Hungarian Railway History Park, Budapest

Posted on 22/09/2024 by Michael

Hungarian Railway History Park

Hungarian Railway History Park, Budapest

To the north west of the city centre, situated in what used to be the principal maintenance and repair workshop for the Hungarian National Railways in Budapest, is a railway ‘theme park’ giving visitors a glimpse of the development of the railway system in the country.

Obviously a mecca for train enthusiasts it also is a place for anyone with an interest in industrial history in general. There are many examples of early East European steam engines as well as redundant passenger, goods and maintenance units. In many ways it also appears to be a bit of a dumping ground for one of every working vehicle from the relatively recent past of the Hungarian railway system. That means that some of the exhibits are in a sorry state of disrepair and whether they will ever be returned to their former glory is debatable (or really very unlikely) considering how long it takes, and how much it costs, to get these massive pieces of machinery back to their original condition.

Hungarian Railway History Park – 01

Some of the things that stood out to me;

the two locomotive turntables, both of which, I think, are still in working order and one of which, the one furthest from the entrance, is regularly used to turn engines around as part of the entertainment of visitors;
a couple of statues of railway workers, near the entrance, which during Hungary’s Socialist period would have been display in a more communal space and not relegated to a museum;
the distinctive shape of the steam engine funnels;
and the way that some of the components were outside the frame of the engine;
an old snowplough, which was attached to a the front of a steam locomotive, with a huge bladed fan which would throw the snow to the sides of the tracks, all encased in a wooden frame. It would have been a wonder to have worked in it – but also, I would think, a bit like working in Hell;
getting up and close to the only regularly working steam engine which, I thought, strangely was one made for the US Army in the 1940’s, incongruously, sports a large Red Star on the front of the boiler. You don’t normally get that close to these spitting and sometimes angry wonders, the result of the first industrial revolution;
the smells of the cinders in the air when the steam engine is in motion, for those old enough to remember, a smell that indicated you were getting close to the museum;
the ability to get a relatively close view of the maintenance and refurbishment workshops, the smells and all that it entails to get locomotives up and running again;
the distinctive style of mid to late 20th century local passenger trains of Eastern Europe (all such modern units are homogenised);
as in all transport museums the class difference displayed in the comfort of the passengers in the various short and long distance carriages.

Hungarian Railway History Park – 02

I went there on a Saturday, which meant crowds of children, but at the same time there was probably much more going on due to the fact there were many people in the park. For example, I don’t think the demonstration of the workings of the turntable would have been so extensive on a quieter day in the week.

Apart from the demonstration of the turntable it is also possible, for an extra payment, to ride on the footplate, and at the ‘controls’, of a steam or diesel engine, something that would be totally unacceptable in anal fixated Britain.

Hungarian Railway History Park – 03

One slight drawback for a non-Hungarian was the fact that there was little information about the exhibits in English.

It is hoped the slide show below will provide a taste of what’s on offer.

Location;

Tatai út 95, Budapest

GPS;

47.54243064388407º N

19.095641067204674º E

How to get there by public transport;

From outside the Keleti palyaudvar (railway station) take the blue bus number 30 or 30A and get off at the Rokolya Ucta bus stop – indicated on the scree, and announced over the speaker, in the bus. Walk in the direction the bus was going and at the first junction turn right. Two blocks down come to a T-junction and the entrance to the park is across the road in front of you.

Opening times;

Tuesday to Sunday 10.00-18.00. Closed Monday.

Entrance;

Adult; 2,700 HUR (advertised price but I was charged 3,000 HUR for some unknown reason)

Various pricing arrangements for children and families.

Hungarian Railway Museum website

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War Memorial – Gori

Posted on 15/08/2024 by Michael

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 01

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War memorial – Gori

The Museum

This is quite a small museum and considering the huge numbers of people – especially during the tourist season – who go to Gori for the Stalin Museum (only a couple of hundred metres up the road) doesn’t get many visitors at all.

For many of those who do go there it might appear somewhat underwhelming as it doesn’t contain a lot of artefacts. However, I think that’s the ‘problem’ of the visitor not the museum – but also a ‘problem’ of which I myself am guilty.

War museums in the west – or certainly in the UK – are devoted to the instruments of war, the weapons that have been used through the ages as technology makes the task of killing someone ‘easier’ and more sophisticated. Yes, there will be exhibitions, normally ‘special’ ones that complement/supplement the permanent display, that place a greater emphasis on those who were fighting or were caught up in the conflict but the norm is to display what does the killing.

I think I’ve come to understand – and it took the visit to a number of museums in various part of what was the Soviet Union – that Soviet museums of the Great Patriotic War were primarily dedicated to those who fought and died. The museums were more like memorials to the dead than celebrations of what was used to kill them.

Although the museum in Gori is small this is even more evident in a couple of the larger museums I have visited recently – the first being the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow and the second the Museum to the Battle of Stalingrad in Stalingrad/Volgograd. Both those museums have military equipment on show but the vast majority of the items on display are much more personal, items that the soldiers and civilians carried as well as many photographs of those who fought and died.

At the heart of both those museums is a virtual shrine to those who gave their lives for the Soviet Motherland to which visiting groups of school children, military personnel – as well as many other Russian visitors – treat as a sort of pilgrimage to pay homage and thanks to those who died in the fight against Nazism. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed many years ago the Russian people still understand that the Great Patriotic War was an ‘existential’ (a word that has probably become overused in recent times) struggle for the country. Defeat wouldn’t have just meant losing the war, it would have resulted in the end of the Russian people as a nation.

And the museum in Gori mirrors that but on a much smaller scale. When it comes to exhibits there more in the way of photographs, of scenes from the various battle fronts but also of Georgians (and, I must assume, those from Gori and the surrounding area) who died in the war. Although there was no fighting on the territory of Georgia as such around 350,000 Georgians lost their lives on other fronts and in other battles against the Nazis. In this museum some of those are remembered with their photographs displayed in the corner of the museum.

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 02

There are, however, other items of interest for a visitor. These include;

a full length statue of Joseph Vassarionovich Djughashvili (Joseph Stalin) standing at the bottom on the single room which is the museum. Not the best of likenesses but one to add to those searching for his statues in Gori, complementing those in a near-by park and the railway station. (Both those a more accurate likeness, I think.);
a number of interesting banners from different regiments and battalions, some with images of VI Lenin and/or JV Stalin. Some are not in the best of condition but not surprising considering the ferocity of the battles;

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 03

a collection of Nazi insignia, in display cases on the floor – emulating the fate of the Nazi banners thrown at the feet of Stalin, and in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, in Red Square on the first Victory Day in 1945;
a small statue depicting homage to the Red Flag.

The War Memorial

Great Patriotic War Memorial – Gori

Gori’s War Memorial, to the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, is located in Hero’s Square – which is the small garden in front of the main entrance to the museum.

The memorial begins just to the right of the museum entrance. Here there’s a plaque, in Georgian, with an inscription which quotes part of the poem by the Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze – ‘Let the Banners Wave on High’ (დროშები ჩქარა):

‘დიდება ხალხისთვის წამებულ რაინდებს,

ვინც თავი გასწირა, ვინც სისხლი დაღვარა.

მათ ხსოვნას სამშობლო სანთლებად აინთებს’

‘Glory to those with souls devoid of fear,
Who for the people’s cause did bravely die…
Their names shine bright like torches in the night…’

Then there is ceramic mural which takes the form of an ‘L’ shape, with a small part on the wall of the museum and then the longer side being on a wall that runs the length of the square. On here you see depicted both figures in the land army as well as those from the naval armed forces. As stated above no battles actually took place on Georgian soil but many Georgians did fight and die on the various fronts and those from Gori are memorialised inside the museum.

Georgian Socialist Realist art, especially when it comes to murals and bas reliefs, is very distinctive. The same can be said of the statuary of the period. In both those art forms the rounds are exaggerated as are the straight edges of the human form. This can be seen here in Gori but is also demonstrated on the Mother of Georgia – Kartlis Deda statue in Tbilisi; the wall panels next to the Bodorna Hydroelectric plant (along the ‘military road’ which goes up to the Russian border at Kazbegi); and the mural on the side of the telephone exchange in Tskaltubo.

The specific Georgia style gives the figures an almost comic aspect. This is enhanced by the fact that the murals, at least the majority I’ve seen, are made up of smaller sections (whether ceramic or stone) and the spaces between the blocks give the impression that the figures are string puppets where there are gaps between the joints.

The first group of three, on the museum wall, are sailors and the ’rounding’ of the figures makes them out to be burly, muscle bound bruisers and the exaggerated cheeks bones make them out to be the picture of health.

This style also appears to make the figures less serious in their demeanour. In the first group along the long wall, nearest the museum, we have a group of sailors marching in formation. Some of them are looking at the viewer and seem happy that they are going off to war.

In the centre of the long wall (now partially obscured by an Christian cross, part of the monument to the Russo-Georgian War of 2008) is a group of three soldiers, giving a clenched fist salute – the sign of victory.

The Soviet symbol of the the Hammer and Sickle appears underneath the dates 1941-1945 (the duration of the war) and stars surround the figures of the left side of the wall.

Everything changes on the right of the dates where we see a celebration of peace, a child being protected from its fall by open, outstretched hands with images of doves flying around behind.

A few metres in front of the central part of the long bas-relief is a small stone circle that, at one time, would have housed the Eternal Flame. When this ceased to be in use I don’t know but seems to represent a denial of the sacrifice of Georgians in the struggle against Nazism in the 1940s – because it was the Soviet Union for which they fought. This is also reflected in the manner in which the War Memorial in Vake Park, in Tbilisi, has been allowed to go to rack and ruin.

Related;

Stalin Museum – Gori

Gori – Rediscovered statues of Joseph Stalin

Museum of the Great Patriotic War – Moscow

Location;

19 Stalin Avenue (between the Stalin Museum and the Town Hall square)

GPS;

41.98387º N

44.11199º E

Opening times of the Museum;

Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays) from 10.00 to 17.00

Entrance;

3 GEL

Park Pobeda – Victory Park – exhibition and museum, Moscow

Posted on 25/05/2024 by Michael

Museum of the Great Patriotic War

Park Pobeda – Victory Park – exhibition and museum, Moscow

‘Trophies of the Russian Army’ and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War

‘Trophies of the Russian Army’

On May 1st 2024 a temporary exhibition was open at Park Pobeda (Victory Park) in Moscow. This was entitled ‘Trophies of the Russian Army’ and consisted of vehicles of various types and other war equipment captured by the Russian Army in the Ukraine. The main body of the exhibition was a variety of armoured vehicles – tanks, armoured personnel vehicles (APVs), and other forms of transportation, from various countries in the NATO alliance against Russia and its Special Military Operation in the Ukraine.

As has been documented on this blog on the page The war in the Ukraine – what you are not told, many of these weapons were introduced onto the battle field as ‘game changers’ – weapons that would be so powerful (as they were produced in the ‘west’ and hence superior to anything that could be produced in Russia) that they would just steam roller over any Russian defences and thereby assist in the Ukrainians recovering territory lost to the Russian Army since February 2022.

However, things did not go to plan.

German Leopard Tank

Although there has been a blame game going on between the Ukraine and the NATO commanders (and politicians) what has been obvious is that the west believed too much in their own propaganda and came a cropper due to their own hubris. Whereas the military-industrial complex in the various NATO countries were hoping that the overwhelming victory their equipment would deliver against the Russians would be the finest advert possible to sell their wares in other parts of the world, it merely showed that western military equipment is too complicated; which means it takes too long to make in vast numbers and hence not ideal in a conflict of attrition (which the war in the Ukraine has become); and far too expensive.

However, instead of participating in victory parades the US Abrams and German Leopard tanks were filmed burning on the steppes of the Ukraine. The UK Challenger 2 tanks, once one or two had been destroyed, just ran away and acted as artillery far from the front – where such main battle tanks are designed to operate. An Abrams and a Leopard were on display in the exhibition.

American Abrams Tank

In a covered enclosure there were also on display communication and GPS equipment, drones, mortars, small arms and other kinds of small military equipment.

I understood the original plan was for this to be a short term exhibition, finishing the weekend after Victory Day which was celebrated on May 9th. However, the exhibition attracted streams of Moscovites and there was a constant flow of people (many thousands in a day) so it was decided to extend the display.

For how long I have no idea and don’t know if there are plans to place some of this material in a permanent exhibition somewhere in Moscow or another major city. The plan might be, as far as I’m concerned, to take this exhibition around to other major Russian cities.

Hopefully, the slide show below will provide a flavour of what was on display for those who are unable to attend in person.

The Museum of the Great Patriotic War

This is a huge building which is approached by a wide avenue which commemorates the major battle fields in the war against the invading German Nazis and their accomplices in crime. It was opened in 1995 and I don’t understand why such a museum hadn’t been constructed decades before. Being constructed in a time of open capitalist control of the society the decoration inside or outside of the building owes nothing to Socialist Realist ideas.

In fact, it’s not really appropriate to call it a museum as it is more of a shrine and memorial to those who were killed in the Great Patriotic War and a place of ‘pilgrimage’ for military associated groups to come and pay respects.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War – 02

There’s very little in terms of artefacts (as, for example, you will find in the Battle of Stalingrad Museum in Volgograd) and the vast space is not used, as far as I’m concerned, in an appropriate way to tell the story of some of the most significant battles of the Second World War. I think this is probably the result of the schizophrenic approach the present ‘rulers’ have towards the war against the Nazis. They recognise that it as a Socialist Red Army that defeated the attacking Germans but they don’t want to give (or didn’t in the 1990s) too much prominence to that fact. With the conflict with NATO – through its proxy of the Ukraine – thinking has changed and that was the reason you saw so much reference to Soviet symbolism in the posters and imagery in the build up to May 9th, Victory Day, 2024.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War – 01

Also, very strangely for a ‘museum’ there was a room with references to the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine. This was in the form of portraits and photographs of soldiers on active duty. There was also a sculpture of a platoon moving forward on a battle front. I can see why this room was created, the war in the Ukraine is one of propaganda as well as what happens in the field, but placing such a room in a museum which commemorates battles on a much bigger scale where the forces concerned were not only hugely greater in number but also much more fiercely fought seems, to me, to detract from the importance and sacrifice of the war between 1941 and 1945.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War – 03

In the slide show there are a few pictures which will, hopefully, give an impression of what the ‘museum’ is all about.

On my visit I didn’t make it to the Museum of the Main Weapons Relics of the Army, which might have been a shame. Entrance for that also costs 300 rouble.