The second part of my story about Budapest.

In each city, I eat ethnic cuisine of this country and I buy music, that symbolize this city for me. Unfortunately, in Budapest I didn’t buy a music cd or vinyl, but I ate enough ethnic dishes- Gulyash soup, Pörkölt, pigs’ feet and Kiortish Kolach. I even tried mulled wine!

As I said in my previous post we lived next to the Great Synagogue of Budapest, in Jewish Quarter.

The Great Synagogue or Tabakgasse Synagogue, is a historical building in Erzsébetváros, the 7th district of Budapest. It is the largest synagogue in Eastern Europe and one of the largest in the world (it seats 3,000 people).

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The Great Synagogue complex consists of the Great Synagogue, the Heroes’ Temple, the graveyard, the Memorial and the Jewish Museum, which was built on the site on which Theodore Herzl’s house of birth stood.

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The synagogue was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, with the decoration based chiefly on Islamic models from North Africa and medieval Spain. The synagogue’s Viennese architect, Ludwig Förster, believed that no distinctively Jewish architecture could be identified, and thus chose “architectural forms that have been used by oriental ethnic groups that are related to the Israelite people, and in particular the Arabs”.

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In 1944, The Great Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto for the city Jews and served as shelter for a lot of people. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during the winter 1944-1945 are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue.

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Greetings from Soviet past. Lada Zhiguli 1200 ’70

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We didn’t plan it, but we bought tickets to the Hungarian Opera House to the Nutcracker. The last time when I have been on this ballet, I was 8 years old boy from Dnepropetrovsk. It was something amazing, I don’t know how explain my emotions in time when I sat in the second row, when I watched incredible ballet-dancers and heard Tchaikovsky’s ballet. But the fairy tale didn’t end, when we had gone out from the Opera House, the first snow began. Magic.

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Subway in Budapest is the oldest electrified underground railway system on the European continent, and the second-oldest in the world, predated only by the 1890 the London Tube.

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The Subway consists of four lines, each designated by a number and a color and has system length about 38km.

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Liberty Bridge or Szabadság híd is the third southernmost public road bridge in the city. It was originally named Ferenc József híd (Franz Joseph Bridge) and was built between 1894 and 1896 to the plans of János Feketeházy. It is 333.6m in length and 20.1m in width. The top of the four masts are decorated with large bronze statues of the Turul, a falcon-like bird, prominent in ancient Hungarian mythology.

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The Ethnographic Museum was founded as the Ethnographic Department of the Hungarian National Museum in 1872. It formally split from the National Museum in 1947 but moved to its building in Kossuth Square, opposite the Parliament building, only in 1973. The grand building in which the Museum of Ethnography is now housed was originally built by Alajos Hauszmann for the Ministry of Justice.

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St.Anna Church- catholic church, located on the Batthyány tér, next to the Castle Hill. Architectural monument of the middle of the XVIII century in Baroque style.

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The Great Market Hall (Nagycsarnok) is the largest and oldest indoor market in Budapest. The idea of building such large market hall arose from the first mayor of Budapest, Károly Kamermayer, and it was his largest investment. He retired in 1896 so when the building was completed, he participated in the opening ceremony as a citizen.

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Most of the stalls on the ground floor offer produce, meats, pastries, candies, spices, and spirits such as paprika, tokaji, túró rudi, and caviar. The second floor has mainly eateries and souvenirs.

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The building was designed and built by Samu Pecz around 1897. The market offers a huge variety of stalls on three floors and building size is 10,000 square meters, which is covered by steel structure. During the World Wars it was completely damaged and then closed for some years.

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Interesting moment- the most of churches portray Jesus as a baby or as a 33-years-old rock star with beard and long loose hairs. But in Budapest the first time I saw Jesus’ statue as a 4-years-old boy.

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Vajdahunyad Castle (Vajdahunyad vára) is a castle in the City Park of Budapest, it was built between 1896 and 1908 as part of the Millennial Exhibition which celebrated the 1000 years of Hungary since the Hungarian Conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895. Today it houses the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture, the biggest agricultural museum in Europe. Near the Castle every year Mayor’s Office makes a rink for citizens and tourists.

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The Széchenyi Medicinal Bath is the largest medicinal bath in Europe. Its water is supplied by two thermal springs, their temperature is 74°C and 77°C, respectively. The bath can be found in the City Park, and was built in 1913 in Neo-baroque style to the design of Győző Czigler. The complex has 3 outdoor (swimming pool, adventure pool and thermal sitting pool) and 15 indoor pools.

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I don’t know why, but we decided, that we don’t need flip-flops and bathrobes. It was huge mistake. Have you ever been winter outdoors (-4°C) in swimming shorts?
But I must admit, it was cool (“cool”, ha-ha, you understood my joke?)

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If you are planing to fly to Budapest and visit this place, my recommendation- you must buy flip-flops and towel and you should pay 4500HUF instead of 4000HUF for a privet cabinet, or get ready to contemplate Hungarian testicles and asses. Brrr.

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As I said in my first post, in Budapest there are many homeless people. It’s very sad, especially in time when they need to survive in low temperatures.

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Soviet past. Again.

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Hungarian post-box. If I did not know that I was in Hungary, I would have thought that I was in United Kingdom.

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Actually, I liked Budapest with his city life, I liked Hungary with their language and culture. But Budapest isn’t my city, and Hungary isn’t my country at all.

At the end I want to say few words… I want to say thank you to my friends, who forced me to go to this trip. Спасибо!