Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Since 1989 Poland seems to have been proceeding towards the model of a class conscious country. Poznan follows that pattern. During the last three years two socially contrastive groups became clearly distinguishable - that of the poor and the rich. Those two groups have been steadily increasing in number. However, at the same time the gap between them becomes deeper and deeper. Before the new system was introduced the very fraction of the Poznan society had not been visible. Nowadays in Poznan one can see beggars everywhere - in street corners, churches or a railway station. At the beginning people were concerned about them. The poor were given money, food, or clothes. However in due time the average city dweller have become more indifferent. They simply got used to beggars and now they do not help them so eagerly. As to the rich, they came into being after the communist regime had been abolished. In previous times the rich constituted a hermetic and isolated group of the top party members. Since 1989 the structure of this group has been radically changed. In due course the communists were replaced by new people, mainly connected with business. Now those people contribute greatly to the prosperity of the town and that is why they are respected by the remaining part of the society.