POLAND:For six generations and 167 years, the residents of Polonezköy on the Asian side of İstanbul have introduce their Turkish neighbors to Polish traditions and culture.

´Our situation is extraordinary,´ used to describe the position of Polish residents of Polonezköy Zofia Ryzy, who lived there all her life, ´Poland is our motherland, but Adampol on the Bosporus is like Poland with all its traditions on the Turkish soil´

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/

Hahahah, I saw this polish title of the thread and thought "wow, this is not english, but I understand!" (it means "polish settlement on turkish soil")

It´s very nice... supposedly Ottomans were nice to us, although we later beat them in Vienna.

Nice article, thank you Ros.

I´ve been there That was a piece of adventure actually as going there by taxi, my friend and I were stopped by jandarma for a routine document check and it occurred I had left my passport at the hotel. So we started sightseeing Polonezkoy from jandarma station They were so unbelievably nice, waited till my hotel faxes my passport, gave us tea and told us stories about Polish people there.

There are lots of spots with Polish names and you can see Polish flag waving next to Turkish one. Unfortunately we didn´t meet any people speaking Polish (my friend wore a t-shirt with a Polish text as a bait) and when we asked about Poles in a Polish restaurant, we were told that the Poles there are assimilated and are actually more Turkish than Polish.

Still, it was nice to feel a bit of homeland 2,000km away from home

Hmmm... I read somewhere that they speak Polish.. but I guess not..

Perhaps some do - we just haven´t met them

so do you call those Poles who were born in Turkey assimilated because they are "more Turkish than Polish"? But you call this "integration to the society" in Germany when the same thing happens to the Turks.

Tami, work on your aggression

As for your question - yes! I call people who speak the language of the country they were born in and who live a normal life rather than whine that the state doesn´t give them equal chances assimilated And, to answer the question you´re about to ask - I think it´s the right way - if you move to a country and decide to live there you have to assimilate. And if you´re a second/third generation of immigrants in a country and speak no language then you´re simply stupid and deserve the state not to do anything for you.

That´s putting it mildly... however, I agree.