different attitude to the world", more secular in outlook. Marcin has never considered leaving, partly because overseas work, though well-paid, is not so glamorous. His best friend has two degrees, but when he moved to the US, he could only find work as a roofer. And while emigration helped temporarily lessen unemployment, says Marcin, there are hidden social costs. Emigres created broken families: "Many children don't know their father or mother."
On Monday morning, Olga is poorly so Marcin and Sylwia take her to the doctor. Healthcare is technically free in Poland. "But it's not true," says Marcin. There are long waiting lists, even for urgent consultations. Sylwia had a severe earache recently, but was told she would have to wait a month. Fortunately, a friend who works at a hospital arranged for them to see a state doctor out of hours, but they had been on the verge of shelling out for private treatment.
In general, though, the Baniaks are upbeat about Poland. Historian Adam Zamoyski, writing in Poland: A History (2009), describes the country, which suffered appallingly in the second world war, as "one which has been through hard times and turned the corner". Two years on, Marcin may be worried about whether Poland's economic strength will hold, but his overall outlook is optimistic. "These are maybe the most successful years of our history," he says. "Independence, Nato, the EU, and maybe now the euro. It's exciting."
When Marcin first talks of his international ambitions for Poland, they are limited to gaining the respect of the international community. "I would like Poland to be an ordinary, normal country in Europe. Nothing less and nothing more." But later, he speaks with more ambition. "Maybe we have an important role to connect western Europe to the east," Marcin says. "We are here between Germany and Russia. So we can be something like a bridge."
My last morning with the Baniaks coincides with the first day of spring. To celebrate the passing of seasons, it is traditional for Polish schoolchildren to congregate at the nearest river and "drown" a colourful paper doll. The teachers at Amelia's kindergarten lead all 40 children to the bridge across the local stream. Marcin and I tag along. The doll is called Marzanna (in Polish folklore, she is a friend of winter) and one boy has the special job of putting her in the water. He hoists her above his shoulders, teeters towards the rail of the bridge, and lets the breeze take her. "Zegnaj zimo! [Goodbye winter!]" the children sing, as she touches the water. "Witaj wiosno! [Hello spring!]"
It's politically symbolic, I joke. Marcin smiles. "Maybe," he says. "Communism was a bad winter, the bad years of our country. So this is goodbye communism, hello brave new world."