Deep under. Hard manual labour in coal mine "Peace", Ruda Slaska.

David, nine years old, wants to be a soccer player. And if they do not shut down the coal mine, when 16 years old, he dreams to be a miner like his father.

In the coke factory, the workers have a yearlong competition "for the best kept and most creative piece of land" on the factory field. Coke Factory "Jadwiga".

Zbigniew Talda has two years to go before he retires. He is very much afraid that before the deadline, the management will shut down this Bobrek Coke Factory because of the current recession. This was the very first factory turned private among all the factories in Silesia.

Bobrek, a bad neighborhood near the town of Bytom. It is a place for poor, jobless people who have no money to pay for the rent. Young kids are exposed to heavy drinking problem of the adults.

The Labendy Factory was once a very famous flagship of the Polish heavy industry. Today it has lost over 70% of its workers, and instead of production, this big factory is providing only simple services.

Seven hours under the ground in a coal mine will turn anyone in to a black figure. A shower is a ritual that requires a lot of cooperation.

Globalization brings all the well-known names to Poland, but with a recession knocking on people's door, all of that turns lots of them in to poor, desperate figures.

The very well known "monument factory" in Gliwice stays alive due to the fact that it gets a lot of orders from the US, but it still had to reduce the work week to only four days.

The Bobrek Coke Factory is operating at 30% of its capacity. Very few customers wants to buy coke from them any longer. The coke imported from Ukraine is less expensive, so in a year from now the factory will be history only. But not to the 2000 workers who use to once work there.

Collecting pigeons is an old tradition and passion among the coal miners in Silesia. An excellent way to kill the time once retired. Or now days, once you are jobless.

Steel factory Katowice, once the flag ship among all the steel factories in Poland. The biggest, the best. Today there is only one working "Big Oven" out of seven that used to produce high quality steel.

Manual hard work becomes a past. One of the very last Coke Factory near the town of Bytom still provides employment to about 300 workers.

Kristina has been working in the coal mine "Peace" for over 25 years, hoping to retired here, before they shut down the entire mine.

Religion was always very strong in Silesia. Now, in these difficult times, it plays an additional important role, to keep the spirits of people high.