Sightseeing: Heroes Square

Since I have quite a lot of family and friends visiting over the next couple of months, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to play "tour guide" and learn about some of the sights of Budapest. And so, in no particular order, I'm going to start with Heroes Square, or Hősök tere as it's known in Hungarian.

Heroes Square is on the Pest side of the river, and at the end of the lovely tree-lined Andrassy Avenue (oh dear, this is already starting to sound like a tourist brochure - I apologise in advance). It's also on the number 1 metro line (the yellow line), and rather unsurprisingly you just have to get off at Hősök tere.

As you can see from the picture, it's a big column along with lots of statues - yeah, okay, that description doesn't really do it justice. It's actually a really nice place, a large square with the Museum of Fine Arts on one side and the Palace of Art on the other - both beautiful buildings in their own right.

The main monument was finished in 1900 and is called the Millenium Monument. It was apparently constructed when Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The statues at the base of the main column are the 7 tribal leaders who originally formed Hungary, while the statues in the semi-circle part of the monument represents various saints and important figures in Hungarian history. The first one is Szent Istvan (Saint Stephen), the first king of Hungary, the rest ... well, I'll leave that to you to find out :-)

Just one more thing ... around the square there are also some other places worth visiting ... there's Széchenyi Spa Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle, an ice skating rink, all in the city park behind Heroes Square. Here's a link to some more information about them on Wikipedia.  

Ok, that's my tourist-brochure bit of the day :-)

The "Ruin" Bars

One of the many cosy corners
 at Szimpla

After having been here a couple of months now I've been to a few of the bars in the city centre - certainly not all of them, because there are literally hundreds ... from small, 1-room bars crammed in-between shops, cafés where you can sit outside and people watch, open-air bars (which I assume are closed in the Winter), to the posh (and not so posh) multi-floor discos.

Anyway, of all of these bars my favourite are the "ruin bars" as they're known, mainly because of the atmosphere - relaxed, friendly, and there's always a buzz about them. They're called ruin bars because they're set in the courtyards of large, half-derelict buildings in the VI and VII districts. The biggest ones that I've found so far are Szimpla and Instant, with lots of different levels and rooms and styles. Okay, maybe the styles aren't all that different - the furniture is a mix of old chairs, sofas, benches all thrown together around an old table. Szimpla is a more relaxed place, where the music isn't so loud, and you can even rent a water-pipe if you want. If you want to dance then I'd recommend Instant, since there are dance floors playing different styles of music hidden away in the building.

You can get lots of different drinks (soft drinks, beer, cocktails, shots), which are all relatively cheap (about 2 euros for a beer). And even though it's a little expensive, you should try at least one of the many different flavours of pálinka - a traditional fruit flavoured brandy - sour cherry was my favourite, at least, from what I remember it was :-)

The Devil Never Sleeps

I got the locks changed,
not THAT one in the end.

I'd heard rumours that there was a lot of crime in Hungary. A few months ago in Denmark, my Hungarian friend was laughing at one of the bike locks, "In Hungary that lock wouldn't last five minutes" he joked. He seemed to suggest that anything not bolted to a building or streetlight would be automatically stolen. Also, I have to admit that it didn't actually make me feel particularly safe that I had an iron gate as well as the regular door for my apartment, bars on the windows and a total of 5 locks. I asked one of my colleagues whether it's normal to lock all the doors when you're at home - her reply was "The devil never sleeps". I couldn't help but wonder whether that meant that God was often asleep ... Anyway, admittedly I can't understand the news reports, so maybe lots of crime is reported, which heightens this fear, but I decided to try and find some statistics, so that at least I could compare Budapest to other European cities.

According to a report from 2006 (see 1), I discovered that Hungary has a similar number of police officers (under 300 per 100,000 people) as England, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and a few other countries. In comparison to other European countries it's not that many. Other countries, such as Greece, Portugal, Italy, Russia and Cyprus has many more (over 400 per 100,000 people). But then again, maybe this fact doesn't tell us all that much, how about crime statistics ...

Of course, let's keep in mind that these statistics are just a guide and all kinds of methodological issues can blur the picture, e.g. how often are crimes actually reported and recorded by the police, severity of crimes, differences between laws in different countries, and so on - you get the picture. So, based upon these statistics from 2003, there were less criminal offences (per 100,000 people) in Hungary than lots of other countries. Here are just a few statistics: Hungary 4,110; Denmark 9,013; Ireland 2,634; Poland 3,799; Germany 7,976. Actually, I was surprised to find that Sweden was the highest with 13,995. Does this mean that Sweden is a terribly dangerous place ... mmmm, I doubt that somehow. I've been to Sweden and it's like a blunt wooden spoon, designed for children - there doesn't seem to be anything dangerous about it. So I think we can be a little sceptical about what these statistics tell us.

Okay, so let's move on to something more serious: homicide. So, are there lots of intentional homicides (as opposed to manslaughter, e.g. car accidents) in Hungary? No, is the simple answer. If someone really wants to kill you then, based upon the statistics, they're probably Russian or Scottish. Quite why the Scots (16.2 intentional deaths per 100,000) are so violent I don't really know, but in any case, in Hungary it was only 3.8 per 100,000 according to these statistics. That's actually less than Denmark (4.1), France (3.9), Finland (9.2!!!) and Belgium (8.4!!!). If you're visiting it's rather unlikely you'll be here long enough for someone to want to intentionally kill you (but who knows, maybe you're a very irritating person).

Robbery is another one ... apparently only 33 per 100,000, which isn't all that high when you compare it to Spain (222) and Belgium (248). Remarkably, it appears that you're less likely to get robbed in Romania (12) than in Iceland (13) ... mmmm ... I'm not sure whether we can entirely rely on these statistics. Even Denmark, which I know to be a very safe place, has a higher figure - 59 out of 100,000. So I have to admit that I'm sceptical about these figures.

Finally, burglary - this is the one I'm really interested in, because I want to know whether all those locks are really necessary. Ok, let me just check to see what the figures say ...

... okay, stop. They must have picked these numbers out of a hat. Apparently the lowest level of burglary is in Romania (45 per 100,000) and the highest is in the Netherlands (2,958). Hungary is apparently somewhere just below the middle (470) and similar to Germany (530).

Let me see if I can find some newer, more accurate figures.

Of course, as always these statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt. For instance, I simply don't believe that in Georgia there was 1 rape per 100,000, and I assume that this figure has a lot to do with whether victims actually report it to the police, and whether the police take it seriously. By this count again, Sweden is the most dangerous place (29 per 100,000), however this doesn't take into account that it's probably more often reported in Sweden and that in Sweden the term 'rape' covers a LOT of different things (e.g. consensual sex where the condom breaks).

So, to get back to my initial point, do I really need all those locks on my doors and should I be watching over my shoulder constantly, wondering when the next attack will come from. Sadly, I think the locks on the doors are necessary, but not because burglary is so common, rather because everyone else does it, and so to not do it is just to invite trouble. And as for watching over my shoulder, well, of course you should be a bit careful and not leave things laying around, and don't go walking down any dark alleys late at night in areas you don't know, but on the whole Budapest and Hungary seems to be just as safe as any other large European city - which is nice to know, it means that I can sleep a little easier at night :-)

1) http://europeansourcebook.org/esb3_Full.pdf