The closest distance to the moon: 2012
Well, I didn’t have too much time to stay and make pictures because of my damn thesis. However, I couldn’t stop myself, I just run to Városliget (City Park) around 11 PM on Saturday and I made some quick photos. The two below are the best ones – and they are really good, since my 85 mm lens is far from the shortest required in such situations (300 mm). A photographer from the Romanian news agency Mediafax made this picture. You can compare it with my two photos below (please double click to enlarge):
Budapest: 1st of May highlights
Some quick shots, made in the evening when everything was almost over in Városliget. First, processing a cotton candy:
More candies, for those who really dare to defy their weight:
And a Smurf – really loved this one, but it was already taken:
Living in Nowhere, Europe (2)
The pictures below are taken this month very close to Cluj Napoca, Romania, on the road between Cluj Napoca and Gherla. If you ever want to visit this village (should I say ‘this ghost town’?), take the road E 576 from Cluj towards Gherla and you can get there just before the intersection with DN 161.
This village, made out of only six or seven severely damaged apartment buildings and a new church, doesn’t even have a name – or, at least, I wasn’t able to find it. This seems to be yet another ghost town inherited from the communist era; as you can see in the fourth picture below, beside the church the only other thing in this village is a crowded bar 
Easter Fair
Since I am away in the Far East I am offering you some nice photos of the Budapest Easter Fair. And don’t forget: I am away, but I’m not going to forget updating this blog. Soooo, expect wild photos from Romania!
And could you catch the frog?
Budapest: Against Pál Schmitt’s plagiarism
You can read more about the Hungarian President’s case of plagiarism on The Contrarian Hungarian’s blog. Today at 11:00 Students’ Network organized a meeting across the Rector’s Office of Semmelweis University on Köztelek Tér (Budapest), demanding the Graduate Council to revoke President Schmitt’s doctorate.
Unfortunately, the meeting was attended by around 40 students and 15 journalists. Although it was previously announced that it would take place between 11:00 and 14:00 (THREE hours), the meeting barely exceeded 30 minutes. Here are some pictures (the protesters gathered especially for journalists, and probably at their demand):
And this is the ‘big’ student crowd:
Some of them took their notebooks, trying to work a bit before the meeting was supposed to begin:
The below poster seems to say ‘The spine is not the core material’ – easy to understand its meaning, probably it’s in every language :)
Finally, two organizers started to say something. Not too much, though: two or three propositions, something like ‘Thank you for coming. See you next time’. They were surrounded by journalists:
Well, the meeting was in a small park, lots of dogs were trying to solve their morning problems, and one came very close to Magyar Television’s team, probably wanting to show his great respect:
HIR TV also came, but unfortunately for them it was too late: the meeting was finished, few people remained in the park:
Below the translation is: ‘Are you really so afraid?’
When the Magyar Television started to transmit (or maybe just to record) the news, almost everyone had already left the place…
So that was all. For a nation that is used to get to the street every time it has something to say, students’ protest was pretty disappointing…
[I want to thank The Contrarian Hungarian for announcing me about this rally and its location, and for helping with posters' translations]
Tourists. Stupid Tourists
Everyone is fighting to attract tourists, and this seems to be normal. But creating increasingly stupid things in order to attract increasingly stupid tourists ready to pay for them is a practice that everyone is prepared to engage in right now. I am sure Budapest could offer much more interesting and traditional ways to sail on the Danube – but fat, stupid, dumb tourists would rather pay for sailing with the bus. This only increases my opinion that people get dumber and dumber… indeed, sky’s the only limit…
Budapest: inauguration of the Hungarian Guard’s new members
UPDATE (19.03.2012): Read an analysis of this event on The Contrarian Hungarian blog. You can also find a short video footage of the event on the Euronews.
Just two days after Jobbik’s rally on Deák Ferenc tér (on the 15th of March), surprisingly the (New) Hungarian (National) Guard / Magyar Gárda (which was dissolved by the Budapest Tribunal on 2 July 2009) had the chance to organize a meeting in its favourite place: Hősök tere / Heroes’ Square. This event was organized in order to welcome some 100 new members.
The meeting was attended by a surprisingly small number of persons, in spite of the wonderful weather. Surprisingly, the number of policemen was probably ten times (!!!) bigger than that of the participants (something which reminded me of the 2006 events). Here are some pictures, and I have to apologize for their quality (it was 12 o’clock, in an extremely sunny and hot day). The first two pictures show you some of the speakers (watch the interesting symbols in the second picture):
[CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM!]
And here are the proud military members of the Magyar Gárda, quietly listening to the speakers, under the burning sky. You should notice that they are sitting – this is because in Hungary it is against the law to ‘walk or stay in a formation’ :
At the end of the meeting, the new members were being congratulated:
Meanwhile, a group of maximum 15-20 persons were demonstrating against the Magyar Gárda. They were heavily protected by the police (two cordons of policemen around the group):
Of course (is anyone surprised?) Hir TV was probably the only TV team present there:
I decided to leave the most interesting (and the most frightful) thing at the end: children, the new generation, really played a major role in the the Magyar Gárda’s demonstration. Below, you can see a proud Magyar Gárda’s family (two ‘military’ parents taking care of their children – two girls which are supposed to ‘continue’ the nation). This is probably the most interesting photo of this post. And finally, you can see a child reciting some poetry, being carefully prepared to become a proud citizen of the Magyar Gárda’s vision of Hungary.
And I guess that’s it. The whole event took maximum two hours and was attended by maximum 300-400 people. As always, pictures worth a thousands words…
Budapest: the three rallies
UPDATE 1: Different news agencies report that there were between 100,000 and 250,000 people at the Government’s rally, while at the opposition’s (Milla) rally only 30,000 to maximum 100,000 were present (AFP).
Ok, yesterday was interesting (three rallies to cover: government’s rally in Kossuth tér, far-right’s rally in Deák Ferenc tér, and opposition’s rally on the Pest foot of the Erzsébet Bridge), irritating (almost running for six hours) and exhausting (six hours of running & shooting, 700 photos). However, the biggest problem was the weather (actually, the extremely sunny day) which was excellent for demonstrations, but not for taking photos. So my photos below are not as good as I was expecting, but here they are.
So let us start. The first interesting thing to me was the descent of the Polish guests from the Buda Castle; they were supposed to be greeted by Hungarians at the Pest foot of the Chain Bridge between 14:30 and 15:00. I arrived there at 14:15, but the diligent Poles were already on the Pest side, walking on Jóysef Attila utca and heading to the Kossuth tér.
[CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM!]
They were of course accompanied by those Hungarians dressed in traditional costumes which you can see in any Hungarian demonstration supporting the government (I have never seen them in an opposition’s rally, however):
And then again the Poles:
Some Polish women were actually crying seeing the Hungarians welcoming and applauding them:
Some kids got sick, and a nice policeman just got one out of the mass of people:
Close to the Chain bridge, a clown with lots of balloons… the interesting thing is that he also had a ‘kokárda’ (the symbol of the 1848-1849 revolution):
Going to the Kossuth tér, everyone could see the youth of Government’s supporters. I will come back later with other photos showing both the youth and the mental sanity of many of them (just a little patience!).
And we are now in front of the Parliament in Kossuth tér, close to the Poles: young and polyglots, they have banners in Polish, French and English:
Don’t you love Hungary? Nationalist feelings are here so strong, that even dogs seem to have them:
And then something that I thought I would never see in Hungary: a group of Roma demonstrators being happily and noisily welcomed by all Hungarians. I didn’t know why until I get back home and I made some internet search: it seems that Lungo Drom is very close to Fidesz (more here):
And then we saw the Government’s building, ready for the show:
And the crowd, of course. My pictures cannot show you the whole mass of people, but as far as I am concerned I think they were still more than those gathered for the opposition’s rally:
And then I was very interested to see the prime minister Viktor Orbán, since he was supposed to come up at 15:00 to deliver a speech. However, to my disappointment the show started with some Hungarian dances (Csárdás) and songs, then some politician came and talked for more than 15 minutes, and then I decided we have to go to catch the other manifestations too. So we went to Deák Ferenc tér, to see the far-right Jobbik‘s supporters. Lots of flags, to be sure
And then I started to look for figures. Two of them were quite nice…
but look at the other ones…
Then we decided to go toward opposition’s rally, on the Pest foot of Erzsébet Bridge (a.k.a. Szabadsajtó út / Free Press Road). On our way, just close to the Deák Ferenc tér metro there was a guy who seemed not to be aware of the turmoil around him:
And then the opposition’s rally:
The EU and Hungarian flags together… the only rally on that day where one could see such a ‘horror’ ))
And the scene. It was supposed to be an English translation on the radio, but nobody said on which post:
And here’s the crowd. Some said it was larger that that of Government’s rally, but I still do not believe this. The difference (and the reason why it seemed to be more people there) is that the street was rather narrow than very large:
As you can surely see, the sun was a big problem for opposition’s manifestation. Being in the crowd, it was extremely difficult to look at the scene. Probably that’s why some had tears (or who knows….):
Here are some other pictures:
Interesting enough, only the opposition decried the recently deceased, state-owned Malev company:
The opposition rally closed before it was previously announced (they stayed there for only one hour and a half, instead of the previous announcement of two hours). So we decided to go back yo Jobbik on Deák Ferenc tér:
Actually this rally was the most interesting one. The old and bearded bikers and some (so many, to our surprise) wonderful Harleys made our day
And then we went back again to Kossuth tér, to see what sort of concert they had there after the rally. Nothing special regarding the music or the band, but the scattered crowd dancing was more than interesting. Now I’m fulfilling my promise of coming back to the age and mental sanity of many supporters of the Government (and even though you cannot see rightly from the pictures, all of them were actually dancing )
Since everything seemed to be finished in the Kossuth tér, we wanted to go back to Deák Ferenc tér to Jobbik’s demonstration. But we stopped on the Szabadság ter, since we saw Jobbik’s hardliners:
After police surrounded them, some escaped and get into the Bank Center crying something about Jews. Police came rapidly, secured the place, but Jobbik’s guys didn’t seemed to care too much:
Then Jobbik’s hardliners regrouped in front of the Hungarian Television, installed some flags and a very nervous guy had a long speech:
And that was all, I guess. Going back home we passed by Jobbik’s demonstration on Deák Ferenc tér, and around 19:00 there was a concert: probably the last event of that evening.
Budapest: Anti-ACTA Protest
Saturday, 11th February, 16:00. Budapest, Hungary. Sad but true, only around 1000 people cared to say something against ACTA.
The Russian Grandpa
My old Smena 8M (my first camera!). Photo taken with my Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 16-85 VRII, January 2012.
Hungary at the Crossroads
Even at the Mangalica Festival, Hungarians still worry about their future (Szabadság Ter, Budapest, Hungary, 5 February 2012)
Budapest: rally’s portraits
I have decided to make a separate post for the portraits I shot at the pro-government rally on the 21st of January. Some faces tell a whole story. Below, a child doesn’t know anything about the European Union and the Orban government, but it is clearly impressed to see all those people in the street:
This guy was actually crying while singing a Hungarian song:
Budapest, Hungary, 21st of January 2012 (Hősök tere - Andrássy ut - Bajcsy-Zsilinszky - Báthory utca – Kossuth tér).
Budapest: Pro-government rally
After the anti-government rally on the 2nd of January, pro-Orban journalists from Magyar Nemzet organized a rally on the 21st of January. Organizers’ intention was not only to show the huge number of Orban’s supporters, but also to send a strong message to European and international institutions which lately increased their pressure on Hungary to reverse anti-democratic laws. Hundreds of buses brought around 400,000 people from all over the country (the information is taken from The Contrarian Hungarian, who is also offering an excellent text report on demonstrators’ claims and feelings; read also Andor Jakab’s report). People gathered at 4 PM at Hősök tere (Heroes Square); maybe not quite surprisingly, most of them were of an old age, exhibiting great deference towards medieval nationalist dresses and symbols. Here’s my photo report (click on photos to enlarge):
I’m not sure about how exactly protecting the Orban government is also protecting Europe, but people seem to think so:
Since the organizers are pro-governmental journalists, it is not hard to understand who are considered ‘responsible journalists’ and who are not so labelled:
The huge crowd (maybe the largest in the last decades) is marching on Andrássy Avenue, heading to Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. People are generally quiet, however some groups are singing and praying in a low voice.
The crowd is quietly marching on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky:
On Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, two anti-government activists are defying the crowd. However, the old people are already tired of walking, so beside some swearing and whistles nothings is heard:
Old women really care about their sovereignty:
The crowd is already on Báthory utca, heading to the Kossuth tér.
The below poster’s intention is to show that Hungarians have always supported individual freedoms, while Western powers are the real anti-democratic countries:
People want to show where they are coming from:
On Kossuth tér, in front of the Parliament’s building, the crowd is listening to two or three short speeches. They acclaim and cry ‘Viktor we are with you’:
Not everyone can get into the Kossuth square, so many stopped on Báthory utca.
Some claim there is no difference between the European Union and the Soviet Union:
They think that while in 1956 Hungary was attacked by tanks, now it is attacked by banks:
Now below is quite a strange claim, since Viktor Orban nationalized the pension system:
Candles for the heroes dead in the 1956 revolution against the Soviet occupation:
Wherever Europe and the world is going to, it seems Hungary is heading to the opposite direction:
The buses, previously parked in the huge parking lot close to Városliget (City Park), near Hősök tere (Heroes Square), are now on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky prepared to take the already tired old protesters back home. The rally was over around 6:30 PM.
Budapest, Hungary, 21st of January 2012 (Hősök tere - Andrássy ut - Bajcsy-Zsilinszky - Báthory utca – Kossuth tér).
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