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.
Back to contents
180