For decades, Germans holidaying on the white sandy beaches of Usedom have opted to leave their swimming trunks at home. Their penchant for naked bathing is nothing unusual in a country where naturism is popular and seen as, well, natural.
But this summer, border controls between Germany and Poland were dismantled as part of the Schengen agreement. Now flocks of Poles stroll along the leafy coastal paths to nearby German towns — and many are shocked by what they see.
“It is unheard of. People sunning themselves in the nude! And right on the coast, where normal people go walking,” Stanislawa Borecka, a 63-year-old from the Polish town of Szczecin, told the Markische Allgemeine newspaper. “What should I tell my grandson?”
But for Germans of all ages who enjoy swimming and sunbathing on naturist — or FKK (free body culture) — beaches, the disapproving glances from Polish walkers are incomprehensible and intrusive.
“It’s an FKK beach. It’s awful that fully dressed Polish people come and stare at us,” said 46-year-old Elke Bernholz.
Naturism is so popular on the Baltic coast island of Usedom that German travel agent OssiUrlaub selected it as a destination for its first nudist charter flight, a trip which was later canceled because of “moral concerns.”
The culture clash between the border towns is a recent phenomenon. Many cheered in December, when the barbed-wire fence was dismantled as part of the Schengen deal.
“Finally we can cross the border without passport controls,” said Szczecin’s mayor, Janusz Zmurkiewicz.
Little did he know that some German tourists prefer to stroll in their “birthday suits.” With the FKK beach lying close to the border, some naturists have strayed on to the Polish beach.
For many, that is a step too far.
“It is disgusting,” said Edward Zajac, a Szczecin politician who wants to move the FKK beach from the Polish border.
But the Germans, who have been unfolding their towels on the beach year in year out, are unlikely to want to move.
For the time being, authorities plan to put up signs marking the boundaries of the nudist beach — in both German and Polish.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema