Polish bison-hunter is still in love with his forest
Copyright 2001 Deutsche Presse-Agentur
September 7, 2001
By Eva Krafczyk
Warsaw/Bialowieza - Wlodzimierz Proznikow stares up at the treetops of Europe's last primeval forest, the Puszcza Bialowieska in eastern Poland. His outstretched arms seem to hug the wooden giants, the mossy tree-trunks and the greenish light shining through the wilderness.
"It looked exactly like this when I first entered the wood in 1938," he exclaims, and his blue-grey eyes sparkle with youthful mischief.
Wlodzimierz Proznikow, 81, was a young student of forestry when he first went into the majestic jungle, home of lynx, wolves and bison. His love for the forest has not diminished in more than 50 years as a warden at the Bialowieza National Park. At 81, someone who spent most of his life outdoors still doesn't feel inclined to retire.
Few know the woods of Bialowieza as well as Wlodzimierz Proznikow. So it is no wonder that he is still busy as a guide in the park on Poland's eastern border. And few have as much to tell as the old man who like many of his generation lived through some dramatic Polish history in the 20th century.
Proznikow's English is heavily accented, but fluent. He learned the language when he served in Polish units of the RAF during World War II. His knowledge of English comes in handy since foreign tourists flock to the Wild East of Poland.
Immediately after the war, however, any Western influence seemed unfavorable to the authorities in Stalinist Poland. When Proznikow returned home, the secret police spied on him.
"Ah, that were bad times," Proznikow says and abandons these memories with a quick wave with his hand.
Being a renowned bison hunter and fluent in Russian, Proznikow's "western" past seemed forgotten and forgiven when Communist dignitaries from Poland and the neighbouring countries needed an experienced guide.
The woods of the national park, of course, were off-limits even to the guns of members of the politburo. After all, the strict reserve of the national park of Bialowieza has been kept undisturbed from any human influence for 80 years.
The surrounding forests, however, offered a lot of game. Wlodzimierz Proznikow got acquainted with the hunting skills of quite a lot of Soviet dignitaries.
He watched Polish communist party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka squinting over his gun and observed the hunting efforts of Soviet party boss Nikita Khrushchev.
Whenever he talks about Khrushchev, Proznikow cannot help grinning. "He was staying at the hotel in the palace park," the old bison-hunter starts his story, and an American tourist who resides at just that place looks deeply impressed.
"It was a cold winter, and Khrushchev and his hunting party were celebrating with a lot of vodka," Proznikow goes on. "Unfortunately they exaggerated a bit. When they went to bed, they were completely drunk and didn't extinguish their fires."
In the course of the night, a fire broke out in the hotel. Khrushchev and his accompanying Soviet heroes left in their pyjamas and fled over the nearby state border - unharmed, although probably with a hangover and a cold.
"The police didn't want to believe a word. They thought we just made up the story," Proznikow shrugs and glances into a round of slightly sceptical faces.
"I always rather wanted to go hunting with normal people, not with the Komintern guys," he sighs. "But they wanted to hunt bison, and that's my specialty."
Proznikow knows the tracks and the trails of the animals in the huge forest. The bisons have no natural enemies, so some of them have to be shot every year.
But when Proznikow tells about some of the bisons he shot over the years, he does so with a tinge of regret rather than the pride of a trophy hunter. He'd rather admire the beauty and the majesty of these enormous animals alive.
"And I never kill an elk," he says. "Not since I once watched a young female elk from very close distance. She was so beautiful and such an easy victim for a hunter with her light legs - I knew in that moment I could never kill one of these animals again."
Proznikow is not sentimental about the animals, but he is convinced the prey should get a chance. "Once I was supposed to hunt with a wealthy western tourist who told me he shot 52 elephants," he says. "It was his hobby".
The old warden sneers. "Such a man isn't a hunter, just a butcher. He doesn't respect the animals."
Wlodzimierz Proznikow respects the animals he hunts down, and he respects nature. "I have seen so-called forests in England, France or Germany that were more or less a leftover area for sawmills," he says with unveiled contempt and gestures at the surrounding trees. "This is what a real forest looks like."
When he talks about the forest, Proznikow sounds like one of the veteran s of the environmental movement. He admits that his harsh refusal to permit the use fertilizer or insecticide in his garden led to rows with his wife Zosia.
"But we have to think about our grandchildren, we cannot participate in poisoning their environment," he argues.
Many in Bialowieza found it ridiculous when he stopped collecting mushrooms or berries in the forest after the disaster in Chernobyl, only 400 kilometres away.
"Nowadays, nobody laughs at me any longer," he says. "Many people in our region suffer from lymphatic cancer."