Statue from Memento Park.
I started out by climbing Galbert Hill, the "other" hill on the Buda side (read previous post about climbing hills and views). That actually didn't take a very long time. A pamphlet near my feet advertised something called Memento Park. Apparently when the Hungarians kicked out the Communists they couldn't figure out what to do with all the Communist propaganda lying around. Sure they could throw it away, but that seems rather pointless. However, they couldn't just keep them in the city. The solution was to build a park slightly outside the city and move everything there. This has the added positive externality of becoming an overpriced tourist attraction. Perfect!
Victory!
Marx and Engels.
The park itself wasn't too impressive. It was small, and I walked it in about 20 minutes. One particular monument was kind of neat, however. When the Hungarians toppled the Communist regime, their most significant symbolic gesture was to destroy the enormous statue of Stalin. However, it was difficult to destroy because it was, well, enormous. Instead, they sawed Stalin off at the knees and struggled to pull him down. Today, his boots are still standing.
Stalin's boots.
After touring the park, I made my rounds in Memento Park's small exhibit area. It was basically a brief history of Hungary's experience with communism, accompanied by a short movie of secret police training. Not bad, but not spectacular.
No comments:
Post a Comment