The Amazing Turk

The Amazing Turk- Farkas Kempelen’s incredible chess-playing automaton

In 1770, The Turk made its first appearance in front of the Viennese court.
On a signal from the Empress Maria Theresa, Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen slowly wheeled his creation forward.
The one-meter-high wooden cabinet with a large chessboard screwed to its top ran on four brass casters that not only allowed it to move freely, but also raised it slightly off the floor so that the audience could see that there was nothing hiding underneath.
Behind the box sat a figure, dressed in Oriental clothing and a bulky turban.
Kempelen opened a door on the left of the cabinet to reveal an elaborate mechanism of cogs, wheels and levers.
Then, opening a corresponding door at the back, he held up a candle whose light flickered through complicated innards.
After closing the doors, Kempelen wound up the contraption by turning a large key in the cabinet.
Suddenly the figure came to life, reaching out with its left arm to move the chess pieces around the board.
Every dozen moves or so, Kempelen wound up the device again, but never actually touched the figure itself.
The Turk, so called due to its attire, managed to defeat a number of challengers.
The Turk’s sensational performance that day astonished and delighted the Empress and soon became the talk of Vienna.
The presentation changed Kempelen’s life.
The 35-year-old civil servant was born Farkas Kempelen in January 1734 in Bratislava, then Pozsony, capital of the Hungarian part of the dual monarchy.
He was not actually a nobleman, although the title baron has often been attributed to him.
Kempelen was formally introduced to the Viennese court by his father, Engelbert, a retired customs officer.
The young man was very handsome, spoke several languages and made an immediate impression. He was given the important task of translating the Hungarian civil code from Latin into German, the official language throughout the newly united kingdom of Austria-Hungary.
Kempelen’s translation was hailed as a masterpiece and he was soon appointed counsellor to the imperial court.
On the official document confirming his appointment, Maria Theresa wrote, “The Hungarian court will benefit greatly from young Kempelen.”
In 1757, Kempelen married Franciska, a lady-in-waiting at the court.
Tragically, she died suddenly a few weeks later and Kempelen retreated, shocked and grief-stricken, to his hobby of scientific experimentation.
Now a wealthy man, he could afford expensive tools, materials and scientific equipment for his workshop.
In 1766 Kempelen was appointed director of the imperial salt mines in Transylvania, by which time he had also remarried.
He felt confident enough to put his scientific knowledge into practice and soon devised a system of pumps to drain the mines when they became flooded with water.
Following the success of this project, he was asked to design the waterworks for the castle in Pozsony.
In the autumn of 1769, Kempelen was invited by Maria Theresa to attend a scientific conjuring show presented to the court by a visiting Frenchman named Pelletier.
Maria Theresa was particularly interested in science and had an unusually enlightened attitude toward it for her time.
She challenged Kempelen to explain Pelletier’s tricks to her.
He was so unimpressed by what he saw that he declared he could do better. He returned to the court six months later, this time as a presenter, with his Turkish wizard.
Kempelen eventually took his invention on tour, travelling around the world and sparking vigorous debate about the extent to which machines could emulate or replicate human faculties.
In Paris, The Turk played and beat Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and scientist, who was a chess fanatic.
The Turk also played Francois-Andre Danican Philidor, the best chess-player in Europe and, although The Turk lost, the match was considered a triumph.



To modern eyes, in an era when it takes a supercomputer such as IBM’s Deep Blue to beat the world grandmaster Garry Kasparov, it seems obvious that Kempelen’s chess-playing machine had to have been a hoax - not a true automaton at all but a contraption acting under the surreptitious control of a human operator.
Using 18th century clockwork and mechanical technology it now seems impossible to have built a genuine chess-playing machine, but at the time automata of extraordinary ingenuity were being constructed and exhibited across Europe, including Jacques de Vaucanson’s mechanical duck, Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz’s harpsichord player and John Joseph Merlin’s dancing lady.
Kempelen next took The Turk to London, at that time a centre for chess and also renowned for public displays of technical marvels.
The Turk went on show in Savile Row and was a great success.
A year later, Kempelen returned to Vienna, packed The Turk away into wooden crates and turned his attention to other inventions, such as an ambitious attempt to build a machine capable of imitating the human voice.
This wonder could be seen in the halls of the Millennial Exhibition of Hungarian achievement. He also devised a writing machine for the blind.
When Kempelen died in Vienna in March 1804, The Turk was sold to John Nepomuk Maelzel, an engineer and musician who wanted to make money from displaying the automaton to a curious public.
The Turk’s most famous encounter during this period came in 1809, when it was shown to Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon tried to trick the automaton by deliberately cheating, but The Turk was not fooled and upset the board rather than beat him.
Napoleon’s valet Louis-Constant Wairy wrote: “The Emperor complimented it highly.”
In London in 1819 the computing pioneer Charles Babbage saw The Turk play.
The following year, he challenged it to a game.
He wrote, “Played with the automaton. Automaton won in about an hour.”
Maelzel also took the Turk to the United States where the author Edgar Allan Poe was so intrigued by the ‘Automaton Chess Player’ that he published a lengthy thesis containing his own theories on how it worked.
“Perhaps no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general attention as the chess player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think.
Yet the question of its modus operandi is still undetermined,” wrote Poe, noting also that The Turk played with his left hand, a matter Poe considered highly significant.
The secret of The Turk was finally revealed in January 1857 in an account written by Silas Mitchell, whose father Dr John Mitchell had bought the automaton when Maelzel died in 1838, to satisfy his own curiosity.
He discovered that a person was concealed inside the cabinet.
The clockwork machinery visible on its left-hand side extended only a third of the way along, so that the covert player could hide behind it, then slide along to the other end for the remainder of the demonstration.
The human chess wizard would play by the light of a small candle, whose smoke was dispersed up a pipe to an aperture in the top of The Turk’s turban. The operator watched a chessboard in front of him and moved a metal pointer which was connected to The Turk’s arm using a system of levers to move the corresponding piece on the external board. An ingenious system of magnets helped the operator follow the opponent’s moves.
Kempelen probably used a series of operators in this elaborate trick, but one thing is certain, all were strong players, taking on some of Europe’s finest chess masters and losing to only the very best.
Interest waned in The Turk once its secret was discovered and Mitchell sold the automaton to the Chinese Museum in Philadelphia.
Some years later there was a fire at the museum and The Turk was totally destroyed. The reconstruction of The Turk at a German museum shows that, more than 230 years later, the ingenuity of the chess-playing ‘automaton’ still has the power to charm and intrigue.

There is a non-working model of the Amazing Turk in the Roland Café in Bratislava – Kempelen’s home town.

Update: Farkas Kempelen’s Amazing Turk is reconstructed at the Heinz Nixdorf Museum at Paderborn, Germany
In 1770, the Hungarian engineer Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen built a chess-playing machine for the amusement of Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa.
The mechanical device, designed to resemble a Turkish man, became the most famous chess-automaton in history.
In April 2004, the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn produced an incredible working replica of the Turk, 200 years after Kempelen’s death.
Hundreds of chess fans and curious visitors gathered there on the presentation day to relive a scene that duplicated what the audiences had witnessed in Maria Theresa’s day.
Professor Ernst Strouhal gave an introductory lecture on The Turk, and the reconstruction was then wheeled into the room.
An actor took on the role of Wolfgang von Kempelen to demonstrate the operation of the machine.
First he opened the two compartments to show that they were empty.
Then he opened the left door to reveal a mass of cog-wheels, shafts and levers. The maestro closed the doors and wound up the machine.
The Amazing Turk started to play chess. The figure standing behind the table was obviously artificial and could not conceal a human; however it executed chess moves with mechanical precision.
The re-creators of the Amazing Turk then revealed its secret to the audience…

Healing the Nation - the gyógyszertár and the patika

If the stormy weather is giving you a headache - and who, in Budapest, hasn't felt the brain-fogging effects of a 'hideg front' (cold front)? - it is always worth popping into the local chemist's for some aspirin and, while there, have a look around.
In Budapest many pharmacies date back to seventeenth century and often have original interiors intact.
“There are 16 pharmacies in Budapest which are considered historical monuments and 36 throughout the country, including a beautiful chemist’s in Sopron and establishments in Gyôr, Kôszeg and Debrecen,” said Szilvia Solymári, manager of the Városi Gyógyszertár (chemist's) at the corner of Váci utca and Kigyó utca.
The history of a society can often be illustrated by what medicines it used, what potions and pills were swallowed in the search for longevity and good health.
The Városi Gyógyszertár dates back to 1686, making it one of the oldest in Pest.
Unfortunately much of its beautiful interior was destroyed during World War II, but restoration has been made faithfully according to old photographs and the dark brown cabinets and drawers, ancient chairs and the black metal chandelier look like the furnishings of a medieval banqueting hall.
There are records of the first Pest -Buda pharmacist dating from the beginning of the 14th century.
In 1303, a Buda doctor and pharmacist named Péter is mentioned as he was granted exemption from paying a tenth of the wage tax. At this time doctors prepared medicines, and so were considered pharmacists in a way themselves. The two professions only started to separate in the 14th century, but the separation of the two professions had still not completed by the end of the 17th century.
“Patika” is the old name, coming from the word “apothecary” and many of the older generation still refer to the patika. However, many now use the more Hungarian word “gyógyszertár”.
'Gyógyszertár' is a wonderful, tongue-twirling word, describing a store place (tár) for medicine (gyógyszer), which itself is one of those loveable, prosaic Hungarian words describing factually what something is: 'health' (gyógy) 'stuff' (szer).
Similarly - for those interested in linguistics, Hungarians don't fall back on the Latin-based vocabulary to create words but make up their own, logical, descriptive versions. A 'bicycle' in Hungarian is 'kerékpar' - a pair (par) of wheels (kerék) and a camera is a 'fényképezőgép' (a 'light picture making machine')! Fantasztikus!
The pharmaceutical business is booming in Hungary and customers come in with a wad of prescriptions and leave with all manner of pills, potions, salves and unguents in brown paper bags, green glass bottles and phials.
An old lady in the Városi Gyógyszertár illustrated the prominence of the chemist's in daily life when she said if we want to find her again we needn't ask her address, “You can find me in this patika, I come here every day,” she said.
The medieval patikas besides medicine sold herbs, perfumes, paints, candles, paper and silks, and functioned as a kind of general store.
The pharmacists were some of the city’s most accomplished citizens and many belonged to the city council. A painting by C17th Dutch artist David Hyckaert in the pharmacy museum in Tarnok utca shows a very well-to-do married couple who were alchemists.
The husband makes gold and a custodian says, "It was considered a very good profession and highly thought-of members of society were chemists."
They did not have university diplomas, this set them apart from doctors, but they could heal those poorer members of society who could not pay an official doctor.
At the end of the 17th century, the patikas in operation were the Arany Sas in Buda, the Fekete Medve Gyógyszertár in Buda and the Szentháromság Gyógyszertár in Pest These three dealt with Pest-Buda's needs for nearly one hundred years.
In 1760, in the newly-formed Medical department of the Nagyszombat university there was a pharmacist training facility, known as the Generale Normativum in Re. Sanitaria. (1770)
The oldest chemists in Pest was the Váci utca 34 Szentháromság Gyógyszertár. It was founded in 1686 by Herold Henrik Siegfried and for a long time it worked alone to serve the medicinal needs of Pest citizens.
In 1701, Osterwald Zakariás received permission to found a new patika, however in 1705 he bought the Szentháromság Gyógyszertár and amalgamated it with his new patika. The patika at the beginning used the Városi Gyógyszertár name, and it was known as this until 1928 when it became the Városi Gyógyszertár a Szentháromsághoz.
At the end of the 18th century, in accordance with the growth in population, more pharmacies came into being.
The Kigyó (snake) Chemist's is at Kossuth Lajos utca 2 is one of the oldest working chemist's in the city.
It originally existed under the name of Csillag when Károly Stehling opened the premises on the now-demolished Kigyó tér 1 in 1784. It moved to its present site in 1899.
The original furnishings date from 1870 and are neo-Rococo. After the move, the interior was decorated further in the Secessionist style.
A grey marble tablet near the entrance to the Kigyó displays the dates, and opposite on the left hand side, another shows a statue of a snake coiling around a cross.
The snake entwined around a tall goblet is now the recognized symbol for pharmacies in Hungary.
Unusually, here in Hungary the snake is seen as a symbol of healing. “Snake venom was often used as a cure and the snake is considered a doer of good things,” explained Solymári.
In the underpass that joins the two stretches of Váci utca you can see a giant black and white photo of the original Kigyó Gyógyszertár, A large painting in the shop window shows a huge boa constrictor coiled around a tree.
To see this in colour, visit the Kiscelli Museum where a whole room is devoted to the Arany Oroszlán Patika. The Golden Lion Pharmacy was lifted in its entirety from the centre of Budapest (it opened in 1794 by Kálvin tér), with drawers and jars of herbs and poisons all labelled in ceramic plates. Mortars and pestles sit by the silver cash register and the frightening painting dominates the entrance.
One of the oldest pharmacies was found on Kristóf tér. The Nagy Kristóf Gyógyszertár was the first officially registered fiókgyógyszertár or dispensary in Pest.
It was founded in 1791 by Ignác Schwachhofer, the owner of the Szentlélek gyógyszertár on Király utca, in a building at Váci utca 6/Kristóf tér 2, which was named after Kristóf Nagy.
In 1833, the owner at the time Imre János Prégardt was the first to write the words ‘gyógyszertár’ instead of ‘patika’, and the first to give the medicines on offer names in Hungarian as well.
The Nagy Kristóf Gyógyszertár in 1909 moved to Kristóf tér 7 then in 1914 it moved to the one time Váci utca 1-3 but you cannot go there for your cough mixture now, as it was demolished in 1909.
Since 1985, the square has been decorated with a fountain and statue of the Fish-selling Girl by László Dunaiszky. The ‘Haláruslány kútja’(the well of the fish-selling girl) had previously stood at the Inner City fish market at the Pest end of the Erzsébet Bridge.
The Pesti Halász company put the fountain up in 1862 but because of bridge building it was moved to Népliget for a while.
Budapest City Council made Kristóf tér into a pedestrian square and put the fountain back in 1985, restored by sculptor Sándor Lovas and builder László Wild
In 1963, the then Ethnographic Ministry made 16 Budapest pharmacies protected buildings. All state pharmacies were privatized after the change of political system and Solymári said that the classic chemists all keep a corner of the shop devoted to the old style of pharmacy with an arrangement of old bottles, pestles and mortars, to distinguish the from the many ‘drogeries’ that have sprung up. “There are now so many chains of stores that strict new laws will be introduced this year to keep things under control”, said Solymári.
She said the classic style of pharmacy must always have two trained chemists present.
Solymári said that other chemist's worth visiting are one at Dísz tér, on Pannónia utca, a very old pharmacy next to the Opera House that escaped fire damage and has original furnishings and one with black furniture on the corner of Nefelejcs utca and Garay tér.
Solymári said that the wall painting by Kocsár Bretschneider in the Octogon pharmacy is of Hygieia and Asclepios
Standing on the corner of Szófia utca, the Oktogon Gyógyszertár was originally founded in 1786, in the Tabán district in Buda and moved to its present site in 1924.
The neo Baroque furnishings were made at this time.
A plaque on wall states that Gustav Mahler lived here when he was director of the Hungarian State Opera from 1888 to 1891.
There are some interesting cures. At Teréz krt 41, there is a pharmacy with an interesting sign that reads “The fresh snake venom antidote is now in” - Budapest is now gripped by a mania for collecting dangerous and deadly pets. Besides baby turtles and the odd hamster, pet shops stock tarantulas, lizards and deadly snakes.
Newspaper back pages are filled with stories about the “cobra that went berserk in a tiny flat”, and doctors say it is only a matter of time before a fatality occurs.
The snake serum only keeps for a certain period of time and is very expensive to buy.
Hospitals do not always have it in stock, ready for an emergency.
The Arany Sas Pharmacy Museum at Tarnok utca 18, in the Castle District also displays some strange cures.
A mummified head was powdered up and the potion was drunk to relieve fevers and sore throats...!
The museum was originally a genuine pharmacy called Arany Egyszarvú (Golden Unicorn), established in 1688 by Ferenc Bôsinger. It was the first pharmacy in Buda Castle after the expulsion of the Turks, and moved here in the mid-18th century.
The building was formerly a merchant's house and dates from the early 15th century. Inside, an alchemist's laboratory is recreated and strange creatures hang from the ceiling, a dried, stuffed crocodile and a large lizard.
The tiny museum is crammed full of bottles and jars, C18th handwritten notebooks and some pictorial records of Kozma and Damján, Arab chemists who died martyrs and became the patron saints of pharmacists.
The Semmelweis Museum of Medical History at Apród utca 1-3, behind the Tabán church is the resting place of physician Ignác Semmelweiss (1818), known as the 'savior of mothers' because of his discovery of the causes of puerperal fever - sepsis during childbirth.
The museum exhibits the furnishings of another old Pest pharmacy, the Szentlélek Patika, founded in 1786 and also on display are skulls, strange remedies, mummies and a shrunken head.

Useful chemist's
Csillag Patika. VII. Rákóczi út 39
All-night chemist's
I. Széna tér 1
II. Frankel Leó út 22
IX. Üllôi út 121 (Nagyvárad metro stop)
XII. Alkotás utca 3 - gives medicine out through a hole in the wall at weekends
VI. Dob utca 81 - original interior with very beautiful lamps
XIII. Pozsony út 2 - with the snake coiling around a beaker symbol.
Kossuth Lajos 10 - Azur Drogerie- is not a pharmacy but it has a long, narrow interior, lined with cabinet and drawers made of brown wood that resembles a pharmacy and is worth a visit

The Centrál Coffee House

I wrote this article on the wonderful coffee house more than ten years ago, however the historical details are still interesting, I think.

Renovation work is now beginning on the one-time Centrál Coffee House.
Work started on the reconstruction on June 29 and will continue for a year and a half, with completion date pegged in at July 15 1999.
Dr. Somody Imre, director Pharmavit Rt. bought the building and is financing the 1,100 million forint project through a private company, which he established specifically for the coffee house renovation.
When it opens its door again in October 1999, the building, which stands at the southern left hand corner of Ferenciek tere will have office buildings on the upper floors, while the ground floor will recreate the former glory of the famous coffee house.
Together with the renovation work on the Ybl Palota opposite, this will make Ferenciek tere, the square of the Fransiscans, an elegant place of learning once again.
The university library stands on one corner, the Ybl Palota and the Károlyi Mihály literary museum further down the road, when the Centrál Kávéház is ready, the only corner with not quite such a high-brow reputation will be the northeast nook, where the Bonnie and Clyde bar offers roulette and darts.
The Central opened in 1887, in the freshly-constructed house belonging to Lajos Ullmann Erényi.
It was the heir to the Philosophus Kávéház which had stood a few blocks away a few decades earlier.
“The lamps and the whole interior decoration, like the marble tables, sofas, billiard tables, the whole games room and the coffee kitchen, moreover even the cups and the pots are so beautiful that it is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful,” wrote a critic at the time.
The Centrál soon became the centre of intellectual life, although it was almost exclusively male scholars and writers who made the Centrál their local.
It was the place where József Kiss edited the Hét (‘Week’) weekly literary paper, for which many big names worked before the Nyugat (‘West’) paper was formed. All the 400 coffee houses of the capital had subscriptions to Hét.
Kiss also taught young writers the secrets of language, verse and writing.
Famous writers worked here in the Centrál around the so-called “big writers’ table” - among them Kálmán Mikszáth, Sándor Bródy, Gyula Krúdy, Andor Kozma, Zsigmond Justh and Zoltán Ambrus.
Even Endre Ady, who had different home-from-home cafe, the Három Holló (Three Ravens) (now the Goethe Institute) was known to frequent the Centrál.
In 1907, younger writers in the Hét group formed Nyugat and soon moved their headquarters to the New York coffee house, on the corner of Erzsébet körút and Dohány utca, near what is now called Blaha Lujza tér.
Then, in the twenties the Nyugat paper moved back from the New York coffee house headquarters to its birthplace in the Centrál coffee house.
From 1905, the Centrál was run by former bank offers Gyôzô Mészáros, who was also the head of the Budapest coffee house association and he, as a professional protected the high standard of the artistic institution for many decades.
The atmosphere was conducive to writing, as wafts of coffee brewing aromas occasionally reached the writers, who sat hunched over scraps of white paper, waiting for inspiration.
Cigar smoke spiralled up towards the chandeliers, mixing with the low mutterings of authors thinking out loud.
No business deals or loud noises disturbed the creative atmosphere.
Mészáros put the men of letters on a special gallery so that the ordinary citizens would also be able to witness the shining examples of intellectual life, literature, science and fine arts.
Loud words, disruption of order, or snobbishness were not tolerated in the Centrál, which was open day and night.
The coffee house was philanthropic in its actions as well as its principles.
Those in need were helped with credit, small loans besides the moderately priced coffee, peaceful surroundings, and the Hungarian and international press.
The First War World disrupted the clientele of the Centrál as many young writers were conscripted. Zuboly (Elemér Bántai) became the first casualty amongst the writing regulars in 1915, two years later the poet Géza Gyóni also lost his life. “The only remaining piece of Pest was the Centrál,” wrote Mihály Babits.
It was somewhat shaken by the fighting, some of the tables’ marble tops were split, the mirrors had grown hazy, the porcelain buttons on the armchair coverings also showed the marks of time.
On the wall was a memorial tablet to Zuboly, with a bronze relief, under which was engraved some lines of verse by his friend Ady.
During the twenties, the Nyugat once again had its special table in the Centrál. Babits’s Sons of Death novel gave a role to this much-loved place where, “through the nonsensical cafe house smoke, the aroma of delights of days gone by fluttered”. Coughing slightly, the ‘sad poet’ Árpád Tóth, scuttled in, his lungs ruined by the damp air of his rented room, the printing room and the smoke from his own and surrounding cigars.
Zsigmond Móricz would make his slow dignified procedure over to the Nyugat table, sit down, drink a coffee, light a cigar and hide himself away in his thoughts and a thick aromatic cloud.
The Nyugat editor took his place without a sound, while Frigyes Karinthy and Dezsô Kosztolányi blustered in more noisily.
Aurél Kárpáti, Ernô Szép and Ferenc Molnár and the whole editorial team would spend hours discussing topics.
And so life continued in this bastion of literary life, “In the Centrál, where along with many famous or now forgotten men I also rocked my cradle”. wrote János Kodolányi.
Other scholars frequented the Centrál with their books, librarians, museum curators, and university professors.
Artists also sipped coffee in the Centrál, although they did not have a particular separate circle of their own here. József Rippl-Rónai signed one of his paintings with the words, “I drew this in the Centrál Coffee House”.
Many men of letters worked here day in day out, and went to the Centrál as if it were their office.
After the Second World War, the Újhold (‘New Moon”) editorial was formed and operated in the Centrál.
Ágnes Nagy Nemes, Pilinszky, Balazs Lengyel, Mándy, Sándor Rákos and others worked here on Tuesday afternoons until late at night, preparing the paper and editing.
In 1950 the Paprika Centre National Company took over the premises.
This company, which built the little yellow underground, made the premises its culture centre and canteen.
Then, from 1967, it became the Eötvös club - the popular ELTE students' club, where groups like Omega entertained the college crowd and Zorán and the Metro band began their careers.
The old stippling on the walls remained virtually intact.
However, the chandeliers made in Vienna were smashed and pawned at the MÉH - recycling depot.
Then the premises became home for the Wizards amusement arcade with an unspectacular and less literary tenancy until recently when Dr. Imre Somody bought the building.
Now, it is hoped, a thriving literary life will return to the heart of Pest. “That special place has now disappeared, the place that was neither club, nor pub, neither an association nor a restaurant, neither a casino nor a presszó, but something more democratic than all of these - a coffee house,” wrote Dóra Pataky, the interior designer for the new Centrál.
The Centrál will again be a place where, “fascinating discussions will whirl on all topics by a company of people who will talk and argue late into the night on politics, art and ideologies while women decorate the scene with their beauty”.

Centrál Kávéház és étterem
1053 Budapest
Károlyi Mihály utca 9

Table reservations: (+36 1) 266 2110
info@centralkavehaz.hu
www.centralkavehaz.hu

BARTÓK BÉLA ÚT

©LucyMallows2004
With its cubic cobble stones and plane trees standing guard along the way, ancient Hungarian craftsman’s workshops and fading neon shop signs, Bartók Béla út, in the eleventh district of Buda, was one of the few streets near the centre of town that looked typically Hungarian.
The cobbles have gone now, but Bartók, like Mester utca in the ninth district has that unique Magyar street ambience.
Others with their flashy palaces of denim and burger bars could be confused with streets running through other great cities of Europe.
The cobblestones are called macskakővek in Hungarian, meaning 'cat stones'.
However, this all changed in 2003.
In November, work began to remove the cobbles over which rattled the second largest stream of downtown-headed traffic. Every day 600,000 people jiggled along the painful route. The builders moved in and replaced the ancient electricity, gas, water and sewage systems.
After an agreement on the fourth metro line, the station diaphragm walls were sunk at Gellért tér, Móricz Zsigmond körtér, Kosztolányi Dezsô tér and Tétény út. Tram tracks and sidewalks were replaced and the green areas were given new park benches, flower pots and bollards.
Although the street looks a bit smarter, and the trams run more smoothly, the atmosphere has changed little.
Bartók Béla út, the street named after Hungary’s greatest composer doesn¹t actually contain much in the way of musical heritage.



At Móricz Zsigmond körtér there is a piano repair workshop and at the Budai Parkszínpad beside the Bottomless Lake (Feneketlen tó) at Kosztolányi Dezsô tér there are concerts by widely varying popular artists from Roma rap Fekete Vonat to guitar troubadour Péter Gerendás.
A statue of Bartók (1881-1945) by József Somogyi stands beside the lake, under a frame of bells.
Bartók Béla út begins at Gellért tér, graced by the beautiful Art Nouveau Gellért spa hotel and curves around the base of Gellért Hill to Móricz Zsigmond körtér. The fading Szabó photographer’s studio, second hand fur coat store and faded Cipôbolt share the wide, cracked pavements with more modern mobile phone outlets and optical showrooms.
The tiny, cramped book antikvarium (antique shop) front is almost hidden at 10am every day by the lines of pensioners who rob their own book-shelves to sell another selection of first editions for groceries.
On the right-hand side, some of the imposing buildings are worth a closer look, for the amazing stucco facades in pastel blues and greens and the hidden courtyards behind.
At No. 23 there is a fabulously grand yellow courtyard with Classical pillars, while No. 33 is a walk-in shopping area with a grotto and steps leading up to a leafy glade.
At the Bertalan Lajos utca tram stop, many homeless gather and sip wine take-outs from the countless borozós (wine bars, more proletarian than posh) on the street.
They sit under the statue to Géza Gardonyi who wrote Egri Csillagok (Under a Crescent Moon) and the building behind (No. 36-38) resembles a giant cinema Wurlitzer organ rising up in orange stone out of the street.
The doorway is guarded by two winged sphinxes with Cleopatra hairstyles.
A little further along at No. 40 is an interesting building designed in 1899 by Ödön Lechner, the father of Hungarian Art Nouveau, to accommodate his brother Gyula, a writer and painter.
The unusual decoration on the beige building resembles the stitching on the side of a blanket.



When Bartók died in New York in 1945, he left a condition in his will that no place in Budapest could be named after him, so long as there were still places like Hitler tér (now Kodály körönd) and Mussolini tér (now Oktogon).
Thus, immediately after the Second World War, the city decided to rename Horthy Miklós út after him along with eight other Bartók Béla út and utca dotted about Budapest.
Móricz Zsigmond körtér (circus) named, like the following Kosztolányi Dezsô tér, after one of Hungary’s great writers, is one of the busiest, most atmospheric squares in Buda, rivalling Mozskva tér for life and colour, noise, birds, flowers, trams, homeless, drunks and dog faeces.
A plaque to Móricz Zsigmond (1879-1942) reads “A Hungarian realist. The first to depict the realities of life of the Hungarian peasants”.
A neon sign high on the rooftops advertises the services of the Manfréd Weiss factory on Csepel Island and looks down on the simpler stylistic designs of a Mcburger bar’s golden arches.
The circus is a rickety wood circle around which trams rattle, the 18 and 47 on their way to Budafok, the 19 and 49 rumble all the way along Bartók Béla út to Kelenföld.
In the middle, a statue to Prince Imre by Zsigmond Kisfaludy Strobl portrays King Saint Stephen’s son who died in a hunting accident aged 24. Interestingly, this statue managed to remain as a resting place for tired pigeons throughout the Communist period.
The circus was designed in the late 19th century to the grand American plan, with wide streets and huge squares, continuing in style at Kosztolányi Dezsô tér which is quite a terrifying road junction where broad radial roads meet.
After Kosztolányi Dezsô tér, the road runs in an almost entirely straight line, cobbled all the way to Etele tér, in Kelenföld, the end of the line also for the famous No. 7 bus.
At dusk, the Bottomless Lake is one of the most atmospheric parts of Buda. The Szent Imre church is illuminated at night and shadows are thrown across the reeds and water of the former quarry pit, which is actually only a few metres deep.
At No. 62 a faded sign still bears witness to the one-time glories of the Bartók cinema.
This was part of an apartment block designed by Gábor Preisich and Mihály Vadász in 1934.
Preisich was a member of the Ciam group and was very influential in introducing modernism to Hungary.
This building is one of his best creations.



The street becomes more and more rural as it continues to Kelenföld, the ‘fields of Kelen’.
Outside No. 98 a pile of steaming horse manure on the pavement helps the village atmosphere.
Nearby is a horse tackle shop, a ‘Daisy’ gun shop, a knife shop and a garden equipment shop.
At No. 125 the Nagyon Kis Vendéglô (Very Small Bistro) is a family-run bistro offering ‘cheap home cooking’ and just along the way is the Melódiás Haladás Eszpresszó (Melodic Progress).
These types of establishments have died out in the centre of town but can still be found along the far reaches of Bartók Béla út, along with a wonderful workshop at No. 112 that will do everything from picture framing, to mirror cutting, zip repairs, bag lining and patches, as announced on a stylised brown sign.
The Karinthy Theatre at No. 123-130 has one of those ancient cinema signs, where you can click the letters into the lines to show what’s playing this week. A little further along the Szent Gellért church is a modern building, but look around the side to catch one of sculpture Imre Varga’s stunning works.
Jesus cradles Gellért in big silver wings with embossed metal decoration and carries him up to heaven.
In Brussels, a statue of Béla Bartók by Imre Varga stands in a forgotten square between the Grand’Place and the Centraal Station.
A group of Japanese tourists take photos and ask their guide who the statue depicts. “Bartók, a German composer I think,” says the young guide.
At No. 133 a huge tram depot stands with a yawning gate.
A group of static No. 19 trams gaze out from their shed.
As we approach Etele tér, we are now in the heart of Kelenföld.
It is somehow reminiscent of Szeged with wide tree-lined cobblestone streets and a sleepy Sunday afternoon ambiance.
Kelenföld was the centre of horseracing in the 16th century, introduced by the young King Lajos II in 1525 and the area was still fields and vineyards up until only 100 years ago.
The area received the name Kelenföld in 1847.
Prior to that it was called Tabán. The area became populated in the middle of the 18th century when grape workers moved in.
The origins of the name are argued about.
Some attribute it to ‘Krenfeld’ which is ‘Horseradish field’ in German and all the agricultural workers there at the time would bear this out.
Other say that there was a tribe leader called Kelen at the time of the occupation of the Carpathian Basin in 896 and they made their camps here and named it after him.

The Gellért hotel and pool

When friends visit me from abroad, one of the places definitely on the list for an unmissable, real Budapest experience is the Gellért thermal bath complex.
It’s more pricey than most, but no other bath gives quite the same feeling of history, culture, unusual fun and sybaritic soaking all in one.
It’s also a good excuse to treat myself.
Despite living only one tram stop away, I restrict myself to the occasional Sunday afternoon wallow in the thermals and the sauna or, in summer, a refreshing splash in the wave pool followed by a vigorous foot massage.
The Gellért is the oldest Hungarian spa hotel.
The springs that supply the baths with hot healing waters have been flowing for at least 2,000 years.
Saint Iván, a healing hermit whose talents were known far and wide, once lived beside the Sáros fürdô (mud bath). He was one of the first naturopaths whose sermons and "miracles" attracted many sick people to the area.
Due to the great heat of the water gushing from the spring it was known as Purgatory, but later the name was changed to the more virtuous Bath of the Virgins.
The earliest reference to the existence of healing waters at this spot dates from the 13th century during the reign of King András II and in the Middle Ages a hospital stood on the site.
The Ottomans built baths here and they were mentioned at the time by Evliya Celebi, a well-known Turkish travel writer.
During the Turkish occupation (1541-1686) a grand bathing establishment stood on the site where the Gellért Hotel now stands.
After the Turks left a bath house was built with courtyards and plane trees for shade, but the mud baths were filled in to make way for the construction of Szabadság híd (Freedom Bridge).
In 1912 work began on a brand new spa hotel to be named Gellért after the hill behind it, down which the Venetian bishop-monk Szent Gellért was pushed in a barrel lined with nails by pagans in 1046.
The present building, with its glass dome, terraces, open-air pool and bathhouses, took six years to complete.
In the 1920s, the Gellért became the center of upmarket social life. In 1927, the open-air pool with artificial waves was constructed and, seven years later, the indoor thermal pools were added.
In 1927 Károly Gundel took over the restaurant.
This was a time of high society banquets for which Gundel created ever more delicious culinary inventions to delight visiting dignitaries from all over Europe.
All these elements helped to promote Budapest as an international spa city in the 1930s. Members of Europe’s royal families, artists, foreign politicians and millionaires all stayed within the Gellért’s elegant walls.
In January 1945 the hotel was bombed so badly that only its walls were left standing.
The curly Secessionist balconies and the oriental rounded turrets and towers of the exterior were restored, but the present interior furnishings are not faithful to the original plans.
However, both the hotel and the public swimming pools to this day retain the atmosphere of a more glamorous era.
Enjoy a coffee and cake in the hotel café after your wallowing and admire the stained glass windows halfway up the grand staircase.
The indoor and outdoor baths are supplied with water from a source deep within Gellért Hill. Its chalky, slightly acidic, hydrogen-carbonate, radioactive water contains many minerals.
The water surges from its source at a temperature of 43°C.
When you enter the grand Secessionist hall, lined with pink marble pillars, floral motifs on the walls and bronze curlicue decorations, you are faced with a range of facilities to choose from.
Move along and hand over your ticket on the right and follow the stairs down to a tiled subterranean passage way that leads past the outdoor pool.
Circular portholes offer a view of the swimmers’ legs and aging photos on the wall opposite show aspects of the hotel. Then up more stairs to the changing rooms.
There are also changing rooms with cabins on the level of the indoor pool, but upstairs is drier and warmer for changing.
Keep a hold of your ticket as the cloakroom attendant sometimes asks to see it.
She will secure your locker and give you an aluminum tag with a number on it that must be guarded safely.
On leaving, it is also a good idea to tip her, and also the masseuse, as you get a wonderful smile and special service next time. Inside, the 33 meter pool is the height of luxury.
Lined with marble columns and trailing plants, it resembles something from the heady days of the Roman Empire.
Its retractable glass roof is often opened in summer to let shafts of sunlight in on the hedonistic scene.
At one end is a thermal pool with hot jets of healing water spouting from statues.
Doors lead off at either side to the single sex Turkish thermal baths.
In the ladies’ section there are three thermal plunge pools of slightly differing temperatures, where naked women rise up out of the steam, revealing flesh in all shapes and sizes.
There is also a steam bath amongst the intricate designs of the blue and brown tiled walls.
The sauna comprises three largish rooms, each getting hotter and hotter until the third approaches something akin to Dante’s Inferno.
The women’s section also features changing rooms and showers.
The men’s section is arranged as a mirror image of the women’s on the right hand side, looking down from the thermal pool end.
These areas can be visited separately from the main pool for a slightly cheaper ticket.
Outside, there is a small thermal pool which is crowded full all summer long with visitors.
The elegant outdoor pool has chilly water, but temperatures rise on the hour when the fun wave pool cranks up into action for about 10 minutes.
Waves crash onto the very shallow far end and bodies fly in all different directions.
In summer a terrace buffet provides snacks, soft drinks and the ever popular bottles of beer from which some guests choose to slurp while in the thermal pool.
The Gellért also features a major treatment center and has salt baths, mud baths and inhalation rooms, all of which utilize the rich mineral waters gushing from Gellért Hill.

Gellért Medicinal Baths
IIII. Budapest
Kelenhegyi út 2-4
Tel: 466-6166

Pool hours:
October 1 - April 30
Mon-Fri 6am-7pm, Sat-Sun 6am-5pm

Thermal pool hours:
October 1 - April 30
Mon-Fri 6am-7pm, Sat-Sun 6am-2pm

The Pioneers and the Children's Railway

ÚTTÖRÔ = (literally) path-breaking, trail blazing, pioneering out into unknown territory.

This year the Hungarian Pioneer is 62 years old and thinking more about claiming his/her pension than playing with trains in the forest.
There is hardly a family photo album in Hungary that doesn’t contain a picture of a child in a red nylon neckerchief over a white shirt and aluminum belt buckle, standing proudly to attention at a ceremony to mark April 4, March 15, May 1, November 7, or other Socialist holidays.
Many people believe the Pioneers disappeared like most organizations of the socialist state under the ideological rubble of the Berlin wall.
However children are still lighting camp fires and singing songs, albeit with less political lyrics, up in the Buda hills, at one of Hungary’s biggest Pioneer camps at Csillebérc.
Most socialist state organizations disbanded or changed their names and identity, but somehow the Pioneers survived. After radical changes, the youth group still has an impressive membership of 76,000, making it the largest youth group in Hungary.
Today, there are no uniforms, no red neckerchiefs, no pledges of loyalty to the socialist state and no military ranks. But the spirit of the pioneers lives on and provides a very necessary function.
“There is a parallel between the freedom kids have today and the rise in juvenile delinquency.
In the past, the Pioneers taught children a kind of behavior, although there was not much freedom of choice. However today, children have no feeling of community.
In the early 1990’s there was a huge vacuum, but now more and more people are turning to us.” says Péter Rácz, leader of the Magyar Úttörôk Szövetsége - the Association of Hungarian Pioneers which this year celebrated its 50th anniversary on June 2 1996.
From 1946 to 1988, the Pioneers were a mass movement.
They were present in schools, sports clubs and housing estates.
Children could join at 7 and become a Kisdobos -Little Drummer, then progressing to úttörô -pioneer until 15 when it was hoped he or she would join the Communist Youth Association, (KISZ)
Today, there are 450 local Pioneer groups in every county in Hungary, involving kids aged 6 to 14, and Rácz expects the numbers to continue to grow.
After 1956 the Pioneers became an all-inclusive youth club as part of the state party, “Ninety-nine percent of children were members,” says Rácz.
In the second half of the sixties not all children were members, leading up to now when it is voluntary.
Csillebérc is the only Pioneer camp left of the more than 40 once operated in Hungary.
Most of them were sold off, some under dubious circumstances, during the previous government of the Democratic Forum.
Rácz acknowledges it is difficult to shake off the old reputation. “We kept the name because the movement itself developed through the years.
In the seventies the leaders were those who like being with children, not those in it for political gain.”
The Pioneers gave all kinds of benefits to children.
Rácz says, “The summer camps, which still exist were a typical kind of socialist idea, providing a way for poor children to escape the smog in the long break.”
The strong central leadership of the Pioneers has now evolved into one of many children’s group organizations. “We do not try to force the kids to do anything and there is a strong appreciation of local autonomy in groups.”
The children decide their own names, symbols and under what conditions their local group will operate.
They can wear a uniform if they want and many chose a different colored necktie.
Some stick with the traditional red tie, others go for brown, white or Hungarian flag colors.
However, the new slogan is “Pioneers for the friendly third millennium” which still rings of Socialist propaganda.
Four major events have been organized this year, a Pioneer Olympics, a Magyar Settlement commemoration, Environmental protection and the anniversary celebrations.
The Pioneers are members of the International Falcon Movement (IFM) involving 60 countries.
Rácz explains, “Before there was a rigid order, now the emphasis is on free time. We try to stay away from politics. Our duty is to help the children’s personalities develop into responsible adults in the democratic world.”
One thing they still try to maintain is the “Left wing sensibility” of solidarity and responsibility to society, but Rácz says, “Tradition is not so important, we don’t want to live in the past..”
The member ship card is a striking example of the inner change.
Before, every Pioneer had a little book, like a junior Communist party membership card with the twelve rules of conduct. Now the membership card resembles a credit card for children.
It is plastic with a cartoon squirrel.
Rácz says, “The difference is that now we are more playful, more jolly. We stress that adults and children are partners. It is grown-ups and kids together, with the adults helping in the background, rather than the old way of adults demonstrating and children listening.”
In the Csillebérc camp high in the Buda hills almost all traces of the old Socialist order have been removed. Only a circle of flag poles remains in the center, while alone in the undergrowth stands the statue of a pioneer boy, holding aloft a flag with the motto, “Elôre” (‘Forward!’) and flowers in his strangely huge hands.
He is ignored by the hundreds of children coming for class at the American school which shares the building with the Pioneer’s Csillebérc headquarters.

The Star Seeking Game.

A young pioneer in the eighties, László Sáfrány was brought up in Rózsadomb, where the richest families lived and where there was the greatest opposition to the Communist system.
Even so, these parents did not stop their children from signing up to be a Pioneer. “No one told their child not to join, it would have made things awkward at school.”
At summer camp, Pioneers had to wear the itchy uniform on the first day when the flag was raised and on the last when the flag came down.
It was seen as another form of oppression.
Sáfrány says, “The scarf was 100 percent nylon, we wanted to wear our own clothes. In the eighties, everyone wanted to have the best sports shoes from abroad and we wanted to be different.”
However, others did not want to be different and enjoyed the sense of community that the Pioneers created.
University student Krisztina Farkas, 22, said, “At the beginning of the year, every pioneer had to fill in a form saying both parents were members of the communist party, but mine never were.
There was no concrete discrimination but I felt some vague threat.
As a child I did not want to stand out. I wanted to be part of the group, so I was very proud they let me be a Pioneer and I organized lots of competitions and games.
One day the whole group went into the forest and we hid little red stars and pictures of Lenin in the trees, grass, everywhere and if you found five you got a chocolate.
The Soviet presence in the camp confused some children.
November 7 was the big celebration to celebrate the Russian Revolution.
Computer programmer Mihály Sándor, 25, says, “But even as children, we knew that the stories we heard at Pioneer camp were different from what our grandparents told us about Russians.
We heard tales of rape, robbery and gulags- it was disturbing for a child.”
Bank assistant Edit Somodi, 25 remembers the initiation ceremony when an older Pioneer removed the red scarf which had been hanging from a shoulder strap on her shirt and tied it proudly around her neck.
The knot has to be tied in a specific way with the lump at the front and Somodi loved the pomp and ceremony and still remembers how to tie the knot.
Some children enjoyed the rousing patriotic songs, others said, “Why do we have to sing this rubbish every morning?” One thing they all agree on is the summer camp was a great opportunity to go on holiday with their school friends.
Parents on low incomes were glad they could send their kids out of the city for two weeks at a minimal fee.
In the early fifties, the aim was to find loyal workers for the Communist cause, but after 1956 it became more of a youth club, organizing sports, cultural and educational activities.
Authorities may have hoped it would be breeding ground for young communists, the first step on the ladder to full party membership.
Some became group leaders for KISZ (Communist Youth Association) and they were they most enthusiastic and knowledgeable at political quizzes. Others were not so interested.
Anikó Somsits is now a lawyer. In 1976 she was a Little Drummer and remembers struggling with the political questions.
The group leaders asked, ‘Who is János Kádár?’ and if the child answered correctly, points could be collected towards a little piece of chocolate or some other reward. “I was eight and had no idea who they were talking about.
One of my companions said, “Oh, Jáncsi bácsi” and we were worried that she would be punished but the teacher only said, “It’s so good that you have a family relationship with our leader .”
Somsits also has rose-tinted memories of her time at Pioneer camp, “I remember singing all the time,” she said. Though at some times the life was not for the faint-hearted.
The alarm sounded at six every morning, then children had to run three times around the camp without being allowed to visit the bathroom first.
Then a military style bed inspection and a quick wash in freezing cold water before the daily raising of the flag. Only after all that could they have breakfast. Then it was more singing.
The songs ranged from happy Pioneer songs
“Mint a mókus fenn a fán, Az úttörô oly vidám” (“Like the squirrel up in the tree, the Pioneer’s life is just as happy,”) to the more ideological workers’ movement songs, like ‘Red Csepel’ with the lyrics, “More, more, more, never enough for the bourgeois” ‘Amur Partisans’ ‘Lenin the Hero’ and the ‘Internationale.’
The last gave Somsits many problems as she did not understand the words, “In ‘A Nemzetközivé’ I thought it was ‘Nemzetközi V’ and couldn’t find out what the ‘V’ stood for.
Like most of the songs it was not explained.” It was just a subtle form of information about the Socialist cause that dripped into the young child’s consciousness.
“I did not sense a big political influence as a child, but now looking back, I can see that the songs and the games were quite a subtle way of preaching the party line.”
The intention was to introduce politics with singing and games and hopefully stimulate an interest in later life.
Like almost every ex-pioneer, Somsits looks back on the two weeks spent in the country with friends with great affection. It was a time of childhood innocence when the biggest worry was whether the campfire would light or how to remember all twelve points in the Pioneer’s Rules for Life membership book.
However, one summer camp was not such a haven, and Somsits caused a big scandal by leaving a week before the end. “It wasn’t the usual camp with my school friends, but a specialist bird-watching Pioneer camp in Tatabánya. It was very regimental and the food was diabolical.
I had to go on night watch patrol at four in the morning and I could not stay awake.” After a week, Somsits could bear it no longer and secretly wrote a letter, pleading her parents to come and collect her. “My parents had to invent an excuse that we had to visit a dying relative. It caused a big confrontation with the group leaders, who said I had cut myself off from the group and could never go on such a Pioneer camp again.”



The Pioneer’s 12 points for life were seen as guides to teach the child how to live correctly.
The was a strong emphasis on learning how to be a responsible member of society.
Somsits says, “If anything happened at the camp, the leaders informed the school. Naughty children did not get to go to fun camps at the Balaton and there was much community work, giving us a sense of discipline.”
Discipline is something that teacher Erika Csikós, 25, says is now missing in the lives of her students today. “When we were Pioneer, there was always a goal to be reached, today’s children do not have any aim or motivation.” She says the children have no sense of patriotism for their country and many cannot recite the National Anthem. “At the Pioneer camp we learnt to respect our elders and contribute to the community.
Patriotism was mixed in with Communism, of course, but when we said we were working ‘for the homeland’ it was for Hungary, not for the Soviet Union.
Csikós tells of a friend who had to go to compulsory Pioneer meetings, because, although her father was in the Communist party, her mother was from an aristocratic family, and so had been banned from higher education. (The authorities feared the next revolution would come from those who were intellectuals or thinkers and so denied further education).
The authorities worried that the young girl would not get a proper Communist upbringing and so she had to attend extra meetings, so that her mother would not be fired from her job.
Mária Völgyesi teaches at a secondary school in the twentieth district. In the fifties, she was one of the first Pioneers, then a youth leader and then a full leader.
She became a teacher as a result of good experiences at the Pioneer camps and still keeps the illustrated diary that the children compiled on the tours around some of the most picturesque parts of Hungary. “We walked 150 kilometers in 10 days and there was a wonderful group atmosphere, sitting around the campfire and sleeping in tents.
We prepared all year for the summer camp.” She says the self-discipline and initiative fostered in the camps is missing today, but hopes the Pioneer will re-establish itself again in the future as the nationwide network. “The Pioneers gave the child a backbone and a community. Now you see so many out on the streets in the evening with no sense of purpose.”
She says that, these days, no political party bothers with the children of high school age, “Not even FIDESZ which is supposedly a youth party.”



All aboard the Socialist Ghost train
Young Pioneers built the 12 kilometre narrow-gauge rail line in the Buda hills in 1950. It was built and run by people too young to get a driving license.
The museum at Hûvösvölgy station has a charming collection of memorabilia – socialist realist posters, cups and trophies, awards from youth movements in other Socialist countries, uniforms and old photos of Pioneers at work show the railway’s past.
In 1995, the railway celebrated 45 years of chugging through the hills and a nostalgia train ride visited different exhibitions at each of the eight stations
Pioneers no longer run it but a diligent group of child ticket collectors and conductors still takes tickets and salute as the train pulls out of the station from Hûvösvölgy to Széchenyi hegy about half and hour later.
On an autumn weekday morning, the train chugs along solitary with only one passenger. An adult driver negotiates the bends and tunnels and one child in an oversized uniform collects tickets. His hands are invisible under the huge navy blue sleeves, but he politely takes and punches the 60 forint ticket and bids a good journey.
The children’s enthusiasm and civility bears little resemblance to adult MÁV workers. A girl guard gives a half wave-half salute as we pull out of the next station, this is repeated along the track.
The mountain railway has two tiny carriages with wooden slatted seats and a stove in the back. Black and white pictures of Budapest sights decorate the walls.
Virágvölgy (which once bore the name “Elôre” -forward!) station has a weather beaten plaster plaque with three pioneers standing proudly pointing toward a brighter socialist future.
The Csillebérc station has two tiling tableaus on either side of the station building wall. One shows pioneers at play, the other shows pioneers raising the flag at the beginning of another day at summer camp, a ceremony that lasts to this day.



THE HUNGARIAN PIONEER ASSOCIATION LITTLE DRUMMER MEMBERSHIP BOOK (age 7-11)
The 6 points- the law of the little drummer’s life.

1. The Little drummer is a faithful child of our Hungarian homeland.
2. The Little Drummer loves and respects his/her parents, teachers.
3. The Little Drummer studies diligently and helps his/her companions.
4. The Little Drummer always tells the truth.
5. The Little Drummer is clean, tidy and punctual.
6. The Little Drummer lives so as to be worthy of the Pioneers’ red neckerchief.

THE HUNGARIAN PIONEER ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP BOOK (age 11-15)

“For the working people, for the homeland, forward -steadfastly!”
The 12 points - the Pioneer life law

1. The Pioneer is a faithful child of the homeland, the Hungarian People’s Republic
2. The Pioneer fortifies the friendship of the People, protects the honor of the red neckerchief.
3. The Pioneer develops knowledge without rest, faithfully completes his/her duty.
4. The Pioneer, where he/she can, helps.
5. The Pioneer works with a good spirit.
6. The Pioneer always speaks the truth and acts fairly.
7. The Pioneer loves and honors his/her parents, teachers and respects his/her elders.
8. The Pioneer is a true and faithful friend.
9. The Pioneer is brave and disciplined.
10. The Pioneer exercises his/her body and preserves his/her health.
11. The Pioneer loves and protects nature.
12. The Pioneer lives so as to be worthy of the Communist Youth Association membership. (KISZ)

Art Nouveau architecture in Budapest

©LRMallowsBemrakpart2006


Art Nouveau as a style always provokes a reaction and it is impossible to remain indifferent.
The style is considered by many to be stunningly beautiful, with shimmering colours and imaginative forms, while others find it the height of bad taste.
Architecturally it radically altered the face of many cities of North America and Europe - with Budapest being a leading example - at the beginning of the 20th century and left an indelible mark on our collective cultural consciousness.
Emerging more than 100 years ago, the Art Nouveau movement was an attempt to create a modern, international style based on decoration.
It spread rapidly and could be found everywhere from public buildings to biscuit tins.
The sinuous coiling forms and elaborate features brought colour and verve to brighten up drab pre-war European streets.
The late 19th century on was a time of social change and political ferment.
A restless mercantile class pushed out the old aristocracy.
The revolution left its mark on many European capitals, as it spawned a building style that swept across the continent.
It was called Art Nouveau in Glasgow, Paris and Brussels, Jugendstil in Riga, Berlin and Munich, and Secession (Szecesziós) in Budapest, Vienna and Prague.
Today, Budapest is home to buildings that are some of the best examples of this ornate style.
At the end of the 19th century, Budapest grew from a small town to a great metropolis with a burgeoning middle class.
After the Compromise (Ausgleich in German, Kiegyezés in Hungarian) of 1867, which secured a degree of autonomy for Hungary within the Dual Monarchy, many artists, architects and designers wanted to form a cultural identity and embraced the Art Nouveau movement.
The “father” of modern Hungarian architecture, Ödön Lechner, wanted to “Shape a new age in art, to give birth to a new style.”
Art Nouveau became a force for liberation from the Viennese allegiances and pressures and Lechner gave buildings such as the Post Office Savings Bank and the Applied Arts Museum a singular Magyar identity.
Budapest's architecture provides a lasting and vibrant record of Art Nouveau and there are many places where exotic facades by Lechner still brighten up the dusty back streets.
Architects used playful ornamentation on their buildings in reaction to the stultifying restraints of Historicism, the previously popular style in which grand buildings from the past were copied.
Structures often were organic in form, with curving facades, a dramatic departure from the austere, classical regularity.
During this fertile period, applied arts took on added importance.
Architecture and interior design were blended to create buildings of a consistent whole, or Gesamtkunstwerk (complete work of art). Art Nouveau forms appeared not only in architecture but in the organic furniture of Ödön Faragó, Miksa Róth’s gorgeous stained glass, Béla Lajta’s fabulous mosaics and József Rippl Rónai’s Oriental-inspired multi-coloured paintings. Hungarians created their own distinctive Secession style.
They resented the Germanic influence of the Habsburg¹s domination in bilingual Budapest. They feared their Hungarian identity was in danger of being submerged by the growing population of ethnic minorities - Serb, Croat, Slovak, Greek – in the expanding capital. They wanted to make a political statement through art.
Lechner, the most famous Secession architect, led the way “We shall not rediscover a Hungarian form. We shall make one!” he declared.
Although the style Lechner developed was not without contradictions or critics, his influence over a generation of young architects starting out around 1900 was very strong.
Throughout his career he displayed a practical interest in new building materials and techniques as well as historical languages of form.
His early commissions such as the Town Hall in Szeged (1881-1883) drew heavily on the French Renaissance revival style. Lechner acknowledged at the time that he wanted to “harmonise” the “primitive crudeness of Magyar folk art and the refinement of French culture”.
Lechner imagined that he could conceive of a properly Hungarian style by fusing suitable languages of form.
After seeing the Calcutta railway station, he claimed that the archetypal model of this kind of synthesis was to be found in the way imperial British architecture had accommodated Indian architectural forms.
Lechner’s reputation was made by the buildings he designed from the early 1890s.
The Applied Arts Museum and the Geological Institute are credited as being the first examples of Art Nouveau in Hungary.
The Applied Arts Museum was built between 1893 and 1896, in line with plans prepared by Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos. The steel structure above the main hall is stuccoed, and the stuccos follow and demonstrate the logic of the structure while making it more graceful.
The unconventional, exotic appearance of the Applied Arts Museum was enhanced by glazed tiles, wrought ironwork, richly coloured pyrogranite tiles and Orientalist figures by the Zsolnay factory in Pécs and majolica bricks covering the street-facing facade and wings.
Lechner was well informed about the roots of Hungarian culture.
He knew the work of József Huszka, a pioneer of ethnography and he adapted peasant art designs such as the elaborately decorated felt cloak (cifraszûr) worn by men in the villages on special occasions, wooden dowry chests, tables and chairs hand-painted with tulip motifs and embroidered pillow cases.
Lechner preferred as natural motifs the flora and fauna of the Hungarian “peasant countryside”, including tulips and bees over the more exotic and literary orchids and Medusas found in many West European Art Nouveau buildings and interiors.
The tulip design, seen on the Geological Institute and the Postal Savings Bank, went on to become a symbol of Hungarian identity, with its roots in the countryside.
The Zsolnay factory chemists had perfected a lustrous eosin glaze that could withstand the effects of rain, snow and extreme cold. Lechner and others eagerly adopted the ceramics, using them extensively for decorative emphasis.
The blue tile roof of the Geological Institute, the yellow and green roof of the Postal Savings Bank and its exterior tulip design, the underwater vision of the Applied Arts Museum and Róth’s mosaic “painting” at the top of Szervita tér 3 show off the best of the creations.
Lechner’s disciples, christened the Fiatalok continued the Hungarian style, but varied the form. Károly Kós reached back to Transylvanian peasant architecture for inspiration, evident in the bird and pheasant houses at the Budapest Zoo.
Stained glass windows also enhanced many buildings during the Secession, most of them crafted in Miksa Róth’s workshop, in Nefelejcs utca near Keleti station.
The colourful circular window that frames the dome of the Applied Arts Museum displays Róth’s expertise and artistic acumen. Béla Lajta, another student of Lechner at the Budapest Technical University, employed the latest construction methods, using reinforced concrete with floral and geometric designs incised on the facades.
The beautiful, yet crumbling mausoleum that Lajta designed for the Schmidl family in the Kozma utca Izraelita cemetery in District X is a good example of his work.
The Budapest Zoo and Botanical Gardens opened in 1866.
Tens of thousands of animals and plants originating from all over the world are on display here in romantic artificial lakes, among the rocks, in aquariums and glasshouses, and buildings that bear an exotic, eastern influence.
The planners aimed to create living spaces for the animals that correspond to their original environment, and hence established an "international open-air architectural museum", which is significant in itself, even without the dwellers. The elephant house, whose roof is decorated with Zsolnay majolica, is a fine example of sensitive reconstruction.
The ornamental gateway to the zoo, featuring elephants gives a sense of exotic fun to Art Nouveau.

14 (+2) places to find Art Nouveau:

1. Gellért Spa Hotel, XI. Gellért tér.
2. Geological Institute, XIV. Stefánia út 14, Open Mon-Fri 9am-4pm
3. Hungarian Institute for the Blind, XIV Hermina út 74
4. The School for the Blind, XIV Ajtósi Dürer sor 39
5. Academy of Music, VI Liszt Ferenc tér 8
6. Four Seasons Gresham Palace Hotel (Gresham Insurance Co), V. Roosevelt tér
7. Párizsi Nagyáruház (Grand Parisian Department Store), VI. Andrássy út 39.
8. Church of the Philanthropic Foundation, X. Cserkesz utca 7
9. Primary school, mosaics by Zsigmond Vajda, VII. Dob utca 85
10. Philantia Flower Shop, V. Váci utca 9
11. Róth Memorial Museum, VII. Nefelejcs utca 26
12. Post Office Savings Bank, V. Hold utca 4
13. Szent László church, Kőbánya
14. The Schmidl family mausoleum, Kozma utca Izraelita cemetery, Kőbánya

And a little further afield, check out
15. The ‘Little Blue Church’ of Saint Elizabeth in Bratislava, Slovakia by Ödön Lechner 1910-1913
16. Also in Bratislava, the high school at Grösslingova ulica 18 by Ödön Lechner also in 1906-08

Kerepesi Cemetery, Budapest's garden of history

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL
Kerepesi temető
©LRMallows2008


In the warm spring sunshine, plum and nut trees burst into blossom and the grass grows long and lush in verdant green meadows. A striking lime green woodpecker with a crimson head searches for ants. He potters, undisturbed across the lawn. Fifty -four hectares of beautiful park land are criss-crossed by paths, running on compass lines. Geometrically ordered in the style of a French garden, there are also 400 different types of trees, dotted all over, in the haphazard English style.
One-hundred year old chestnut avenues offer a silent haven and the crisp April morning becomes suddenly cold and dark.
A Transylvanian long-eared owl awakes from his doze in the branches overhead and directs one eye at the people below, dressed in black and moving slowly in procession.
We are only 600 meters away from the polluted bustle of Budapest's Keleti station but we could be on the other side of the world. Kerepesi cemetery is a nature reserve, a botanical garden and a history museum - the perfect place to escape for a moment of peace and reflection when the city hysteria becomes overwhelming.
In 1841, Count István Széchenyi decided that there should be a Hungarian national pantheon. Eight years later, burial began in Kerepesi. Until then several smaller cemeteries had been used to bury the dead. In 1885, it was declared a decorative cemetery and Rákoskeresztúr public cemetery was opened to relieve the burden.
Antal Sinka is now retired, but worked for many years as a guide and knows the stories behind every grave.
Acrid smoke comes from Fiumei út over the high surrounding wall. We go down into a crypt while a stone mason examines the damage. Images spring to mind of spirits lurking in the shadows or vampires waiting to pounce, but in broad daylight no self-respecting vampire would leap forth, only three stone sarcophagi sit in a state of dust and decay.
Grave robbers, like pollution, continually threaten the tombs.
Sinka says, "Lajos Batthány was executed in the revolution in 1849 with three bullets. His body was hidden in the church on Rákóczi út and he could not rest in peace until 1867. He was disturbed again in 1993, when grave robbers stole his Ft 22 million sword. They overlooked his wife's Ft 11 million earrings, which have now been placed in the National Museum for safekeeping."
This cemetery has witnessed many funerals of historic importance.
On 6 October 1956, the reburial of László Rajk took place. Rajk (1909 -1949) was an underground communist leader in the 1930's who fought in the Spanish Civil war.
After World War II he was Hungary's Minister of the Interior, and later foreign minister.
Falsely accused of "Titoism," he was arrested and executed in 1949, becoming the most famous victim of the Hungarian purges. In the thaw that followed Stalin's death, he was posthumously rehabilitated and re-interred in Kerepesi cemetery.
The reburial became a mass demonstration, giving a hint of the Uprising which would break out 17 days later.
The most recent major burial in Kerepesi was that of Democratic Forum (MDF) Prime Minister József Antal who died in office in 1993.
His funeral took place on a bitterly cold Saturday evening in December 1993, thousands holding candles and singing mournful hymns in the floodlit dusk.
The grave looks different now, alone in the middle of a bright, sunny meadow.
A modest wooden cross, covered in flower tributes, contrasts with the resting place nearby of a statesman of another time, Ferenc Deák, honored by an ostentatious mausoleum.
The greatest statesman, Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) has an immense mausoleum currently being restored. Fenced off, the bronze statues of Genius, the Hungarian crest and several white marble lions by the architect and designer Alajos Strobl sit in the grass, instead of on the roof.
Situated in a corner, away from the statesmen and nobility is the workers' pantheon, designed by József Körner in 1958, and fast becoming a museum piece. It is one of the few places in Budapest where you can see the word "Communism" written out in bold letters.
The slogan "A KOMMUNIZMUSÉRT A NÉPÉRT ÉLTEK" (They lived for Communism and for the people") dominates the spacious white stone piazza.
Giant statues of two young men and a woman holding hands in Socialist Realist style gaze out boldly into the future. Six massive white blocks of stone bear reliefs of workers in the field or at war, and remembrance plaques testify to the bravery of socialist workers.
The cavernous two-level crypt underneath can be visited if the unpredictable attendants are on duty. Here, the ashes of politicians and artists find eternal peace. Leo Frankel, Gyula Derkovits and Ferenc Rózsa are just some of many names, recognizable from Budapest street names.
Black ceramic urns stand on shelves carved from Austrian red limestone. One of the urns contains the ashes of a certain Éva Braun. Sinka says, "It was often pointed out to visiting officials to test if they were paying attention. She really lived and, ironically, was a young Jewish member of the partisans.
The name and dates, 1917-1945 are identical to Hitler's mistress."
Behind the Worker's Pantheon is a plot for the heroes of the 1956 uprising. The plot for the "upholders of the system" in 1956 - the secret police or ÁVO - is also in Kerepesi, but Sinka explains, "The two groups were buried on opposite sides because if there was a memorial service for both groups on the same day, there would be fights."
In the workers' movement plot, crimson rose bushes grow on black marble tombs decorated with a gold star. Former Hungarian President János Kádár and his wife, Mária Tamáska, share a modest red marble gravestone in the middle.
Kádár and Antal represented diametrically opposed political systems, but they both share equal amounts of floral tributes and are the two most visited graves in Kerepesi.
Fossilized ammonites can be seen in the polished stone on Kádár's grave. Nearby are some unusual tombstones from the baroque period 1600-1700, featuring skulls and crossbones.
Many of the stones have bullet holes where, "Our Russian brothers" as Sinka adds ironically, were taking pot shots from the steps of Deák's mausoleum, or trying to destroy landmarks to make it difficult for German troops to parachute in.
Poet Endre Ady has what looks like a bandage around his arm but it is a stone plaster, covering a real bullet wound from a Russian gun.

The Arcade is two walls of elaborate graves and statues bought for posterity by wealthy families. One such resident of this eternal avenue of Hungarian elite is the Gundel family, "The kocsma (pub) brothers," as Sinka calls them.
At the four corners are stunning frescos on the ceilings, depicting Biblical scenes interwoven with Transylvanian -style buildings.
Russian soldiers are fenced off in a separate plot. Those who died in 1945, "Saving Hungary from the German fascists," and those who were killed in 1956, "Saving our land from the attacking anti-revolution" as the plaques say. It is one of the few places in Budapest where you can still see a red star.
Two tiny black wild kittens play on the graves, showing a healthy disrespect for death.
Poet János Arany worked under an oak tree on Margit Island and wanted to be buried there, but the authorities forbade it. Instead, he lies on an island of grass. In 1886, the gardener Emil Fuchs planted two acorns from Margit Island next to Arany's grave.
The writer Albert Pákh had a star above his name. This does not always mean a communist worker, Sinka says it also signifies the Hungarian symbol for death. Gyula Baghy, an Esperanto poet, has an "E" in a star on his headstone.
The sculpture Géza Maroti (1875-1941) designed his own gravestone, which is unique in Hungary.
A white marble slab depicts the back view of a naked woman, surrounded by lots of cavorting and canoodling folk and was considered very brazen at the time.
The grave site is situated in the undergrowth, the untended wild land towards the top right-hand corner of the cemetery.
The neighboring Jewish cemetery (entrance 600 meters down Salgótarjáni út) has some very old but impressive large tombs, it has suffered from neglect for many years and is currently undergoing restoration. It is not possible to enter, two giant black dogs as terrifying as Cerberus, guard the gates.

People are warned against going down toward the wall dividing the main cemetery with the Jewish cemetery. In the top right hand corner the grave yard is overgrown, and neglected graves crumble. Dodgy types lurk in the bushes, so women would be best advised to avoid this part.
The writer Mór Jókai (1825-1904) lies in a very simple grave, as he wished, surrounded by a circular colonnade, covered in ivy. On the inside of the ring, sculptures of doves sit as if in the rafters, and round the outside run Jókai's words, "The spirit within me goes with you, it will be there among you all, you will always find me among your flowers, when they wither, you will find me in the leaves, when they fall down, you will hear me in the evening peal of bells, when they die away and when you remember me, I will always be standing by you face to face."
A pair of adult owls live in the tree nearby, keeping watch over the colony of poets. Endre Ady (1877-1919) has a simple stone in the shade of chestnut trees opposite Jókai.
Actress Lujza Blaha (1850-1926) lies just across the way.
A crowd of mourning cherubs and a balladeer surround her death bed.

Mihály Károly, the first president of the Hungarian republic in 1918, is sheltered by a tent-like structure with incredible acoustics.. Like an open whispering gallery, you can send secret messages from one corner to the other. Sinka says, "Károly's daughter, an aged countess came to visit the grave but left in a huff, saying she would only return when all the cobwebs have been removed."
Poet Attila József (1905-1937) lies in a modest grave with his mother and sister, not far from statesman Ferenc Deák's imposing mausoleum. The authorities said it was suicide, and Hungarian law states that a body must be buried in the same town or area as the death. However, the Kisfaludy Society saved money and brought the body to Budapest. In 1955, József was first buried in the Workers' Pantheon section then moved to his present resting place, where a simple white stone marks what is, hopefully, the final resting place of Hungary's best-loved poets.
Near the Russian memorial is the grave of teenager Mária Csizmarovits who died in the 1849 revolution. She disguised herself as a man to get into the army.
The prima donna Mari Jászai bought stone form the first Hungarian theater when it was demolished, to use as her grave stone. The theater stood on the corner of Múzeum körút and Rákóczi út where there is now a business center.
Adam Clark, the Scottish supervisor of the Lánchíd construction is buried in a family tomb. He married the widow Aldasy from a German family. The wording on the tomb is in German.
Nearby is a grave that just says "Léda" She was Adél Brüll, "Léda" in reverse, a married woman who was poet Ady's lover and muse. Their love affair was public knowledge and caused a scandal. When they split up in 1913, Ady wrote a famous farewell letter. She died of syphilis in 1934.
The artists' plot is full of imaginative graves, pianos, theatrical masks and handwritten signatures. Writer Zsigmond Móricz is buried with one of his daughters, the other is about ten meters away. They quarreled and now remain forever not on speaking terms.
Weeping willows hang over the grave of Vilma Hugonai who became the first female doctor in 1903. János Pásztor , a sculptor, used his wife as a model. You can see her likeness in statues on his and many other graves.
She had a particularly beautiful naked figure with rounded buttocks.
An important man was to be buried in the same plot, just behind, but his widow threw a tantrum, complaining that the grave could not face such a peach-like bum. She would not allow his body to share the same graveyard and he was moved to Rákoskeresztúr cemetery in the 17th district.
Coming out of the main gates, you are hit by a blast of smoke and fumes from the lorries thundering along Fiumei út.
It is quite a contrast from the quiet, cool green seclusion of the graveyard.
Kerepesi is a peaceful sanctuary in the heart of the city and one of the best parks for walking and quiet contemplation in Budapest. It is a good place to spend an afternoon or maybe eternity.

Angyalföld, the (working class) Land of Angels

Angyalföld (Angel Land) in District XIII is one of those parts of Budapest always referred to by name rather than number.
As with other working class districts such as Csepel or Ferencváros, people living there have a strong sense of identity and community.
District XIII only became an independent administrative unit 65 years ago on June 1, 1938, and was first called Magdolnaváros (literally 'Magdolna Town') after the wife of Governor Miklós Horthy.
The territory changed in shape and size over the decades.
In 1949 the northern side of Szent István körút was added, plus Újlipótváros and Margitsziget.
The territory has been occupied on and off since the time of the Avars, remains of whom have been found.
Archeologists have also discovered fortresses from Roman times and remains of medieval mills and walls.
At the turn of the 19th century, Budapest developed and expanded rapidly.
Angyalföld ('Angel Land/field'), Ujlipótváros ('New Leopold Town') and Vizafogó ('Sturgeon Catcher') became colourful, crowded living quarters on the outskirts of town, with timber yards, factories, scrap metal yards, ploughed fields and gardens.
Theses alternated with poor cottages, lower middle class dwellings and overcrowded tenements.
A degree of modernization began in 1910 and smaller individual houses were built in one story rows.
During the 19th century, all the undesirable city facilities were moved out to the outskirts, of which Angyalföld was a significant constituent.
The district became the location for the cemetery, madhouse, night shelter, powder mill, barracks and other military institutes.
By the 1920s it was the largest industrial district in Budapest. Many people moved into the there from all parts of Hungary. German, Polish and Slovak immigrants came to find employment, giving the district an eclectic, cosmopolitan, yet hard-working character.
From the beginning of 1900, the area known as Újlipótváros started to transform, as it was the closest to the up-and-coming centre.
Reconstruction began and it became an elegant middle-class living quarter by the 1940s.
Vizafogó was so-called because it was the area of District XIII by the Danube where fish were caught.
'Sturgeon used to swim up this far from the Black Sea and in the 18th century there was local Hungarian caviar production',
explained Attila Molnár, owner of the Arany Kaviár restaurant.
It was filled with country cottages and lodgings, but these disappeared in the 1980s with the construction of high-rise housing districts.
Váci út cuts right through the middle of District XIII.
The first horse-drawn tram route travelled along here, between the-then Széna tér (now Kálvin tér) and and Újpesti Indóház.
It took just 37 minutes to reach the First Hungarian Pest-Fiume Shipyard Company Works.
All along Váci út the factories have been replaced by modern buildings, office blocks and fancy showrooms for cars and mobile telephones providers.
The swanky Duna Plaza shopping mall hunches on a site where the Ganz Ship and Crane Factory once stood.
The 100-year-old office and store buildings were painted red and called the Vas gerenda (Iron beam) by workers.
From the 1950s and 1960s along streets called Béke, Tahi and Fiastyúk, there were ancient factories, which have now been replaced by modern office blocks and houses with gardens.
The Rákos patak (stream) runs along beside Vizafogó utca from Váci út leading towards the river.
The Ördögmalom (Devil Mill) used to stand here, but now the housing estate of Béke-Tahi-Fiastyúk rises up.
Much of Angyalfold was once a marshy bog on the banks of the Danube.
It was a spooky wasteland and there was a rumour that the revolutionary poet Sándor Petôfi's lover was buried under the earth where Lehel tér market now stands.
The land frequently flooded and Város (Town) magazine noted in December, 1931, 'It was not unusual to find a
block of houses completely barricaded off by knee-high water, that the only way to get there was by raft'.
When the land was drained and building work began, Angyalföld rapidly became the centre of the mid-19th century industrial revolution that swept into Hungary.
Workers and peasants arrived to take up jobs in new factories opened by entrepreneurs from across Europe.
One of the first was a Herr Engel and the area was renamed Engelfeld in his honour.
Other names are also synonymous with the area: Láng, Ganz and Schlik.
László Láng, born in Bratislava/Pressburg/Pozsony in 1868, opened a factory making parts for the mill industry in 1925.
The site is now used by a company making electronic products.
The area around the site of the First Hungarian Screw Factory, now the venue for a shopping mall, was a rough and tumble part of town.
The newspaper Népszava warned in January 1910, 'There are no honourable, negotiable streets to be found here, and there is not enough lighting, so that you don't dare venture out into the street in the evening without a revolver or a big stick'.
Angyalföld developed in a pattern similar to working class communities across Europe, but after the First World War, the peaceful evolution was shattered.
In 1919, Béla Kun's Council of Republics was set up, workers' committees took control of the factories and the Party of Hungarian Communists began organizing in Angyalföld.
The defeat of the short-lived Republic and the White Terror which followed, drove many leaders of the workers' movements underground or away from Hungary.
Repression and poverty became particularly bad in the area of Angyalfold around Gyöngyösi utca which became nicknamed Tripolisz.
The area remained notorious and poverty-stricken until the slums were cleared after the Second World War.
A certain young János Kádár worked as a machinist in an Angyalföld umbrella factory and his first project in the then-illegal Communist Party was to distribute leaflets outside a local textile factory.
After the Second World War, Kádár became leader of the district party (and later ruler of the country) and was officially the area's MP for nearly 25 years.
Kádár called Angyalföld, 'the beating heart of the working class movement' and returned to his old textile factory to meet the workers every year until his death.
Ironically, it was the Kádár-led government that started to change the character of Angyalföld.
The community was broken up, the slums of Tripolisz were cleared and the workers shifted out to Békásmegyer on the Buda side and new residents moved in from other parts of town.
Workers arrived from the countryside and stayed in hostels around Fay utca.
The area which is now a center for the Chinese community with a market and many wholesale shops, was notorious for drunken parties on Friday nights when the workers drank away their wages.
József Tóth, once district secretary of the Communist Youth League, now Socialist Party mayor of Angyalföld is positive about the future of the area.
He says that many Western companies were interested in the district because of good communications and the vacant space left by the old State factories.
Walking along Váci út, the impression is of a constantly developing part of town which has successfully attracted significant foreign investment.
The socialist workers may have gone, but the drones of the free market economy have taken their place. District XIII is a place of regeneration and renewal.
[First published May 2003]