Week Nine (Part Two): Budapest

I took a bus from Krakow to Budapest.  It was an interesting experience as the bus line didn't have an official gate assignment or space.  There were a bunch of people waiting around to spot the bus, and everyone was a little jumpy because earlier that day, the bus company had overbooked in a real way and left around two dozen people in Krakow.  The bus was about an hour late, but it was an easy ride and everyone got a seat.  There was even air conditioning, which was a great surprise. 

                                         
                          
                      View from the bus on the way from Krakow.  The whole ride was gorgeous. 

It was late when I arrived at Unity Hostel, and I was afraid that I had somehow gotten lost.  (Side note on a Watson lesson: do not book trains, buses, or flights that arrive at night.  It makes everything more complicated and difficult to find and the number of drunk people roaming around grows exponentially.  Morning or afternoon is much better.)  As it turned out, the hostel is just well-hidden in an apartment complex, but there was an elevator and there was a fan in my room, so I was a happy camper.  The hostel is set up in a series of apartments on the top floor.  My room was in a block with one other, and we had our own kitchen and a really, really nice bathroom with a bath tub. 

I wanted to come to Budapest because, like Krakow, it provided another opportunity to explore a city of a similar size and somewhat similar (recent) history to Warsaw.  Originally, I contemplated going to Pride, but it was difficult to find absolute information about when and where the parade would be held.  What information I did find suggested that it was immediately after Berlin Pride, which was just bad timing in terms of my apartment and other things in Warsaw.  I thought the groups might have made finding information very difficult on purpose because there is a growing radical conservative presence that caused fairly serious violence at parades in the recent past.  When I spoke to one of the organizers of Prague Pride (Willem, who was wonderful), he thought so too.  His partner said the police presence was heavy and the route was so guarded that it was difficult to see the actual parade from outside the march.   Anyway, ultimately I decided to visit the city after my time in my apartment was up and to contact various LGBT organizations there to see if we could meet or talk.

Remnant of Pride 

Thankfully, there was quite a bit of information about LGBT groups in Budapest.  I emailed several organizations and heard back from three really nice people from three separate groups.  Because it's summer season, everyone is vacationing and things are a bit slow, but while two of the orgs sadly had events going on only after I left the city, Bernadett from the Szimpozion Association and I were able to have coffee and talk for quite a while.  More on that later. 

In another happy coincidence, Rachael and Rebecca, whom I met in the hostel in Krakow, arrived in Budapest the next morning and so we made plans to meet that night.  On my first day, I explored the city a bit and went on the Communist Walking Tour.  Free walking tours have been a favorite activity in every city so far; they are a great way to start learning about the history of a place while also getting myself oriented in terms of the geography of a city.


It is clear that the impact of communism on Budapest radiates into the present and does not look likely to disappear anytime soon.  Many of those who held power maintained it after the fall because they had what our tour guides called "miraculous conversions" about the failures of communist state as the tide turned in 1989.  There is apparently a bill that just passed through the Parliament making it illegal for journalists to criticize politicians.
Communism split families in the city.  Both of our guides, Anna and Aaron, came from families where political alliances differed.  One guide told us about how his mother, the daughter of two party members in excellent standing, ran away with his father, who wrote anti-communist literature. Aaron's maternal grandparents refused to recognize their relationship and made it very difficult on his parents, keeping his mother away from his father as much as possible.  To take revenge, his father went to the church to have Aaron baptized, something he knew would hurt his parents-in-law.  When a priest who was an informer (almost everyone was an informer; it was a condition that allowed him to keep his church running) informed the authorities that Aaron was to be baptized, Aaron's grandparents were promptly demoted in their jobs with the party and lost many privileges.  His father and his grandparents struck a deal: their grandchild would not be christened if they got permission to travel for a year together around Europe before he started school.  So Aaron got to travel and see his father and his grandparents got to keep their good standing, although they too had a miraculous conversion in 1989.

An old nuclear bunker that leads into one of the metro lines as an escape.  The line was meant to be a shelter for the public, holding several thousand people, while this bunker was for the party elite. 

The only remaining monument with the hammer and sickles in the heart of the city, from Russia, who would be displeased if the Hungarians chose to take it down.  Very close to it, there's a statue of Ronald Reagan.  The US Embassy is right on the corner. 

Monument to Imre Nagy, who was a leader in the revolution of 1956, captured and executed after the Soviet Army regained control. 

Example of Communist architecture in the city.  The city allowed the occupants to buy their own flats very cheaply after the fall of the communist government, and many took advantage, but although they now owned their apartments, the upkeep and utilities became outrageous without government help. 

After the communist tour, I went to a ruin pub, Szimpla, to meet with Rachael and Rebecca and some of their friends and hostel mates.  It was so great to see them again and to hang out in the pub.  There are many ruin pubs across the city.  They're built in what had been abandoned apartment buildings and businesses, repurposed as large pubs.  They have different themes and decorations.  Szimpla included rocking horses hanging from parts of the ceiling and lots of open-air spaces as well as smaller, more hidden rooms.  There were swaths of multicolored cloth hanging across the ceilings of different rooms, giving it an almost circus feeling and under the cloth there were cages with stuffed animals.  The pub was filled with people, both Hungarian and foreign, and it was a great way to spend a night in the city doing something really unique.

At various points on walking tours, we went into to other ruin pubs, one a former dentist's office with a huge set of smiling teeth fixed to the roof and another similar to Szimpla in terms of building organization. This one, however, was painted with circus bears and other animals meant to be mildly political, it seemed, in their red clothing. There were trees growing in the middle of the pub, and discos balls hung from their branches.

 Unfortunately, I developed some annoying and painful cough and head sickness and by the time I left Szimpla, my voice was comically scratchy and I was not well. I spent the next day medicating and resting (although I did go exploring for a bit; I hate being sick) and the day after that, I went to a bath house, something that I had intended to do anyway and that many people recommended for my cough. The bath houses, or spas, are a tradition in Budapest, which has many thermal springs.  There are several bath houses in Budapest, large and small, and their services and traditions vary.  Some are single-sex, designated by day, so that those who come can go without bathing suits.  Others have common pools and separate spa facilities.  I went to Széchenyi, a large spa with many common pools and spa and sauna services as well.  To put it simply, it was awesome.  The spa is full of local people as well as tourists, and everyone is there to relax.  The buildings are beautiful.  I spent most of my day switching between the hot baths and the medium temperature pool.  The cold pool is reserved for swimmers, but that was fine with me.

Being able to travel is an amazing privilege and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to leisurely make my way to Prague Pride through Krakow and Budapest, to explore history and culture in different places.  The trip had been, however, exhausting.  I had not slept for more than a few hours in at least a week, probably more, and combined with whatever respiratory thing I had, I was feeling a bit run down.  The spa day was the perfect way to keep myself in the culture around me while also taking the time to make sure that I was alert and well enough to really delve in and appreciate the cities around me.

The outside of the Szechenyi thermal bath

Inside the baths

Inside the baths

Heroes' Square, built at the end of 19th century to commemorate the thousand year anniversary of Magyar settlement in 895. 

On that note, but sort of aside, I am very glad that I was able to live in Warsaw and that I will be able to really live in Bunoes Aires, Delhi, and Cape Town outside of hostels because it allows for the creation of a normal schedule (well, as normal as a Watson schedule ever is) and for the creation of a stable relationship between the city and me.  I know that might sound strange, but I had not really considered the importance of physical space as much as I should have.  After four years at Rhodes and in Memphis, I was able to recognize how I related to my surroundings and from that, where I stood, in some way, to the other people in that space.  Hostel living doesn't allow for that kind of familiarity because it naturally pushes a kind of urgent timeline.  "I only have x number of days.  I need to see/do/experience these things in this amount of time."  Everyone is passing through and while that experience of building temporary relationships is important, and difficult, in its own way, I am glad to be able, to be forced, to build longer-lasting relationships with a place and the people in it.  Sorry for that side note.  I'm getting ready for my quarterly report for the Watson Foundation (!!WHAT!!) and I'm in my head even more than normal.

Aaaaanyway.  The next day, I went on both the general walking tour and the Jewish walking tour of the city.  We walked the beautiful chain bridge to the Buda side and learned about the older history of the city, which traces back to the ninth century (although Jewish settlers had been in Budapest for much longer than that).  The Hungarian work for Hungary is Magyarország and Hungarian is Magyar. The language is really interesting.  Hungarians begin with their surname and structure their sentences differently as well.  One thing I wish is that I had more time to learn the various languages I've encountered on the way.  It's my goal to do better as I travel from here, although with only a few days in places like Budapest and Prague, my current attempts at greetings, cheers, and thanks will probably have to be enough.

VIew of the Buda Castle from the Pest side.  The traditional home of the Kings, built in the 14th century. 

St. Stephen's Basilica, Pest side.  It's only a little over a century old, like almost everything on the Pest side, which was settled and expanded as a part of the city much later.  

View from the Pest side. 

The architecture around the city is a fascinating blend of what I imagined communist buildings would be and much older and grander buildings from the city's past.  The Pest side, where I stayed and spent most of my time, is newer, and so even the buildings that look like they might reach far back into Hungarian history are only a couple hundred years old there.  Buda is much older.

The Chain Bridge over the Danube, linking Buda and Pest.

Hungarian Parliament, from the Buda side. 

The Chain Bridge from the Buda side. 

Castle Hill. 

Buda from Castle Hill

The Fisherman's Bastion.  The seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that originally settled Hungary.  It is named for the fishermen who defended the city here in the Middle Ages. 

Parliament

The Jewish tour was really interesting, and we were able to see three major synagogues as well as learn about the history of the Jews of Hungary both before and during the war.  The process of evacuating the Jews of Hungary was very quick but extremely wide-reaching.  Though it began in the later years of the war, Hungarian Jews were sent to concentration camps in huge numbers.  

The largest synagogue in Budapest and one of the largest in the world.  Theodor Hertzl, the great Jewish thinker, was born in the apartment building originally attached to the synagogue, which was destroyed.  The Nazis used the synagogue for offices during the War, and the Allies did not bomb it knowing that it was side to side with the Jewish ghetto of the city.  

The memorial tree in the back of the synagogue.  The leaves are inscribed with the names of individuals and families who perished in the Holocaust.  

I learned a lot doing all three of the walking tours of the city and was able to see many parts of both Buda and Pest walking with our guides.

I ended my day with some Hungarian goulash, which was delicious.

My final day in Hungary, I went to go have coffee with Bernadett.  She and I met and talked over coffee at Deak Square, a central location in the city that houses posh shops, Hungarian crafts for tourists, and a major metro point.  We covered a number of topics, talking for quite a long time about LGBT issues both in Hungary and abroad, and she was extremely helpful and generous, sharing both personal experiences and general impressions of life and politics.

Bernadett has been with the Szimpozion Association for two years, and she has been a leader in the organization for several months now.  The group works on a number of projects to educate the public.  They have a project called "Being Gay and Being Known," where members go into schools and talking about their experiences of coming out.  They organize meetings every two weeks where there's an interview with a person of note, whether a celebrity or a politician.  They make short videos about different topics: LGBT History Month, homophobia, transphobia.

When I asked Bernadett why she joined Szimpozion, she said, "You know when there's the Pride march, there are usually counterdemonstrators, and I usually get indignant about that.  I saw on the news that there was a paper they held up with a rope, like to hang someone, and it's like a death threat.  It was the last straw.  I was saying, I have to do something."  In terms of that kind of violence at Pride, she says that things are getting better now, largely because, "There are more and more programs talking about being gay and how it's not against God.  There are more and more programs on TV and radio talking about this.  Maybe people are becoming more aware."  Despite this, there is still a lot of pushback against attempts to educate.  For example, in their school program, they can only go to very specific schools, with an invitiation, and often when people find out, their invitations are revoked.

I was interested in the relationship between communism and the homophobia that had developed in many post-communist countries, whether or not there was a relationship between the homophobia of the communist state, which as my tour guide noted was real and powerful, and the current attitudes.  Bernadett told a story about a lesbian during the communist era being arrested while she was sitting in the park with her lover, who was sent home free because she was married.  She said it seemed very much like a carryover, in some ways.

Education, coming out, and hate crimes legislation were the most important issues in her mind, and the hate crimes issue in particular is moving to the forefront as attacks against minorities, including gypsies, become a focus of the media.

From within the LGBT community, she spoke about the stigma against bisexual people and trans people, who often get silenced or insulted, although for different reasons.  This experience seems familiar to the situation at home.  She told me about tensions between the different groups under the umbrella and noted that she, "realized that we can hurt each other's feelings very easily.  Everybody is frustrated to a certain level because of the attacks everyone experienced and one has to be really thoughtful and careful about how to use words...The trouble is not being informed well."  Both from within the community and for those outside of it, education and communication were major points of discussion.

In terms of Pride and its importance, we talked about the solidarity that it provided and the chance for a discussion that came with it.  Bernadett said that in her eyes, Pride, "...gives a sense of belonging and it was this year, it really came true.  They can go out and say, 'Yes, I'm gay, lesbian, etc.' And it's okay.  Many heterosexuals who support them go there, friends, family.  There are many programs around the march, so I think that's also good for getting informed."

We sat chatting for a long time, and I'm so grateful to Bernadett for speaking with me about everything from her work at Szimpozion to her own family.  It was such a pleasure to meet her and talk.

I ended my time in Budapest by going to the Terror House, which is a museum inside an old government building used for detaining and "questioning" political enemies of the state.  The museum is very well done, with exhibits beginning with the Nazi regime and running through Communism.  I was lucky to be able to learn more about the city, even that terrifying piece of its past.

This week I'm particularly thankful for:

1. Rachael and Rebecca and another chance to meet and talk.
2. Bernadett and her willingness to talk to me about her life and LGBT life in Budapest.
3. The three people who stopped to help me find my way when I stopped to stare at a map on a random street in Buda.
4. The spas of Budapest.