Kielce – Their Smog Problem

I noticed in one of the city’s parks that some of the statues there have smog masks on them, which slightly bemused me at the time, although I thought no more of it. Anyway, yesterday evening I initially thought that the hotel’s air conditioning was somehow circulating cigarette smoke, which was slightly surprising as it’s a non-smoking hotel and it’s a relatively new build hotel.

So, to deal with what seemed like smoke pollution, I opened the window, but it was apparent that it was getting no better. Indeed, this transpired to be a bloody stupid thing for me to do, as the problem wasn’t the hotel, it’s the air in Kielce. The smog here is at levels which should be unacceptable in any city, and although there are plans by the EU to cut down on the problem, it’s certainly not yet resolved.

Looking at the levels for the last two days that I was here, they were low, so I never really noticed the problem. But, now the levels are high today, it’s definitely noticeable. It can’t be doing the health of the city’s residents any good at all, nor can it be doing anything to promote tourism to the region. I did feel slightly short of breath yesterday, which entirely confused me as that’s not something that I usually ever have a problem with. I’m leaving this wonderful city today, but I’ll be glad to be away from the air pollution.