In a tiny Polish village called Konotopie stands Europe’s tallest statue of the Virgin Mary — 55.6 metres high. Most people have never heard the name of the man who paid for it. And that is exactly how he prefers it. ft.com
His name is Roman Karkosik.
The “Polish Warren Buffett”
Roman Karkosik was born in 1951 in a small village near Toruń. He started with almost nothing: first a small bar, then a soft-drink factory, then a scrap-metal business and cable production. After the fall of communism he became one of Poland’s most successful stock-market investors.
People began calling him the “Polish Warren Buffett” and the “Midas of Kikół” — everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. He specialised in buying undervalued industrial companies, restructuring them, and watching their value soar. His flagship company, Boryszew, grew into a major international group employing thousands of people.
Yet for decades he remained almost invisible.
PHOTO
Roman Karkosik ((archive photo)
“Publicity does not serve business interests”
Karkosik has always avoided the media. He rarely gives interviews and lives a very private life with his wife Grażyna in a quiet manor house in Kikół. One of the few phrases he has repeatedly used about the press is simple and direct:
“Rozgłos nie służy interesom”
(“Publicity does not serve business interests.”)
He believes that staying out of the spotlight allows him to focus on real work rather than image.
A monument of gratitude
In recent years something changed. After a serious illness and several operations — doctors told the family he was not expected to live — Karkosik recovered. The couple decided to thank Our Lady in a very concrete way.
They financed the construction of the enormous statue of Our Lady of Mercy in Konotopie, just a short distance from their home and next to an existing small sanctuary of Our Lady of Sorrows that they had already helped rebuild years earlier.
When asked about the statue, Roman Karkosik gave only a short answer:
he built it “out of gratitude to Mary.” lifesitenews.com
The words of his wife
Because Roman himself almost never speaks publicly, his wife Grażyna has recently shared more of the story:
“This monument is a thank-you, because my husband should not be alive. That is what the doctors said, and yet he lives. Thanks to prayers and many Holy Masses, he survived.”
And about the cost and the publicity:
“We do not count the money. A person leaves this world and takes nothing with him… We are not doing this for publicity, but from the need of the heart. To thank God and Our Lady for their protection.”
PHOTO
In an age of constant self-promotion, Roman Karkosik remains a rare figure: a highly successful investor who prefers silence, and a man who, after receiving the gift of life again, chose to raise a permanent sign of gratitude toward the Mother of God.
The statue now stands in the Polish countryside as a quiet but enormous reminder that true gratitude does not need many words.
