Socialism's Leftovers

All that's left of Josef Stalin's monument? His boots.

Up in the hills of Buda there is a train operated by children.

Well, they’re not operating the trains themselves, the're operating the train line. There are 11-year-olds are up there, selling tickets, collecting tickets, working the signals, conducting conductor duties and shouting what I’m sure is “All aboard” in Hungarian.

The railway winds its way through the woods and high up into the hills, beginning near a Budapest tram lines’ last stop and terminating atop one of Buda’s higher hills.

There are old socialist-style murals and posters all over the first station. It feels like one of those Soviet programs for children to teach them elemental socialist values about the importance of a hard day’s work in the service of the state. Think of the Young Pioneers, which were the Soviet Union’s version of boy scouts, only these kids get trains.

Being conducted by the little  people of the Children's Railway

The train kids perform their duties and take them seriously in the way kids do when you give them a sharp-looking uniform and an important job. It’s a beautiful ride too. You travel through the Buda’s forests, make brief stops at old and, with the rainy weather, deserted train stations until the last stop. 

But it despite the family friendly atmosphere and the fact these kids were born well after the Berlin Wall fell, the Children's Railway still feels very East Bloc.

Engels, Marx and me

It’s an interesting holdover from the Hungary’s communist days. There are vestiges of Hungary’s socialist era, but while much has been swept away, I’ve become interested in what has remained, and why. So when I first heard about Memento Park, I knew  I had to visit, and bring my photog-friend Marcin along.

Marcin grew up in communist Poland before moving to Canada and his love for communist iconography is well known among our group of friends: He received a Mao Tse Tung garden gnome as a housewarming gift.

Memento Park is where socialist Hungary’s grander garden gnomes have been laid to rest when they were removed after communism fell. All the tributes to the Soviet ‘liberators ’ and Hungary’s socialist heroes came here to be seen, rather than destroyed.

The designer of the park said: “This park is about dictatorship. And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described, built, this park is about democracy. After all, only democracy is able to give the opportunity to let us think freely about dictatorship.”

It's a noble gesture, considering so much the era's documents remain unstudied and so much of the collective memory goes unshared. 

By laying all of these grand pieces of propaganda to bear, there is a chance for discussion about it, but the potential for jocular poses with the statues. We did both, which is what democracy is for: the serious and the silly.

Hungarian Heritage Moment II - Siege of Eger

Eger is a small town in the hills of Hungary. There is a castle and a whole lot of wine, and their history is intertwined.

The Ottoman Turks arrived here in the 1552 with an army and laid siege to the castle. According to the narrative, 2,000 Hungarians successfully defended the castle against 100,000 Turks.

There are all manner of legends of this phenomenal feat: The defenders rebuilding the damaged walls every night after a day of fighting and the Hungarian women who poured hot pitch on the attackers. My favourite legend is about the local wine, which is called Egri Bikaver or Bull’s Blood.

After a hard day’s work defending the castle, the Hungarians would drink the region’s distinctive red wine, rather messily, because the next day their beards were red from the spilt wine. 

As the siege wore on for days, then weeks and then months, the Turks wondered how so few Hungarians could hold out against so many of them. Every day they fought ferocious Hungarians with beards stained red, so they figured they must be drinking bull’s blood because that’s the sort of things people assumed back then.

The Turks didn’t take the castle that time around, but they returned 50 years later, took the castle, occupied the town and built things, including a mosque and a minaret. The mosque is long gone, but the mineret is the only thing that remains from the Turks’ 100-year stay in Eger.

A few weeks back a colleague and I visited Eger. We walked around the narrow streets of the Old Town and wandered the castle keep. 

There's a Czech in the castle keep!

We climbed the minaret.

And looked down.

We visited the basilica, which we pretty much had to ourselves, but the view was better from the castle.

I also sipped the local wine – without getting in it my beard.

That's about it. Not that exciting, unless you're a history nerd.

Hosting in Budapest

How do you entertain in Budapest? With three waves of Canadians friends due to arrive, I was stressing about how to show everyone a good time. What should we do? Where should we go? These questions haunted me.

When the first batch of friends arrived, we went for a walk along the Danube, and I stopped worrying. Budapest is a city that takes care of its visitors. It’s a hostess all on its own. I have lived here for over six months and I never tire of the sights. The city has the same affect on visiting friends.

Most of my fellow expatriate workers entertain visitors by showing Budapest's most popular sights: Danube River, Castle Hill, Andrassy Avenue, the Baths, to name a few. While I jokingly refer to some of the sites here  as the Stations of the Cross, people come from afar for a reason, these places are incredible.

But like any great city, Budapest will surprise anyone. As we walked along the Danube, Dan, Sid and I saw the Critical Mass bike rally, which included thousands of cyclists, ride past us.

There are also pockets of the city that are not world renowned, but are no less stunning, like the cherry blossoms on the quiet, less tourist-y side of Castle Hill.

Where did all those communist statues and monuments to the liberators, workers and heroes go? To Memento Park. It’s a place I just had to bring my photog-friend Marcin to – even if it meant a trip deep into parts of Buda I am not familiar with. 

All this stress about entertaining didn't matter in the end. For one thing, it doesn't matter what you do, you will always have a great time in the company of great friends. Second, Budapest is a city that might need an introduction, but Budapest makes one hell of an impression on its own.