You have been to Afghanistan twenty times. Doesn't your family worry about you when you go?

Of course, every journey has its risks. But keeping in touch and being available constantly - which is also very important for security reasons - has helped a lot. The first one or two trips were of course memorable for everyone. It was an important moment when some of our Afghan colleagues came to Hungary and met my family, so they got to know who we were working with out there, and there were people to whom they could relate my absence. Over the years, the trips became a routine both for me and my family.

When you were there, what did you notice about the changes?

The very vibrant and intense life that used to be there has completely ceased in the evening and has also slowed down during the day. A lot of shops have closed, people have no money, they've shut down too.

If I had been part of the delegation, as a woman, would I have had more to fear now than before the Taliban took power?

We must distinguish between locals and foreigners. In the case of a Hungarian woman travelling to the country as an aid worker, there is no big difference. Of course, there are cultural rules, dress codes, and travel regulations that everyone has to follow, but that is not the problem. There have been significant but not uniform changes in the lives of local women. In the past, they could work as judges or soldiers, and we even know of a woman who functioned as a 'warlord'. Women appeared in the whole spectrum of society, and today everything varies from town to town and region to region. You don't see news ladies on Afghan public television, but you do on commercial channels, and you can see their faces, they just wear headscarves. In the countryside, the community has always been more conservative and closed, but across the country, we see that the situation of women has deteriorated a lot.

How does HIA help them?

In the past, we have had programs for single mothers that helped them find a living. Currently, they can learn bag-making, dress-making, and other trades, for which we provide a starter kit, and we also support their market access.

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Gábor Bálint - Photo: HIA

In addition to human rights abuses, the biggest problem in Afghanistan right now is famine, which is affecting the whole country. According to UNICEF, the number of malnourished children has doubled in six months. How did you see the situation when you were there at the beginning of the year?

We are in the twenty-fourth hour. Right now, people in Afghanistan are fighting for survival.

Some even sell their children, typically their daughters, for a minimal amount of money so that the rest of the family can eat.

Are these children being trafficked?

It's a completely different world, it’s not necessarily crime that guides this. In some starving families with 8-10 children, one of the girls is usually sold to a distant relative to work, or to a rich man in the village, either as a future wife or to do housework. The current situation is that without the help of aid agencies, hunger would spread to an even greater extent throughout the country.

Afghanistan is home to around 40 million people. How does HIA choose who to support?

In the regions where we work, people are assessing needs door-to-door. We also coordinate programs with a range of actors - government agencies, ministries, local authorities, and aid agencies. Under the UN World Food Programme, we are now distributing 15,000 tonnes of food to more than 200,000 people, following a major preparatory effort.

We can't just turn up in a truck and drop the bags.

We had discussions both in Mazar-e-Sharif and in a small rural province, and there was a big difference between the two administrations. We could sense that these were new provincial leaders who had spent the last 20 years fighting the former government forces and the international military. Some of them were looking at us with very piercing eyes. We negotiated bearing many aspects in mind, and they finally approved all our programs and even accepted the projects in writing. It may sound strange that, in a country where people are literally starving and everything is chaotic, there is some kind of administration, but it exists and, if we follow the rules, it guarantees certain security if we accept that we can only provide humanitarian aid.

After negotiations what is the next step?

In the cities where we work, our people go door-to-door and assess needs. Does the family have a member with a disability, or is the head of the household a woman or child?

The keyword is need, we don't look at the reasons why someone is in a situation where they need immediate help.

Later, this information will be entered into databases, and we will continue to implement the aid program, distributing food and other aid. Of course, there are a lot of other steps and procedures that we also carry out, which I could go on about until morning. At the moment we are working mainly with the UN World Food Programme.

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Photo: HIA

What long-term development programs is HIA working on?

Since the early 2000s, we have implemented many rural development, education, health, and rehabilitation programs, but the priority now is to give people something to eat. Of course, as well as providing aid, we also need to support livelihoods. The unemployment rate is very high: we advertised a job basically for a narrow group of people who can speak English, but three thousand people applied. But then there is the Income for Work program, for example, where we are also working on irrigation canals and flood defenses, and rural development programs. Afghanistan is a country with a lot of mountains, water runs off quickly from the high grounds and can cause flooding, but if we can build a reservoir, for example, then they can irrigate and water animals. We have plans to reinvigorate these programs.

How is the Russian-Ukrainian war affecting the crisis in Afghanistan, hunger, and food programs?

In addition to the unforeseen political interactions, the direct impact is already being felt. This is reflected both in the reduction of international resources allocated to aid in Afghanistan and in the general rise in prices.

The price of basic foodstuffs has risen by 30-40% in a few months, unemployment has continued to rise, and daily wages of 2,5-5 USD - for those lucky enough to find work - have fallen.

Before the war, mass starvation seemed to have been averted. The unfreezing of the Afghan central bank's cash reserves also gave cause for hope. Now, however, unforeseen developments - not only in Afghanistan - have begun to suggest that, despite stabilization efforts, another serious crisis could emerge in the country.

Another aspect is that, while the crisis in Afghanistan seemed to be the most dominant humanitarian crisis of the period, the situation in the neighboring country has led us to focus a significant part of our resources on the work in Ukraine in recent months. But this does not mean that donors and aid agencies have forgotten about other crises; HIA is continuing its international humanitarian work in Iraq, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and wherever else it relied upon.

UPDATE: In the first week of May, the Taliban ordered women in Afghanistan to wear burqa, a full-body covering in public places, Euronews reports. It is the strictest restriction on women's rights since the radical Islamists took power in August last year. An official from the Taliban's Office of Virtue said that women who do not wear the burqa will first be identified and then their guardians will be informed. He said that the women should be punished and their fathers or nearest male relatives should be taken to the relevant department for an explanation. In the worst case, the men could be sent to prison or dismissed from their public office.

Örs Orosz, MP of Nitra County, activist for rights in the Highlands (Felvidék), and co-founder of the Összefogás (Alliance) Movement drew attention to the problem on Facebook on 13 March 2022, posting photos and videos of the situation. In his post, he explained that the presence of zinc in the direct outflow was already in February a hundred times higher than the lethal dose for the river's wildlife, so the disaster was foreseeable.

Three tonnes of iron flow into the 223-kilometer-long Sajó every day (the Hungarian section of the river is 124 kilometers long!), precipitating in the form of iron hydroxide or rust.

In addition to arsenic, zinc, and iron, manganese and other elements are well above the maximum permitted levels. Örs Orosz wrote a letter to Minister Ján Budaj asking him to start dealing with the disaster immediately but received no reply.

In early April, the Slovak Water Management Company started work to reduce surface water seepage into the mine, and the mine rescue service also started work directly in the mine. They have been trying - so far without much success - to prevent water from seeping from the upper levels into the contaminated lower layers and to avoid contaminated water flowing to the surface.

It also causes slow agony for fish

The local anglers' representative and member of the local anglers' association, Tibor Varga, is taking the matter to the European Commission because he is deeply outraged that the government cannot be counted on in this situation.

"The problem is really deep. On this thirty-kilometer stretch, the Sajó is dead water."

  "I haven't seen a single fish or arthropod, i.e. river crayfish or crab larvae. The trout, the chubs, and the graylings have died. If it's not the zinc, it's the iron hydroxide that kills them, which precipitates on the inside of their gills and leads to their slow agonizing death, they simply drown. At the moment there is no life under the rocks either, and until the arthropods that the fish feed on return, it is pointless to reintroduce the fish," he said.

According to Dr Balázs Lukács, biologist, Tisza researcher, and head of the Ecological Research Centre, in addition to the huge amount of iron, several other heavy metals have also been released into the water, but we do not have precise information about their quantity. Iron is not toxic in itself, but in a natural environment, when exposed to oxygen, it is converted into water-insoluble iron hydroxide and precipitates. If it precipitates in large quantities, it can cause problems, blocking light to plants and algae, and can be lethal if it enters the respiratory system of aquatic organisms. Living organisms that can move faster can avoid this. It would be advisable to use some kind of chemical to precipitate the toxic substance from the river to produce a salt compound. This is what was done in the red mud disaster - lime was used. But in natural waters, it is difficult to deal with this type of pollution because extra substances have to be added to the water to precipitate or dissolve the compounds, the amount of these is difficult to calculate and the resulting compound can be toxic to aquatic life.

"The amount of contaminated water that would need to be filtered in the 30-kilometer stretch in question is so large that it is technically impossible to do, and the ongoing filtration and remediation of this amount could cost hundreds of thousands of euros per month, and it is difficult to predict how successful it will be. This is why it is important to eliminate the source of pollution itself. However, there are and will be sections of the River Sajó where pollution cannot reach. From these intact sections, life will be able to regenerate in a few years," the expert reassures.

Hungary has repeatedly asked Slovakia to settle the situation

Our country was first officially informed by Örs Orosz through the consulate in Kassa, and Hungary has repeatedly asked Slovakia to settle the situation.

If the pollution is not stopped soon, the contaminated sediment will reach the Hungarian section of the Sajó, damaging the wildlife of the Hungarian section of the river.

It's almost June and still, no real progress has been made, the Slovak authorities are still inactive. Despite the fact that the mine in question is in state hands, the Ministry of Nature Conservation is pointing the finger at the Ministry of Economy and vice versa.

Dr. Balázs Lukács believes that although this pollution would require immediate intervention in the given section, there is no reason for excessive concern in Hungary for the time being, because in recent months, by the time the waters of the Sajó reached Hungary, the contaminated sediment had been diluted and naturally cleaned, so the level of pollution has not yet reached the health limit. "This will remain the case as long as there is sufficient rainfall in the coming weeks and months. If there is not, and therefore the volume of water in the Sajó is reduced, then unfortunately the polluted water will reach the Hungarian stretch in a more concentrated form, and a scenario could occur where action is needed to save aquatic life. But the chances of this happening are minimal."

You have been taking care of the animals for more than a quarter of a century at the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden. How did you manage to find a job here in those days?

I have always loved animals, especially birds. I have been a birder since I was nine years old, I joined the Ornithological Society and I went to birding camps. In the middle of high school, I became interested in how the animal body works and thought it would be good to combine medicine and animal-loving, so I applied to the University of Veterinary Medicine. And the idea of working with wild animals came almost automatically. I have always been more interested in wild animals than domestic animals. At the beginning of my studies, I volunteered at the Budapest Zoo and said I would like to visit regularly. After that, I worked in all kinds of different capacities, for example as a self-employed person, and since 2000 I have been an employee of the Budapest Zoo.

Can you recall your first case as a junior doctor?

Many memories have flowed together, so I'd like to highlight one or two funny stories.

I was not careful enough at the beginning, and because of that a gibbon grabbed my coat and tried to pull me into the cage.

But there have also been occasions when, as a junior doctor, I missed the rear end of a resting kangaroo with a blowgun, even though it was quite large...

What does a day look like for you?

I wouldn't say we're bored. Every day is different, but what's constant is the morning meeting, when we discuss the day's tasks, make the rounds, go around the animal houses, and do the treatments that are in progress. Some animals need to be x-rayed, and blood taken, and there is at least one emergency clinical case every day. When I have a little time slot, I answer the many e-mails that come into my inbox every day, but sometimes I am teaching or dealing with my duties as the Chairman of the European Association of Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarians.

The Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden is dedicated to the captive breeding and propagation of endangered species, and plays an important role in national and international conservation: we provide daily care for rescued animals and veterinary services for various conservation programs. Last year we took in a record number of animals, nearly 2,600. We give the animals everything they need to have an environment similar to their natural habitat.

How are operations on animals weighing several tonnes, such as elephants, carried out?

We can only bring animals weighing 250-300 kilograms into the clinic, such as a zebra, a big cat, or an adult gorilla. Elephants and giraffes are cared for in their own space, in their stables, although elephants and giraffes rarely need surgery.

A few years ago, we successfully performed jaw surgery on several giraffes, including a female, with the help of a bone surgeon. We lined the shed with straw bales so that we could lay the giraffe on them.

By the way, anesthesia is very dangerous in the cases of giraffes, but fortunately, there were no complications in these cases.

Most people are afraid of some kind of animal. How about you? Is there an animal that you dislike?

Luckily, there is no animal that I am scared of or dislike. I love all animals and believe that animals should be respected just as much as our fellow human beings. For example, I am particularly fond of frogs.

Have you ever been in a dangerous situation at work?

Fortunately, not really. There were a few times when we misjudged a situation and it could have been a bigger accident. The first thing I had to remind myself was that it is rare that an animal realizes that we are acting in its best interests.

What has been the most touching moment in your career so far?

For example, when we give up on an animal and it recovers, it is a touching and uplifting feeling, just like when we have successfully artificially inseminated a rhinoceros. Another example is with one of our lions, who had his ears completely split open, but after two operations he recovered nicely. This was another professional success that gave our team a new boost of energy.

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Photo: Zoltán Bagosi

Two years ago we were dealing with a Saker Falcon, which is a highly protected bird in our country. In the parent nest, one of the chicks must have been frightened by something during the fledging period, fell out of the nest and broke both legs. After it came into our care, we placed an implant in one of its legs and removed it when the bone healed. The other leg didn't require surgery, we just put a splint on it and after many weeks the saker made a full recovery. Of course, he had no idea that we had helped him, but when we released him, we were delighted and touched to see that we had done all we could.

How do the zoo animals relate to you and the carers?

They hate us mostly because, as I mentioned with the Saker Falcon, they have no idea that we want to help. They only see us sticking a needle in them or wanting them to do something unpleasant. I have only met one zoo animal in my career with which I had the feeling that it understood what I was doing to it. He is Chuij, our male orangutan who had to undergo life-saving abdominal surgery in 2006. The day after the operation, I listened to his abdomen to see if he had any bowel sounds, but he shifted the phonendoscope.

I started explaining to him, like to a child, that I wanted to help him and it wouldn't hurt. He then took my hand and put my hand back on his stomach. He knew I was there to help.

In other words, the barrier between doctor and patient has been broken. I understand that you also train animals regularly, but training in this case means something different from what it means for pet owners.

These are positive reinforcement training sessions that both contribute to the animal's well-being by exposing them to new stimuli and teaching them to cooperate with us on cues, such as letting us draw blood, stretching their legs, and so on. In this way, the animal accepts us as a partner to the maximum. If they do well, of course, we reward them - that's one of their main motivations.

What do you think is the first and most important thing to teach young children before they get close to animals?

It is advisable to approach an animal with a parent or someone who knows it well. We have zoologist colleagues who organize animal education and petting zoo programs. It is important that children learn as early as possible about animals and how to interact with them, and that they understand that animals too need time to become comfortable. If we show them at an early age how to hold a bunny, and how to pet a cat, I think accidents can be avoided. By the way, most animals don't like to be petted at all, to be more precise, it's more a matter of the individual and the species.

Monkeys love physical contact, rhinos love having their mammary glands scratched, and tapirs go into a trance when they are stroked behind the ears or on the neck.

At the beginning of the interview, you mentioned that as President of the European Association of Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarians, you also have a lot to do on a daily basis. What is the aim of the Association?

It is the largest organization in Europe, whose main aim is to help zoo and wildlife veterinarians to cure wild animals and to make specific decisions for the survival of wildlife. We organize professional training, mentoring programs, and conferences, and collaborate with other international organizations, some of our working groups produce technical material, but we also lobby Brussels when legislation is proposed that affects zoos. I was elected President in 2021 for a two-year term, and although it's a lot of work, it's very exciting.

One of our old interviewees recently wrote a letter. The 2012 article was about the idyllic, natural life of a community of a few families in a small village in Zselic, where the first swallows moved 30 years ago, some of them straight from a city block of flats. Almost all of them were driven by the desire to provide a peaceful and natural environment for their children. "The transition was difficult," said one mother, "because we hadn't learned how to live in a village, only our grandparents remembered how to live without electricity, what edible plants we could find in nature, how to pluck the chicken." The letter was written by Anna Bénó-Sápi, the daughter of one of these brave families, who arrived in Visnyeszéplak at the age of four or five and was a young girl at the time of our report.

"I lived like my mother. I cooked, did the washing, cleaned, I didn't go to work, my job was the household. I waited for my husband to come home so I could give him lunch. I thought it would be like this forever," Anna begins her letter.

"A few years later, I was standing on a farm, in a tiny house, the goats were bleating, my little son was crying, and I was crying too. I felt like my life had ended at 23."

"After much thought, when my son was 9 months old, I convinced my husband to move us up to Pest... I loved it from the first minute. For me, the smell of urine, gyros, exhaust fumes, asphalt, and all the different kinds of food on Rákóczi Road was the smell of freedom."

We meet Anna - who already told our photographer that she would become a dog trainer in 2012 – in a park in Kőbánya with her small "colleague" Boris. A two-year-old English bulldog and French bulldog mix. His owner has fulfilled her dream and is indeed working as a dog trainer, counselor, and dog-assisted coach besides raising her two young children. I first ask Anna about the childhood she left behind in Visnyeszéplak.

- One of my first memories is of the strange smell of my mother whitewashing the walls of the house. Four or five families moved to the village at the same time then, and we started the traditional celebrations of Easter, Pentecost, or Christmas together, and a strong community was formed. As a child, I loved the freedom, we were allowed to do anything, and now as a mother, I wonder about this freedom for there were abandoned wells and things like that in the forest... we were in groups of five or six, aged six, seven, eight or nine, we played tag, built treehouses, ate edible plants, and nobody ever got hurt. We were certainly taught responsibility, always being shown what was edible and what wasn't. What I found with my cousins from the city is that it's useless to tell a child not to eat that red berry, but somehow it worked for us.

- Why did this little paradise suddenly become too little for you?

- Actually, it happened gradually.

My grandmother was from Gödöllő, and when we country peasant girls from our Amish-like lives came to visit her, it was as if we had arrived from another planet. For me, it was a fantastic experience to be able to do whatever I felt like doing.

I enjoyed going to the Árkád mall on Örs vezér Square, where you can eat all sorts of things even if it wasn’t me who made them, and it's not like "my dear, you know, the bread has been baked at home, we're not going to the bakery, it's pointless to spend money on that". It also occurred to me that I don't want to be like my mother, who takes care of the house, the animals, and the children and does everything according to the decisions of the head of the family, but like my grandmother, who can make her own decisions. She was the boss in their family, if she said we were going to the amusement park, we went to the amusement park, and it wasn't a topic that was discussed for two weeks, like in our family. Of course, for some people, it works very well, and even now there are some people in Széplak who experiences freedom under the leadership of their husbands because there the tradition is that the man is the leader.

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Anna Bénó-Sápi - Photo: Szilvia Szakál

- Is this how quickly the traditional family model was established, or rather reverted? And does this also mean that those who do not adapt to it find themselves in a traditionally judgmental community? Are you being a little bit told off?

- Not a little bit. For me, the first problem with unwritten rules is that not everyone understands them immediately. In a small village like Széplak, everybody knows everything about everybody, 30-40 adults out of 130 or so people, the rest are children, because everybody has four or five children. When I first fell in love, and as the first of my generation in the village to do so, we kissed, the boyfriend's mum came to our house! She told me that because we were in love, she was afraid that my boyfriend would stop playing with her son, and she thought that at 13, the boys playing together would be normal, not us dating. Imagine that level of interference! Or there was a huge scandal that there were abandoned wine cellars in the area, and two 10-year-old boys found out which one had pálinka in it and got drunk.

- So it was really a community upbringing...

- Exactly, we didn't necessarily grow up at home, so that's why everybody knew everything about everybody. I've wanted to go to the city since I was 12, so my mum and dad thought they'd send me to Pécs to an art high school, they thought I'd have a fantastic time. In practice, this meant that I, who had never been on a bus on my own, turned up there.

There were people of all styles, plus me with my tied skirt and braided hair - like an alien.

The others went out to the pub after class, I had to break even with 2500 forints a week, and I had to decide everything on my own. I was terrified, it was a terrible time. My father thought if I stayed a few years it would get better, but I moved back to Széplak against his will. So he disowned me for three months and I moved in with a family I knew. Then my dad reconciled and I became a private student at a high school, but later I went back to Kaposvár, to the Calvinist High school, which was a much gentler environment. I met Misi, who was living in Széplak at the time because he liked the life there. Although he was 12 years older, my parents were happy because "Misi was a nice man". I wanted to go to the city, I did a pedicure course so I could work, but then we moved back to Széplak and rented a house. I really enjoyed those few years, Misi worked, I was at home, baked bread, made jam, and milked goats. We didn't have much money, but I was happy tending to my own house and field. Then the house was sold and we moved out of the village. There was a road two or three kilometers away that you could drive on, but we didn't have a car. Life consisted of how we could get drinking water and food to the house, and how we could give water to the animals, we had to pull it up with buckets and carry it to them. Physically and mentally it was hard with the constant physical work we had to do every day to stay alive. I might add that Misi loved it. He would come home after 8-10 hours of carpentry work and go out to the garden to hoe. It made him happy. But I wanted to leave more and more. My friends went to university or moved away. Then we found out we were expecting a baby, then we got married, because until then we were always kind of indecisive when it came to a deeper wave in our relationship. Ambrus, our son, was in a breech position, so he was born by C-section.

I think the hardest time was when I was there with my wound and our bathing water from the well stank because the dormouse had died in it. It was awful, it triggered the fear in me.

Misi also carried the bathwater home on his back. We were tired of it. And once, when I said, as usual, that we should try to go up to Budapest, Misi said: let's go. We sold the goat, the sheep, and sold off everything and found a flat for rent on Rákóczi road in Budapest. I turned on the tap, and there was water, I turned on the electricity, there was electricity, and there was the internet, as much as you wanted!

- But all this is not yet what you can build a life on...

- We were always able to break even at the end of the month, and we knew that neither Misi nor I could be supported by our parents, and if something happened by chance, God forbid, Misi would fall off the roof... When Ambrus was one year old, we went with him to France to work for a farmer for two or three months. He offered us an attractive sum of money, because we lived in tents and ate cheap food, and we could bring most of it home, so we had some savings. With that money, I was able to realize my dream of going on a dog trainer course. I was happy that Misi supported me in spending our money on this. I went with my grandmother's dog. I started working and then my daughter Manka was born. I had post-natal depression after that, and I had to come out of that, but now I have built up my business and more and more people are coming to me, and I have clients referring me to each other. Now I can work just as much as I can handle with daycare and nursery.

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Anna Bénó-Sápi - Photo: Szilvia Szakál

- What's it like to go back to Visnyeszéplak?

- The romantic feelings are always there when we go back with the kids. Typically, my generation didn't stay there. The main aim at the time was to keep the kids in the village and make them want to continue the same way of life, but we find there is not much to stay for. The reason is that the people who live there have bought up everything, and to live there you need land because of the animals. There is not much land left for the younger generation. Of course, there are some who have done a tractor driver's course, bought a tractor, and are now the village tractor driver, but as a woman, there are not many opportunities.

- What did you bring with you from Széplak?

- If you know that they can't support you, it gives you a sense of confidence because you have to do it yourself, you're on your own. It may not be tomorrow, it may not be the day after tomorrow, but in a few years, you will get it done. That has helped me a lot in my business. The other is that I'm the girl next door who asks how you are and notices when you're tired.

I also became a sort of modern-day lady companion alongside dog training. It meant a lot that we were in direct contact with everyone in the village, we called everyone by their first names, we could ask if we needed to, and if we were rebuked, we accepted.

Everyone had an opportunity to establish their own position, even as kids. In the Calvinist High School, I consciously wanted to be the good guy in the class whom you could tell everything. Now that I'm also a dog-assisted coach, I'm getting some really tough stories.

- This means that you keep your personality in the background….

- Exactly. I love people and dogs very much, I love to listen to them without judgment, to listen to them. That's why I have to see a psychologist because if they pour it on you from one side, you have to put it down on the other. If my hand are full of burdens, I can’t handle any more. Any job where you use your soul is very exhausting in the long run. That's why I pay conscious attention to myself because that requires me to be well. Animals are masters of non-verbal communication, they reflect what's going on inside us before we can articulate it ourselves.

- You ended your letter to me with the words, "That would be me." Does that mean that by now you know who you are?

- Sometimes it's like there's a part of me that knows me. Basically, I understand myself, but now my task is to figure out how to trigger a change in myself.

- If someone knows then that’s you that your desires, and choices, your life will determine the future of your children. Is that a burden?

- It is terribly difficult! When I see my city kids growing up in the city nursery school, surrounded by city toys and stories, my old self, the one from Visnyeszéplak, appears. My kids will never be country kids.

- But those who might eat the red berry, which they shouldn't...

- Yes, the one who needs to be told not to go near the electric fence, or watch out, there's a pit. What I knew, Ambrus and Manka will never know, but they will not be afraid of unknown dangers in the city. I want my children to be free. And then they will tell me if I succeeded.

"There are two types of candidates for the title of Capital of Culture," the Commissioner begins, "one is a city that feels that its past and its traditions deserve European recognition and believes that the ECOC title will give it that. The other, and Veszprém is one of these, hopes that the ECOC will give it a way out of the category it is in and places it into one that it deserves. Veszprém can now reposition itself because although it is situated between the Bakony mountains and Lake Balaton, most people do not associate it with popular holiday destinations, and they only know the zoo or the castle, or that it is a county seat. In fact, Veszprém is one of Hungary's most vibrant cultural towns, with a thousand links to the Balaton-Highlands region and the surrounding settlements. We would like to show this not only to Hungarians but also to Europeans - although we do not overestimate this because we do not hear much about which towns have been designated this honor this year. But there is a section of European public opinion that is paying attention, and that is a discerning, educated, sophisticated section. Reaching them can pay off."

What the Hungarian public remembers most is that the city of Pécs was also the capital of culture once.

Those who have been to Transylvania know that Sibiu has also held this title and that both cities have seen spectacular infrastructural development, but we also remember the delays in investment and the social debate and unpleasant articles about it. I warn the Government Commissioner of this as we walk down the narrow slippery stairs of the castle. He replies that they have consulted the team from Pécs in good time, learned from their experiences, and have already planned their own program accordingly. The team in Pécs warned them of two important things: to pay attention to the timing of the investments and to involve the locals from the very beginning so that the people of the city feel the project is their own and do not feel as if the season is passing over them or without them. That is why it was decided that the bulk of the available funds would not be spent on renovating or constructing buildings, but on financing programs in the city and the region. These programs will be organized by local communities in the city center's cafés and restaurants, streets and squares, schools, and cultural institutions: street music festivals, film festivals, literary programs, and dance festivals are among the activities planned. The ECOC will also integrate well-established events in the region, such as the Valley of Arts or the other art festival, the Kőfeszt.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

At the same time, of course, major investments are taking place, and we visit those, too.

Thanks to the ECOC, the now-vacant former children's hospital will become a movement center, the old meat market a digital playground, a multifunctional community space will be established in the castle, and the former dungeon will be turned into a museum, where a huge outdoor lift was being built when we visited the site, not to facilitate escape, of course, but for accessibility.

Veszprém won the competition along with the region, so many investments will be made in the surrounding settlements, with community spaces in Várpalota and Salföld, a conference center and exhibition space in Balatonfüred, and barn projects in the villages.

"The triad of the city, the university, and the archdiocese defines the cultural life here. As chairman of the board of trustees of the university foundation, I am also thinking long-term about the future of the city. Both the Archdiocese and the University are involved in the ECoC 2023 programs. The university campus will be renewed, creating a community space that will be both an information point and a café, running ECOC programs and involving volunteers. And the solar boat race on Lake Balaton, also organized by the university, will be an exciting event," the government commissioner explains.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

The hope of the future

"The faith of our ancestors is the hope of the future." This inscription was placed on the altar of the Gizella Chapel in Veszprém in 1938, the year of the Eucharistic Congress in Budapest. It was this same spirit that guided the Archdiocese of Veszprém when it began the renewal of the castle quarter with courage and commitment, based on the traditions of the past but looking to the future", says Archbishop of Veszprém Dr. György Udvardy, who chose this phrase as the motto of the diocese.

The last time any investment of this scale was made in a culturally, ecclesiastically, and historically important area of Veszprém was about 100 years ago.

György Udvardy added that the development will be implemented with state funding of nearly HUF 40 billion, and the reconstruction works will be completed by 2025, but the results of part of the investment will be visible as early as 2023, as some of the buildings will be open to visitors as part of the European Capital of Culture event series. The development will involve 18 listed buildings, around 35,000 square meters of built area, and 10,000 square meters of open space. The Archbishop stressed that this work has been launched because they want to preserve the faith of our ancestors, the cultural and built heritage of their faith, and the values that create and sustain community.

Literature in the forest, at the train station, on a wine bottle

The literary programs of the ECOC 2023, the literary concept, and its implementation are the responsibility of József Attila Award-winning writer Ugron Zsolna. Zsolna spends part of her life on Szent György Hill, so both her living space and her creative workplace are on the Balaton Highlands, which is part of the designated region.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

 "We started with smaller programs and smaller events last year, and we will continue this year with more projects - gradually building up to 2023. Together with my colleague, Richárd Varga, one of our main objectives is to expand the space of literature, to bring literature to the public. In the city, in the forest, on wine bottles, at the train station. We started the Ruin concerts - musical literary evenings among the historical ruins of the region, such as Viki Szávai's Sándor Weöres Literary Evening at the Jesuit ruins in Veszprém. The Holtszezon (‘Off-season’) literary festival started this February, covering literary fields that are not traditionally represented at literary festivals, such as fantasy, science fiction, gastronomy, and youth literature. It has already been very popular this year, with full venues, cafés, and restaurants in Veszprém. From comic drawing workshops to autographing sessions, the program was very varied.

We involved the young people of Veszprém in organizing the events, thus, on the one hand, they could invite their favorites, and on the other hand, they often moderated and coordinated events.

We will have a reading booth in the Bakony forests - we are preparing this in cooperation with MOME: a booth in the forest packed with books where tourists can relax. In 2023 there will be a Petőfi Bicentenary, we will join the events of the Petőfi Cultural Agency, and we would like to have a big Petőfi event. We would like to bring the Szigliget Creative House back into the literary life, after all, it was one of the most important places for Hungarian literature in the 20th century, and we are working on the concept of this with Anna Juhász, the director of the Petőfi Cultural Agency’s priority programs. I hope that both the creative house and the park will be full of lyric poetry and prose this summer. But the One Wine, One Poem program is also among my favorites: winemakers from the Balaton Highlands choose a contemporary poem to accompany one of their wines, and they print it on the labels on the bottles. Last year, during the epidemic, on National Poetry Day, restaurants stuck a poem to the food they delivered. We hope that this will bring contemporary literature to a much wider audience and one or two of our programs will create a tradition in the region," explains Zsolna Ugron.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

The organizers say it is very important to involve local people. Tibor Navracsics says that the typical problem of all big events is the so-called hangover, which means that once they are over and leave a void. "That's why it's important that the people of the city consider the ECOC’s programs their own, see what they themselves can do, and that's why we need programs that appeal to everyone. A school choir competition, a children's drawing competition, or a contemporary art festival are all equally valuable. The settlements in the region can connect by paying into the grant fund on a pro-rata basis and then redistributing the funds from there - this is another important way to make local people feel part of the programs that are being implemented, and that the programs are integrated into the life of the individual municipalities in an organic and intelligent way. This is also why volunteering is important because as a participant or organizer you can be involved in the programs in a totally different way. You can also join a group of young volunteers called the “Ragyogók” (“The Shining Ones”). It is also important that what remains after the programs shall be worth continuing. Sustainability should be taken into account even at the phase of distributing subsidies. If the commitments made in the tenders are realized, the region and the city can be on a sustainable upward trajectory." 

Képmás magazine is launching a new series called Public Treasure, in which Kata Molnár-Bánffy, the publisher of Képmás, talks to dedicated people whose successful work can be of interest to many, and is a Public Treasure, as the title of the series suggests: a common issue, something we want to take care of.

Szilveszter Ókovács, General Director of OPERA, must be optimistic: according to the contract, the contractor's staff will leave on the tenth, and on the 11th there will be a press conference and a dress rehearsal. For the moment, however, there is no corner to sit down for interviews, and in fact, wherever we go, we are in the way. The General Director is a guide, showing us the way around power lines, ladders, and grinding machines. The Opera House is a wonderful setting for this performance also, and the skilled workers working on the various details are also extremely proud to be working on this particularly beautiful task.

We spend a little time in the Red Salon, where the new upholstery - red, of course - is being tailored. Two paintings will soon be arriving from the National Gallery, László Hunyadi's Lament by Viktor Madarász and László Hunyadi's Farewell by Gyula Benczúr. Ferenc Erkel, the Opera House's first music director, had an excerpt of his opera Hunyadi László performed at the original opening in 1884, and now, for the reopening, the entire work will be staged in a new production, this time directed by Ókovács - and the renovation director László Baán has lent the large-scale paintings on the same theme from the gallery he runs.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

For us, Hunyadi is perhaps the most emblematic Hungarian opera, but the only piece that is staged around the world, and is much better known,  is Bluebeard's Castle, which became popular and well-known as a result of the joint work of Béla Bartók, Béla Balázs and Miklós Bánffy. The original plan was to open the renovated Opera House on the centenary of the work's birth, but this was not to be.

"The renovation was necessary, so we have been preparing for it ever since I have been running this institution," begins the General Director. "Of course, the theatre was working, but the stage machinery was on its last legs. Everybody thought it was beautiful, and it was indeed beautiful, but you have to know that a lot depends on the functioning of the machinery that serves the great performances of the Opera House. An opera house with a real repertory also has a large auditorium because of the ticket prices, and a large stage to go with it. The huge space means that the stage has to move a large chorus, 80-90 people, who have to be seen and heard from all sides, and this requires a platform system, which in turn means that the sets are also huge and those have to be moved and packed, too. The functioning or non-functioning of this complex system of lifts and platforms is a major problem. It's like fumbling with the main switch: you have to make a decision until it's completely decayed. There have been occasions when a 'street' or a swivel - part of the stage machinery - has stopped during a performance and the play could not run to its full potential. In order to start the renovation of the Opera House, the Erkel Theatre, which was closed at that time, first had to be temporarily repaired so that the company could perform there during the renovation.

It took a year and a half to fight for the Erkel Theatre, then twice as long to get it off the ground - it's not automatic that opera-loving audiences will come over. The Erkel is like a whole other world - but also a different part of town.

From 2015, we had plans for what we were going to do with the Opera House, but we also knew that we could only start in 2017 because of public procurement and pre-planning, which is why I usually refer to it as programmed shutdown. The 'package' also included the Eiffel Workshop, which was to be converted from the Northern Vehicle Repair Workshop and was due to be completed in 2017. So it's a ten-year plan, with an outlay of almost 100 billion, in a time of a big construction boom, with a complicated chain of procedures - anyone who has been involved in something like this knows that it cannot be done flawlessly, without breaking the quality-time-price triad.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

Wall research and a kind of economic approach overrode the plans, and the government finally decided to close it and completely renovate it, which was understandable, but for us, the company, it was a long and difficult period. We were stuck in the Erkel Theatre for longer than previously expected, and then Covid hit, while our rental properties became too many and our income dried up. But that has passed, and we have made up for it with success, and now we have to put all that behind us and look forward. We can look forward to the new building, which is much more modern than the old one, where we do not have to worry about a wire catching fire in the wall because it was designed for a much smaller capacity. Top or bottom stage machinery is now world-class, sure to last 30 years. Since the renovation was carried out along the main lines of the original plans by Miklós Ybl, there will be a little less space for spectators - the auditorium was enlarged in 1912 at the expense of the orchestra pit - but they will be more comfortable and the acoustics will be better."

Ybl originally won the design competition for the Opera House, and Gábor Zoboki, the lead architect of the current renovation, is following in his footsteps. Zoboki is also known to be a great opera fan, especially fond of Wagner, and with a kind of holy devotion, he wants to get the best out of the Opera House. But this takes time, and the company has long wanted to take possession of the building, which is creating tension between the builders and the future operators. But this period is coming to an end, with the opening fast approaching and the renovation has brought many unexpected adventures for all. In the projection zone above the Royal Box, for example, a kind of time capsule was found, almost a cubic meter of letters, documents, and notes from the turn of the century stuffed there, presumably to be hidden from the communists by the Opera House staff in 1948.

We hope that after careful archival research, the general public will also be able to get to know this unique material, the letters to the Intendant of the Opera House, beginning with "Your Excellency the Count!", and other cultural and historical delicacies.

What can we expect after the reopening, I ask Szilveszter Ókovács. "We have to acknowledge that these pandemic times do no good to the theatres or the opera. We have to work very hard to at least keep the operation up. We have to fight for every audience again, which was not the case before. But those who come to us will see a big spectacle on a big stage, as befits an opera house. If we can continue to run the Erkel, which we are happy to do, we will create an inclusive theatre there. Of course, we can move more popular plays, such as the Gypsy Baron or Háry János, but we will definitely perform the classical, grand operas and ballets on the Opera House stage. And for those who like contemporary, experimental, modern dance, these pieces will have a great place in the Eiffel, which the public has very quickly come to love. This kind of two- or three-legged operation can take us to the world-class and keep us there infrastructurally, and artistically we can commit to being at the forefront of Europe because, in terms of resources, it is realistic."

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

It's hard to believe, but on 10 March the contractors will leave the site, and the opening ceremony will start with a press conference on the morning of 11 March, at the Opera House. On that Friday, a small exhibition of Hunyadi paintings will be opened, a crowd of students from both Hungary and from across the border will watch the dress rehearsal of Hunyadi in the early afternoon, and in the evening, construction workers, children from the "Regőczy" and many others will enjoy the main rehearsal of next day’s the gala concert in the same place.

The 12th will be the dress rehearsal of Mayerling, a neoclassical ballet that tells the tragic story of Crown Prince Rudolf and Archduchess Sofia. In the evening, there will be the grand opening and gala concert, when President János Áder will open the Opera House to the public as one of his last official duties. A fantastic Hungarian program is being prepared, including Dohnányi's Festival Overture, which the General Director described as "pleasantly megalomaniac", as the composer wrote it for two full symphony orchestras and a brass orchestra, to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of Pest and Buda. "All these musicians on stage make for an amazing experience. The music will literally hit the audience," promises Ókovács. But Placido Domingo will also conduct Hungarian-related pieces, and a Háry János section will also be staged, so the ballet choir, the chorus, and even children will be able to try out the stage they will finally be able to take over. The next day will see the premiere of Ferenc Erkel's opera Hunyadi László, followed by Mayerling on the third day, and Hunyadi again on the 15th, the national holiday. Since the renovation work is still in progress, these rehearsals are taking place in the Eiffel, where five rehearsal rooms are being built to ensure a smooth workflow. All this shows that life is still a struggle for the Opera House staff, who are all looking forward to the completion of the works as well as the coming of quiet weekdays.

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Photo: Tamás Páczai

Ókovács is also looking forward to these times, not taking his eyes off the flickering light at the end of the tunnel. "This is also where the Ybl Awards will be presented in March, and it is planned that the prestigious architectural prizes will always be awarded here, in this iconic building of the architect's life's work. To mark the occasion, we will give a festive concert of works by Ybl's contemporaries. For Easter, we'll be presenting a new performance of Parsifal, and in June we'll finally complete the Ring, Wagner's cycle of four operas. We've already performed three of these before the renovation, so it's the highest time to complete the series. Sooner or later, we'll finally be able to play everywhere, and we'll be able to play at full steam on newly renovated stages in beautiful theatres. And we really hope that audiences will soon find their way back - to eat home-cooked food and gourmet delicacies instead of TV/net cans." 

Képmás magazine is launching a new series called Public Treasure, in which Kata Molnár-Bánffy, the publisher of Képmás, talks to dedicated people whose successful work can be of interest to many, and is a Public Treasure, as the title of the series suggests: a common issue, something we want to take care of.

What makes someone a good debater?

"You can't make anyone a good footballer if they don't have the talent, and it's the same with debating" – András Balázsy begins when I ask him what makes a good debater. The ability to remember, quick thinking, deductive and intuitive reasoning skills, a sense of strategy, diligence, dedication, and a good coach who creates the practicing opportunities are all essential for success. "The question is not how long it takes to become a good debater, because you need a lot of experience, you need to take part in several competitions to reach world-class. The girls have done it after 10-12 competitions, after that the progress slows down. It is also an important step for them to realize that there is room for improvement: this means, for example, that they themselves apply the techniques they have seen in other debating teams. We always write down what we did wrong, what the judges said, and we learn the good practices," explains András, who the girls call their coach.

The three of them have been working together for two years. András recalls how they met: "They both applied to be part of the Milestone Institute's debate team."

  "They had to give a speech on a certain topic, and I sat in to listen. I knew right away that they were talented and worth working with!"

As he says, Lili and Julcsi are definitely world-class talents and have more in them. "I teach them ways of speaking, and structures, correct them when they do something wrong. We also revise the debate topics, of which there could be hundreds," he explains. Every week, Lili and Julcsi attend at least one so-called coaching session (meeting), where they receive preliminary training and also have a debate. They prepare for these sessions by reading articles and watching videos. András started debating at college in the United States and later worked overseas as a lawyer. When he returned to Hungary, he did not practice it at all for a long time, and finally joined the Milestone Institute three years ago as a so-called debate coach.

Debating and arguing are not the same

Both girls are juniors at a high school in Budapest. Lili Törőcsik attends the Mihály Fazekas High School, while Julianna Balázs goes to the Frigyes Karinthy Bilingual High School. Both have also practiced debating in their own schools through the Model United Nations.

In the Model United Nations students simulate the work of diplomats and ambassadors at a conference of the UN General Assembly.

Lili also runs the school debate club. "I used to be very shy and had stage fright, but I also really liked to argue with people in my head, I just didn't dare to say aloud what I thought. Once I went to a camp where they taught public speaking, and that's where it all started," says Julcsi.

Victory for the second time in Oxford

One hundred teams from the winners of the regional semi-finals compete in Oxford. The top eight out of 100 will get into the semi-finals of the Open category. There is also an English Second Language (ESL) final for four non-native teams. In addition, there is also a Novice final, for students with less than one year of experience in competitive debating, regardless of language category. In 2021, the girls won this Novice category, which is a big deal because out of the hundreds of regional finalists, there were three champions to celebrate in the end: the Open, ESL, and Novice categories.

"And this year, we earned 8th place in the Open category in every way, tied with another team, so they tossed a coin in the middle of the room. We didn't win the draw, so we didn't make the top 8 teams, but because we are not a native English-speaking team but an ESL team, we automatically qualified for the ESL final, which we won," explains Lili.

"It was a fantastic scene! Everybody in the Oxford Union Chamber was waiting with bated breath to see who would go through out of the 100 teams, and then they said there was a perfect tie for eighth place in the Open. Both teams went out into the middle of the room, the head judge appeared with a coin, and the rest of us stood around them waiting to see what would happen. I found out later that the other eighth-placed team had been prepared by the coaches of the English National team. Unfortunately, the girls lost the coin toss, but they shook hands with the other team very professionally and congratulated them. And they still made it to the ESL final as the strongest ESL team after the top eight Open teams, and of course, they won," continues Andras.

Only the best twelve teams out of a hundred qualified for the final, one of which was made up of Lili and Julcsi. They won the competition in 2021 and 2022, but in two different categories. No team had ever done this before.

Historical traditions

The Oxford contest is based on the rules of the British parliamentary debate. Each debate involves four teams of two: two representing the government side and two representing the opposition. Teams are given 15 minutes to prepare and are not allowed to use the internet. "They want to preserve the historical tradition of the competition, which sometimes ends in a bit of chaos, as the topic for each debate is announced in the Oxford Union Chamber, with only a narrow door leading out. The topic is announced, then the countdown, and the preparation time, begins. But you can only get out in 6-7 minutes because 250-300 people start at once. Therefore, the debaters start shouting loudly to each other to prepare on the go. The girls had one big advantage: no one else spoke Hungarian, so they could really start preparing loudly," the coach explains.

Lili argues, Julcsi sums up

The girls, as they say, can work well together because they have different interests and strengths. "I start shouting passionately," says Lili, laughing, "and Julcsi, with her very structured, systemic thinking, completely dismantles the opponent" she continues, turning serious.

"Usually, Lili speaks first, I speak after. She's very good at building up her arguments, and I summarise them a bit and compare them with the other team's arguments" adds her teammate.

And who should make policy decisions on criminal law: politicians or experts in the field? This is what the girls had to debate in the final - all in English, the language of the international competition. Many would have difficulty debating such things even in Hungarian, but they do it perfectly well in English, and perhaps even better.

"They know how to debate mainly in English, and I'm not sure it would be so easy for them in Hungarian. In Hungarian, you can sometimes get lost in a long sentence, and only at the very end can you piece together what the sentence means. In a second language, on the other hand, you are not emotionally attached to what you are saying," says András. "English also has a simpler vocabulary. In any second language, the weight of words is smaller, for example, it's less stressful for me to express myself in English in front of a crowd than in Hungarian," says Lili. According to Julcsi, they just don't have the experience of debating in Hungarian. This year's win is a confirmation for them: last year's was very unexpected, but the second time around they thought they might have a chance. "It's good feedback that we didn't just win last year by some miracle," she emphasizes.

Not comparable to political debates

Julcsi, the older of the two, is most interested in economics and foreign policy. She would like to continue her studies in economics. Lili likes to have a concrete social problem to discuss how to solve. "There are also debates where you don't talk about a topic in general, but from someone's point of view: for example, to put forward the right course of action from the point of view of the American or the American Republican Party. I think it makes a topic much more interesting," she adds. She is not yet sure what she would like to do in the future, but economics, political science, and philosophy could be considered.

They agree that the competition debate is very different from what we see in politics.

"Politicians want to use emotions to move the masses. They skip logical steps but we are not allowed to do so. They don't explain things because they don't need to in a given situation, so the two are not comparable," says Lili. As role models, they look to their peer debating teams, whose strategy and style they try to emulate. "The Chinese and the Singapore teams, but the Dutch and the English are also very good," they say. The girls are now preparing for the World Championships in August, which will be held in the Netherlands on paper but online in reality due to the pandemic. It's a different format to the British parliamentary debate, with teams of five. The three other members of the team are Adam Vas, Szabolcs Veress and Péter Jagos. Lili and Julcsi were part of the national team last year, and this year's team will again be prepared by András Balázsy. "We train for this and we are proud to represent Hungary," they say. "I sincerely hope we will be successful," adds András.

Falling in love

Decorating eggs at Easter takes many shapes and forms around the world. In Hungary, one of the most common egg decorating techniques is wax dyeing, but this technique is also common in neighbouring countries. The method is the same everywhere, but the nature of the decorations varies from region to region and from one ethnic group to another. Ildikó was introduced to the wax dyeing technique by a chance encounter and fell in love with it.

"When I was quite young, my mother and I unsuspectingly walked into an Easter market where the ladies were not only selling eggs but decorating them. It was love at first sight for me! One of the ladies explained how to do it and we bought the necessary tools.

"As I was still in kindergarten, at first it was only my mother practicing the technique, and I would just stand next to her and say, 'Mom, I don't like this one because the line is crooked, please make another one,'" she says with a laugh.

For a very long time, Easter at their house looked like this: her father would go out and buy a hundred eggs and would blow them out so she and her mother could decorate them. The first time Ildikó tried it, the lines were crooked and the pattern was not symmetrical. At around the age of 16, she managed to make a beautiful egg. After that, one work of art followed another, until she found herself with hundreds of decorated eggs at home. It was then that she thought it would be good to give this activity a concept, one that went beyond painting. So she started collecting motifs from different regions and working with local motifs.

The origin of the motifs

Soon afterward, Ildikó found that many patterns have been around for decades, centuries, even millennia. She says that we do not know the names and meanings of all of the patterns and motifs but there are a few that we know more about.

We know, for example, that most of the egg decorations that are called Hungarian today come from Transylvania, from the Gyimes region. The names of the designs and the meanings attached to them were also recorded here.

One of the most common motifs from here is the rake pattern, which is found in many countries.

The applied folk artist also spoke about the origins of wax dyeing eggs: "Because dyed eggs are made for Easter, egg decorating is nowadays associated with Christianity, although it dates back to much older times. We also have decorations and symbols that predate Christianity. In the Ormánság region (South Hungary) there are many drum-rope patterns, which refer to the drums of the shamans. And in the Gyimes region (South East Transylvania) there are a lot of palm, finger, and hand representations, and often six fingers appear on eggs. This bodily defect was one of the particular characteristics of the shamans. The shamans had a healing task, so these designs are also used to ward off curses, trouble, and disease."

Finding the motifs takes a lot of work. Ildikó has tried to collect as many samples as possible in recent years, but most of the time it was chance that brought her things that she could look up later. "I started my research by going to the storerooms of various ethnographic museums and having a look at what they had. They usually keep good inventories, yet in the case of many motifs, the collection site had not been indicated. Finding where they are from is a difficult task, and it also requires good memory skills, so that two years later you can recognize that you have seen that particular motif somewhere before and match the missing pieces of the puzzle together. I'm always excited by new information, and I always have to look into it," she explains.

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Ildikó Fekete

Link with Mathematics

Ildikó specialised in Mathematics, and that is what she graduated from at university, and decorates eggs only as a hobby.

She thinks the connection between these two areas is also interesting from a mathematical point of view, since when painting on eggs, angles are halved and mirrored, and different symmetries and polygons are created.

With a little mathematical insight, Ildikó feels she can more easily pass on the know-how of wax dyeing eggs to someone who has never done it before. She can easily explain the initial steps, how to draw the lines, how to make a symmetrical pattern, or how to make a more special division.

As to whether drawing skills are necessary to decorate eggs, the artist says: "The pattern of the eggs very often does not require you to have particularly good drawing skills. There are some regions where it doesn't hurt to be a bit more skilled, but a pattern from the Gyimes region, for example, is relatively easy to make. It is more likely to require spatial vision or primary school Maths skills to be able to draw the divisions well. Once you have that, it's very simple from there."

Success at home and abroad

Ildikó involved her parents and her partner in her unusual passion.

Her mother helps her with her egg painting while she is cooking, and her father has become her manager since they started exhibiting their work.

Her dad designed the china cabinets for displaying the eggs and installed the lighting in them. Ildikó's partner takes on the role of the painter during her travels, but there are also times when they do research together in the museum, where Ildikó selects the samples from the archives and her partner takes pictures of them.

Ildikó is usually very busy before Easter, usually going to events abroad – this year she's giving lectures in France and the United States. She considers herself very lucky in this respect because she can travel to places she might not otherwise have the opportunity to go. But for Hungarians living abroad, she does not only give workshops at Easter, they are happy to paint eggs at any time of the year.

She has also had exhibitions of her own in several parts of the country for a number of years. Fortunately, she has enough cabinets and works of art to run two exhibitions in parallel. But Ildikó's work has also been shown abroad: In New York, for example, the artist's exhibition was open to the public for eight months. What she is particularly proud of is the title of Young Master of Folk Art, but she is also very happy about the Junior Prima Award. She feels that she has received all of the awards that one is able to receive at such a young age.

Book and new goals

In 2019, her first book was published, entitled Message Written in Wax, which deals with wax dyed eggs in Hungarian and Hungarian-speaking areas. It contains the artworks and related customs of 15 regions, including some that Ildikó was the first to explore.

The book has also been published in English, so foreign customers can also learn about egg decorating in the Carpathian Basin. Experiences and feedback show that people from America, Canada, and New Zealand also like painting Hungarian eggs because for them it is a curiosity.

As for future goals, Ildikó emphasized that she would like to get to know as many regions as possible and share them with others. "In Hungary, there is very little written material on wax dyeing eggs, but I have found that this is the case in the surrounding countries too. Only the Ukrainians are exemplary in this respect, with countless books written by them on the topic. Now I have started to research and paint eggs from the V4 countries, and I would like to expand this material, as well as give further courses and lectures at home and abroad," says the young artist with sparkling eyes.

Shattered dreams

The girl mentioned above, Borbála Silbiger, was born in Miskolc in 1894. Her father was a wealthy fabric merchant and her mother came from a family of entrepreneurs. Little is known about her youth – what is certain is that the girl, who grew up in Budapest, had an unstable temperament and had been treated at the neurosanatorium in Pozsony (Bratislava). Her legacy at the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, which is rather incomplete, does not contain any documents relating to her studies, but the first newspaper articles about her refer to her as a "young medic". It is likely that she also studied medicine, but her family could no longer finance her schooling after the head of the family became bankrupt and took his own life. Had it not been for this tragedy, perhaps a world-famous neurologist or psychiatrist would have been added to the Hall of Fame of the famous Hungarians – thus however the young girl became the most famous and respected fortune-teller of the 20th century.

In stormy, uncertain times, people are especially hungry for guidance. The more absurd the events, the more they tend to look for solutions in strange, dubious places. In Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a horde of prophets, fortune tellers and occultists.

Silbiger Boriska was their uncrowned queen, who built and maintained her clientele with impressive creativity and unscrupulousness, and escaped time and again from the lawsuits often brought against her for fraud and occultism.

For example, the 12 June 1930 issue of the Magyar Hírlap reports the following conversation between her and the prosecutor, to the presumably considerable amusement of those present: 'Miss, get married and raise children. You're going to make a very beautiful mother." "I'd love to, but you must marry me off." In fact, of course, she never really wanted the conventional life that was meant for her and was very clever at building up her own myth, her own schedule, and her own client base.

Not fortune-telling, but rather character analysis

Boriska Silbiger has denied at each of her prosecutions that she made predictions for money. By her own admission, she only did character analysis from a graphological point of view and, being highly intuitive, sometimes had a premonition of the past or the future. What she did not add was that, in addition to her special sensitivity and her unparalleled logical thinking, she was aided in this intuition by her secretaries, who overheard the stories of those waiting for an audience as well as gave her excellent press coverage. She often drew attention to herself: in April 1927, for example, a night with a toothache turned into a scandal when two drunken gentlemen with black eyes jumped on the cab as she was going to the pharmacy, to which she protested, sobbing and shouting. People hearing the ruckus she made came running out of three cafés onto Teréz avenue, and together with two policemen on bicycles, chased the attackers, who had meanwhile disappeared, and the coachman of the cab – together with Boriska, who was wailing loudly – chased after them. The little interlude almost ended in a lynching, but, as the victim later said, "the excitement made her tooth get better".

The mysterious prophetess had some strange quirks. She was notoriously terrified of technical gadgets such as cars, and would only travel in a horse-drawn carriage – which, of course, was always a scandal, as she would occasionally have a disagreement with the coachman about the fare and how to pay it. Despite this, she was also well informed about cars: in 1936, for example, she gave an interview to the Autó Motor magazine about the future of motoring and racing.

"The Pest Prophet Underworld"

Her primary hunting ground beside the distinguished circles was the theatre world, where she predicted successes, failures, and romances for those who approached her.

One of her appreciators, Ágnes Fedor, wrote that she belonged to the world between the stage and the dressing room, and knew many secrets, which she kept faithfully. Her remarkable memory enabled her to see into the lives of an astonishing number of people – by her own admission, she knew and traced the fate of nearly 100,000 people in relation to her 20,000 clients. At first, she would meet people at the Szalay cafe in a meeting place on a boulevard in Lipótváros, where they would ask her their love questions, and then, to avoid being exposed to the authorities, she would organize her strictly controlled nightly séances in a variety of locations. She had certain principles. On more than one occasion, both the deceived wife and the lover came to her for advice, and she, being strictly pro-marriage, could hurl terrifying invectives at the intruder.

In April 1939, the police launched a large-scale operation against "the prophet underworld" in Pest. The prophetess on Izabella Square was arrested, as were Paul Haar, the "X-ray-eyed man" and the prophetess known as the White Woman of Óbuda, but the biggest catch was Boriska Silbiger, who was eventually prosecuted for social parasitism. Many people gave up their illegal activities when she was caught.

She saved lives with her advice

As the Second World War and the threat to the Jewish approached, she devoted much of her energy to persuading her clients to flee as quickly as possible. Many owed their lives to her. It is not known where she herself survived the Holocaust.

It is possible that she was given refuge by her influential supporters, but it is also possible that she managed to emigrate to America – Sophie Török's diary gives this explanation.

Of course, it could have happened similarly to the novel Karola and Her Age by Ágnes Fedor, in which the protagonist, modeled on Silbiger Boriska, is saved by a poor woman merchant, innocently convicted of murder, who gives her her "office" for the time being.

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Wireless Weekly, 1941

All that is known is that the house where she lived was bombed on 2 June 1944, so many people thought and rumoured that she was dead, but in 1946 she was certainly in Budapest: she retrieved her necklace from the Sisters of Social Service, and in a snappy manner she sent away an intruding journalist who was in her house, declaring that from now on she would dedicate her life to God. It could have happened like that, and many would have believed it, as she continued to lead a rather low-key, quiet life, but her clients seeking advice always found her. In his biography, published in 2020, painter Miklós Szüts recounts how Boriska was a lodger in the family home in the first half of the 1950s. Little is known about her later fate, but her accessible legacy reveals that in the 1950s and 1960s she earned and supported herself by trading in foreign stock markets and continued to give investment and life management advice to her trusted clients.

The memory of a hope-giving prophetess

There are several stories about her death. Some say that she died at the age of seventy-six, in the spring of 1970, in the Jewish Charity Hospital, with a broken mind.

Others, however, remember her walking her alarming-looking black kuvasz dog in St Stephen's Park, who faithfully guarded the dead body of the well-known yet deeply lonely woman even when her door was broken down by the ones worrying for her.

She was buried in the New City Cemetery on 2 April.

In 1972 Ágnes Fedor published the aforementioned novel Karola és kora (Karola and Her Age), which is a kaleidoscopic view of the unbalanced society of the 1930s and 1940s. The book was also shown on television: in one of the programs of the Open Book series, Ilona Béres played the role of Karola, i.e. Silbiger Boriska. She last appeared in 2019 in Kristóf Deák's film Captives.

Precious scrapbooks

When processing the legacy, Sándor Scheiber published some of the most exciting entries from one of the fortune teller's scrapbooks in Life and Literature magazine, including lines by Attila József or a poem by Zseni Várnai. Attila József wrote in the scrapbook on 17 January 1930, at a quarter to six in the morning, "She said things I like, so I believe in it and I will do it!" György Landeszmann also analysed the volumes: in the 15 August 1982 issue of Új Tükör Magazine he published the most notable entries, including lines by Pál Ignotus, Attila József, Frigyes Karinthy, Hugó Kelen, Henrik Marczali, Mária Mezey, Márton Rátkai, Béla Salamon, Ernő Szinetár, Gyula Színi, Aránka Váradi, Zseni Várnai, János Vázsonyi and Ferike Vidor.

She remained a "doctor" all along

The biggest challenge with Boriska Silbiger is that the gaps in her life story can be filled in too many ways. We can talk about her as a psycho-paraphenomaniac who on several occasions led the police on murder cases, and in early 1935 'predicted' the Italian-Abyssinian war that broke out that same year. She can also be seen as an obsessive graphologist, a lover of letters who believed that certain monograms determined our lives, and someone who was a well-known and respected expert in this field.

In 1929, for example, she was the first woman forensic writing expert in a criminal case - but she didn't lose her head: she predicted the defendant would be acquitted.

On top of all this, she was also a brilliant swindler, who bravely and unscrupulously ignored the relevant legal requirements and everything that society would have expected of her. Ultimately, even as a fortune-teller, she remained a doctor who knew that she could heal by listening to those who came to her. Boriska Silbiger was a great and relatable connoisseur of the human soul and the spirit of the times, at a time when many people were hungry for a listening ear and for hope. It is a pity that we have only stories (but beautiful stories) left of her.

Exactly how is your area of expertise useful for us?

Its true importance has not yet been discovered in this country, which is perhaps why it is not much discussed. I started out as a saleswoman myself and wanted to be as effective as possible in my negotiating techniques in the various meetings. I realised quite quickly that the way I enter a room, the way I take my seat, and the position I sit in, can influence the negotiation. So I started researching this topic and then I went to several seminars abroad to expand my toolbox.

The history of body language research goes back to the world of silent films.

Body language as a term started to be used in the 1950s, with an anthropologist first using the word in 1952, but other sources say that we have to go back to 1872, before the publication of the Darwinian studies. Psychologist Paul Ekman studied various micro-expressions, for example, the wrinkles around the eyes.

Micro-expression means that in a split second a certain emotion appears on our face, which we cannot control because it is an unconscious, innate thing.

A real smile of happiness, for example, is when not only the mouth turns into a smile, but also the wrinkles around the eyes appear.

According to some experts, the ratio of verbal to non-verbal signals when someone is communicating is roughly 50-50. This means that we may not be able to fool someone 100 percent, because a communication signal that we cannot influence can be created in a tenth of a second.

Psychologists are divided on the proportions of verbal and non-verbal signals used but agree that non-verbal communication is dominant in 50-60 percent of cases. Two things can indicate how sincere the other person is. One is the emphasis, the other is synchronicity. Emphasis means giving nonverbal emphasis to what you mean. For example, I may add extra emphasis to what I say, or I may add not only a vocal cue but also body language, such as nodding alongside it. If you don't tell the truth, you usually don't have the emphasis. Asking back can also go a long way in debunking deception: "Are you serious about this?". A good reporter or HR person, if they can read the signs well, can ask back. And synchronicity means whether what I say is in sync with how I say it. For example, if I say, "well, that's absolutely true", and I turn my head to the side, to the right or left, then it's out of sync, I can be betrayed by the non-verbal signal.

But to notice micro signs in the other person, like a twitch of the eyebrows or a slight twitch of the mouth, you have to pay close attention to the other person.

You have said the key concept: one hundred percent active attention. If I only pay partial attention to the other person, I can't read the signals. If I maintain eye contact with him, I can both maintain their attention and I can better observe their signals. The emotions come through the voice as vibrations, the voice changes.

The look is also important, as the eyes transmit 80 percent of the information.

During my training sessions, we also practice certain micro-expressions in front of a mirror. With 43 muscles inside the face, we can observe our own facial reactions and then read each other's better.

What characterizes negotiation techniques these days?

For example, in the past, using first names was almost taboo, but nowadays, it creates a more friendly atmosphere, which can help a negotiation. For example, touching the forearm is a sign of trust. A two-handed handshake expresses friendliness. Shaking hands is a topic in its own right, especially now that covid has changed the social distance between two people. It also affects the atmosphere in negotiations. In the online space, you can often only be seen chest-high, but if the camera is wrongly set up, you can only see the nose and forehead, which is very uncomfortable. Many non-verbal signals are lost, but also vocal communication is only partially audible if the microphone is not of high enough quality or the noise cancelling is not adequate.

I've read that the Japanese pay attention to everything in a meeting, for example, they like to sit around a glass conference table because this way they can see the legs too.

This is one of my favorite topics, and I always suggest to clients to sit around a glass table if possible. I can read the other party much better when I see them that way. It's no coincidence that politicians often speak from behind a closed lectern, where they are only visible from the waist up and you can't see their legs. Our legs are the most honest part of our body. We learn to control our face over time. For example, small children, when they are lying, they will even cover their mouth, unconsciously signalling that oops, I said something I shouldn't have. As an adult, touching the nose, and scratching the nose, can be linked to lying. There are many different types of lying signs, this is just one possible one of many, not to be singled out.

No doubt, with practice we can have incredible control over our face, hence the saying: "to lie without flinching". But our legs are so far away from our heads that we can't control them as much.

If I start drumming my feet, it could mean I'd rather be out of this conversation now, of course, I might just have to go to the bathroom, so I'd rush the meeting. Perhaps all of this is not reflected on my face at all, I smile sweetly, nodding my head in a cute way, while I would like to hurry to the toilet. It's also good to read the other person's signals at times like this, for example, not to start discussing a longer section, or to ask if you think we should take a break, if you're in a hurry we can come back to it at another time. The negotiation will be much more efficient, our communication will be much more honest and so will the other person.

I understand that 50-70 percent of the success of business negotiations is determined by non-verbal communication in the first few minutes. What do you think about this statement?

I agree with it. Research shows that the negotiator's mind is already made up within the first five minutes of whether or not the deal is going to go through. Everybody instinctively looks at whether the other party is themselves, whether they are telling the truth or not. If you can convince your counterpart of this in the first five minutes, you have a winning case. In fact, you don't have five minutes, you have seven seconds because the first impression is made in seven seconds. Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, has researched this seven seconds, and based on it, we classify the opposing party into two categories: dislikable or likable. The question is: based on the second impression, do we give, do we get another chance? There, by the way, we are already using 101 observation criteria, including how the other person is dressed or how attractive they are to me, no matter what gender they are.

Your brain will run the program in a few seconds. It is very difficult to repeat the first impression because there is no such thing as a second first impression.

That's why it makes a difference what kind of preparation precedes an important negotiation or an event that is important to us.

What are the typical areas where people ask you for help?

The most common area is negotiation, and my clients are mainly salespeople and sales managers. How they can sell something without the other feeling pushed but at the same time making the other party want to buy from them. I also move along HR lines, the headhunter wants better interviews, and the job seeker wants to appear confident. I also work with several influencers, with them the focus is mainly on video acting, such as gestures. I've had clients who gesture with their index finger in their videos, it's quite threatening, but they don't mean it to be. Such bad habits can be very well replaced by positive signals. I've been through a lot of things, proposing, winning a girl back, legal cases, even witness preparation, negotiating with the boss, negotiating a salary, or sometimes I get a video and I am asked to analyze the body language. I could also mention when someone is preparing for a presentation and is not a routine performer or wants to improve. Getting up on stage, touching the microphone, putting on your best smile to communicate more confidently - these are all part of body language, and everyone can learn them.