Hidden Memento

Memento Park is a stock place.

as you come over you realize that this place put 10 kilometres away from Budapest city centre in a quite ugly suburb and surrounded by a brick wall has one purpose: hide away what it contains.

It's home to soviet propaganda statues and anchors, dedicated to Lenin, Marx, Bela Kun and other "heroic" workers that in other former socialists countries were indeed destroyed.
some of these statues are gigantic. it's an impressive place to visit.

the real socialism style is obsolete. the subjects were musculous men with rather frightening serious expressions on their faces made by steel or stone, matron-like women with strong arms and abundant hips, portraits of real people curiously different from those "types" above mentioned.  the real people statues were mostly of men. i don't recall any portrait of a real existing woman.

i loved the dynamic postures of several statues.
i was almost expecting some steel giant to move for real.

my love for Imre Varga style is official. i've already passed almost an hour in the park of the Great Synagogue admiring his art piece "Tree of Life" in January. now i was enchanted by how he managed to make a propaganda statue of Bela Kun speacking to Hungarians interestingly beautiful.
he makes the steel move lightly, as if it's painted in the air, but with all the strenght of a statue. Imre Varga plays with light. the statues seem to move altogether in the direction indicated by Bela Kun from his 'pulpito'.

i was accompanied by a talented photographer. half of the fun was thinking about realizing something original.

those statues means bloodsheds and sufferings to Hungarians. you won't find any watchmen in the museum park telling you not to jump on the statues. you won't find any written panel forbidding to take photos or touch the art pieces. nobody really cares about their destiny.
the only trace of a Stalin representation are the boots belonging to a former statue of the dictator that was destroyed during the revolution of 1956.
on the way out, there is also the chance to enter in a "sovietic car" one of those cars where nobody fits in. i can't remember the name of the model, i will ask my Czech photographer.

there was a superb light. a softly March twilight behind the enormous forgotten statues.