It may have been slap-bang in the middle of the Sziget Festival, but we went on the lookout for some hardcore culture vultures, in the midst of all the mayhem. We headed to Memento Park, which features an impressive collection of gigantic communist statues that once stood on the streets of Budapest. Rather than having been destroyed, like many others throughout Europe, here they can be viewed, touched, spoken about – heck, you can even climb on them! We found some commie-hungry visitors and tore them away from these remnants of the Iron Curtain for a chat…
Richard & Charles, US
So, what’s your Budapest story; what brings you here?
C: Well, we’ve just graduated from law school, so we needed to do something! We were looking for something completely the opposite of what we’d been doing, and this is pretty different – we spent the whole summer studying!
And why Hungary in particular?
R: It chose us!
C: I’d spent time in Berlin before, and really enjoyed it; Hungary was one of the places I’d wanted to visit but hadn’t.
R: To me, it’s off the beaten track – which I like.
What do you think of Budapest so far?
R: It’s actually pretty dead… but we’ve just realized that’s because everyone’s at a festival on an island!
Anything weird happened to you here?
R: The weirdest thing so far has been our creepy hostel owner! She’s really bizarre – she seems to have a radar and knows when we’re doing things she doesn’t want us to be doing!
You’re currently sitting on a set of steps underneath Stalin’s boots… how did you end up here?
C: I like Soviet kitsch! We’re from a very different place, so this kind of thing seems cool.
R: I didn’t know much about communism here and the whole period before; I mean, we learned a bit about it at school, but not Hungary specifically, so it’s good to find out some of this stuff.
Found a favorite statue?
R: The giant one (Republic of Council’s Monument). It’s dramatic but it’s awkward, too. I’ve been trying to replicate its stance. I’ve never seen a statue so big for propaganda purposes.
C: All these incredible statues look so lonely out here, surrounded by homes. It’s kind of eerie. My favorite’s the group statue over there (The Béla Kun Memorial). It’s hilarious! It looks kind of cheap compared with the other ones. If you look around the back, you can see parts falling apart. The fact that the statues are so accessible, though, that you can climb on them, is really cool. You’d never be allowed to climb on stuff like this in New York!
So, what’s next?
Both: We’re buying a train ticket to Vienna!