The flour hangs in the air like snow. Thick, white, everywhere. On the floor, on the shelves, on the hair of Stanisław Nowak, who for forty-five years has been getting up at three in the morning to bake bread for his district. He is seventy-two years old, but his hands – wrinkled, covered with burn scars – move with the precision of a surgeon.
“The dough has to feel that you love it,” he says, kneading a large ball of rye dough. “If you treat it with disrespect, the bread won’t turn out. It will be hard, dry. Dead.”
It’s five in the morning, Saturday, October 12, 2024. The “Pod Aniołem” bakery on Oliwska Street in Gdańsk is waking up. Here, time flows differently – there’s no rush, no computers, no automatons. There’s only Stanisław, his son Krzysztof, an oven from 1978, and a bread recipe that is older than both of them combined.
The Bakery That Remembers the PRL
I enter at half past five. The smell of bread hits so strongly that I stop mid-step. This isn’t a supermarket smell. It’s a childhood smell. From a time when bread was bought on ration, and a loaf lasted a week because it was real. Heavy. Full of flavor.
“People come here not just for bread,” says Stanisław, taking the first batch of loaves from the oven. “They come for a piece of the past. For something that reminds them that the world wasn’t always fast and plastic.”
The bakery has been operating since 1974. It was founded by Stanisław’s father, Jan Nowak, a former Home Army soldier who decided to become a baker after the war because – as he used to say – “people will always need bread.” Stanisław learned everything from him: how to make dough, how to read the oven, how to talk to customers.
“My father used to say that a good baker is not one who sells the most, but one to whom people return,” Stanisław recalls, arranging hot loaves on wooden shelves. “And he was right.”
Client Number 237
At six thirty, the doors open. A queue is already waiting. First in line – as always – Mrs. Helena. Eighty-six years old, straw hat, black handbag. She has been coming here every day since 1982.
“I don’t come here for the bread,” she says with a smile, as Krzysztof packs her a rye loaf. “I come here for the people. If I don’t come, the day doesn’t seem to start well.”
Mrs. Helena is number 237 on the list of regular customers. Stanisław has been keeping this list for thirty years – in an old notebook, written in blue pen. There are names, dates of the first visit, favorite types of bread. And short notes: “likes to talk about grandchildren,” “doesn’t like wholemeal,” “always pays by card.”
“This isn’t a business,” says Stanisław, turning the pages of the notebook. “This is family.”
A young man in a suit, with headphones around his neck, stands in the queue. He looks about thirty-something. Stanisław doesn’t know him.
“First time, sir?” he asks.
The man nods.
“My wife told me to come. She says they have the best bread in Gdańsk here.”
Stanisław smiles broadly.
“That’s true. And your wife is wise?”
“Very,” the man replies, laughing.
The Son Who Didn’t Want to Be a Baker
Krzysztof stands at the counter, handing out bread. He is forty-eight years old, with thick black hair and gloves splattered with flour. He doesn’t smile often. He seems tired. He had been putting bread into the oven with his father since three in the morning. Again.
“I thought I’d be an IT specialist,” he says, giving change to another customer. “I studied IT, worked in a corporation. I earned well. But my father fell ill in 2015, had a stroke. There was no one to run the bakery. I came back for two months. And I stayed.”
Krzysztof doesn’t regret it. But he admits it’s hard work. His wife says she sees him more in photos than at home. His children ask why dad is sleeping when they come home from school.
“But do you see these people?” he points to the queue. “They don’t come here to a shop. They come here to us. If I close this bakery, they will lose more than just a place to buy bread.”
Stanisław listens to his son with pride. He says nothing, but places a hand on his shoulder. A simple gesture, but full of meaning.
The Crisis That Almost Killed Them
It wasn’t always easy. In 2020, during the pandemic, the bakery almost went bankrupt. The city was closed, people stopped going out, sales dropped by 60 percent. Stanisław took out loans to pay for electricity. The electric oven devours energy like a monster – 400 zlotys a day just for electricity.
“I thought it was the end,” Stanisław admits, looking at the old oven. “I was sixty-eight, I was tired. I thought I’d close, retire. But people started coming, even when they didn’t have to. They bought bread to support us. Mrs. Helena once bought ten loaves. She said it was for her neighbors. And I know she lives alone.”
Tears well up in his eyes, but he holds them back. He wipes his face with a flour-dusted sleeve.
“Then I understood that we don’t do this for money. We do it because we are part of this community.”
The Last Loaf of the Day
At one o’clock, the bakery closes. Five loaves are left. Stanisław doesn’t like to throw away bread, so he packs them into plastic bags and goes out into the street. He knows every homeless person in the area. He gives them bread, sometimes coffee, sometimes just talks.
“One of them, Janek, used to be a teacher,” Stanisław says, returning to the bakery. “Life broke him. Alcohol, divorce. But he’s still a human being. And he still needs bread.”
When everyone has left, Stanisław is alone. He turns off the lights, checks that the oven is off, locks the door. Oliwska Street is empty. Silence.
Tomorrow, the alarm will ring again at three in the morning. Again flour, again the oven, again the queue.
“How much longer?” I ask him at the end.
Stanisław smiles sadly.
“As long as I can. And then let Krzysztof decide.”
He walks away slowly, limping slightly on his left leg. His silhouette disappears into the darkness. But the smell of bread remains.
And it will be here for a long time. As long as there are people like Stanisław.
Source: Own report, interviews with the owners and customers of the “Pod Aniołem” bakery
