Dzieci piramidy (2007)

During summer holiday children from poor families from the north-east Poland work as tour guides showing people around local Prussian monuments. Before World War II this place was part of the East Prussia. Many Prussian aristocratic families had their landed estate there. Vandalized by Red Army soldiers, the buildings were taken over by the State after the war. State Owned Farms - PGR (Panstwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne) were established on this territory. A collective form of economy disappeared when the system changed, leaving the people who worked in PGRs to their own devices. These people never worked on a free market, therefore they feel lost in this new economic reality now. In post-PGR villages like Rapa or the near Mieduniszki Wielkie, poverty is in the air. People live on pensions and unemployment benefits. They feel abandoned by the State, drowning their frustration in smuggled alcohol. Meanwhile local children decided to capitalize on the history of this region and started showing tourists around Prussian monuments. During such tour one can see: a squalid 18th c. palace of the Stauffenberg family, a pyramid shaped tomb build in 1811 by Wilhelm Von Farenheid and a 19th c. sepulchral chapel of the Steigert family. These monuments bearing witness to their owners' former glory are barely mentioned in official guide books, therefore children download any information possible from the Internet. Their knowledge by far exceeds school curricula. A tourist can hire such a tourist guide or simply buy a leaflet from such a child. You pay at your own discretion. Sometimes it is 1EUR, sometimes a simple "thank you". Some young tour guides speak German. They get generous tips from German groups. To these children this is the only way to earn money for books and school equipment. Some children contribute to household budgets. Their parents look kindly at their children's business, with a hint of jealousy though. It would not be appropriate for them to be tourist guides like their children.