I’m taking a train back in time, crossing what was once the Iron Curtain from Vienna to Budapest.
Having just spent five sunny days in Vienna indulging in fabulous food, art and opera and wowing it up with artists and intellectuals, I’m curious to discover how time has transformed its less fortunate neighbor, Hungary. Both cities were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — which, at its height in the early 20th Century, included most of Eastern Europe — but after World War II this broken empire followed two very different destinies. Where Austria received millions to rebuild her magnificent cities, Hungary and the other Eastern Bloc countries — nations with a vast cultural, artistic and architectural heritage — were divvied up in a secret deal between Germany and Russia and resolutely ransacked.
As the train pulls in to Budapest it’s as though this stark contrast is manifesting itself through the weather: the cobalt sky over Vienna has been replaced by a gunmetal gray gloom and oppressive drizzle. After dumping my bags at the hotel on the east bank of the mighty Danube — the river divides the old towns of Buda and Pest — I head over the Chain Bridge to Budapest Castle. It is still riddled with mortar holes from revolutions past and offers sweeping views of the city’s major sites. Even in the mist the parliament building is an awe-inspiring vision, its white gothic spires glistening like stalagmites. I wend my way back through squares dotted with busts, their faces green with copper-oxide. As much as I try, my damp jeans make it hard for me to get in the mood to immerse myself at one of Budapest’s famous baths. I stand outside the neo-gothic domes of the Széchenyi Bath, the largest in all of Europe, and take a quick tour of the magnificent Art Deco Gellért baths, a true architectural marvel and one of Budapest’s major attractions.
Back at the hotel I change into dry clothes and meet my guide Zsofi Bitto from Unique Budapest for a nocturnal city tour. She’s too young to remember the communists who vacated Hungary in 1989, but like many of her generation, she’s bubbling over with a newfound optimism as she watches Eastern Europe emerge from its torpor to become one of the world’s most alluring new destinations. We huddle under her umbrella and scurry through the streets towards a bar she knows in the Jewish ghetto. On the way we pass the Moorish Revival synagogue. Largely destroyed during the war and neglected for the 40-odd years that followed, it is the largest and surely most spectacular synagogue in Europe. After the fall of communism, cosmetics legend Estee Lauder, a native Hungarian, began an elaborate restoration that has now reinstated it as the city’s pride and joy.
The bar we’re seeking is a “Ruin Bar,” a term used to describe temporary bars set up in derelict buildings by enterprising young locals. Some, like Szimpla Kert, which is where we find ourselves, have become permanent legit fixtures, with an excellent restaurant and regular movie nights. I take my seat on a couch rescued from an old car headed for the wreckers. It launches me into the air briefly before I learn to tame the beast. In the center of a courtyard the shell of a Trabant (a famously crappy communist car) has been turned into booth seating. I find very quickly that saying cheers in Hungarian can only be attempted while sober. “Egészségedre,” I stammer, over a glass of pálinka (traditional fruit brandy) and we head off into the night.
Zsofi leads me down a dark alley and over a bridge to a Coney Island-style boardwalk on the Danube. Twenty-something kids are gathering to play games and dance. It’s late, I’m tired and, sensing my weakened state, Zsofi challenges me to a foosball tournament. By some miracle (and a little cheating) I win a round or two, but when a pair of local sharks play doubles with us I’m exposed for the charlatan I am. We head to the open-air dance floor where the lively crowd is braving the rain to sing every word of a Hungarian pop song. “The wind comes from the West but it blows to the East,” translates Zsofi.
This scene – a heady, spontaneous celebration of life mixed with a sense of burgeoning national pride – is symptomatic of what is happening all over the former Eastern Bloc, and I’m thrilled to have been invited in. If I could only improve my foosball game…
Words and images by Adam McCulloch. Originally published in AAA Horizons Format has been altered to suit Tumblr.
