We walk through the cold and deserted streets of Hołowianki, in silence, in the crystal clear air of this hamlet of 300 inhabitants, belonging to the municipality of Sabnie, a hundred kilometers east of Warsaw. Everything is still here, during winter young are forced to be in their cars, as there is no bar or village hall available. “This is the house of a woman who lives alone with his alcoholic son,” said Małgorzata, owner of the organic farm of the village, indicating a yard overrun by plastic bottles and rusty scrap metal. “Over there lives a woman alone with her little child” continues when we pass next to an old fragile looking wooden house. These typical houses of the Polish countryside are often deteriorated because nobody can afford to restore it. Hołowienki is a fairly representative hamlet of the  socio-economic issues of Polish rural areas, even if it belongs to Mazowsze voivodship, a relatively rich region of the country. But the differences between the countryside and the cities are enormous: no infrastructures -the roads are in bad shape, no social spaces or shops. There are some buses during the day, but moving around without a car is difficult. “In the communist era, there was a kind of culture house in the village, there were plays, parties, poetry readings. Now there is nothing left here. People who looked after it aged, everyone stays in his corner, plus now there is no money. In the nearest village, there is a guy who set up back a cultural center thanks to EU funding: they do concerts, they bought a brand new fire truck, they organize dances … We’re going there in summer, there are plenty of people! “Tells me Małgorzata’s husband. It is not hard to understand the desolation of this yet beautiful village, surrounded by woods and fields covered with snow when you start talking with people from here …