A Hopelessly Inadequate Attempt at Budapest

Budapest was thrilling and overwhelming. I put off posting about it until revisiting for a second weekend, and even now I feel the inadequacy of my understanding of the city. It’s a slippery thing – and reminds me of how The Band talks about New York in The Last Waltz, that you have to keep visiting it and being beat by it until you gradually figure it out.

Pest, as viewed from the Fisherman's Bastion on the Buda side of the Danube.

 Full post after the jump. Before the jump: this week’s video. A little different than my first two, this one is built around footage of a superb concert I took in at a café my last night in the city from a new quartet playing semi-improvised Roma music. The music is a little stitched-up, and video can never capture the happy kismet of a crowd watching musicians playing off of each other in the moment, but hopefully there’s a fragment of the magic in there somewhere. 

Being stumped by Budapest didn’t stop it from being a joy to be there twice. Thus far my favorite of the cities I’ve visited, Budapest reminded me a lot of Chicago, oddly enough. For good and for ill – there’s an energy to it, an inventiveness fostered by a lot of young people invested in creative, commercial and political experimentation. There’s a strong sense of community, most notably in the way that almost every business ends up being three or four businesses, one of which is invariably “Community Space.” If it’s a bar, it’s also a coffee shop, maybe sells leather goods, and hosts poetry and music nights, and in the afternoon maybe a discussion group meets there.

It also reminded me of Chicago in its complicated politics. Maybe this is true of all the cities I’ve visited, but after taking a tour focusing on contemporary politics and culture, I have at least some sense of the contradictory and contested political climate of the city. Hungary is a nation still grappling with national identity, its ruling party reaching back to the, shall we say, problematic interwar period as a golden age; political dissent can earn sinister retribution; and the city of Budapest can at times seem to be at war with its own citizens. The city’s selling off of its assets in the now-buzzing, touristic Seventh District is, for me, reminiscent of Chicago’s fire sale of long-term assets for short-term budget stopgaps, and its commitment to new development over existing communities and historic preservation finds echoes in my hometown as well.

But at the same time there’s a seemingly-robust culture pushing back. My guide’s community organization partnered with a theatre company to occupy an abandoned building and engage in political advocacy for a number of years before the government forced them out. (The story was recently adapted by one of my guide’s friends into a show at The Flea in New York.) Another community group has been systematically fighting to preserve and restore historically significant buildings as commercial investors seek to turn the bulk of the city into condo housing. People are thinking very critically about how to balance gentrification, neighborhood improvement, public services, and how to take care of the city’s most vulnerable populations.

In short, a fascinating place. That’s not even getting into the baths (they are fantastic), of which no photos or video since (officially, at least) photography on site is verboten. I also ate ridiculously well for very little money both weekends, but my most enjoyable nights out were at some of these mixed-use venues, watching a DJ spin swing-era versions of pop hits at Mazel Tov, watching the Roma quartet at Lumen Kávézó, and getting better and better at finding conversations with strangers. Whether getting into deeper conversations with my one-on-one tour guide, chatting with a sommelier at a wine shop until the conversation turned to Iron Curtain memories and his experiences traveling the world, or stumbling into an evening with an incredibly generous, kind pair of students from the Netherlands, it was a city of encounters, and helped remind me that that’s really what I’m seeking out on this trip. Hoping as I swing into Italy later this week (after a few days in Krakow with my good friend Kate J!) to keep that trend alive.

So then: Photo avalanche! Here we go.

Plaza in front of St. Stephen's Basilica.

Classy chaps on the Fisherman's Bastion

Matthias Church!

My first tour guide - a totally swell, thoughtful, animated guy who definitely had his spiel but was really great at tailoring to our questions and was not too shy about getting real, hinting at some of the complex political issues that I got a stronger sense of from my second guide. Tours can be pretty sweet, dudes! Anyway, here he's posing with a policeman who makes you lucky SUPPOSEDLY.

Fisherman's Bastion and St Mathias: Not Unappealing Places.

Heroes' Square at dusk. An array of statues representing major figures in Hungarian history, the square began, as did most major public works in the city, in 1896 to commemorate the millennium of Hungary as a nation. Not photographed, but visible in the video above, is Liberty Square, a fascinatingly contested site of monuments and memorials to numerous figures from the nation's checkered past. Most recently, a monument was erected to commemorate the occupation by the Nazis; protests against the government's apparent whitewashing of Hungary's own Anti-Semitic actions led to the memorial being re-purposed as a Holocaust memorial, but it's still the site of much protest, with an ad-hoc countermemorial of sorts having sprung up, individuals bringing their own tokens from relatives lost to (or survivors of) the Holocaust. Liberty Square is FASCINATING once you know the story. At the time of my video footage, I did not, which is why I mostly filmed a dog running through the fountain.

Speaking of manufactured history! This complex of castles grew out of the same 1896 festivities, when a castle erected cheaply (think of the White City for Chicago's World's Fair) proved so popular that it was rebuilt in masonry, with three other complementary castles to represent different architectural styles from different regions of Hungary's empire. It's a fascinating little nationalistic Epcot of sorts!

Great Market Hall, as seen from the upper floor. By now a super touristy zone, there's still a lot of produce being bought day to day here amidst all the tacky souvenir geegaws and knick-a-knacks. Dad gum and so forth!

Just a little ways down the river from the Great Market Hall, a gallery/shopping center - restaurants and smaller spaces selling art, antiques, souvenirs and clothing from artisan producers. A pretty cool space to wander for a bit on a hot day.

Pest's street art game is ON POINT.

The Budapest Opera House, modeled on the Paris Opera House. This structure really cheesed off the Austrian Emperor; it was not to be larger or more opulent than Vienna's house, and while they adhered to the size restriction, the use of marble columns sure seemed designed to one-up the Habsburgs. Why can't people just build a nice quiet bland opera house like that nice Wagner boy??

MORE OSTENTATIOUS OPERA TIME. Side note: it's pretty easy to pick up $5 tickets to the opera that put you right in the middle of the upper gallery, with a good view of the stage and great acoustics. You might see a woefully misconceived staging of a 21st-century opera, but WHATEVER, it's well-sung and played and you are happy you went. You make the most of things! YOU ARE A POSITIVE PERSON AND WE ALL APPRECIATE THAT ABOUT YOU.

Szimpla Ruin Pub, basically the first of its kind. I only went to Mazel Tov for my ruin pub drinking/dinner experience, but I did go to the farmer's market here! (Told you they were multi-purpose.) Great cheap local products, and in the back of the courtyard, a community pot where a stew was being brewed from the farmers' products. Really cool, and a nice way to start a Sunday morning.

Budapest's Holocaust Memorial Center. Understated architecture but quite striking in person, and the exhibit itself is harrowing, doing an excellent job documenting not only the Final Solution but Hungary's pre-Nazi efforts to strip Jews of their rights and property. A good focus on the victims and survivors as well, telling several families' stories as a way to counteract the attempt to erase them.

And then this sculpture, in the middle of the seventh district, which - delights me without my having any sense of its import beyond a superb sketch of music in metalwork.

Lumen Kávézó, an awesome cafe/gallery/concert venue. The concert captured in my video was performed here. Awesome people, awesome gazpacho, awesome sense of community, why do you want more than this, can't you just appreciate what you HAVE?

THESE LITTLE GIRLS WERE AMAZING AND DANCED THROUGH THE WHOLE SHOW UNTIL THEY HAD TO GO HOME TO BED. One of them also got very good at jumping down the (four) stairs separating the bar from the performing space. A+ kids, would be charmed by them again.

Margaret Island, a sprawling park (dancing water fountain captured in the video) that is just about the perfect place to while away a lazy Sunday afternoon before leaving town. EVEN IF IT RAINS, it is lovely.

The ruins of an abbey on said island. As you can see, PUNK IS NOT DEAD in this abbey.

IT ME