Day 15 - The City of Many Heroes

Budapest is the capital of Hungary and until 1873 were actually two separate cities, Buda and Pest. Today they still refer to the Pest side and the Buda side when referencing an address. Hungary has known many rulers, the Turks, the Magyars, the Habsburgs, the Nazis and finally the Soviets. All have plundered and destroyed the city and it's people. But like Slovakia, in 1993 the people were freed from the last of the Soviets and have been trying to restore and rebuild their city the last 20 years.

Sculpture in a park

The Buda side of the city

The Pest side of the city

Up on Castle Hill is a palace built in 1247, but as conquerors have come and gone they have added or sometimes subtracted from the palace. Castle Hill is also home to the countries main library holding some 10 million books on mostly Hungarian history, literature, etc. The church of St. Matthias is on the hill and is currently being renovated. There are museums, hotels and government buildings. There are even people who have apartments in the older buildings. Below in the hill are caves that were used for wine cellars but during World War II a hospital was put together in the caves.

St Matthias church

Inside the church, painters are restoring the church wall decorations

Inside the church

Another view inside the church

A falconer was up on Castle Hill with his Eagle (?)

A paprika stand, paprika is a major spice used in Hungary

Buda is mostly a residential area with homes being built along the sides of the hilltops and in the valleys below. On the Pest side is the Parliament building, and most of the business side of the city. There are mostly apartments on the Pest side and individual owned by people. Before the Soviets came, families owned the whole building as their house but when the Soviets came they took their homes away and told them they could live there but only in a portion of it. They took these great homes built in the 1700 to early 1900s and turned them into apartment buildings. People would have to pay rent to the Soviets but the Soviets didn't care if the buildings started to fall apart and neither did the people living there, they couldn't afford to spend their money on something that wasn't their own. When the Soviets left then people could buy their apartments at a really cheap price and that's why most people own their apartment rather than rent it. But to get a building fixed 70% of the owners need to approve the fixing of the building if not than they can't. The hard part are those who are older and don't want the noise and fuss despite the condition of the building. But slowly it is being renovated and there are some lovely buildings that have been fixed, but most are still falling apart and look sad and worn out.

The city built a Heroes Square in 1896 to honor Hungary's heroes. Each statue is of a person who had a significant part in Hungary's history. Originally 3 of the statues were of Habsburg kings, but when the Habsburg were kicked out so were their statues and were replaced with revolutionary figures. During the early part of August the whole square is filled with sand and horse races are watched.

Heroes Square

Budapest was the home to over 250,000 jewish people at one point, most were from Germany who fled when they were kicked out of their homes. They have a large synagogue and museum now honoring those who died during World War II. The jewish people in Hungary were not sent to concentration camps until the very end of the war, but during the war they were made into slave labor to help build military fortifications and weapons. As the war was coming to a close many were sent to the river and killed and others were sent to concentration camps.

Jewish Synagogue, it even has a organ that a Christian woman plays for them

As in Slovakia, Hungary is a hard place to earn a living. Most people have 2 jobs because they can't earn enough money from just one. Even doctors in Hungary earn between 300-500 euros a month and can't afford that so they leave Hungary to work in Germany, the US or other parts of europe where they can be paid for their profession. Many of the crew on our cruise were from Hungary and most had a college education. But unfortunately they couldn't earn enough money with their degree and so they took a job cleaning our cabins or serving food. That's how bad it is.

While some parts of the city are lovely, there are others that reflect the old Soviet empire still and hopefully in another 20 years things will look up for Budapest and the people.