Budapest : Behind the Iron Curtain

The cold war was the defining political discourse of much of the 20th century. It created friends , it created enemies, it created impending war and elusive peace. No part of the world exemplified the cold war and the tragedy it brought better than the countries of eastern Europe or as they are sometimes referred to as the lands beyond the "Iron Curtain". Budapest - the capital of Hungary -was one such city lodged behind this iron curtain and that is where my next stop was.

June 1, 2011,Wednesday

The Ferihegy airport in Budapest looked quite brand new with beautifully designed interiors containing the best global consumer brands. What a departure this was i thought to myself from the cold war era when anything like this would have been impossible to imagine. After spending quite a long time finding the exit i was finally out of the airport and on road to the city.

The view of the approaching city was a very novel one for me in Europe. The sophistication of the other western cities i had visited was replaced by a scene of ongoing change similar to India. After all this was a city trying to come into its own after six decades of communist rule. So one saw buildings and roads under construction and a general environment of flux. However the legacies of the communist era remained, not in the overt display of statues of communist leaders which had since been removed but in buildings and streets around the city. The buildings with their grey,solid exteriors looked like they distinctly belonged to the communist era. Modern glass covered buildings from the post-communist era with McDonald chains in them were sheepishly making an appearance next to them!

Budapest is basically two cities - Buda and Pest - split neatly by the Danube river. The Buda part residing on top of a hill across the Danube and the Pest part on the plain across it. I first made my way to the Buda part which was the historical capital. I got into a bus which was fairly crowded as it was the morning rush hour and reminded me of some of my rush-hour bus travels back in India. The bus passed through the streets of Pest and onto the legendary chain bridge that joins Buda and Pest. After a short travel over the bridge i was on the Buda hill. From there i made my way to the top most part of the hill with the best view point in town called the Fisher man's bastion. The Fisherman's bastion is built like a medieval castle with pointed roofs and all. In fact the image of the bastion was used as a template for designing the famous Walt Disney logo!

The Fisherman's bastion overlooked the great city on the Pest side and what a view it was. The great Danube snaking through the city with innumerable bridges across it. The Pest side with its great domes and spires glistening in the morning sun. Also on view was the Hungarian parliament on the other shore of the Danube. It was too huge and spectacular , looking more like a palace than a parliament and indeed it was the biggest parliament building in Europe!


Behind the Fisherman's bastion is the great church of St.Mathias. The church though dedicated to St.Mary is named after the greatest Hungarian king of all time, King Mathyas. The church was built in a Gothic fashion with a beige exterior and orange colored ceramic tiles. In front of the church is the Trinity Column - a column constructed in memory of the survival from the great Plague that wrought the city and much of Europe in the 17th century. The column had beautiful statues of saints and kings and was capped off by a depiction of the Holy spirit. The church has an interesting history though as under Turkish occupation in the 16th century it was painted white and turned into a mosque and it functioned as one for 150 years before being reverted to a church when the Turks were driven out. Also the great Hapsburg emperor Franz Josef was crowned here.


The Castle hill is a beautiful place to meander through and i did just that. The weather for the first time since i came to Europe was very hot, in fact as hot as it would be in Bangalore. But the winding streets of the Castle hill provided a bit of a relief as they had some shade. After passing through couple of more viewpoints i was heading for the Hapsburg castle. The Hapsburgs are one of the great royal families of the world and they ruled much of central and eastern Europe for almost six centuries right until the first world war. Even though their ruling area varied from time to time they most certainly ruled Austria and Hungary all the time. So much so that their kingdom was called the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Castle was built during the time of the Hapsburg influence in Hungary. The style was distinctly that of the Hapsburgs as it had a very neo-classical exterior which was crowned with a huge dome. The interiors of the castle was impressive too with a grand fountain which contained figures of Hungarian Magyar tribesman with their big mustaches and long pleated hair. A colorful garden completed the setting. The castle contained a couple of museums depicting Hungarian art and History and many great statues dating to the Hapsburg times.


After roaming around the castle it was time to get down from the Castle hill and walk along the Danube promenade. The Danube is one of the great rivers of Europe and no city embraces it as much as Budapest. The city's fascination with the river can be seen in the numerous bridges that were built across it. The biggest of them was of course the Chain bridge and walking along it was a real joy as you sensed that you are between the two cities Buda and Pest on either side. The view of the Buda castle especially was fantastic.

To end the day i took a cruise along the river which passed through some of the most famous buildings and historical sites along the river. The best part was going under the Chain bridge when you realize how big it actually is! Also impressive were the various other bridges such as the Franz Josef bridge and the Elizabeth bridge, each one uniquely designed. Even the Hungarian university is located on its banks along with various famous Hotels. One got a sense how the city had evolved around this river and the role it had played in the city's history. As the sun set it was the end of my first day in Budapest, it had been a hot and hectic day but well worth it!

June 2, 2011,Thursday

It was a new day and it was a day meant for exploring the Pest part of the city. As i started on my journey through Pest the old era of the Communists came to my mind. The second world war had been a triumph for the Soviets but it came at an immense price of over 26 million war dead! Its just such a huge number that it boggles the mind. When you consider the fact that the other allies, the US and the British lost about half a million lives each its a proof that it was really the Soviets who deserved most credit for winning the war. The war was proof for the Soviets how vulnerable they really were. A hundred years earlier it was Napoleon who had stormed Russia and now it was the Germans. This convinced the Soviets that if ever they would like to implement their communist principles and progress economically and politically they would need to avoid such attacks from happening again. Thus the concept of the eastern European buffer zone was born. It wasn't fair but that was the thinking behind it and thus the Soviets started setting up puppet communist regimes all around eastern Europe including Hungary. This eventually led to a self-contained, exclusive communist bloc in eastern Europe backed by the soviets which Churchill memorably referred to as the drawing of the Iron curtain across Europe.

The huge roads with their massive grey buildings reminded me of the Communist era. I actually felt lucky that i was able to walk around there for if i had been there 20 years earlier i would never have been allowed to enter the country in the first place! The place also reminded me of my time in East Berlin as i felt the architecture and the general atmosphere was similar. I guess Communism like religion was a way of life and dictated everything in a city and its people and led to a kind of uniform regimentation and i was not surprised that these two ex-communist cities should have looked similar under communism!

The first place i went was to the Jewish Synagogue which is apparently the largest synagogue in Europe. I had never been to a synagogue before and i felt excited to go in. The synagogue looked like a cross between a church and a mosque. It had huge minarets on the outside adorned with domes like a mosque and on the inside it had an alter and organ similar to a church. There were beautiful floral patterns on the ceiling reminding one of a mosque again. I was surprised to know that Hungary had and still has a large Jewish population and as with other Jews in Europe at the time of the world war underwent severe persecution from the pro-Nazi Hungarian government. Also surprising was the fact that the anti-semitic sentiment in Hungary pre-dated the one engendered by Hitler and the Nazis and the world war was an excuse to bring out this prejudice in the open. This goes to show that the Nazis were not the sole perpetrators of anti-semitism even though they were its biggest propagators. On the bright side there was also a memorial there to commemorate the people who helped the Jews during those hellish times. They were mostly diplomats who helped secure the endangered Jews with fake passports and documents including a Swedish diplomat! It was reassuring to know that even as humanity is capable of doing evil its equally capable of doing good too and its a kind of reassurance we need in our cynical world around us today.


From one religious place to another. The next stop was the biggest church in Pest - the St. Stephan's Basilica. The church sits right in the middle of the city and its huge dome leaps into the sky and can be seen from virtually any corner of the city. As i made my way towards the basilica it struck me just how huge the church really was. The church was modeled on the St.Peter's of Vatican and even though not as huge as the original it was enormous. What more it had a huge square in front of it which made the comparison with the original even more obvious. The interior was equally impressive and was designed in Baroque. The chapels on the side too were impressive and added flair to the church. The alter had a figure of St. Stephan , the patron saint of Hungary. The church was filled mostly with guide book armed tourists and the atmosphere was that of peace and quite. A short elevator trip took me to the doom and the view from there of the city and also of the Castle hill i had visited earlier was simply magnificent.


Next i started on my last stop in the city via the legendary M1 metro line. The M1 metro line is in itself an attraction , in fact it is a UNESCO world heritage site as it was the first ever metro line to be built in continental Europe. Here i could see the difference between this and the other metro lines. Owing to its historic stature the M1 line was splendidly maintained and had a modern yet old time feel to it. Even the carriages had a touch of class to them. It runs from the Danube promenade right along the city's main street - the Andrassy street - up to the Hero's square stopping by numerous other Pest attractions along the way.

The metro ride ended at the famed Hero's square which was constructed on the occasion of Hungary completing a millennium. The square consisted of a central column with the archangel Gabriel perched on top holding the Hungarian crown in his hand. The column then was surrounded by a semi circle of colonnades housing the statues of some of Hungary's most important saints and kings. The statues themselves were an interesting study. As the world knows the Hungarians are descended from the so called barbaric Hun tribesman who roamed Eurasia and the statues reflected these historic Hun figures with their long pleated mane, huge mustachios riding horses. Also present were saints who help setup the Hungarian nation including St.Stephan. Interestingly during the communist era the statues of some great communist leaders was installed here but with the downfall of communism these statues have been ported to a location outside the city. This is a great illustration of how the city has transitioned from communism to the modern era in the last 20 years!

Thus ended my trip of the city of Budapest. I had always wondered what the cities beyond the Iron curtain looked like and was happy to have had the good fortune of actually experiencing it here in Budapest!