Kultowe Dobranocki - not only for children

Dobranocki (or Wieczorynki) are nothing else than Good-night stories.
They've been displayed on Polish TV since 1950s. Every night, exactly at 19:00, when most of the children is waiting in front of TV, a Good-night story begins and lasts until 19:20-19:25. It's been like that since not only me, but also my parents remember. There is no such person in Poland who never watched "Miś Uszatek", which is one of the most famous Polish animated TV series and became famous even in Japan!

Miś Uszatek in front of the Palace of Culture - Warsaw's most characteristic monument from the communist times

The other famous Good-night stories of my parents' childhood are: "Jacek i Agatka" and "Bolek i Lolek". I've never seen a single episode of the first one, however the second one was about two brothers - the tall one and the short one - named Bolek and Lolek.

Extremely old bar of soap for children packed in the paper with Jacek's and Agatka's images

My personal favourites, as far as I remember, were probably: "Maya the Bee" and "Gummi Bears". Unfortunately, usually I wasn't able to watch "Winnie the Pooh" on Sundays coz it was my bathing time!

The front window of the shop (view from Jana Pawla II street)

During one rainy afternoon, I've discovered an incredible place in Warsaw! It's hard to say if it's rather a kind of shop or an extraordinary museum. Somehow it's both! "Kultowe* Dobranocki" is how it is called. Getting there is like becoming one of the Good-night stories' characters. At first it gives an impression of a gadget shop - on the first floor there is a plenty of toys, clothes or cards of which the themes are Maya the Bee, Bolek and Lolek (Poland), Smurfs (Belgium), Koziołek Matołek (Poland), Krtek (Czech Rep.) and so on... However, the staircase in the back of the shop leads to the 2nd floor full of the stuff from old times! Even if you find things for sale on the 2nd floor, they will be really unique - such as postcards more than 20 year old!

Me and the Czech guy - Krtek

"Kultowe Dobranocki" can be found at this address:
Ogrodowa 1a street, Warsaw
(entrance from the back of the building)

* "kultowy", obviously a Polish word, is usually used to describe cultural achievements (book, movie, piece of music) that are well known and appreciated