The ugliest dog in the world
December 31st
There was a guy, a rather important guy — an Army officer, and a high-ranking officer at that. His name was Mikołaj Kawelin. He was a well known as a kind of celebrity in my hometown of Bialystok in the interwar period in the 1920–30s as a member of the city council and a chairman of the local football club. Outside his work, he was a volunteer for numerous organizations — social and sport and charitable — as well. Basically, a guy who was a synonym for a city government and a local icon who knew everybody, and everybody knew him.
He was also monstrously ugly.
In the middle of the 1930s, two local artists, for reasons that today are unknown, created a sculpture of a dog as in the photo above. Now, I am sure that is a dog. I was told since I was a kid that this sculpture is a representation of a dog and generation after generation of Bialostokers firmly believe that this is really a dog. Ok, that could be a dog, but mixed with a frog and gremlin genes and too many of the just regular mutt-ations to count. Artistic freedom and imagination were strong with the artists who created this — I assume that they’ve seen proper dogs before.
They placed the sculpture in the corner of the local park, right by the main boulevard that was a favorite place for afternoon strolls for the local population. Quickly, that sculpture got the nickname — “Kawelin”, after the officer, on the account of their in common resemblance in ugliness — no subtlety there at all…
And the officer wasn’t happy about it at all. But I think that in the end, he got the last laugh — everyone in the city knows that name, his name as a name of the dog (there is now even a fancy restaurant named “Kawelin” across the street from this corner of the park). New generations of kids will learn that name as well and then pass it on. As long as this sculpture stands, his name will live on. Maybe not for quite the right reasons, but I would take that kind of longevity of name recognition in a heartbeat.
