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Budapest’s trendiest clubs are called “ruin pubs.” Inhabiting ramshackle old buildings in the city center, they feel like a gang of squatters made a trip to the dump yesterday and grabbed whatever was usable, moved in today, and are open for business tonight. Enjoying a drink here, I’m reminded of creatures that inhabit discarded shells in a tide pool. The formula really works. With the come-as-you-are atmosphere, these clubs attract people who make a point not to be “fashion slaves.” And, for the traveler, it’s easy to meet people in a Budapest ruin pub.
I end up sitting with Peter (who designs ruin pubs), Laura (who works at a hotel), and Sandra (whose father’s company, “Heat Wave,” introduced pornography to Hungary after freedom in the 1990s). I say how much I like the shabby lounge atmosphere of a ruin pub, and Laura declares that this one, Szimpla (which means “Simple”; Kazinczy utca 14, www.szimpla.hu), is the mecca of ruin pubs in Budapest. Sandra agrees, but is distracted when Miss Hungary walks by. With a little disdain, she says, “There’s Miss Hungary — a beauty brat with a Gucci handbag, and nobody notices her.”
Ruin pubs come with a bit of communist kitsch. The twentysomethings that love these lounges were little kids during the last years of communism. Too young to understand its downside, they have fond memories of the good times, when the pace of life was slower and families were tighter-knit. Ruin pubs sell nostalgic commie soft drinks along with the cocktails. Peter buys everyone a round of spritzes (rosé with soda water). He’s excited about the new ruin pub he just designed across town, and wants us to go there. I comment on how well the design works. He explains how these clubs are the soul of underground culture here. It’s the anti-club: flea market furniture, no matching chairs, a mishmash of colors. It’s eclectic, designed to be undesigned. On hot nights, the pubs spill out into shoddy courtyards, creating the feeling of a cozy living room missing its roof…under the stars.
Everyone seems to smoke. Here, where no one’s a fashion slave, not being a fashion slave creates a similar burden. Peter demonstrates the different ways you can smoke a cigarette in a counterculture enclave. First he does the affected “Beauty Queen” smoke, then the calculated “Godfather” smoke. Finally, gulping the cigarette in the middle of his lips, he does the “Working Smoker,” saying, “You smoke with big lips.”
Laura is talking with Sandra in Hungarian about her dead relationship. There’s nothing there, but she’s afraid to leave. When I join the conversation, she shifts to English and says it’s like she has sexual anorexia. Her boyfriend and she are drifting apart. She wants him to watch Sex and the City, and says, “To understand the soul of a woman, you must watch Sex and the City.” This topic gets Laura and Sandra talking about how Hungarian men aren’t as good as men from other cultures — not considerate, not thoughtful in conversation, and so on. I explain to her the concept of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” She says we’re talking beds, not fences, and doesn’t buy my theory.
Politics are in the air all over Europe, with everyone looking at Greece’s economic disaster and wondering what to do. Hungarians are used to making not much money, but having the government pay for things. While Budapest is better off, in the east of the country, people still make horrible wages and expect the government to cover the essentials. The government provides, but things are supplemented with tips. Health care is a good example of this heritage of communism. Hungarians insist on complete coverage — with no co-pay. Technically, they get it. But everyone knows the system only works with the help of “pocket money” — people actually pay cash tips to their doctors in order to get an appointment and have their concerns taken seriously. That’s how it was in communist times. And that’s how it remains today.
In 1989, with the “spontaneous privatization of the society,” the Communists in power had the inside track and grabbed up the lion’s share of the country’s economic equity. Therefore, today, the former Communists are the privileged capitalist class and, ironically, these former “defenders of the proletariat” are now defenders of industry and corporate interests. Young people, who have a Tea Party edge to their politics, are wary of any promises that are populist and founded on deficit spending. They are tired of electing politicians who tell them what they want to hear. They see other former-communist countries doing better than Hungary in fiscal discipline.
Old people are inclined to vote Communist, and young people want the new austerity. In a recent election, young people joked about how to stop your Granny from voting. Pop stars were making videos: Lock her in her bedroom, send her on vacation, ask her to babysit for a couple of days. Or be straight with her and convince her to vote for her granddaughter’s future. Thanks to Greece, populism is has taken a big hit in Eastern Europe.
Rick, what do these young, austere Tea Party edgers think of Barry Obama ?
Europeans across the board in my experience like President Obama because they believe he’s a man who cares about the world as well as the USA. Europe seems thankful that “the cowboy mentality” is gone from the White House. Perhaps if he didn’t follow President Bush he wouldn’t be so popular.
Yes, President Obama is intelligent – and persuasive. But just as there is oligarchy in other countries, the privileged classes also rule in the US. A quick insight to the US is that the private sector has reduced jobs and opportunities. But if you want to view relatively comfortable financial situations, take a look at Washington, DC and environs like Maryland and Virginia. Federal Government jobs are: safe, secure, high paying and have guaranteed pensions and benefits. As a former soldier, corporate executive, state govt. employee and fed. govt. employee and non-profit fund raiser, I would advise ALL you mom’s out there not only NOT to raise your children to be cowboys – but to have them go into fed. govt. jobs. (or work for companies which benefit from taxes we all pay.)
It’s nearly impossible to travel and interface with others for long without learning how they feel about their country and the world. One can only talk about a church or museum or the scenery or the weather for so long before talk turns to day-to-day living and the impact upon it by the economy, wars, political miscreants, World Cup football and the latest earthquake, ash eruption or oil spill.
Encouraging children to strive to work for the Federal Government, perpetuates the spiral of government growth, which ultimately leads to ‘everything for the state’…..which produces nothing. I think the world is finally beginning to understand that this is an unsustainable model!
When we were in Praque, it seemed like the people that lived there had a little dark sadness to them. I would love to travel a bit more in Eastern Europe, and see how things have changed. I personally feel that a blog is a personal venue to say what you would like or respond the way you like. Opinions are food for thought, there is more than one way for everything.
It’s getting tougher to be witty or droll about politics (European, Asian or American) in print because somebody always takes any semblance of political comment very seriously. If humor is elastic, then some people don’t have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet. Just remember, everybody may be Granny some day.
There is a psychological aspect to travel involving how we see our hosts. Hopefully, residents of Greece,Ireland, Portugal, England, France, Spain, Italy etc will exercise some restraint when it comes to strikes. Visions of blocked ports, shuttered metro’s, protesting flight crews and chanting workers do nothing to inspire travel even if we feel empathy for those whose generous benefits are being cut. But without believable austerity programs, investors will avoid certain countries, lending will decline, customer confidence will be undermined and more jobs including those in tourism will dry up. Our travel dollars can help our desperate neighbors (15% of Greece’s economy is tourism) but their strikes have already reduced tourism 20%.
We recently returned from a very short visit in Budapest and didn’t have time to “learn from the locals.” That said, I had a difficult time mastering the mental arithmetic required to convert the local currency into euros or dollars. Because of that, we greatly curtailed spending (bad for their local economy). The needlework created there is a world-heritage treasure. Pre-plan your trip there by bringing measurements of all surfaces in your home that could be covered by cloth. And in the summer, no one should miss strolling through its main park and indulging in the Szechenyi thermal baths.
Thanks for adding those last two paragraphs, Rick! My dad teaches graduate courses in Moldova every fall, and he has told me the same thing – that the former Communist leaders, many originally from other countries than Moldova, grabbed all the land and power when the era of Communism ended. Now they operate like the Mafia. Thank you for accurately representing the similar situation in Budapest.
Thanks for posting that. Very interesting to see the generational similarities and differences in political ideologies. Seems that -generally- the older folks in any country don’t like too much “change” and therefore would rather preserve some sort of normalcy while the younger generations are more ambitious and crave fundamental changes in social and political institutions. Young America could learn from this new austerity which you report is now common among young Hungarians, or we’ll surely find ourselves in the same boat as the PIIGS sooner rather than later.
I plan to be in Budapest in the near future, so this blog is extremely interesting to me. And to Karen, I will be at the Szechenyi Baths on day one, that’s a promise!