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60 Andrássy út
Budapest, Hungary
2011

All the humor about the Russian occupation of Hungary ends when you reach this building at 60 Andrássy út in Budapest. It was here that the Arrow Cross (Nazi-occupied Hungary’s version of the Gestapo) set up headquarters. When the Nazis left the Soviets took over the space for their own local KGB-like secret police. 3200 people were murdered by the Nazis or the Soviets in this building. Another 600,000-700,000 Hungarians were sent to gulags in Russian for dissident activity, real or imagined. Half of them never returned.

The building now houses a very sobering House of Terror museum chronicling the double occupation by the Nazis and the Soviets. The portraits lining the outside of the building are of some of the Hungarians executed by the Soviets in the aftermath of the 1956 uprising against their occupation. The flowers were placed at the memorial on All Saint’s Day (which is treated in Hungary much as Memorial Day is in the U.S.).

The Domino Effect
Budapest, Hungary
2011

I don’t think I’ve ever taken a photograph of a McDonald’s restaurant before. But this rather ordinary looking one is very special–it was the very first McDonald’s ever opened behind the iron curtain. I wonder if the government leaders that let it in knew it would become the capitalist straw that broke the back of the communist economic camel. O.K. maybe I’m giving McDonald’s a little too much credit here, but today there are McDonald’s everywhere in Budapest and it’s still the only place we’ve found with free refills on soft drinks, not to mention all the ice you want to cool it down. How can you compete with that kind of free-market economics?

Seating Plan
Budapest, Hungary
2011

The view of the main floor of the Hungarian National Opera from up in the peanut gallery prior to a performance of Rossini’s La Cenerentola two nights ago. (The place ended up packed, we got there early for the photo ops.) Last weekend when we went to see Verdi’s Rigoletto, we actually sat on the main floor where the seats go for ten times as much as we paid for these high up seats. Surprisingly the view and the sound form the cheap seats was essentially the same as from the main floor seats.

La Cenerentola is the story of Cinderella, with some major differences compared to Disney’s movie version (unfortunately the only reference point I have). The wicked stepmother is replaced by a stepfather, the Fairy Godmother is replaced by  a philosopher, Cinderella’s name is Angelina and she is identified not by her glass slipper but by her bracelet. And at least in the Hungarian version, those birds, mice, etc. that were always helping out Cinderella are replaced by a bunch of clowns that sit around the stage most of the performance and the fancy carriage she went in to the ball was replaced by a junky old car.

Both operas we saw where of course performed in Italian. There were  supertitle translations displayed on a screen above the stage but they translated the Italian into Hungarian. So we didn’t always know exactly what was going on, although we had some idea since we’d read synopses of the stories on the internet before going. Still we found the operas entertaining.

The Hungarian opera has a world-class reputation but I must say in my extremely meager opera experience (the only other ones I’ve seen have been live broadcasts on movie screens) the Metropolitan Opera in New York City is considerably better. As they say, I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.

Culture Club
Budapest, Hungary
2011

There’s Zippy trying to look cultured way up in the nose-bleed seats at the Hungarian State Opera. That’s nose-bleed as in 126 steps up from the ground level. Stay tuned tomorrow when he tries to look like he understood what he was watching.

Zippy and the Fashion Queen
Budapest, Hungary
2011

Connie casting an elegant shadow on Andrássy út, the most fashionable boulevard of Budapest.  That’s her photographer Zippy the Pinhead’s shadow next to her.

Pest Mosaic
Budapest, Hungary
2011

Pest, on the east side of the Danube, is very flat. Buda on the other hand sits on the west side in the last (or first I guess, depending on which direction you’re going) foothills of the Alps, so there are good views out over Pest from the hills bordering the river.

Comrade Who?
Budapest, Hungary
2011

Connie snapped this photo of another odd-looking character among the memorabilia at Marxim Pizza.

Vladimir’s Worst Nightmare
Budapest, Hungary
2011

O.K. maybe Comrade Lenin’s worst nightmare was that dream about Russia succumbing to capitalist imperial depredation; but showing up for work in his underwear was probably his worst nightmare that didn’t come true.

This photo was taken at a pizza joint in Budapest called Marxim Pizza. It opened in 1991, two years after the Russian revolution finally left town. The owners took it upon themselves to commemorate the country’s relationship with their former benefactors by decorating the place with Russian political memorabilia displayed, to say the least, quite irreverently. In addition to paintings like this there are defaced posters celebrating the Russian revolution on the walls and the booths are separated by chicken-wire and barbed-wire in sort of a neo-gulag style.

Parliament View
Budapest, Hungary
2011

The Hungarian Parliament building on a foggy morning.

Budapesti Éjszaka
Budapest Hungary
2011

Probably the most famous fine art photographer from Budapest was Gyula Halász, better known as Brassaï. While he was born in Hungary and studied art in Budapest, at age 25 he moved to Paris where he learned photography and gained his reputation. Perhaps his most notable work, certainly my favorite, was the book Paris et Nuit (Paris by Night). It is some of the most compelling street photography I’ve ever seen. Since he skipped covering his home country in the same photographic manner, I guess I’m free to latch onto the similar Hungarian translation, Budapesti Éjszaka, for my Budapest by Night photos.  It is easy to get night photos here, even for someone who is used to going to bed fairly early. Due to a strange assignment of time zones it gets dark in Budapest by 4:30 p.m. or 1630 as they say here. Also, my body still seems to think midnight is really sometime in the early afternoon in the U.S. anyway.