If you live in the southern city of Kraków, all it takes is to jump in the car and drive due south for exactly 100 kilometres, to end up in the Tatra mountain resort of Zakopane, seen by some as the veritable St. Moritz of Poland. For us locals the journey is not too cumbersome, the dreadful Zakopane road that links the two cities is admittedly being overhauled, and in under two hours it is possible to be on the slopes, or indeed enjoying the après-ski that Zakopane has to offer.

Not so for Poland’s Russian and Ukrainian visitors, who often make the journey in their enormous gas-guzzling SUVs from either Moscow or Kiev. Residents of the mountain getaway have reported not as many cars with Ukrainian and Russian plates as in previous years. After all, this time of January is especially popular with our eastern neighbours as members of the Orthodox Church celebrate Christmas Eve on the day we call Epiphany in the western calendar. But with the financial crisis really hitting hard in Russia, whose economy is based on oil and gas, less roubles means less fun on the slopes of the Tatras. For the Ukrainians it’s worse. The hryvna, the Ukraine’s currency, has seen a slump that means even though prices have stayed the same in Poland, for tourists it has meant forking out twice as much on last year. So, it’s trading in the Hilton for a hut, if they have come at all.

The local church which sees many Orthodox faithful come to celebrate Midnight Mass on the 6th January was not full to the brim as in previous years, and hotels in Zakopane have been speaking of mass cancellations over the past weeks, some even seeing a drop of 50 percent of intended guests coming to stay.

Fashion boutiques and bijou establishments that line the Krupówki promenade in the centre of Zakopane have all noted a downward trend in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian patrons, who in previous years would line up outside the shops and inevitably walk away with an amount of shopping that we are accustomed to only in Hollywood movies. It seems that the three kings from the orient haven’t coughed up enough cash this year for any extravagant spending…

That doesn’t mean to say that our guests from abroad have not come at all. They just don’t spend as much. Russian is still the dominant language in Zakopane at this time of year, and many tourist signs are in Russian to cater for our visitors from the east. And yes, the cars are there as well, BMWs, Porsches, massive Nissan Patrol off roaders, all on Russian, Ukrainian, and did I mention Belarusian?, number plates. It is obvious for some that the good times for now are over. But quoting a local paper and the county deputy Andrzej Gąsienica-Makowski, “if you’ve seen the Tatras once, you’re going to come back again.” Let’s hope that he’s right.

Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by John Beauchamp.