Sun, Jun 28, 2009 page12

• Poland’s NecroExpo: Where the Grim Reaper makes a killing

  Scantily clad hostesses, high-end Italian hearses and varicolored coffins — it’s a dead-serious business out there

  • By Jonathan Fowler / AFP
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  If you’re a trend-conscious undertaker looking for the latest in funeral-wear and coffins, or simply hunting for a hearse, then Poland’s annual NecroExpo is where it’s at.

  The three-day event, which just wrapped up its third edition in the southern town of Kielce, is a magnet in a business where the Grim Reaper is as much about rewards as souls.

  Like any trade fair, NecroExpo has its share of scantily clad hostesses — but in this case they pitch high-end Italian hearses or kitsch white coffins lined with lace.

  

  A man looks at a crucifix for a coffin at NecroExpo in Kielce, Poland, on June 19.

  PHOTO: AFP

  At one stand, exhibitor Grzegorz Szymanski showed off swish ensembles including ceremonial undertakers’ outfits.

  “Contrary to what people think, really dark colors don’t dominate. Only 10 percent of what we sell is black. The rest are in grays, graphite and so on,” Szymanski said.

  “There’s no rule saying it has to be black. Black’s out,” he said.

  Szymanski also produces coffin-wear to make corpses look their best.

  “There really isn’t much difference between suits for the deceased and those for the living,” he said, fingering the lapel of a smart three-piece.

  “And for the ladies, it can’t just be any old thing. It has to be tiptop,” he said, pointing out a retro-style black and white dress.

  Trends are equally marked in the coffin business, said Bartlomiej Lindner, whose family firm is Poland’s largest producer, turning out 132,000 caskets a year.

  “It all depends on the season. In the spring, for example, we sell many more clear colors,” he said.

  Lindner, whose firm exports to the German-speaking world, said that foreign markets have quirks.

  “For example, you can’t sell this in France or Britain,” he said, tapping a rectangular pine coffin which is the norm in Germany.

  “In the trade we nickname this the ‘Dracula,’” he said, pointing to an elongated hexagonal shaped casket, favored in Poland, the UK and France.

  Coffins range from 35 euros (US$50) for what the company calls, discreetly, its “Model S” — for “social welfare” — to 1,500 euros for a top-of-the-range carved casket.

  “Right now, given the crisis, we’re probably selling more of the cheaper models. But we still sell high-end ones. It all depends on the customer’s budget,” Lindner said.

  More than 90 percent of Poland’s 38 million inhabitants are Roman Catholics. While the Church has dropped old objections to cremation, habits die hard with many priests and burials remain the norm, with 300,000 a year, compared to 25,000 cremations.

  “The market’s very competitive,” said Karol Czartoryski, 24, of a family-run funeral supplies wholesalers. “I was born into this business. I knew from the start that I wanted to do this.”

  Poland is home to about 2,000 undertakers’ firms, although some are fly-by-night outfits. Only 300 are in the national undertakers’ association, which distances itself from the cowboys.

  The sector’s reputation was dented by the gruesome 2002 “Cash-for-Corpses” scandal, where undertakers bribed medical staff to get tip-offs about deaths and two ambulance drivers were later convicted of finishing off patients to earn extra cash.

  Poland is unusual in Europe in that the state helps with funeral costs — the deceased’s family gets a social security payout of 6,000 zlotys (US$1,870).

  “With that kind of money, you can have a funeral with a Mercedes,” said Witold Skrzydlewski, head of the undertakers’ association.

  His firm conducts up to 600 funerals per month, making it Poland’s largest.

  “Personally I don’t like cremations. It’s partly moral. But also because they don’t make business sense. People cut corners, they don’t buy flowers and sometimes don’t bother with an urn but just scatter the ashes,” he said.

  Cremation costs about 1,500 zlotys and burial, about 2,500 zlotys, he said.

  While most of NecroExpo’s exhibitors are Polish, it also draws foreign players.

  “I wasn’t intending to go into this business,” said Michael Xu, whose China-based polyester flower firm is moving into wreathes. “But in Europe I’ve found many people love artificial flowers, especially in countries where the weather’s too cold for fresh ones.”
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