Alison Wanders: Budapest: Infamy and Honor

I'm playing catch up with two posts. Saturday was such a busy day!

First we took a bus to Memento Park, basically a open museum where the Hungarians stashed the Soviet memorials that they took down after they were booted out. Socialist Realistic art was the only artistic style endorsed by the Soviet Bloc, and it doubled as propaganda. Everything emphasizes the machine of Communism: strong, stoic, identical workers and non-individual, beefy soldiers. Only the communist heavy hitters got individual statues. Like the entry gate here, which has Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The gate is symbolic, too. It looks impressive and monumental, but behind it is nothing. A stage with no substance. Even the massive iron gate in the center doesn't work. You're forced to find a way around to the side, like so many people had to do with the communist party.

So the main idea in this park is to make fun of the statues as much as possible. I joined in with a little calisthenics.

"C" for Communism!

"Is that for John Lenin?" -Mike DeStefano

Vladimir Lenin in his famous "hailing a cab" pose. I show you how we do it in New York. You have to show a little leg.

The center is usually planted with red flowers in the shape of the Communist star.

This man is trying to steal my nose.

The only actually "artistic" sculpture, showing the bourgeois Habsburgs on the left being converted into a worker's fighting force. The man on top is Bela Kun, the "granddaddy of Hungarian communism" standing next to a lamppost (which -oops- symbolizes the gallows in Hungarian literature).

The Hungarians had equivalents to the boy and girl scouts called the Little Drummers and the Pioneers. When the communists were in power, they used the organizations to "get the while they're young" and they were used as propaganda machines.

Yay Girl Scouts!

This memorial was destroyed in 1989 by Hungarian celebrating their freedom. You can see where the statues were attached, and the red star has been gouged out.

The park leads to a dead end, symbolizing life's frustrations under communism.

The gate that's all show and no action.

You can listen to communist speeches on this telephone.

Those boots belonged to a statue of Stalin. That's Mike, there in the center.

This is what it looked like in it's heyday.

Back to Vorosmarty Ter for a quick bite at the Christmas Markets. Mike got some langos!

I got this insane paprika hun-dog with sauerkraut and mustard!

Mike and I then headed to the Buda side of the Danube for a walk around Castle Hill. Here we are on the hill, with the Danube, Chain Bridge and St. Istvan's Basilica in the background.

That's a statue of the mythical Turul bird, which is said to have dropped his sword in the Carpathian Basin in 896, indicating to the nomadic Maygars (led by Arpad) that they should settle down here.

The Hungarian National Gallery and a statue of Eugene of Savoy.

We stopped in to Matthias Church, which was undergoing some hefty renovations.

The walls are stenciled in very beautiful ornate patterns. Upstairs there was some information on the renovation, including some of the stencils they used.

A night view of (from left to right) the Parliament, Chain Bridge, and St. Istavan's Basilica on the Pest side of the Danube.

Me and my buddy, Mozart!

Matthias Church with the statue of St. Istvan.

A statue of St. Istavan, the first Christian king of Hungary, who was made a saint despite the fact the he beheaded anyone who wouldn't convert. Oh, Catholics.