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RAFAL C. PIECHOCINSKI, "Costa Rica and Poland". But that`s not all. Only a few people know that in 1865, Costa Rica was to have been a shelter for many Poles who had to escaped from Poland because of the January Insurrection defeat. Costa Rica was expected to establish a few Polish settlements. That plan miscarried and almost nobody remembers that. Only a few articles in old, yellowed newspapers are testimony of these projects.

   Many years later, in 1944 - 1948, the President of Costa Rica was Teodoro Picado Michalski, who descended from Poles. His mother, Jadwiga Michalska, was born in Krakow, the third largest town in Poland. During her study in London, she met a Costa Rican doctor, Teodoro Picado Morin, and married him in 1898. They settled in Costa Rica, where on January 10th 1900 was born their son Teodoro.