Budapest (high)lights

although i've got several things to say - or write - due to lack of time i only post two photos now as part of a series introducing Budapest. on the first one the national theatre and the Palace of Arts can be seen. on the second photo.. well, u can guess. sunset at the campus.

Budapest - By day and night

More or less the only thing i like in my job is the way there. Along the Danube with beautiful sights on both sides of the river. The short video was shot from the tram that takes me to my workplace. The buildings that can be seen in the video are the following in the order of appearance: Elizabeth Bridge, Castle of Buda, Chainbridge, Fishermen's Bastion, The Parlaiment, Museum of Ethnography. My workplace is right next to the Parlaiment and the Museum of Ethnography.


Budapest and the Danube by night. My way back:

Funny side

Scrappy, ruined, but charming and funky side of Budapest:i could cite the previous comment here... best of 80's, best of socialism.
R e T r o

SMILE! :)

The Wall

yesterday we went out to see Jazzékiel, a band playing jazz-based music with rapping. it didn't really work out as we imagined: there was about half of Budapest's population wanting to get in to Gödör Club...:
however, we didn't panic: instead, we bought a few cans of beer, than settled down right next to the stage. only outside the club... :) but thanks to the not very thick glass wall we could see and hear everything:of course it wasn't only us who listened to the gig outside. it was quite funny when a few young guys recognized some friends of them inside the club and wanted to communicate. like some retards.
'Caaan yooouuu heeeaaar meeeee?
Nooooo?
Whaaaat aaaare yooouuuu uuup toooo laateer?
Whaaaat?
Heeeeee?'
this was the point when we stopped watching them.

After the gig we moved on to a billirad saloon. the place was like a maze. they even put the ground plan of it into the menu.
don't let yourself be fooled! this guy is not as boozy as it seems. even more! :) hehe.
Cheers Gege!anyway, i've got a few more friends who's 'ars poetica' would be best expressed by this photo :)

going home was not less fun than the whole night itself. 6 people for 5 seats. what is the obvious solution? the boot! we put Jani into the back of the car. he seemingly did not object the idea:he was in his elements: he scared the sh*t out of us when a hand appeared behind us from the nothing. then the mean murderer showed himself too. we laughed our heads off.

Cordon sanitaire

Fence around the Parliament. MPs are protected now but who's gonna protect us from them???
The fence has been erected after last year's riots on Oct 23rd and is due to be removed next Monday.

12 Points from 1848 - few hundreds of idiots today...

it's typical contraselection: normal people are afraid that there are gonna be riots in Budapest (taking the example of the events on our last national holiday - 23 Oct), so many of them refrain from going out to the streets and celebrate. then the small minority of junkies, idiots and mainly hooligans take over control of the happenings from the peaceful majority and eventually spoils one of the most graceful celebration in Hungary.

Some historical background of the celebration:
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many revolutions that year and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. The revolution in Hungary grew into a war for independence from Habsburg rule. Many of its leaders and participants, including Lajos Kossuth, István Széchenyi, Sándor Petőfi, Józef Bem, are among the most respected national figures in Hungarian History, and the anniversary of the revolution's outbreak, March 15 is one of Hungary's three national holidays.
for more information visit: wikipedia

a very famous summary of the Hungarian objectives was the leaflet seen below:

'What do the Hungarian People want.
Let Peace, Liberty and Harmony prevail.

1. We want freedom of the press, the abolition of censorship.
2. A responsible Ministry in Buda and Pest.
3. An annual parliamentary session in Pest.
4. Civil and religious equality before the law.
5. A National Guard.
6. A joint sharing of tax burdens.
7. The cessation of socage.
8. Juries and representation on an equal basis.
9. A national bank
10. The army to swear to support the constitution, our soldiers not be dispatched abroad, and foreign soldiers removed from our soil.
11. The freeing of political prisoners.
12. Union with Transylvania.

Equality, liberty, and fraternity!'


how far are we from there...

Van Gogh

Budapest hosts the biggest Van Gogh exhibition in Central-Europe in a hundred years. I intentionally did not put his most well-known artifacts here. Partly, because neither The Potato Eaters and nor the Sunflowers, his most distinctive paintings were on display, and partly because I just realized how much more he achieved in his art. Starting with a very dark, cold and pretty harsh imagery, he incorporated the techniques of the impressionists, Japanese woodcut and many more other painters, and reached a point when he produced masterpieces that u can see here. Of course this road was far from being straight, he was fighting a severe internal battle, about what many know and I don't want to deal with now. What impressed me was how clever and conscious he was in developing his arts. The house on the right was one of my favorites. Some people looked at it disdainfully which I couldn't get. Though I was happy that I captured sth in this painting that they didn't. :)
Anyway, my favourite one was those shoes on the top. So simple and so expressive. You can see remarkable tension on it.
I don't know whether it is the impressionist influence, or just Van Gogh's inborn talent, but I like sth in this picture too (or is it just simply nice?):

Maybe it's only me who finds this crazy, somewhat distorted landscape charming.




Anyhow, thank you Vincent for giving us a few peaceful moments when we can emerge from the deep, grey everyday life.

Santa Claus

This week we were celebrating Santa Claus.
on 6th Dec Santa Claus alias Mikulás visits every child and puts chocololate and BIRCHes into their boots that had been previously put in the window.
well, because we are still children, in our minds at least, we gave presents to each other and had some mulled wine and cakes. proper X-mas party.
giving gifts, us, children:

as it is usually we ran out of mulled wine quickly. at this point PCS had to face a seemingly insovable problem. beer or wine???

after answering the question above we still had to solve some serious problems. some people had unsatiable thirst. I want the barrel, I want the barrel!

after this cosy home party we decided to visit a pub or club. unfortunately because everything was closed by the time we got there, we ended up in walking around in budapest's streets for two hours at about 2-3pm.
well, i didn't mind.
nor did they :)

those are beer-bottle lids... no comment

hey boys! what are you doing there? in the public??

of course i couldn't stop myself from being a photo reporter. this evokes Budapest in the 50's. 56 exactly

Janus

Budapest has two faces like Janus the mythical god.
these two pics were taken within 10 meters. i personally have no problems with graffities - though i hate tags - and i'm not scared of dark places. but the two pictures below somehow don't come together...


Fővám tér, subway and my university Dec 2006

to be fair, any other capitals i know could be labelled like budapest in this respect. e.g. in london i wouldn't want to cross hyde park at night on my own... (not to mention some hard core districts)

Magical visit

as i already mentioned, we had a great time with Poziomka last week. even though it was only four days, we did many things and everything was wonderful.
on thursday my friend, Gab was celebrating his birthday and although Gosia was a bit tired (no surprise), we went there and had a chat with my other friends. i was happy as Gege was there as well and a few of his friends from the polytechnic. however the source of my happiness was of course Gosia. three weeks is a long period if you don't see your other part. now, the mission: impossible is waiting for us: two months, with x-mas in the middle without each other...
but we'll make it. somehow...
on friday we went out for a drink and to see some live music, and more importantly to have a good time. well, we did, indeed. we went to Potkulcs, a cozy, little-ruined pub near nyugati station. peca was playing (peca is a slang word for fishing stick). nice music anyway. and nice wine. and sundried plums ripened in pálinka. yummie :)
we had also been ice skating. no need to tell you that it was fantastic. though a bit wet :)

dancing queen ;)

and the people.
on sunday we went for a short stroll. we were walking along the riverside. i like walking there, it's quite nice. the Buda side of Budapest at the Danube (with the Buda Castle on the bottom):



hmm. time to go back to reality:
assignments, revising...

1956

Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the uprise in 1956.
A short review on the revolution:
prelude:
...students of the Technical University compiled a list of sixteen points containing several national policy demands. After the students heard that the Hungarian Writers’ Union planned to express solidarity with Poland on the following day by laying a wreath at the statue of Polish-born General Bem, a hero of Hungary’s War of Independence of 1848-49, the students decided to organize a parallel demonstration of sympathy.
the 15th point on this list:
"The students of the Technological University of Budapest declare unanimously their solidarity with the workers and students of Warsaw and Poland in their movement towards national independence."
of course they also demanded the soviets to leave the country, free elections, democracy, economy policies on a new bases and so on...

On the afternoon of October 23, 1956, about 20,000 protesters convened next to the Bem statue. ...someone in the crowd cut out the communist coat of arms from the Hungarian Flag, leaving a distinctive hole and others quickly followed suit.
...then the crowd of appr. 200,000 people headed towards the Parliament.
...a large crowd gathered at the Radio Budapest building, which was heavily guarded by the ÁVH. The crowd eventually occupied the building and their demands had been announced.

Next day soviet tanks and the AVH tried to drown the uprise. to cut the story:
on 28th Oct the Hungarian revolution succeded! soviet tanks left Budapest and a new government was formed. the so far banned political parties also started working again.

on the 4th Nov at 5am an announcement was read into the Radio that the revolution was seen as a fascist protest and the new Hungarian government appointed by the soviets (!!!!!) took measures to break down the uprise. then soviet tanks entered budapest and the revolution died.

Blaha Lujza Square:

Corvin Cinema, 200m far from my flat. National Flag with the whole in the foreground:

burning Rakosi's pic, first secretary of the "Party".
my university:
Stalin's head. his statue weighed 6 tons. destroyed on the first day of the uprise:
Freedom Bridge with tanks. what a paradox.



it is not necessary to emphasize that the Polish-Hungarian relationship was of a special kind throughout the communist era, both nations were fighting against the same system, same oppression, same cruelty and inhumanity. we always felt solidarity for each other and i have several more reasons to take care of that good relationship. We all know that:
Polak Węgier dwa bratanki i do szabli i do szklanki.
Lengyel magyar két jó barát, együtt harcol s issza borát.
that is:
Polish and Hungarian are good friends, they fight together and they drink their wine together.

dla moja Poziomko:
Flaga Węgier: czerwony, biały, zielony, symbolizujące odpowiednio: siłę, wiarę, nadzieję

memories

Poziomka in Budapest