Basic HTML Version
DISCOVERIES
TRAVELLER
27
ILLUSTRATION TANG YAU HOONG
ON THE GROUND
What lies beneath
FRIDAYNIGHT
on the
banks of theDanube and
hundreds of people are
queuing for Budapest’s hottest
nightlife venue. TheA38 (
a38.hu
)
is a decommissionedUkrainian
stone-hauler ship turned riverside
nightclub, and just one of many
reminders of the city’s Communist
past. Walk through the city’s streets
and you can still spot old Škodas or
Ladas, the quintessential vehicles
of the Eastern Bloc. The occasional
downbeat Soviet-era shopfronts
and ruin pubs [bars in abandoned
buildings] still stand on Király utca
and, if you’re in the mood for some
seriously heavy kitsch, there’s
Memento Park, with its uprooted
statues, busts and plaques of Lenin,
Marx and Béla Kun.
Dig a little deeper, though, and
you’ll see that four decades of
Communism have inevitably taken
a very real toll. The repackaging
of history for tourists – all those
intriguing Soviet relics – masks the
truth: that the city still struggles to
come out from under the shadow
of its history.
Sure, it has been radically
overhauled during the past two
decades. New pedestrian districts
boast boutiques, nightclubs and fine
restaurants under mega-billboards,
that literally and figuratively
proclaim the arrival of global
capitalism. But head away fromVáci
utca and Andrássy út, and you’ll find
run-down buildings and graffiti-
daubed underpasses.
To really understand the city you
must look beyond the Disneyfication
of Communism to its realities.
The House of Terror Museum
(
60 Andrássy út; terrorhaza.
hu
), for example, was once the
headquarters of the Arrow Cross,
the Hungarian Nazis. Visiting its
reconstructed torture chambers and
massive Soviet tanks from the 1956
uprising conjure up a brutal picture
of the past.
Walks, like Free Budapest Tours
(
freebudapesttours.hu
), also reveal
visible reminders of the regime,
including amilitary bunker and the
city’s last Soviet monument. Not
all these remnants show the past
in a negative light – the Liberation
Monument, for example, built to
commemorate the Red Army
triumph over Nazi occupation, is a
salute to those who died for freedom
– but they do all help to build amore
complete picture of the city.
In many respects, Budapest is
a place of paradox. Amixture of
Communist mementos and capitalist
dreams, the city is inextricably
bound to its past and to the simple
traditions that have sustained it
throughout its turbulent history.
Understanding this adds another
dimension to the city and is why
it’s important for visitors to see the
scars of the past as well as sharing
our enthusiasm for the future.
Suzanne Urpecz is a journalist and
editor of
thehungariangirl.com,
a
blog about eastern Europe
The repackaging of history for tourists
masks the truth
Budapest blogger
SuzanneUrpecz
gives a local’s eye viewof her city’s past