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With all the floodlights turned off at the main buildings of the city it
resulted in a very soft scene to the capital of my country. I chose this
very place to shoot because I wanted to take a long-exposure picture
of our world-famous parliament and the lights turned off gave me a
chance to get some ships of long exposure on the Danube without
overexposing the building.

As you can see they only turned off the exterior floodlights at the
parliament. It was the same with the bridges: the street-lightnings
were left on not to disturb the traffic. However in the Buda Castle
everything was turned off as they organized a torch festival.

I added some small thumbnails of the most famous buildings of Budapest
for easier to recognize, you can find these at the bottom of the panorama.
Enjoy the lights!

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Each year Ráday street awaits the public, that is susceptible to culture and is willing to spend its free time in a top class environment. From April to October in the course of “Ráday cult street” about eight fetsivals are organised here. From among the mentioned festivals the following are the most popular: International Poetry Festival, Plein-Art Contemporary Art Festival, Reformed Music Festival, Summer Games in Ferencváros, Ferenc Day Fair. Besides this three galleries, a Bible museum and the previously mentioned library awaits the art lovers.

No matter if we end up in Ráday street in the morning or at night, it is never deserted; there are always some people sitting at the cafés or restaurants and their terraces. Among many others it is due to the some 14 cafés that can be found here. Ráday street can be devided into two strikingly detaching parts; the boundary is Bakáts Square. The Saint Ferenc Catholic Church can also be found here. Heading towards Boráros Square from here the view is slightly less attractive; it is the other side, the one towards Kálvin Square is the actual pedestrian precinct. Most cafés are found here: the starting point is Jaffa Café, and the line of cafés ends with a retro bar called Cha-cha-cha that is found in the subway at Kálvin Square.

Because of it being much frequented the government of Ferencváros – the building of which is also situated here – is consistently working on transforming Ráday Street into a solely pedestrian precinct. Today cars can still run along the street in one direction, however the traffic is kept reduced so that the people visiting this place can have fun and relax undisturbed.

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Orthent – a progressive rock band’s approach to the traditional Hungarian folk-song heritage

The Band:
Identification of Orthent’s musical style is not justified. It has been called progressive rock – most commonly, or culture-rock and because of its certain elements, it has also been called folk-rock or even world music. Their aim is to create a new, unusual, but widely acceptable musical atmosphere behind the traditional Hungarian folk-songs.

The band always starts working on the songs with care and respect, so that they would still deliver their messages – as they always have. By putting a new-age instrumental sound behind, they try to update the songs to the understanding of a new generation. So, it is only the music they change, the songs are sung in their authentic way.

The photo:
The photo was taken in Göd, Hungary, at the side of the River Danube (Duna – as we call it). The scenery was provided by the low tide of the river. This area is under water for more than half of the year. The water level can easily be over one and a half meters high at the point where the photo was taken.

As you can see, we were trying to create a little bit of fantasy atmosphere for the band. The “creatures” at the background are from Mohács, in southern Hungary. They are called “Busó” masks. They are worn during the carnival season to say goodbye to the cold season and welcome to spring time! The tradition originated from the sokac (Croatia) nation and they can bring good luck besides many other aspects.

At this session they were worn by the members of the band, so you can imagine the many layers used for this panorama!

Thanx for the masks: Csaba Vikár
for the smoke: Gyuszi
for the photo: vrphoto.hu!

Sára Tímár – vocals
Lóránt Both – guitar
Gábor Majoros – guitar
András Hajnal – bass
Márton Orosz – drums, percussion

Music is available on-line at http://www.orhent.hu
e-mail: orthent@orthent.hu
Here you can find more info on this busho tradition.

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It is a real tribute to the equinox as the ratio of day and night in the
picture is about 50-50%. It has made at the Adam Clark square in
Budapest, at the Buda side of the capital city. You can see from here
the famous Chain bridge, the Zero Kilometre Stone at the park right
from the roundabout, and the lower end of the Budapest Funicular,
leading to the Buda Castle.

Zero Kilometre Stone is a 3 m high limestone sculpture in Budapest,
forming a zero sign, and an inscription on its pedestal reading “KM”
for kilometres. This statue denotes the place from which all the highways
in Hungary are measured. The starting point was initially reckoned from
the threshold of the Buda Royal Palace, but it was taken down to the
Széchenyi Chain Bridge when it was built in 1849.

Széchenyi lánchíd or Széchenyi Chain Bridge is a suspension bridge
that spans River Danube between Buda and Pest, the west and east
side of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The first bridge across the
Danube in Budapest, it was designed by the English engineer William
Tierney Clark in 1839, after Count István Széchenyi’s initiative in the
same year, with construction supervised locally by Scottish engineer
Adam Clark (no relation). It opened in 1849, thus became the first bridge
in the Hungarian capital. At the time, its center span of 202 m was
one of the largest in the world. The pairs of lions at each of the
abutments were added in 1852.

Among the anecdotes relating to the bridge, the most popular is that the
lions were sculpted without tongues and the sculptor was mocked so much
that he jumped into the Danube in shame. The lions do have tongues
(though not visible from below, which is the usual point of view, as the lions
are laying on a stone block some three meters high), and the sculptor lived
as long as in the 1890s, and the only message he sent to mocking people was
“Your wife should have a tongue just as my lions have, and woe will be unto you!”

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The first wine-cellar visit was made as we passed our first semester
at the Szent Istvan University. We’ve made a bet, that if we pass all our
exams than we will go and drink some wine in the Valley in Eger. That all
happened in february 2005. From that time we’ve never missed an occasion
and have visited that place in every year. The company is changing from
year to year, but there are constant members like me, Daniel Kadar or
Balazs Balint Szabo.

“Germol” aka Daniel Kadar and “BB” aka Balazs Balint Szabo

And now some words about the “Szépasszony völgy”, about the
“Valley of Beautiful Women”:

The Szépasszony Valley is the largest area of wine cellars in Eger.
Many legends are linked to the development of its name. According
to Bakó Ferenc /1843/ The Szépasszony which means the Beautiful
Woman used to be one of the goddesses of the ancient religion, she
was similar to Venus, the goddess of love.

According to another explanation there used to live a really beautiful
woman close to the Valley. The area of the Valley was called Koháry
Valley in the first quarter of the 19th century. Koháry István vice
general participated in the relief of the Eger Castle in 1687.

On the basis of the archives data the origin of its name cannot be
clearly ascertained, neither can be the date of the building of the first
cellars in the Valley. What is certain is that the building of the Öregsor
started in 1774 with the permission of the bishop and the landowner.
In consequence of Archbishop Barkóczy’s economic policy, there was
a boom in wine producing, wine market as formed, so the establishment
of places for storage was necessary.

In 1781 there were 32 wine cellars. In the last century the reputation
of the Eger wine has been related to the Szépasszony Valley where
150 cellars can be found. Today’s group of cellars of the Valley was
built after the land reform after the Second World War. These cellars
were scooped out from riolit tufa because it can be easily formed and
wine can be held on 10-15 Celsius degrees in it.

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You can see here a stand with many sort of seeds,
the students need to find their way out in the swarm of plants and seeds.

On the wall there is a large board with pictures of students on it.
In Hungary there is a habit of hanging every year a board to the wall
with the photos of the graduated students and their professors.
On the other board it is written GATE, it was the name of the University long-ago.

At the stairway there is a large ceramic mosaic that depicts the oldstyle hungarian
stock-raising form. The shepherd used to live together with his sheep dog and his herd
under the open sky.

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