Very backward and poor: farmers still using horses, living in tiny wooden houses, with plastic furniture and walls covered with religious images. It changed a lot in 30yrs. Capitalism and Europe.
I left Gdańsk in 1984 as a child. It was rough times then, the waiting in line with coupons for bread/milk, government limitations on housing size, having a grandfather taken from his home in the middle of the night for being accused of bad mouthing the government...
Things improved dramatically over the years however. Sometimes I wonder how life would be if I never left. At least I wouldn’t be competing against Indians and Chinese for housing in San Jose ?.
Lots of fun images which match my experience there in 1988 when I visited my grandmother's village of Tuliszków.
The people in the image above could totally be the 2nd cousins I visited back then.