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The Fashion of Resistance: Blue Jeans Acid Washed in the Bathtub, Haversacks, and “Alföldi” Slippers—Anything but Mass-Produced Items!

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Fashion has been a favorite topic of discussion even back in Socialist times when bold dreams met a rather modest reality and modest means compared to the present or to the Western world. However, in spite of the fact that there was hardly anything to buy, or perhaps because of it, we are sometimes pleasantly surprised by the stylish and original outfits of the people in the photos taken in the years of shortage economy.

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An Orphanage in Kőszeg – Everyday Life in Uniform in a Children’s Home of the Hungarian State Railways Company

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Quiet hours, Indian camps, a museum of the workers’ movement, teenagers in uniforms saluting, and orphans trying out cameras. The Children’s Home of the Hungarian State Railways Company (Magyar Államvasutak—MÁV) in Kőszeg was both physically and figuratively very close to the “school at the frontier” of the most influential novel of 20th-century Hungarian literature written by Géza Ottlik [English edition: Géza Ottlik, School at the Frontier, trans. Kathleen Szasz (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)]. The resemblance was probably clear back in the socialist era too, though the real-life version must have been at its best a bit warmer and homier than the one, only a few hundred meters away, that served as the model for the novel. Thanks to one of the former caregivers, Endre Baráth, the photographs recounting the history of the orphanage through decades has now entered the public domain.

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A Little Amsterdam on the Great Hungarian Plain: The Untold Success Story of the People Cycling in the Hungarian Countryside

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In the minds of most Hungarians, cycling is associated with the Netherlands or Denmark. In fact, it has a long tradition in Hungary, too, and—thanks to the cyclists of the countryside—Hungary is one of the top bicycle-riding countries in the EU. In the Southern Great Plain region, every third adult uses a bicycle for transportation. Written by Ákos Bereczky, micromobilty expert.

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The “Modern” Diet: How the Socialist Food Industry Reformed Everyday Life in Hungary

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The second half of the 20th century saw major changes in food consumption throughout the world: new types of ready and ready-to-cook meals, frozen and canned goods appeared on the shelves transforming daily life and our daily routines. While in the West, these new technologies boosted the lucrative character of food production and food commerce, in the Eastern Block the innovations were praised as bringing the promise of a flawless and perfectly planned socialist economy and of a standardized daily life. These revolutionary changes in the food industry indeed had an impact on everyday life: self-service canteens and self-service shops opened, including a chain of fully automated grocery stores called Közért. New types of household appliances appeared in homes, while pantries almost completely disappeared and kitchens shrunk to a minimum size. While some of the new features introduced back in those days are so common sense today that we could not even imagine our lives without them, some turned out to be a dead end.

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Even Colors Are Different in the West: The Death Agony of Capitalism in Color Photos

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Passing by Hegyeshalom (a border village between Austria and Hungary), colors get a different shade. Upon leaving the border and the monotone greyness of the Comecon, color pigments heighten, neon lights pull you in, and lip gloss becomes lively on women’s lips—even though they open for others, not for the average broke Hungarian. From the 1960s on, more and more Hungarians received passports to the West. A hard currency allowance of 70 dollars, a list of addresses of expat friends in the pocket, and the indispensable photo camera on the neck: the following is a selection of color photos of the obscure object of desire from the Kádár era from the Fortepan archive.

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