As a counterpoint to the medieval spires of Kraków, Poland’s communist authorities built their own vision of the urban ideal – Nowa Huta. Ben Morris takes a tour. Photos by Tim White

Most visitors to Kraków spend their time and money relaxing in the excellent cafés and bars of the old town. They might take a horse and trap around Rynek Glówny, the largest medieval town square in Europe, or perhaps a tour of the magnificent old castle on Wawel hill. They might even venture into Kazimierz, the resurgent Jewish quarter. But if they were to take a tram, a No4, or perhaps a No15, and travel just a couple of miles across the Vistula to the east of the city, they would come across a hidden gem.

Local guidebooks breezily compare Nowa Huta to the better parts of Paris, the Timur Mausoleum in Samarkand and even the Great Pyramid at Giza. Indeed, while it is essentially just a ‘new town’, a gift from a victorious Josef Stalin to the proletariat of Poland in the years of recovery after World War II, it is said that workers at the town’s steelworks were constantly interrupted by visiting dignitaries who had come to wonder at this modern miracle of state planning. Charles de Gaulle came here, as did Jawaharial Nehru. Fidel Castro famously refused even to visit old Kraków, demanding to be driven straight from the airport to Nowa Huta, as if to pay homage.

As we scream over the Vistula in Michal Ostrowski’s scrubbed-up Trabant, away from the tourist haunts of old Kraków, the city changes before my eyes. Gone are the turrets of Wawel Castle, the street entertainers and the internet cafés. Instead I see a vista of greying tower blocks, essentially local traffic and trees, lots of trees.

Ostrowski is the self-proclaimed president of Crazy Guides Communism Tours, a small company set on luring tourists away from the more traditional attractions of old Kraków and expose them to something a bit different. The Trabant is a car synonymous with the low-quality production of the communist era. Though not typical of Poland, where a copy of Fiat’s Cinquacento ruled the roost (a copy so poor, incidentally, that Fiat insisted its name was changed), it is a useful tourist ruse for Ostrowski, its striking appearance and agricultural sound turning curious heads as it makes its way heroically and noisily through the early evening traffic.

At one stage there is a loud bang from the engine. Ostrowski laughs and warns me that the vehicles are prone to catching fire – and that I am the one sitting on the fuel tank.

We pull up outside a large restaurant on the corner of a modest grey block. I can see through the windows that it is half empty and check the flyer – ‘a real communist-style restaurant and “Milk Bar” canteen’. As we walk into the central square the grey block is put into context by its matching counterparts on three sides. These are impressive and beautifully proportioned buildings reminiscent of the Baroque period. They manage to avoid the concrete uniformity of later high-rise constructions by being made of bricks recovered from war-damaged buildings elsewhere. Building regulations required structures above six storeys to have elevators – that had to be imported from Sweden and were very expensive – which limited the buildings to just five storeys. Originally gleaming white, their current drab greyness cannot wholly disguise their intrinsic grandeur.

Nowa Huta is one o