On a balmy Friday afternoon earlier this month, the most feared group of people in Europe breached the 13th-century defensive walls of Wrocław and poured into the town square. Some wore blue berets, others cowboy hats, straw boaters and, in one instance, a three-tiered cake stand adorned with kitchen sponges and pompoms. Resistance was futile: less than an hour after their arrival, the mayor ceremonially handed over the key to the Polish city’s gate to the flamboyantly dressed couple they had chosen as their queen and king.
本月早些时候一个和煦的周五下午，欧洲最可怕的一群人冲破了弗罗茨瓦夫 13 世纪的防御墙，涌入了城市广场。有些人戴着蓝色贝雷帽，有些人戴着牛仔帽，穿着草帽，还有一个三层蛋糕架，上面装饰着厨房海绵和绒球。抵抗是徒劳的：在他们到达后不到一个小时，市长就隆重地将波兰城门的钥匙交给了他们选择的一对穿着华丽的夫妇作为他们的王后和国王。
Baby boomers are often talked of as an existential threat to Europe’s economic prosperity and welfare state model. The population of men and women born in the mid-1940s to mid-60s, who are now in their 60s, 70s and 80s, is calculated by the World Health Organization to have overtaken people younger than 15 in Europe this year, and it is estimated boomers will make up more than 30% of the EU’s population by 2100. They are forecast to leave workplaces understaffed and healthcare services overwhelmed. Economists talk of them in terms of natural catastrophes (“the silver tsunami”) or acts of terrorism (“the demographic bomb”).
婴儿潮一代经常被说成是对欧洲经济繁荣和福利国家模式的生存威胁。世界卫生组织计算出 1940 年代中期至 60 年代中期出生的男性和女性人口，现在年龄在 60 多岁、70 多岁和 80 多岁之间，今年在欧洲超过了 15 岁以下的人口，估计到 2100 年婴儿潮一代将占欧盟人口的 30% 以上。据预测，它们将使工作场所人手不足，医疗保健服务不堪重负。经济学家用自然灾害（“银色海啸”）或恐怖主义行为（“人口炸弹”）来谈论它们。
Yet Wrocław, Poland’s fourth largest city, is not keeping its elderly citizens at arm’s length, but hugging them close. At the annual “march of hats”, they are invited to parade through the city in festive attire and extravagant headgear. A marching band leads them to a stage outside the town hall, where the most innovative headdresses are awarded prizes (a teacup fascinator made of cardboard and a ceramic top hat beat the competition this year). The crowds then pair up to shake their tail feathers to the hits of their youth. The Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand and Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes boom out of the speakers as dancing couples swirl around the cobbled square.
然而，波兰第四大城市弗罗茨瓦夫并没有与老年人保持距离，而是紧紧拥抱他们。在一年一度的“帽子游行”中，他们被邀请穿着节日服装和奢华的头饰在城市中游行。一支军乐队带领他们来到市政厅外的舞台上，在那里为最具创意的头饰颁奖（纸板制成的茶杯装饰和陶瓷大礼帽在今年的比赛中击败了对手）。然后，人群成对地摇晃他们的尾羽，随着他们年轻时的打击。披头士乐队的《我想握住你的手》和猫王的《蓝色绒面革鞋》从扬声器中传出，跳舞的情侣在鹅卵石广场上旋转。
The point of the gathering is to challenge what behaviour is considered appropriate for old age. “My grandmother was very strict and religious, and she dressed almost like a nun,” says pensioner Ewa Rapacz, 80. “My mother socialised more, but her priority was her house and garden. For me, the most important thing is to be around people.”
聚会的目的是挑战哪些行为被认为适合老年。“我的祖母非常严格和虔诚，她的穿着几乎像个修女，”80 岁的养老金领取者 Ewa Rapacz 说。“我妈妈更多地参加社交活动，但她的首要任务是她的房子和花园。对我来说，最重要的是与人在一起。
摇晃他们的尾羽......波兰弗罗茨瓦夫。摄影：Róbert Németi/The Guardian
One of the approximately 180,000 retirees who make up just under a third of the Lower Silesian capital’s population, Rapacz is an enthusiastic participant of drama workshops funded by the city’s administration and an active organiser of a group of seniors who meet to play games from their childhood. “People my age often feel undervalued and overlooked,” she says, wearing a homemade hat with the slogan Ocaleni (“survivors”) and a bright red tassled T-shirt. “But not me: I feel very recognised, and how could you overlook me in this outfit?”
Rapacz 是约占下西里西亚首府人口近三分之一的大约 180,000 名退休人员之一，他热衷于参加由该市政府资助的戏剧研讨会，并且是一群老年人的积极组织者，他们从小就聚在一起玩游戏。“我这个年纪的人经常感到被低估和忽视，”她说，她戴着一顶印有 Ocaleni（“幸存者”）口号的自制帽子，穿着一件亮红色的流苏 T 恤。“但不是我：我觉得自己很被认可，你怎么能忽视穿着这套衣服的我呢？”
The march of hats kicks off a month of festivities and activities, including a gala night at the Wrocław Opera, Nordic walking trips to the surrounding countryside, film nights, workshops on dealing with online scammers, and open-air painting sessions.
帽子游行拉开了为期一个月的庆祝活动的序幕，包括弗罗茨瓦夫歌剧院的盛大之夜、前往周围乡村的越野行走之旅、电影之夜、应对在线骗子的研讨会和露天绘画课程。
“We want to give the seniors of Wrocław a chance to show a different face: not grey and sad, but dignified and elegant,” says Robert Pawliszko, the head of Wrocław’s senior centre, who has been involved in organising the march of hats for 15 years. “Some people say older people are a burden – we want to demonstrate they have a purpose and a goal.”
“我们想给弗罗茨瓦夫的老年人一个机会，让他们展示一张不同的面孔：不是灰色和悲伤的，而是端庄和优雅的，”弗罗茨瓦夫老年人中心负责人罗伯特·帕利什科 （Robert Pawliszko） 说，他参与组织帽子游行已有 15 年了。有些人说老年人是一种负担——我们想证明他们有目的和目标。
That attitude is remarkable considering that Poland is feeling the crunch of demographic change more acutely than other parts of the continent. By 2035, the country’s overall population is forecast to decrease by 1.5 million people, while the number of citizens over the retirement age (60 for women and 65 for men) is set to rise rapidly – a trend reflected across the former eastern bloc. According to Eurostat, people aged 80 years and over will account for 15% of the EU’s population by the year 2100, a two-and-a-half-fold increase.
考虑到波兰比非洲大陆其他地区更强烈地感受到人口变化的紧迫性，这种态度是非凡的。到 2035 年，该国的总人口预计将减少 150 万人，而超过退休年龄的公民人数（女性 60 岁，男性 65 岁）将迅速上升——这一趋势反映在前东部集团。根据欧盟统计局的数据，到 2100 年，80 岁及以上的人口将占欧盟人口的 15%，增长两倍半。
At some point, these people will need looking after, but the younger generation is hardly rushing to the rescue. Perhaps surprisingly considering the role that Catholicism still plays in Polish society, the country has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe (alongside other traditionally Catholic countries like Italy and Spain). Young Poles are having children later in life, or not at all. As a result, authorities estimate that by the year 2035 there will be 215 care-giving relatives for every 100 seniors in need of care, down from almost 300 in 2018.
在某些时候，这些人需要照顾，但年轻一代几乎不会急于救援。考虑到天主教在波兰社会中仍然扮演着重要的角色，也许令人惊讶的是，该国是欧洲出生率最低的国家之一（与意大利和西班牙等其他传统天主教国家并列）。年轻的波兰人在晚年生孩子，或者根本没有孩子。因此，当局估计，到 2035 年，每 100 名需要照顾的老年人将有 215 名照顾亲属，低于 2018 年的近 300 名。
Yet among researchers who are studying the ways in which municipalities can prepare for an ageing society, Polish cities like Wrocław – and its easterly neighbour Kraków – are increasingly being held up as pioneers for other parts of Europe to follow.
然而，在研究城市如何为老龄化社会做准备的研究人员中，像弗罗茨瓦夫及其东部邻国克拉科夫这样的波兰城市越来越被视为欧洲其他地区效仿的先驱。
Both cities are among those in Europe with the highest number of universities of the third age, offering taught higher education programmes for retirees. In Wrocław, a city of 680,000 people, there are 10 such lifelong-learning institutions; Kraków has six. Since 2014, Wrocław has also had a “council of seniors” – an elected body of older citizens who meet six times a year and cooperate with the city council and the mayor’s office to alert them to the everyday challenges faced by pensioners.
这两个城市都是欧洲第三时代大学数量最多的城市之一，为退休人员提供授课式高等教育课程。在拥有 680,000 人口的弗罗茨瓦夫市，有 10 所这样的终身学习机构;克拉科夫有 6 个。自 2014 年以来，弗罗茨瓦夫还成立了一个“老年人委员会”——一个由老年人组成的民选机构，每年召开六次会议，并与市议会和市长办公室合作，提醒他们注意养老金领取者面临的日常挑战。
Kraków has introduced a scheme where those aged 70+ or with a significant degree of disability, wanting to visit departed friends, can order a microcar that will take them to the graves of their loved ones for free. Those in single-person households can also call up a “golden handyman” who will help them replace lightbulbs, fix broken switches or unclog a blocked drain for no extra charge. And the city directly funds 50 “centres of activity” that are open every day from 10am to 3pm, and whose municipal support is contingent on them coming up with activities that bring together seniors and younger people.
克拉科夫推出了一项计划，那些 70+ 岁或有严重残疾的人如果想探望已故的朋友，可以订购一辆微型车，免费带他们去亲人的坟墓。单身家庭的人还可以打电话给“金杂工”，帮助他们更换灯泡、修理损坏的开关或疏通堵塞的下水道，无需额外费用。该市直接资助了 50 个“活动中心”，这些中心每天上午 10 点至下午 3 点开放，其市政支持取决于他们能否举办将老年人和年轻人聚集在一起的活动。
“We have meeting points for the elderly in Germany too”, said Niklas Rathsmann of Germany’s Körber Foundation, which recently brought a delegation of German lawmakers to the southern Polish city to learn from its innovations. “But in Poland they have been much quicker to realise that these centres need to offer something more exciting than bingo nights. In Germany we tend to focus on the deficits – in Poland they are good at looking at the potential.”
“我们在德国也有老年人聚会点”，德国柯尔柏基金会（Körber Foundation）的尼克拉斯·拉斯曼（Niklas Rathsmann）说，该基金会最近带领一个德国立法者代表团来到波兰南部城市，学习其创新成果。“但在波兰，他们很快就意识到这些中心需要提供比宾果之夜更令人兴奋的东西。在德国，我们倾向于关注赤字，而在波兰，他们善于观察潜力。
“In the Netherlands we complain about old people all the time”, says Joost van Hoof, a professor of urban ageing at The Hague University of Applied Sciences who has been researching age-friendly cities since 2007. “Even politicians who rely on these people as their voters do it. But I never hear that kind of negative rhetoric from Poland.”
“在荷兰，我们一直在抱怨老年人”，海牙应用科学大学城市老龄化教授 Joost van Hoof 说，他自 2007 年以来一直在研究老年友好型城市。“即使是依赖这些人作为选民的政客也会这样做。但我从来没有从波兰听到过这种负面言论。
Terms like “silver tsunami” are Van Hoof’s bugbear. “It’s too alarmist. It’s an enormous blessing that we no longer have to prepare to wave goodbye to our loved ones when they turn 65.” Europe’s 70-75 age cohort, especially, are not yet people in need, but mostly healthy, mobile and more affluent than previous generations. “These people are a great untapped resource, whether as childcare support or as consumers eager to spend their pension money on cultural offerings.” Polish cities like Wrocław, he says, are one of the continent’s few municipalities to seize on these opportunities.
像“银色海啸”这样的术语是 Van Hoof 的毛病。“这太危言耸听了。这是一个巨大的祝福，我们不再需要准备在亲人 65 岁时向他们挥手告别。尤其是欧洲的 70-75 岁年龄段，他们还没有成为需要帮助的人，但大多数是健康、流动性强且比前几代人更富裕的人。“这些人是一个巨大的未开发资源，无论是作为儿童保育支持，还是作为渴望将养老金用于文化产品的消费者。”他说，像弗罗茨瓦夫这样的波兰城市是非洲大陆为数不多的抓住这些机会的城市之一。
波兰弗罗茨瓦夫 （Wrocław） 帽子游行上的一些非凡作品。摄影：Róbert Németi/The Guardian
Dorota Skoczylas is only 56, but her journey speaks of the city’s proactive attitude to demographic change. A trained banker with 30 years’ experience in debit and credit services, Skoczylas has for the last 10 years juggled her career with caring for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s and related illnesses.
Dorota Skoczylas 只有 56 岁，但她的旅程说明了这座城市对人口变化的积极态度。Skoczylas 是一位训练有素的银行家，在借记卡和信贷服务方面拥有 30 年的经验，在过去的 10 年里，她一直在照顾患有阿尔茨海默氏症和相关疾病的母亲。
“As a carer and a banker I became very aware of the challenges that digital services pose for senior citizens, and I wanted to share my expertise,” she says. She approached a Polish bank with a proposal to organise training courses for elderly customers on its behalf, but got no reply. The employment office in Wrocław, however, spotted her potential to boost what it calls the “silver economy” and gave her a grant to retrain during the pandemic. She now hosts workshops in accounting, digital banking and online shopping at the city’s care homes, senior activity centres and universities of the third age.
“作为一名护理人员和银行家，我非常清楚数字服务给老年人带来的挑战，我想分享我的专业知识，”她说。她向一家波兰银行提出代表该银行为老年客户举办培训课程的建议，但没有得到回复。然而，弗罗茨瓦夫的就业办公室发现了她促进所谓的“银色经济”的潜力，并给了她一笔补助金，让她在大流行期间接受再培训。她现在在该市的护理院、老年活动中心和第三年龄大学举办会计、数字银行和在线购物方面的研讨会。
“For a long time, the only question the state asked itself about seniors was how to say goodbye to them,” Skoczylas says. “Now that attitude is changing. These people may not have the internet skills yet, but they have a vast amount of experience and knowledge.”
“长期以来，该州对老年人的唯一问自己的问题是如何与他们说再见，”Skoczylas 说。“现在这种态度正在改变。这些人可能还不具备互联网技能，但他们拥有丰富的经验和知识。
Belatedly, the private sector is being made to catch up. Poland’s government, which has one of Europe’s only ministers for senior affairs, this April passed an act that from June next year obliges banks to provide in-branch hardware and personalised advice on how to use its online services. “It will be a revolution,” says Skoczylas.
姗姗来迟的是，私营部门正在迎头赶上。波兰政府拥有欧洲仅有的高级事务部长之一，今年 4 月通过了一项法案，要求银行从明年 6 月起提供分行内硬件和有关如何使用其在线服务的个性化建议。“这将是一场革命，”Skoczylas 说。
Ageing societies will also need to help their oldest members with simpler tasks, such as crossing roads. Restructuring urban architecture is costly, especially in cities with historic centres like Wrocław, a key trade hub en route to the Black Sea since the 12th century. Most of the bus stops in the city centre have in recent years been fitted with “Vienna-style” raised platforms to ease boarding for senior citizens, though work remains to be done in the suburbs.
老龄化社会还需要帮助其最年长的成员完成更简单的任务，例如过马路。重组城市建筑的成本很高，尤其是在弗罗茨瓦夫等拥有历史中心的城市，弗罗茨瓦夫自 12 世纪以来一直是通往黑海的重要贸易中心。近年来，市中心的大多数公交站都安装了“维也纳式”的高架站台，以方便老年人登机，尽管郊区仍有工作要做。
Urban planners working with the council say demographic change is not so much a burden as an opportunity to make the city better for everyone. After Poland joined the EU in 2004, a lot of funds went into revamping public squares like Wrocław’s Nowy Targ by plastering them with concrete and stone, recalls Jan Kazak, an associate professor at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. “They were horrible, like pens for animals, and got really hot in the summer.”
与该委员会合作的城市规划者表示，人口结构变化与其说是一种负担，不如说是一个让城市对每个人都变得更好的机会。弗罗茨瓦夫环境与生命科学大学（Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences）副教授扬·卡扎克（Jan Kazak）回忆说，波兰于2004年加入欧盟后，大量资金用于改造弗罗茨瓦夫的Nowy Targ等公共广场，用混凝土和石头抹灰。“它们很可怕，就像动物的围栏一样，夏天真的很热。”
Consultations with senior citizens prompted a rethink, though, and this summer the city completed Nowy Targ Square’s second revamp in the space of a decade, with plenty of trees to provide shade. “Once you start thinking about how to make cities more age-friendly, you end up with solutions very similar to the ones dictated by the need to react to climate change,” says Kazak.
不过，与老年人的协商促使人们重新思考，今年夏天，该市完成了 Nowy Targ Square 在十年内的第二次改造，有大量的树木提供阴凉。“一旦你开始思考如何让城市更加适合老年人，你最终会得到的解决方案与应对气候变化的需要非常相似，”Kazak 说。
帽子游行拉开了为期一个月的庆祝活动的序幕。摄影：Róbert Németi/The Guardian
To a large extent, Poland’s positive attitude is driven by cultural factors that are hard to replicate in other countries. Religion plays a role: according to the country’s 2023 census, 71% of its population still identify as Roman Catholic. Polish television still nurtures the stereotype of the Polish babcia (grandmother) whose everyday wisdom safeguards the wellbeing of an the entire family, through characters such as Barbara Mostowiak, the heroine of popular soap opera M jak miłość (L for Love), played by 87-year-old Teresa Lipowska.
在很大程度上，波兰的积极态度是由其他国家难以复制的文化因素驱动的。宗教起着一定的作用：根据该国 2023 年的人口普查，其 71% 的人口仍然认为自己是罗马天主教徒。波兰电视仍然培养了波兰 babcia（祖母）的刻板印象，她的日常智慧通过流行肥皂剧 M jak miłość（L for Love）的女主角 Barbara Mostowiak 等角色保护整个家庭的福祉，由 87 岁的 Teresa Lipowska 扮演。
In Wrocław, which was previously known by its German name Breslau, there is an additional factor at play. Between 1945 and 1947, after the allies decided the city should be part of Poland, it was the scene of one of the largest population transfers in European history, when roughly 500,000 German-speakers left and native Poles settled in the city.
在弗罗茨瓦夫（以前以德语名称 Breslau 为人所知）中，还有一个额外的因素在起作用。1945 年至 1947 年间，在盟军决定这座城市应成为波兰的一部分后，它是欧洲历史上最大的人口迁移之一，当时大约有 500,000 名讲德语的人离开，波兰本地人在这座城市定居。
Some of the city’s age-friendly schemes still speak to this moment in Wrocław’s history. With so-called “senior cards”, residents aged 60+ can gain free entry to museums and theatres and get discounts on healthcare services, but special privileges are reserved for those aged 90 and over. They are eligible to apply for the “emerald” senior card, which entitles them to free house visits from hairdressers, dentists and cleaners. “For the generation who rebuilt the city after the second world war, mere financial support and discounts wouldn’t have been appropriate,” says Kazak. “The city also wants to pay them respect and say thank you.”
该市的一些老年友好计划仍然与弗罗茨瓦夫历史上的这一时刻相呼应。持有所谓的“老年卡”，60+ 岁的居民可以免费进入博物馆和剧院，并获得医疗保健服务的折扣，但特殊特权是为 90 岁及以上的人保留的。他们有资格申请“翡翠”老年人卡，这使他们有权免费接受美发师、牙医和清洁工的上门访问。“对于二战后重建这座城市的一代人来说，仅仅提供财政支持和折扣是不合适的，”Kazak 说。“这座城市也想向他们表示尊重并表示感谢。”
Strip away the warm words, and the economic reality of many senior citizens in Poland isn’t quite so cosy. The country’s economy is on the up, recording the fastest GDP growth in the EU this year, but many older people have little in the way of savings, and pensions in the country are less than half the EU average. “The best places to grow old in Europe are undoubtedly those with solid retirement schemes, like Switzerland, Norway or Denmark,” says Van Hoof. “But places like Wrocław and Kraków make up for it by being innovative on a limited budget.”
撇开温暖的话语，波兰许多老年人的经济现实并不那么舒适。该国经济正在上升，今年创下欧盟最快的 GDP 增长速度，但许多老年人几乎没有储蓄，该国的养老金不到欧盟平均水平的一半。“在欧洲，最好的老去地方无疑是那些拥有可靠退休计划的地方，比如瑞士、挪威或丹麦，”Van Hoof 说。“但像弗罗茨瓦夫和克拉科夫这样的地方通过在有限的预算下进行创新来弥补这一点。”
They have also come to realise the most common misconception about the “silver tsunami”. “Old people are not a homogeneous group,” says Jolanta Perek-Białas, an associate professor at Kraków University’s Institute of Sociology. Some older people do sports into their 80s, others prefer to stay at home. Some are on Facebook and WhatsApp, others don’t even have bank accounts. “They don’t all want to fit into the same box. Maybe let’s remember that George Clooney is 63 – he’s about to become an older person too.”
他们也开始意识到对“银色海啸”最常见的误解。“老年人不是一个同质的群体，”克拉科夫大学社会学研究所副教授 Jolanta Perek-Białas 说。一些老年人运动到 80 多岁，其他人更喜欢呆在家里。有些在 Facebook 和 WhatsApp 上，有些甚至没有银行账户。“他们都不想被放在同一个盒子里。也许让我们记住，乔治·克鲁尼已经 63 岁了——他也即将成为一个老年人。
