The liberal 444.hu website provided a very useful service in the first days of the new year: it created a map depicting just how extensively interests close to the governing Fidesz party control the most important publications in Hungary, namely the county-level and local dailies and weeklies. It’s worth noting that in Hungary, regional papers are much more widely read […]
Budapest-based photographer Beatrix Gergely had the chance to photograph a unique concert held at the Papp László Budapest Sport Arena on December 28th, 2016. The concert featured the Palladio Orchestra–one hundred guitars on stage playing an eclectic range of music, including the works of Beethoven, all the way to theme songs from major films and even music from Queen. The […]
Gábor Vona has been trying to shift his Jobbik party away from the far right; he must have thought that one of the best ways to show Hungary and the world that he is serious about ridding the party of its antisemitism is by wishing a Happy Hanukkah to Rabbi Slomó Köves and to his Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation. “Allow me […]
I am accustomed to seeing photos of the poor and the homeless standing in long lines at Budapest’s Blaha Lujza tér for food and hot meals, mostly provided by a foundation affiliated with the Hungarian branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON), more commonly referred to as Hare Krishna. When my Hungarian friends send me these photos, as proof […]
Sevil Shhaideh was going to make history by becoming Romania’s first Muslim and first female prime minister. Ms. Shhaideh was nominated to become prime minister by the Partidul Social Democrat (PSD), the party that decisively won legislative elections earlier this month and by its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE). But Romania’s president, Klaus Johannis, refused Ms. Shhaideh’s nomination, without giving […]
Miklós Beer is the Bishop of the Diocese of Vác, extending from Nógrád county bordering Slovakia down towards Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in southeastern Hungary. Some 640,000 Hungarians (or 57% of the population) of this area identify as Roman Catholic in the towns covered by the diocese, which includes regions that are among the poorest in Hungary. Bishop Beer gave a fascinating interview […]
Chrismukkah (in Hungarian Hanukarácsony) is the merging of two holidays – Christmas and Hanukkah and it has become a tradition at the Hungarian Consulate in Los Angeles to have a Chrismukkah event to celebrate the two holidays together. This year, the first night of Hanukkah happens to fall on Christmas Eve — which hasn’t happened in nearly four decades. The […]
The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) has named the 43 year old mayor of Szeged, László Botka, as its candidate for prime minister in the next parliamentary elections, expected in April 2018. Mr. Botka was merely 29 years old when he was first elected as mayor of Hungary’s third largest city in 2002 and he has since been re-elected three times. […]
Zsa Zsa Gábor, the Hungarian beauty whose many marriages, gossipy adventures and occasional legal scuffles kept her in tabloid headlines for decades, died Sunday in Bel Air, California. She was 99. Suzanne Moore writes in The Guardian that Zsa Zsa Gábor is not remembered for her film roles, which were minor, instead, she is being celebrated for being Zsa Zsa […]
Many Budapest residents were stunned to see tanks and other armoured vehicles in the streets of the Hungarian capital on Tuesday. The Counter-Terrorism Centre’s (TEK) personnel were instructed to guard key commercial locations in central Budapest following Monday evening’s terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Hungary’s terror risk remains unchanged at “3”, but Minister of Interior Sándor […]
