I live in Poland and it's the first time I ever heard about something like this. As far as quick google can tell me, we have the same "you get HBO Go when you subscribe to cable" thing going on.

Is there a forest I'm missing from the trees?

Vodka.

That's not actually true. Russians were first.

We were probably the first to produce some crude kind of brandy ("winiak" in Polish).

It's actually funny that our most successfully exported vodka is Zubrowka. It's not considered that great here. I guess it's the novelty factor.

I know Wikipedia isn't the end-all of historical scholarship, but according to the entry, most existing records point to Poland, not Russia.

Polish sausage.

Few things in this world are tastier.

Wasn't Turkey there first?

I actually don't know, I always believed that Vodka was a Polish invention.