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Published: July 19th 2006
Budapest is an incredible city. Elegant, composed, and vibrant--qualities we found remarkable as the place has been out from under the stifling Soviet influence for less than 15 years. Budapest's refinement seemed all the more remarkable after a thorough education into the terror that reigned the nation during successive Nazi and Stalinist governments. We had no idea until visiting the city's world-class "Terror House" museum exactly how difficult Hungarians of our parents' and grandparents' generations had it.
First the city. As we said briefly in our last installment, Budapest somehow avoided erecting the monstrous and dull Communist buildings that stand on every Bucharest street corner like gulag comendants. (see picture). Budapest feels more like "Old Europe" than just about anywhere we've been, including most of Old Europe. While we lack the architectural jargon to describe them, the buildings are all uniquely gargoyled, curlicued, and frillified. You would never guess that this country was under communist rule until 1990.
Like just about every city in the world, Budapest also hosts some beautiful houses of worship. The Great Synagogue, for example, is that largest Jewish temple in Europe. The city's patron saint is St. Stephen, and we got an extended view
of St. Stephen's Basilica during during a nighttime performance of the Hungarian Radio Symphony. The performance itself was terrific, complete with flamboyant Fabio-haired cello soloist, and the backdrop made up in mood what it lacked in acoustics. It was nice to be in a city who's main summer attraction is a classical music series.
We also spent some time at the Budapest history museum, a rather disorganized chronicle of Budapest and Hungary from 3000 B.C. until about 1917 A.D. However, the museum left off just when things were getting interesting--as Austro-Hungary entered WWI. We picked up the story again in our next museum, the "Terror House." This museum, one of the most impressive we have ever seen, occupies the building formerly home to the Nazi and communist secret police. In a style similar to (and perhaps even more effective than) the U.S. Holocaust Museum, the Terror House took us through the carving up of Hungary following WWI, the impossible economic situation in which the country was placed, the rise to power of the National Socialists before WWII, and the successive terrifying Nazi and Soviet dictatorships that Hungarians lived under from 1943-1989. This nation, like Poland and certainly others in
Brian's first bite of real paprikash
We also bought some real Hungarian paprika so that Brian can bring his homemade paprikash up to snuff.Central Europe, was bashed around like a pinata by two of the most brutal regimes in modern history. The building that houses the museum presents many of the tools and infrastructure of intimidation and torture in a way that helps visitors at least begin to imagine the absolutely dehumanizing brutality that kept oppresed citizens in line. The windowless, bed-less cell that the humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg disappeared from--still preserved with about a millimeter of of rusty water in the bare cement floor--the 1 foot x 2 foot standinng cell that visitors themselves can stand in--the rude gallows that are described in a vivid video by one of the executioners charged with operating them--all give visitors a glimpse of the dread in which average citizens lived and the horror in which political prisoners died. We left this museum awestruck by not only the powerful and effective exhibits, but also by our previous ignorance about the abhorant suffering of the Hungarian people.
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Huh...
Newkirk, I was totally unaware you were such the paprika connoisseur. I prefer Oregano, but to each his own. (On a side note, TMG reports Makaha has a suspended liquor license. Damn those poo-poo-platter-on-fire-condoning bastards.) Cheers, matt