Memento Park
We went to Memento Park, which is about an hour ride by bus southwest of Budapest. This is an open-air museum that has a bunch of old statues from the Communist period of Hungarian history. The park is divided into two sections. The first is Statue Park, which has 42 old monuments. Where many countries destroyed statues that reminded them of bad times, this park gives us the opportunity to reflect and remember.
The grounds of the park are pretty rundown with weeds everywhere, and the place could definitely use some upkeep. However the park being so derelict and almost abandoned-looking actually added to the ambiance of seeing the Soviet statues that were created during such a dark and oppressive time in Hungarian history.
I took pictures of many of the statues in the park. Most of these monuments are huge, at least 2-3 times the size of a person. They provide a demonstration of ‘liberation’ by the soviets, the loyal and hard-working common people of the union, and the ‘wonderful’ leaders of the communist society. One my favorites was the one of a whole group of soldiers made out of metal. Only some of the pieces look like they are original, and if you look at it from behind the ones that are of darker color are much thicker and look much older than the ones that are lighter metal color.
The sun was going down and shaded a lot of the parts of the monuments that I wanted to get in detail, but allowed me to get this shot of this guy reaching out and holding the sun in his hands.
The kids liked taking pictures mimicking the different statues. They tried to copy the actions of the statues and then enjoyed running around between the different monuments. There were only a few other people in the park, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
By the ticket office (and bathrooms) was a really old radio playing Soviet rally music. The kids marched around pretending to be soldiers. I thought the juxtaposition between this dirty old radio and the new fire extinguisher was particularly poignant.
Opposite the Statue Park is the Witness Square, which holds a replica of Stalin’s Boots. These boots were the bottom of a statue of Stalin that was all together 82 feet high (the statue portion was 26 feet tall). The statue was torn down in 1956 during the October Revolution, and all that was left was the boots. You could go up to the top of the grey stone portion of the monument, and then underneath the monument there was a basement crypt that held some old busts, some of which were just sitting on the dirt floor. This looked like it used to be an actual exhibit, but there were no lights down here and it was really creepy with a bunch of heads everywhere.
Beside the Witness Square is a really old building that held an indoor exhibit about the fall of communism. I was glad most of the plaques and information boards were in Hungarian and English, because there was a lot of information learned here. There was also a small theatre that showed old videos providing instruction to secret police agents on hiding bugs, house searching, recruitment, and networking. It was pretty interesting, particularly seeing the propaganda and stereotyping used within these films.
Memento Park is something I am glad I got to do while we are in Budapest. I’m not sure there is anything like this anywhere else, and it was an interesting way to spend the afternoon.
