A few days after arriving back in Budapest after my Christmas and New Year leave in the UK I went to a cellar bar nearby for a drink one evening with some people visiting from home. We walked downstairs and I was aware that something was a little different, but could not quite put my finger on it.
After a little while one of the people I was with worked out what was different: no cigarette smoke.
Yes, after several years of prevaricating and finding various excuses to avoid doing it, the government here has finally banned smoking in bars and restaurants. And what a difference it makes. Many of Budapest's bars are small or subterranean, and after an hour in one of them your clothes would be absolutely reeking with tobacco smoke. No longer.
What it does mean is that, as in other countries with a smoking ban, you can spot the bars up and down a street by looking for the huddles of people standing outside puffing on their fags. But here in Hungary, where the great majority of people smoke, the crowds are obviously larger. Probably fortunately for the government this has been an extremely mild winter so far, with barely any sub-zero temperatures. I suspect the smoking ban would have been harder to get started if evening temperatures were the more normal -10° at night.
But what to me seems to be the ultimate irony is that currently Hungary is getting criticism all round for introducing new legislation regarding small things such as limiting media freedom, the independence of the judiciary and suppression of parliamentary debate while nobody praises it for finally introducing the smoking ban.
Sometimes, life is just so unfair.
Monday, 16 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
State of the nation
My morning shave was interrupted today by a report on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme about Hungary.
It was talking about the big demonstration in Budapest on Monday night, where 'tens of thousands of people' demonstrated in Andrassy ut against the government's celebrations of the coming into being of the 'Basic Law'.
According to the government spokesman quoted, this simply removes the final vestiges of the old pre-1989 socialist regime, but to the protesters it marks another step towards what many people see as a new dictatorship. A huge majority in the 2010 elections has given the current ruling party a mandate to make enormous changes to the constitution, many of which seem to, ironically, be using democracy to stifle democratic freedoms.
One comment I read in an English-language news feed likened what is happening now in Hungary to the Fascist regime of Admiral Horthy in the 1920s and 1930s, where the regime curried favour by stoking up memories of old nationalist resentments relating to the loss of Hungarian territories in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Which is what we see here now.
The problem that Hungary now faces is that the European Union, of which the country is a part, sees human rights and democratic freedoms as a cornerstone of its values, and is making it very clear that it is not happy with the trajectory along which the current government is moving.
That would be bad enough, but this unease means that Hungary is not being given a loan to help it meet its debt obligations that are racing up to meet it in a few weeks time. Consequently the forint is sinking lower and lower (in January 2010 my British pound bought 290 forints, now it gives me 385).
All everyone is talking about is the state of the nation and what is going to happen next. We wait and see.
It was talking about the big demonstration in Budapest on Monday night, where 'tens of thousands of people' demonstrated in Andrassy ut against the government's celebrations of the coming into being of the 'Basic Law'.
According to the government spokesman quoted, this simply removes the final vestiges of the old pre-1989 socialist regime, but to the protesters it marks another step towards what many people see as a new dictatorship. A huge majority in the 2010 elections has given the current ruling party a mandate to make enormous changes to the constitution, many of which seem to, ironically, be using democracy to stifle democratic freedoms.
One comment I read in an English-language news feed likened what is happening now in Hungary to the Fascist regime of Admiral Horthy in the 1920s and 1930s, where the regime curried favour by stoking up memories of old nationalist resentments relating to the loss of Hungarian territories in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Which is what we see here now.
The problem that Hungary now faces is that the European Union, of which the country is a part, sees human rights and democratic freedoms as a cornerstone of its values, and is making it very clear that it is not happy with the trajectory along which the current government is moving.
That would be bad enough, but this unease means that Hungary is not being given a loan to help it meet its debt obligations that are racing up to meet it in a few weeks time. Consequently the forint is sinking lower and lower (in January 2010 my British pound bought 290 forints, now it gives me 385).
All everyone is talking about is the state of the nation and what is going to happen next. We wait and see.
Seconds out, Round 3
Towards midnight on January 2nd I arrived at Budapest Airport, two years to the day since I first arrived.
I remember stepping off the plane that night in early 2010, and feeling the intense cold, and the first months as I tried to get to grips with my work, the city and the language. And thinking that I would only be here for two years.
Yet now I am just starting my third year. So why the decision to stay?
Well, Helen and I had many long conversations about returning to the UK or staying, and these covered many practical issues, like the security of a salary in these uncertain economic times, but another factor was our relationship with Budapest.
During our first year many friends in the UK commented that we seemed to find it a difficult place to be living, and in truth we found that to be the case: the incomprehensible language, the reserve of local people all contributed to this.
However, after Helen had fallen off her bicycle and had been 'confined to quarters' for some months we both realised that we had turned some sort of emotional corner and had now really come to enjoy living in the city. So why is that?
In no particular order:
It's a beautiful city. Every time I walk or cycle along the river my heart is lifted by the beautiful buildings, the shimmer on the water, the light and so on.
We know local people. Through our conversations with Hungarian friends we have started to come to understand some of the reasons why the place is like it is, and so it all seems to make more sense. And I now wonder why when I first arrived people seemed somewhat unfriendly; nowadays most people seem perfectly okay. Maybe it was me...
The language seems a little less impenetrable. Although I still find constructing a sentence nearly impossible, I know enough vocabulary to be able to make sense of the world around me and to articulate important needs in terrible Hungarian.
So we approach 2012 with great optimism, sure that we will continue to enjoy living in this fascinating place.
I remember stepping off the plane that night in early 2010, and feeling the intense cold, and the first months as I tried to get to grips with my work, the city and the language. And thinking that I would only be here for two years.
Yet now I am just starting my third year. So why the decision to stay?
Well, Helen and I had many long conversations about returning to the UK or staying, and these covered many practical issues, like the security of a salary in these uncertain economic times, but another factor was our relationship with Budapest.
During our first year many friends in the UK commented that we seemed to find it a difficult place to be living, and in truth we found that to be the case: the incomprehensible language, the reserve of local people all contributed to this.
However, after Helen had fallen off her bicycle and had been 'confined to quarters' for some months we both realised that we had turned some sort of emotional corner and had now really come to enjoy living in the city. So why is that?
In no particular order:
It's a beautiful city. Every time I walk or cycle along the river my heart is lifted by the beautiful buildings, the shimmer on the water, the light and so on.
We know local people. Through our conversations with Hungarian friends we have started to come to understand some of the reasons why the place is like it is, and so it all seems to make more sense. And I now wonder why when I first arrived people seemed somewhat unfriendly; nowadays most people seem perfectly okay. Maybe it was me...
The language seems a little less impenetrable. Although I still find constructing a sentence nearly impossible, I know enough vocabulary to be able to make sense of the world around me and to articulate important needs in terrible Hungarian.
So we approach 2012 with great optimism, sure that we will continue to enjoy living in this fascinating place.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
VERZIO film festival time
I spent most of last weekend sitting down in a darkened room. It was the eighth annual VERZIO Human Rights Film Festival, sponsored here in Budapest by good old George Soros. It presents a number of interesting and sometimes disturbing films about people's lives, focusing on Eastern Europe.
From a personal point of view one of the most interesting looked at the lives of a few refugees living at Bicske refugee camp, just outside Budapest ("Caught between two worlds"). It looked at how people there, who can only stay six months, were preparing for life outside in Hungary, with the language lessons, cultural orientation and so on. Coming to live here was challenging for me, so I can barely guess at how difficult it would be for someone with a traumatic past and a completely different cultural history.
Another interesting film was "Europolis", which looked at the strange town of Sulina in Romania. As part of the peace treaty at the end of the Crimean War a joint 'European Commission' established a port at the mouth of the Danube in the Black Sea. For 20 years or so it boomed, but with the coming of the railways ships started unloading further upstream and its grandeur slowly withered away. But people continue to live there, eking out a living in the collapsing and abandoned infrastructure. A strange story indeed.
While a film which brought tears to my eyes was "There was once...", which told the story of how a Hungarian history teacher started researching into the Jewish community that had existed in her hometown. It had slowly developed through the 18th century, but had then abruptly disappeared on the night of June 18, 1944, when they were all taken away to Auschwitz. She managed to track down survivors to find out their stories, and had then invited them all back to a celebration in Hungary. Sadly the present day fascists, the Magyar Garda, decided to stage their own demonstration and had attacked this peaceful, joyous gathering of octogenarians and their children. A bittersweet story.
My favourite was "Our school", which told the story of the attempts in a small town in Romania to integrate Roma children into mainstream schools. The European Commission had provided money to rebuild a school the Roma children used, so while it was being rebuilt these children went to the local town school. First they were put in their own classroom, then they were allowed to join the other classes, but always sat in the back row, ignored by the teachers. Finally, because they were seen to be academically behind the 'Romanian' children they were integrated into mainstream education in the local school for the physically and mentally disabled. What was particularly tragic was their awareness of what was happening to them: they enjoyed being with the Romanian kids and making friends, but the system would not let them in. And of course, by the time their original school had been rebuilt, they were all 'mainstreamed', so the new school stayed empty.
A thought-provoking weekend, indeed.
From a personal point of view one of the most interesting looked at the lives of a few refugees living at Bicske refugee camp, just outside Budapest ("Caught between two worlds"). It looked at how people there, who can only stay six months, were preparing for life outside in Hungary, with the language lessons, cultural orientation and so on. Coming to live here was challenging for me, so I can barely guess at how difficult it would be for someone with a traumatic past and a completely different cultural history.
Another interesting film was "Europolis", which looked at the strange town of Sulina in Romania. As part of the peace treaty at the end of the Crimean War a joint 'European Commission' established a port at the mouth of the Danube in the Black Sea. For 20 years or so it boomed, but with the coming of the railways ships started unloading further upstream and its grandeur slowly withered away. But people continue to live there, eking out a living in the collapsing and abandoned infrastructure. A strange story indeed.
While a film which brought tears to my eyes was "There was once...", which told the story of how a Hungarian history teacher started researching into the Jewish community that had existed in her hometown. It had slowly developed through the 18th century, but had then abruptly disappeared on the night of June 18, 1944, when they were all taken away to Auschwitz. She managed to track down survivors to find out their stories, and had then invited them all back to a celebration in Hungary. Sadly the present day fascists, the Magyar Garda, decided to stage their own demonstration and had attacked this peaceful, joyous gathering of octogenarians and their children. A bittersweet story.
My favourite was "Our school", which told the story of the attempts in a small town in Romania to integrate Roma children into mainstream schools. The European Commission had provided money to rebuild a school the Roma children used, so while it was being rebuilt these children went to the local town school. First they were put in their own classroom, then they were allowed to join the other classes, but always sat in the back row, ignored by the teachers. Finally, because they were seen to be academically behind the 'Romanian' children they were integrated into mainstream education in the local school for the physically and mentally disabled. What was particularly tragic was their awareness of what was happening to them: they enjoyed being with the Romanian kids and making friends, but the system would not let them in. And of course, by the time their original school had been rebuilt, they were all 'mainstreamed', so the new school stayed empty.
A thought-provoking weekend, indeed.
Saturday, 12 November 2011
One last ride before the winter arrives
At this time of the year Hungarians apparently often look at the weather forecasts for Moscow: two weeks after snow hits Moscow the winter starts here. So when I saw that Moscow had had its first snow and that its temperature was around 0 deg, I decided that last Sunday needed to be a day spent on a bicycle.
So on a beautiful, mild, sunny morning I set off and cycled up over the Pilis Hills to Esztergom. This had been the very first long bicycle ride my made last year, and had not repeated this trip since, so as I pedalled up to the pass I found myself reflecting on how it all now seemed so familiar and then it had seemed so different.
The five-mile descent from the top of the hills down to Esztergom was wonderful, and I then spent a little time sitting on a bench in the November sunshine eating my sandwiches and looking at the river. Then along the cycle path, pausing along the way to pick up and examine a very strange looking fruit, hundreds of which were lying along one stretch of the river bank.
The next day I would discover that it is something called an Osage Orange, and that is very common in the central United States, and, it would seem, a 100 m stretch of the Danube.
I then took a small road inland, into the Duna-Ipoly National Park, and climbed for six or seven miles slowly up into the middle of the hills again, but this time on a narrow tarmac road closed to vehicles. This meant that the road surface was in good condition which made a big difference when I was able to start descending.
For about 15 miles I only saw four or five bicycles and a handful of walkers, and was able to enjoy some beautiful rides through tunnels of yellow and golden trees, and the occasional glorious view over the valleys running down to the river.
By now the sun was starting to disappear, and I was keen to get back to Budapest before darkness came, so after the well-earned swoop down through the hills to the river I followed the river bank back into the city. 70 miles, the longest ride I did in 2010, and my legs and bum could confirm that.
 |
| The 'Danube Bend' in Google Earth (looking west) |
The five-mile descent from the top of the hills down to Esztergom was wonderful, and I then spent a little time sitting on a bench in the November sunshine eating my sandwiches and looking at the river. Then along the cycle path, pausing along the way to pick up and examine a very strange looking fruit, hundreds of which were lying along one stretch of the river bank.
 |
| An Osage Orange |
I then took a small road inland, into the Duna-Ipoly National Park, and climbed for six or seven miles slowly up into the middle of the hills again, but this time on a narrow tarmac road closed to vehicles. This meant that the road surface was in good condition which made a big difference when I was able to start descending.
For about 15 miles I only saw four or five bicycles and a handful of walkers, and was able to enjoy some beautiful rides through tunnels of yellow and golden trees, and the occasional glorious view over the valleys running down to the river.
 |
| Duna-Ipoly National Park towards the river in the north |
 |
| Perfect cycling country |
Friday, 11 November 2011
Knowing your bal from your jobb
One of the curious idiosyncrasies about Hungarian theatres and cinemas is the seat numbering system.
Rows are simple enough, but in most places the individual seats are numbered starting from each end, so that if there are 30 seats in a row there will be a Left 1 through to 15 and a Right 1 through to 15, with the two 15s being beside each other.
Tricky enough, but of course Hungarian tickets are printed in Hungarian and most foreigners have no idea of the difference between 'bal' and 'jobb' (left and right).
So this evening when I went to the Toldi cinema to see a human rights documentary that attracted a lot of expatriates, the time before the film started was filled with people occupying seats, being challenged by other people about being in the wrong seat, people getting up, getting down, moving in and out, muttering darkly about bal and jobb and left and right.
Apart from the language problem, left and right depends on where you are looking from, and to be honest I have no idea how it works. All I am grateful for is that by chance I parked my bottom in the jobb Row 6, Seat 3. Or at least I think I did.
Rows are simple enough, but in most places the individual seats are numbered starting from each end, so that if there are 30 seats in a row there will be a Left 1 through to 15 and a Right 1 through to 15, with the two 15s being beside each other.
Tricky enough, but of course Hungarian tickets are printed in Hungarian and most foreigners have no idea of the difference between 'bal' and 'jobb' (left and right).
So this evening when I went to the Toldi cinema to see a human rights documentary that attracted a lot of expatriates, the time before the film started was filled with people occupying seats, being challenged by other people about being in the wrong seat, people getting up, getting down, moving in and out, muttering darkly about bal and jobb and left and right.
Apart from the language problem, left and right depends on where you are looking from, and to be honest I have no idea how it works. All I am grateful for is that by chance I parked my bottom in the jobb Row 6, Seat 3. Or at least I think I did.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
It has been a long time since I last posted something on the blog. Between April and October I was working on an Open University course, which seemed to swallow up all my spare time. But that has now finished, and I also am expecting to spend rather more time alone here in Budapest than I have been doing since the summer of last year, so blogging may feel like a way of communicating again.
Well, we are well into the autumn. The days are still bright and beautiful but cool and nights are getting chilly, down to a few degrees. But the last few mornings have reminded me why living in Budapest can be so uplifting. The moist air and cold mornings mean that there is a mist hanging over the river each morning, and the low sunlight shining through it creates an amazing beauty. So much so that I took a detour on my bicycle this morning to capture Parliament from Margaret Bridge.
This must be one of the most beautiful scenes in any city in the whole wide world.
Well, we are well into the autumn. The days are still bright and beautiful but cool and nights are getting chilly, down to a few degrees. But the last few mornings have reminded me why living in Budapest can be so uplifting. The moist air and cold mornings mean that there is a mist hanging over the river each morning, and the low sunlight shining through it creates an amazing beauty. So much so that I took a detour on my bicycle this morning to capture Parliament from Margaret Bridge.
This must be one of the most beautiful scenes in any city in the whole wide world.
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