I am a ‘flaneur’ – a wanderer with no purpose to the world. This weekend is one for wandering and today perhaps with its museums was the best time. So I thought. But before the day would be over, I would be proved wrong – for I managed to visit only three museums. When I emerged out of the Heroes Square station, the day had already turned hot. There was no more photography left at the Square after yesterday’s heroics (pun unintended). My first destination was obviously from where I left off last week - The Museum of Fine Arts. This time I got myself a guide book and headed into the museum. With the guide book, I could locate specific paintings that I was looking for. Unfortunately, the Night of Museums program was turning out to be a thorn in the flesh since some of the portions were closed to the public as preparations for the time. I still managed to spend a lot of time in the company of the “Old Masters”. The biggest throng of the crowd was reserved for the temporary exhibition on the Incas – a collection of artifacts from various periods of the Inca Civilization. Pragati would have dismissed it as “all that sh**”, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
By the time I got off the exhibitions it was nearly 2:00 pm. I had to head to the Hungarian National Museum. But on a sudden hunch I stepped off at Vorosmarty Ut (different place from the one I’ve been mentioning until now). Andrassy Road ran busy in all splendor – as I have already mentioned yesterday, it is the city’s most beautiful thoroughfare. But strangely, both the terror regimes that ruled this country – the Arrow Cross Party during World War II and the Communist regime after that, chose one of the picturesque neo-renaissance buildings as the headquarters for their reign of terror – No. 60 Andrassy Road.
“The deeper we descend into the past, the fewer witnessed remain, oral tradition subsides into silence, memories are lost in the mists of time…” said Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The House of Terror is the Hungarians’ attempt to prevent that. Like the name implies this is not a haunted house, but a museum on the atrocities committed by the two terror organizations during their reign – a memorial to their victims. At the same time, it is indeed a haunted house, as what you experience inside does haunt you. On the outside wall are embedded small pictures of the people who went “missing” during the period. A small wreath and a memorial plaque adorns the wall – a perfect setting to entice the unsuspecting tourist inside for a haunting experience. The building has a dull courtyard that houses a huge Soviet tank. On one side is a huge wall that runs up the three floors of the building. The wall is again dotted with black and white photographs of all the victims of the terror regime. Starting on the second floor with the headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party and their atrocities, you are taken through a journey of terror, from the torture chambers down to the basement prison cells, where hundreds of so-called state enemies were housed while being tortured for days on end. The place is a must-visit for anyone coming over here.
It was past five when I was done with the House of Terror, and I headed for the National Museum that concentrates completely on the history of Hungary, from the pre-historic period to the fall of the communist government. The big attractions however were the temporary exhibitions on Genghis Khan (yep, he and his hordes had conquered Hungary) and the Mongolian Invasion. The museum was in its final stages of preparation for the big night. The good news was that there was no ticket required – only the sticker that I had purchased for the night earlier in the day. And the bad news, a photography ticket cost 3000 Forints – ten times more than that at the Museum of Fine Arts (The House of Terror is one step ahead. They don’t even allow photography, but for good reasons. You can’t have people gleefully clicking photographs in that place). I mumbled to myself as I shelled out the money. The girl at the counter stuck a sticker on my chest which proclaimed “photography allowed” (with a picture of Genghis on it) as if I were some exhibit.
By 6 O’clock there was quite a crowd at the place. A small queue was forming up at the entrance to the Genghis exhibition so I decided to see that later (the queue would have gone by them, I surmised) and headed for the historical exhibitions. Precious time spent at the Terror House came to my aid as I helped out a couple of ladies in identifying some of the figures in the communist regime exhibition such as Matyas Rakosi and Janos Kadar (@ Pragati, Ila and others: I’m not showing off. Just stating what happened). After a couple of hours of history classes, I stepped out and found to my horror that the queue for the Genghis exhibition stretched a few kilometers. A grueling half-hour later, I was inside the exhibit hall. There were a gew guys distributing a newspaper copy. It proclaimed itself as the “London Evening Post”, but was fully in Magyar. I wondered why.
The exhibition was indeed awesome, except for some exhibits – little iron pieces that proclaimed to be some portion of Genghis’s chariot or sword. And people were gaping at these pieces as if they were out of this world. Now how the hell can you say that this particular piece of iron formed the 36900th part of a chariot that existed some zillion years ago? The Mongol Invasion exhibit was another half-hour in the queue. After sweeping every nook and corner of the building for hidden exhibitions, by the time I got out of the museum, it was 10:00. The queues I saw inside were nothing compared to what I saw outside the building. It seemed as if the whole population of Budapest had descended at this place.
The queue at the entrance of the museum snaked around the gardens, and outside I could see more people disembarking from the museum buses that had turned up. It would take a person an hour or two just to gain entry, not counting the queues inside. But these people seemed to be quite enthusiastic about it. One look at the scene convinced me that it would be futile to visit any other museum today.
In front of the main façade, there seemed to be some kind of drama being enacted out. I went closer and understood why those guys were giving away the newspapers. It was a solve-it-yourself murder mystery. It seemed to be the scene from an English country house. A body lay sprawled in blood. A couple of guys dressed as English policemen were hopping around the body. There was even a Sherlock Holmes and a Dr. Watson on the scene. I checked the program guide and found that this would go on until 1:00 pm. I sat down on the steps of the museum for some rest – it was 1 hours since I had started walking. I sat there for almost half an hour, just soaking in the atmosphere. It’s not everyday that you see such enthusiasm to visit museums in the middle of the night. And never in India!
Observation of the Day: Having Ice Tea after a cup of Cappuccino is not a good idea
Pic of the day: Terror has a new address in Budapest – No. 60 Andrassy Road
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