We’ve had glorious weather since arriving in Budapest a couple of days ago, but this morning the heavens opened up and it’s been stormy and gloomy all day. We debated scrapping our plan of venturing out to Statue Park, but it was one of the places we had been eagerly looking forward to seeing ever since we rented the Rick Steves Eastern Europe video. Fortunately it wasn’t cold, just a bit wet, so we grabbed our jackets and boarded the metro. As it turns out, the overcast skies made a perfect backdrop for Statue Park.
The park is actually outside the city, and it takes about an hour to get there from central Pest by public transit (metro + bus). Our bus driver neglected to stop there, even though we’d told him we were headed to Statue Park, but fortunately Kenny noticed the statues out the bus window and we were able to alert the bus driver before we’d gone too far.
Statue Park, or Szoborpark in Magyar, is like a Soviet kitsch wonderland. After the fall of Communism in 1989, the Hungarians had a lot of extra Communist art lying around. Obviously they didn’t want to keep it in the city, but rather than disposing of it, they decided to collect it all and deposit it in a park just outside town. They held a design competition, and the winner, Ákos Eleod, said the following about the concept he developed:
This Park is about dictatorship. And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described and built up, this Park is about democracy. After all, only democracy can provide an opportunity to think freely about dictatorship. Or about democracy, come to that! Or about anything!
Kenny fends off the warriors!
These soldiers had the buffest thighs I’d ever seen.
The interplay of the various statues in the park made for some interesting views.
I went crazy with the camera at Statue Park. More photos in our Budapest set.