Red Relics: The Statues of Memento Park, Hungary

This article from my second visit to Budapest appeared in The Age newspaper in 2010, but is no longer online: so please enjoy. There's nothing I like more than an artfully arranged set of communist-era relics.

Winston Churchill famously described the Soviet Union as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. He might as well have said the same thing about its art.

At the height of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s rule in the 1930s, an attempt was made to tame the untameable. A new art movement, sanctioned by the state, would promote the goals of socialism.

The result was Socialist Realism, the genesis of a long line of dreary statues scattered across Europe and Asia, depicting sturdy grain-fed peasants and robust factory workers gesturing heroically toward the communist future.

Curiously, it’s simultaneously both a bland and intimidating style, as I see for myself first-hand at Memento Park on the outskirts of Budapest, the Hungarian capital.

It’s a striking place, with high red brick walls bounding three large oval-shaped grounds, a central garden with a big red star picked out by red blooms, and an impressive collection of the massive Socialist Realist statues which once stood throughout Budapest.

It suggests an immense parade ground into which a detachment of Red Guards might suddenly march, scattering the handful of dawdling onlookers on this wet spring day.

Stepping into the grounds, I at once encounter an immense statue of a Soviet soldier standing with chin tilted arrogantly, a rifle strapped across his greatcoat. His right arm is held high, grasping a staff from which a carved flag hangs.

My first impression is of the sheer brute force manifested in this intimidating figure. The second is of what a bad piece of art it is. The flag is particularly awful, a clumpy solid mass rather than the intended depiction of cloth ruffled by the wind.

This gem once decorated the 19th-century Austrian-built Citadella on a hill overlooking the Danube. In the company of other stone soldiers, he played support act to a giant female figure bearing a palm frond, representing liberty. The woman with the palm remains in place; her Soviet entourage does not.

Clearly this grim art style was in the service of ideology and oppression, seeking to overpower the individualism of the viewer.

However, as I walk around the grounds in the company of Orsolya Madary, the park’s enthusiastic communications manager who has a precise knowledge of each piece’s history, I begin to realise that the statues have an another, unexpected aspect.

In a nutshell, they’re funny. Though designed to inspire fear, they also inspire humour. In fact, with their absurdly oversized limbs, stiff expressions and ungainly depictions of movement, the figures are nothing less than a po-faced set of posers who are begging to have the piss taken out of them.

And it’s not only we inhabitants of the safe and comfortable present who see the joke. As we progress, Orsolya relates how Hungarians used to give the solemn statues unflattering nicknames.

Pointing at a clumpy composition of a worker with hands outstretched in front of a Soviet soldier with upraised arms, she says “That was known as The Fishermen. You see, one is gathering his nets while the other is describing the length of the one that got away.”

Further on we meet The Basketballer, a chunky plasticine-like figure with one arm outstretched to the sky as if trying for a basket; and The Linesmen, two figures with small flags who could just about serve at an AFL fixture.

There are also the newly-nicknamed Mobile Phone Marketers, three abstract figures wearing ammunition belts, each with a hand raised to their right ears as if simultaneously saying: “I’m on a tram. A tram!”.

My favourite, however, is a vast muscular figure striding forth with an upraised hand trailing a long piece of cloth. He’s presumably bearing the banner of socialism toward the enemies of the state, but locals snidely referred to him as The Cloakroom Attendant, vigorously returning a scarf you’d just dropped.

Hungary’s communist regime was no laughing matter, obviously, but such everyday humour was a small, regular protest that stole puffs of wind from its sails and turned it into an object of quiet ridicule.

Back at the entrance, I browse the shop’s array of humorous communist-themed items that further take the mickey out of the totalitarian past.

Then, as I pocket my Best of Communism music CD and step past the rusting main gates toward the bus stop, I encounter the last exhibit - a mighty plinth bearing a gigantic pair of boots. No figure above, just boots.

It’s a replica of the remains of an eight metre high statue of Stalin which once stood above a grandstand in the centre of Budapest. When the revolt against communist rule broke out in October 1956, the citizens took to it with saws.

Only the boots remained, and they’ve endured as a comical symbol of communism’s eventual impotence and overthrow. It’s less a case of the emperor having no clothes, than of the boots having no emperor.

Find Memento Park's opening hours and entry fees at its website.

Cacao & the Writer: My Chocolate-Coated Travel

In my work as a travel writer, there are recurring themes.

One of them, I realised the other day, is chocolate.

I was writing a chocolate-related travel article for a major publication, in this case related to London. As I typed, a reference to cacao reminded me that I'd seen a cacao pod in person in Borneo, when I'd visited Malaysia in 2009:

This got me thinking about other times that chocolate had featured in my travels.

In 2010, when Narrelle Harris and I were travelling through Hungary, we dropped into the classic Budapest cafe Gerbeaud. My order was a csokoládé kávé, coffee blended with hot chocolate, amaretto and whipped cream. Alongside it was a perfectly formed slice of Sachertorte:

In May last year I was introduced to great Middle Eastern chocolate, not something I'd been expecting after the terrible chocolate we used to endure when living in Egypt in the 1990s. These locally handmade beauties were on sale at the shopfront of Salma's, a chocolatier in Muscat, Oman:

Closer to home, in 2007 I visited Adelaide and went on a tour of Haigh's chocolate factory. This South Australian brand has several outlets in Melbourne, and it's hard to resist its dark chocolate peppermint frogs. This was the factory shop:

In 2012 I travelled to Quebec City, Canada for the first time and was delighted to discover the Érico chocolate shop and museum, whose exhibits including chocolate clothing:

On the other side of Canada in 2013, Narrelle and I visited an excellent chocolate maker and cafe in Gastown, called East Van Roasters:

And while travelling on the South Island of New Zealand in 2011, I stopped with some colleagues for lunch at She Chocolat, a chocolate-making business with a restaurant overlooking beautiful Governors Bay:

So what's the chocolate-related story I'm writing at the moment? Can't tell you... yet. Follow me on social media (see the links in the right-hand column) to find out when it's published.

I will reveal it has a historic context... and this is how it ends up:

Tasty.

Sated in Hungary (Part 2: Wine)

Last week I wrote fondly of the tasty food of Hungary. This week I'm moving on to its equally impressive wine...

Wine Museums, Keszthely

The attractive town of Keszthely sits at the western end of Lake Balaton, Central Europe’s largest freshwater lake and the landlocked nation’s seaside.

It’s a pleasant holiday town, if somewhat sleepy when I visit out of season in mid-spring.

Despite its modest size, the town is home to two wine museums. The most imposing is situated in the brick-lined cellar of the Festetics Palace, a graceful 18th century structure in its own landscaped grounds.

The House of Balaton Wines exhibits some 1500 Hungarian vintages, with 30 or so available on rotation for tasting sessions.

Down the road in the basement of a more humble building, the three-star Hotel Bacchus, is the Bacchus Wine Museum. It’s a slow day so a waiter from the adjacent restaurant has to unlock the museum for me.

It turns out to unexpectedly interesting; in addition to covering the history and regions of Hungarian wine, it’s packed with old casks, winemaking implements such as curious doughnut-shaped ceramic bottles, and romantically dusty old wine.

[Believe it or not, as of December 2012 the following attraction has been transformed into a spy museum! I've retained the text as a historical record, and to give a sense of the cellar complex beneath Buda Castle.]

Royal Wine Museum, Budapest

Standing on the Szabadság Bridge at sunset, the first thing that strikes me about Budapest is its grandeur.

As the joint capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century, the Hungarian capital shared in the imperial trappings of Vienna, and it shows. The Danube is wide here, with soaring iron suspension bridges linking flat commercial Pest with hilly Buda.

The centrepiece of Buda is Buda Castle, a vast walled complex stretching for some 1.5 kilometres on a hilltop above the river. Buildings have come and gone within its walls over the centuries, and a set of rediscovered medieval wine cellars below demolished houses have recently been linked up to form the Royal Wine Museum [now closed, see explanatory note above].

The twisting and turning underground route is an atmospheric trek through cool sloping passageways, with folk music playing over speakers.

Along the way I learn about Hungarian champagne (who knew?) and encounter ancient wine apparatus including wooden goblets, then descend into much deeper cellars going back to the 13th century. There’s even the remains of a Jewish mikveh (bath) hidden down here.

At the end I sit outside in a pleasant shaded courtyard while a uniformed man pours a glass of apricot-flavoured palinka, the Hungarian spirit literally translated as "burning water". It packs a punch, but is not unpleasant.

The Valley of the Beautiful Women, Eger

To the east of Budapest in hilly wine-growing country most well known for the dessert wine tokay, Eger is a picturesque collection of old buildings including a prominent castle and a remnant minaret from the Turkish occupation.

Its local wine-related claim to fame is Bikavér, a full-bodied red which is said to have fortified the soldiers who resisted the first Turkish siege in 1552.

The best place to buy Bikavér is definitely the Valley of the Beautiful Women, just outside town. Both kitschy and rewarding, the valley is a collection of old wine cellars dug into a rocky horseshoe-shaped valley.

Visitors wander around, buying 100ml samples from random cellars and eating local dishes, before producing their own containers to buy larger take-away amounts of wine.

It’s an attractive way to spend an afternoon. In reasonably quick succession I try samples of Bikavér, then a nice dry rosé, then tokay.

The cellars vary greatly in appearance, from classy set-ups with uniformed staff to simple venues run by the vineyard owners. At my last cellar, I’m ushered in by an elderly lady to be met by a grizzled old man in track pants and a jumper, presenting a much-thumbed guestbook and welcoming us in German.

He’s a definite character, quickly filling glasses of tokay and slapping down a half-filled bottle of another wine, so we can pour our own samples. We can still see the original chisel marks on the bare walls of the cellar, and it’s cold within its depths.

Luckily, the tokay is warming our interiors quite nicely.

To read Part One (Food), click here.

Journey into Vampire Fiction: Eger, Hungary

This week's guest blogger is fantasy novelist Narrelle M Harris, author of the acclaimed vampire novel The Opposite of Life and the Melbourne Literary app for the iPhone and iPad.

For a lot of people, books lead to travel. But sometimes the reverse is true - travel leads to books.

My 2010 trip to Hungary led to me writing a short story inspired by Hungarian history, the country’s legendary association with vampires, and a little town called Eger.

Hungary has a history of association with vampires. Until after World War I, Transylvania (home of Vlad Dracul) was part of Hungary; the infamous Countess Bathory who bathed in the blood of virgins to maintain her youth was Hungarian; and 20th century horror film actor Bela Lugosi was a famous son of Hungary.

Hungary has also suffered under more immediate and real monsters than those contained within the legions of the undead. Its 20th century history is a litany of tyranny and oppression, as Hungary was allied to Nazi Germany in the Second World War and Hungarian Jews were murdered in their hundreds of thousands as a result.

The Soviet Union then liberated Hungary, exchanging one tyrant for another. The Terror House in Budapest contains a wall depicting victims of the secret police of the postwar communist regime. Another, perhaps darker, room depicts those who worked for the secret police.

The museum is a dark and disturbing memorial, the brightest part of which is its very existence: Hungary is now a place where those evil secrets are no longer buried. Hungary has emerged from that past and is shining a light on it, perhaps in the hope that it will never happen again.

As a writer, I wanted to create something that played with all of these elements of Hungary's story – both its recent history and its fantastical relationship with vampire lore.

Then I visited Eger. Eger is a beautiful town in eastern Hungary, famous for its Bull's Blood wine and its impressive castle. Eger fell to the Turkish invaders of the Ottoman Empire in 1596, nearly 50 years after the majority of Hungarian territory was conquered. Eger eventually defeated its Turkish overlords in 1687, around a decade ahead of the rest of the nation.

This defiant town's castle has been restored and tidied up above ground; but to me, one of its most interesting attractions was a dark, damp hole beneath it.

A tour led below the castle to tunnels hewn into rock, dripping water and inhabited by permeating cold. It was claustrophobic to squeeze through its narrow tunnels with two dozen strangers to stare at a cave behind bars: one of the castle's actual dungeons. A pile of mouldy hay and a few rats, as depicted in countless films, were the only touches missing.

Then, in the strange alchemy that happens in the minds of writers, a story was born.

A story about a vampire created in the Ottoman era, who doesn’t fit in the modern world; a family enslaved to his will for generations; a castle with a dank and terrible dungeon beneath rooms and stairs now made safe for tourists; and how the most surprising things can happen when you underestimate the courage of people who are fed up to the gills with evil bastards.

I don't know if the resulting story, Thrall, is one of those tales that will inspire someone to visit Hungary; I hope so. Either way, Hungary definitely inspired me, with its colour, tragedy, defiance and hope.

Narrelle M Harris's short story Thrall appears in her latest book Showtime, a short story collection published by Twelfth Planet Press - you can buy it online here.  Find out more about Narrelle's writing at www.narrellemharris.com.

Hungary 3: When Buda Met Pest

This week's guest blogger is fantasy novelist Narrelle M Harris, author of the acclaimed vampire novel The Opposite of Life. Aptly, she's currently just a stone's throw from Transylvania...

Visiting Budapest? Yep. Taking a cruise down the wide, fast-flowing (though definitely not blue) Danube? You bet. A commentary echoing the elegance of the Blue Danube waltz? Not quite. Let me explain.

Boarding the Legenda cruise boat, my friend Celia and I settle in at the prow, don our headphones, select “English” on the chunky speaker box attached to the seats, and settle in for what we expect will be the customary droning commentary.

“On the left bank you can see the medieval church in which King So and So was crowned in 14-whatever, and on the right is the Town Hall, built in 18-blah-de-blah from a design by the famous local architect You’ve-Never-Heard-Of, yadda yadda yadda...” That sort of thing.

But Hungarian ferry cruises spurn such unimaginative fare. Instead, we are treated to a mini radio play, complete with eccentric phrasing, a dash of cheek, dashes of inappropriate content and just enough cheese to keep it flavoursome. And animated cities as our presenters.

Our audio hosts, you see, are Buda, the city’s hilly western half, played by a man who sounds disconcertingly like Simon’s Irish dad in the TV series Beautiful People; and Pest (pronounced pesht) on the east bank, voiced by a charming and vivacious English lady.

Buda and Pest banter in an affectionate way about their marriage and the bridges that were finally built to link the two sides of the great river. A little like Australia’s Albury-Wodonga, only with European class. They chaff each other like equals, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Benedick and Beatrice. She teases him about how all the girls love his castle; he tweaks her nose about her lavish cafes.

Some of the information is a little surprising. For example, Liberty Bridge is a popular suicide spot, according to Pest.

Buda also informs us that the sunbathing terrace at the art nouveau Gellért Baths has been refurbished, and once more people can watch the ladies in their swimsuits from the Citadella lookout far above. And that’s not the slightest bit creepy or inappropriate, is it?

Buda and Pest are full of mutual admiration. They comment on how they enjoy looking at each other across the Danube, though there is some squabbling over who should claim the upriver Margaret Island. The dispute is resolved by Pest firmly claiming the garden island for her own, on the basis that Buda has plenty of greenery already.

A jarring note is struck, however, whenever Pest names hotels on her side of the river. As hotel chains have inevitably changed over the years, her bold British tones are suddenly replaced by a heavily accented Hungarian voice for a word or two, somewhat shattering the illusion.

Overall, the commentary is reminiscent of the output of an enthusiastic community theatre group, with sometimes awkward and clunky dialogue offset by the home-made charm and enthusiasm of the ensemble.

And it’s actually a clever way to present entertaining information about the city’s history and architecture. For whenever Pest is speaking, we know to look east for sights like the extravagant riverside Parliament. When Buda speaks, we look toward his castle on the hills to the west. It’s a much more engaging device than the usual drone of information about buildings and dates.

In short, I find a little cheese with my ham quite delightful, while navigating the Danube. And I’m glad these two crazy Hungarian kids finally got together as the celebrity couple that is Budapest.

Narrelle M Harris stayed in Budapest courtesy of short stay apartment booking service europenethotels.com. 

You can find details of Narrelle's vampire novel The Opposite of Life at her website, along with details of her other published work.