Anwesha Rana was not sure when her friend insisted that Budapest is the most beautiful of European cities. Having been enchanted beyond measure by London, Anwesha was wary. She wondered could anything surpass the beauty of London? The friend was right once again. Travelling in Budapest captured Anwesha’s mind and she has been planning to revisit it the moment she left the city. In the second part of a series on Europe for TravelEquipped, Anwesha writes about Budapest's Memento Park that hosts the vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past without honouring or dismissing the figures, sacrifices, and history associated with it
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| Memento Park is an open-air museum in Budapest hosting vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past. Photo courtesy cnn.com |
Memento Park is an open-air museum in Budapest that hosts the vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past. It neither honours nor dismisses the figures, sacrifices, and history of the Communist regime. Walking through the vast open space, one cannot but draw an obvious parallel–the space is as open as the numerous interpretations once could draw from their visit to the Park. It does not impose an opinion upon visitors, instead leaving each person to look around at their own pace and revisit their study and understanding of history as they wish to.
The Park has a tiny souvenir shop that sells merchandise with prints from Soviet propaganda posters and banner and also has a replica of the famous Trabant on the premise. There are enamel cups with prints of Marx and Engels wearing hats and carries the witticism – “Communism is a Party”. This print appears on other merchandise too, including on key chains and postcards. We saw (and of course, purchased) hordes of such merchandise all over Budapest–from tiny street stalls to large and modern shops–and across a range of items such as t-shirts, magnets, and other trinkets.
I came across a journal article titled ‘Marketing of the Dark: “Memento Park” in Budapest’ that was published with the tags of marketing strategy and tourism–make of it what you will! [Complete citation given below].*
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| Visitors can look around at their own pace and revisit their understanding of history as they wish to. Anwesha Rana |
Highlights
- Memento Park is a collection of 42 monumental statues of the likes of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and sculpted plaques from Hungary's communist period in Budapest's suburbs
- The statues were ripped out from the city centre with the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989
- Proletariat anthems are played at a small kiosk in the Park, where communist memorabilia is also available for visitors
- A phone box in the Park has voices of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara and other Communist figures
- Hungarian architect Ákos Eleőd designed the Park
For SB, my friend, and me, Memento Park was a thrilling experience. The silence of the place and the absence of an imposing and instructive narrative offers immense room to take in everything at a pace that allows you to explore your thoughts and feelings in that moment while relating it to what you know of this particular age in history and how you prefer to assess and unlearn or relearn things.
Equally interesting was to observe the response of other visitors–an elderly couple who stood in front of the statue of
Lenin with tears streaming down their face, a large group of tourists listening aptly to the guide, a tiny child asking his parents whose boots those are and why they are so large, another one being told by his father that the statue on the left is Lenin (the child learnt the name quickly and was then running around the park chanting ‘Lenin! Lenin!’).
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| Shoes of Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from the 1920s to 1953, at the museum. Anwesha Rana |
People make places, and their reactions tell us things about a site that a guidebook perhaps never can. SB and I, in those few hours at the Park, were lost in a world far removed from the one we inhabit in our daily lives. The journey back was quiet–we did not speak much then but knew we knew that similar thoughts were running in our heads. Curiously, not many people within the main city have heard of the Memento Park. Perhaps that is a pointer towards the current world order as well. I recently heard the there is a similar park in New Delhi called the Coronation Park. I have not been there yet and it is also not listed on any tour guides, brochures, or must-visit places. Given the current state of affairs across the world, I cannot but feel ashamed yet grateful that these structures are away from the public eye. Their anonymity will protect them.
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| Star of communism at the Memento Park. Anwesha Rana |
Memento Park is located a few kilometres outside the main city of Budapest. There are subway lines that connect to the bus station nearest to the Park
and the tiny office of the open-air museum offers a bus service to return to the city. As with the last piece, if anything here has struck a chord with you, you know what to do when in Budapest.
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