It refused, despite American arm-twisting, to invite Mr Lavrov to a big democracy shindig in Cracow in September.

ECONOMIST: Polish foreign policy

One of the most powerful scenes, for example, is the mass arrest of the professors of Cracow University by the Germans.

ECONOMIST: Poland's historical epic in the limelight

Cracow, by some counts, has only two such galleries and Warsaw none.

ECONOMIST: Mass distraction in Poland

Karol Wojtyla was appointed an archbishop in Cracow in 1964 but still continued to ski well into 1993, long after he became pope.

ECONOMIST: Pope John Paul II

Despite prejudice and tragedy in Poland's past, a remarkable revival of Jewish life and culture is now under way, including an annual music festival in Cracow, near Auschwitz.

ECONOMIST: New thinking and old wounds around the Auschwitz death camp

At the working dinner with the Deputy Mayor of the city of Cracow in charge of culture, which was held in the new medieval museum built underground, the Director-General underlined the creative dynamism of the country's second city.

UNESCO: CULTURE