Memento Park, a Voyage to Budapest’s Communist Past
As if a punishment, the Budapest skyline changed dramatically after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The reason is that all the statues that were once scattered throughout the city to commemorate the era of triumphant communism suddenly disappeared and were taken to the outskirts of Budapest, to Memento Park to be precise. Since there wasn’t a plan for getting rid of them or wiping out the history of the Hungarians in this manner, these giant statues were relegated to occupy the place that the citizens of Budapest determined. Memento Park is located in an area where there is nothing beyond it.

In 1993, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Engels and company were given a new home. That was the year the park opened. The statues, which reflect several episodes of the history of yesteryear’s communism, are of breathtakingly impressive size. Here, size does matter. It´s like riding in a time machine and going back several decades, like walking among dead giants. In some cases, the views give enough respect and make you want to put your head down instead of lifting it up to see all those statues up close. It is very striking, once there, to see where each statue was once located in the city of Budapest before being punished to spend eternity in Memento Park. It is now a museum.
There is a statue in particular whose story is priceless: It is a work in which Stalin’s gigantic boots appear first and above them only a life-size sculpture. This attention-grabbing statue is this way due to the revolt against communism in 1956, when the Hungarians were angry with the regime and decided to cut off Stalin’s feet and then did so at the knees. All that was left were the pedestal and boots. Later another sculpture, one that was different, smaller and therefore less monumental, was created on top of the original feet of the statue of Stalin. In 2006 it rose again but was a less offensive figure to the Hungarians.
The faces of the works you will find in Memento Park are fine, with very pronounced features and particularly tense muscles. The appearance reminds one of the Soviet propaganda posters that were deployed during the Cold War with the ideals of the good communist. And it´s funny because if you take a good look you will also find several sculptures that recall the Spanish Communists in the Civil War of 1936. The park was designed by a famous modern architect named Akos Eleöd.
Useful Information: The park opens at 10 am and closes when the sun goes down. Admission for adults is 1,500 forint (about 5 euros), but with the “Budapest Card” you can get a discount of 40%. And how do you get there? You can take the tram to Kelenföldi Pályaudvar (lines 19 and 49). From there, a good means of transportation is the bus. In the bus shelters 7 and 8 you’ll find the lines 710, 720, 721 and 722 with a final destination of Memento Park, and the ride is less than 10 minutes. Another way to get there is to take a direct bus, which costs 4,500 forint (about 15 euros) to the park from the stop of the metro lines 1, 2 and 3 at Deák tér. Going by car is ideal if you have one, since the area is pretty far removed from civilization. Visiting the park will probably take up an entire day or afternoon. But it’s worth it.
What are you waiting for? apartments in Budapest and come get to know the Communist history that´s preserved at Memento Park.










November 12th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Memento Park, a Voyage to Budapest’s Communist Past http://t.co/Nz9E66uN