Page 180 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1
P. 180

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

                The man who met us spoke fluent Russian and appeared to be the father of Sergey’s
           Hungarian partner. He had lived in the USSR a long time and therefore knew Russian
           very  well.  He  brought  us  to  a  place  with which  neither  I  nor my  companions  were
           delighted—it  looked  very  like  a  hostel.  He  gave  each  of  us  our  daily  allowance  in
                  42
           forints  for two weeks and also seventy thousand forints towards the usual payment. In
           1990 seventy thousand forints was equal to a thousand US dollars. Was it a lot or a little,
           it was difficult to say, but as I found out later the monthly salary of most Hungarians
           was six thousand forints! The almost one hundred thousand forints which each of us
           received was a pretty large sum.

                Our rooms were like rooms in a hostel, but our guide promised that in the morning
           he would drive us to a more decent place. He left us to rest after the road journey and we
           agreed to meet with him in the morning. We looked around; the place had nothing worthy

           of our attention. I took a shower and went to sleep. In the morning our guide arrived as
           promised. We put our things into his car and left for our new location. It was a chic
           apartment in the mansion of a Hungarian aristocrat with a wonderful view over the
           Danube and very near to its famous bridges.
                The city centre was a ten minute walk away. Our guide showed and explained to us
           the most necessary things, wished us a pleasant rest and we went on our first excursion
           around Budapest. I think that Budapest is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I
           have  not  seen  all  of  them,  Buda-pest  was  the  first  European  city  I  visited,  but,
           nevertheless, those cities which I visited later in Europe and the USA did not make so
           big an impression on me. I’m talking about the old city; the buildings of new Budapest
           of the socialist epoch differed little from similar buildings in the USSR.

                The Royal Palace and the Hungarian parliament building, in Gothic style, were
           majestic. The latter competed in beauty with the British parliament. If I am not mistaken,
           Hungarians wanted to emulate or maybe surpass the English and copied the halls of their

           parliament from the British one. The colour of walls, upholstery and carpets in these
           halls were exactly like those in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. At least,
           this was the explanation of Sergey’s Hungarian partner’s mother as I remember it. The
           greater part of the time we were left on our own. We made several tours on the outskirts
           of  Budapest  and  even  visited  a  traditional  Hungarian  village.  Everything  was  so
           different.

                We did not understand a word. It felt very strange. The lack of understanding of the
           speech and our inability to explain ourselves produced the effect of helplessness. I felt
           rather more helpless than a mute. In fact a mute person understands everything, but
           cannot speak, and for the first time in my life I found myself in a situation where I neither
           could  say  nor  understand  anything.  I  must  say,  it  is  a  very  unpleasant  feeling.
           Fortunately, our hosts spoke Russian very well and I could get some idea about Hungary.

                We had plenty of free time and became acquainted with the centre of Budapest
           pretty well. We were surprised by the multitude of shops. It was possible to purchase
           almost anything, with the stipulation that one had sufficient money, of course. It was a
           cornucopia in comparison with Moscow shops of 1990 . However, according to the
                                                                           43
           opinion  of  Hungarians  everything  was  very  expensive,  because  most  of  them,  as  I
           mentioned already, had a salary of about six thousand forints per month.


           42  Hungarian currency.
           43  There was an acute shortage of almost everything in the USSR, beginning with soap and tights and finishing with cars.
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