ANNA BRENNA

Milk-bars (bar mleczny in Polish) were born - during the communist era in the Eastern European countries – as government-subsidized canteen, in the attempt to provide for affordable, hearty meals for workers whose companies had no canteen.

 

The menu was basic and included, given scarcity of meat, dairy based dishes and vegetables. Originally, no hot dishes were served and they represented an attempt by the Communists to hook people on milk instead of alcohol, which had become a problem. This was a place where you went simply to enjoy milk humbly served in .25 litre glass with a straw, hence the name: milk-bars.

 

The idea behind this project is to document the existence and the peculiarity of these places, which unfortunately are rapidly disappearing. The reportage has been realized in Krakow after having mapped the survived milk-bars and includes photos taken in some 20 different places. I have tried to re-create the atmosphere which can be experienced in these bars, in which you’re pushed back in a flash-back in the middle of the communist era, before they completely disappear or are refurbished, thus losing their peculiar anachronistic charm.