Where frozen meals and leftover pastries helped to get out of the slump

The row of houses blend into the quiet idyll of the Bükk mountains, but the early evening breeze brings a cheerful chatter from one of them. A teenage boy is emptying a bucket full of dirty water as the final stage of a car wash. A girl, a little younger, looking after the little ones in the garden, lets us in through the gate. As I make friends with the teddy-bear-shaped dog, she cries out enthusiastically, "'The babies are out next door!" - And she bends over the fence. But there is no shortage of children in their place, either, as István Fenyvesi and Andrea Fenyvesiné Pákozdi have a whole football team of children of their own.

The oldest is 23 years old and the baby of the family is four.

In birth order, they are Máté, Domonkos, Gellért, Réka, Teréz, Gergely, Fülöp, Rita, Bernadett, Dániel, and Benedek. The older ones are away from home, earning their own bread and pocket money. Máté is working full-time in Budapest, Domonkos is studying at the university, in a dual training scheme. Gellért is saving for college in Gödöllő after graduation, while playing folk music in an amateur band as a hobby. Réka is spending a few weeks at Lake Balaton, not on a holiday but babysitting. According to István, it's a kind of necessity, as they can't afford everything. "I'm constantly worried about whether it will be enough, whether we can pay it, what needs to be delayed. The kids are growing and we need more and more, but we've left it up to God before and so far we've always managed to make ends meet. When I say no to something because there is no money for it, Andi starts praying and it works out. Once when the nearby sanatorium was being renovated, they filled our fridge with frozen food. When our debts piled up and our car broke down, we inherited." Gergő, 13, also remembers when they lived in Gyál and got leftovers from the bakery on weekends. And Andi remembers the old Skoda car her dad's friend had given them, so she could carry her then four-year-old Máté to kindergarten.

Where the gynaecologist acknowledged another pregnancy with obscene words

The Fenyvesi family seems to like taking risks. Not out of recklessness, just because of their trust in God. They belong to a Catholic community with whom they are walking the neocatechumenal way. That is why they have received all their children as a gift from God. "We saw before us an example of how to pass on life as God's co-workers. We know several couples who, after hearing the call, have taken on six children in addition to one or two. And if someone wants to have a child, but does not have one, they must accept it with trust," says the mother of the large family who has prayed through all her pregnancies. Máté and Gellért were born at 32 weeks, the latter with pneumonia. After that, the doctor asked, "Andrea, you're not having any more kids, are you?"

It was only six months later when the next baby answered the question, which the gynaecologist acknowledged with obscene words.

During a miscarriage, Andi's uterus was punctured. "I had to learn my limits because every pregnancy had its problems. Including my five miscarriages, we have 16 children."

Six years ago, before the arrival of the tenth new arrival, the Fenyvesi family made a bold decision: they gave up their crowded but familiar home in Gyál, István's leading position in a car repair shop, and moved to a picturesque village near Eger, Felsőtárkány. Many people thought the idea was crazy, but they called it a mission. The Archbishop of Eger invited the neocatechumenal community to come and evangelize. It is not compulsory to answer this invitation, but the Fenyvesi family, together with the older children, said yes. The decision brought new challenges: finding a house, a kindergarten, schools, and a job in the area. István calls it a miracle how they found their current home at the last minute, before giving birth and starting school. "Every time a baby arrived, I was afraid that my life would change again and I would have to give up something. But we were never left without a solution, so I was finally able to let go of my worry."

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The Fenyvesi couple, Andrea and István - Photo: Fenyvesi family

Where there is room for eleven, sometimes there is room for thirty

While we chat around the dining table, sometimes the younger ones jump up and run out into the garden to play. When they get hungry, Rita makes them some sandwiches. The little ones are also bustling about on weekdays. "There's no barrier in front of them. If they want to, they go into the big ones' rooms or shout if they won't let them in. " István says with a laugh. "It's obviously annoying if they're too loud, but after a while, you can turn off the stimulus. If I'm working on the laptop and they're talking to me, after a while I feel guilty because they are more important and they take advantage of that." 

"Their personalities are different, of course. Some don't need as much attention or have given up. The other goes on and on, asking questions, sitting on laps, crawling on necks until they finally get the attention."

Gergő also reveals other handy tips, such as how to have a great conversation while setting the table or doing other chores. "When they show up and start fussing around me, I know they have something to say," Andi smiles in agreement.
In a family this size, it's hard to notice when the total number of people increases. "At first it's unusual to have one more person, but everyone fits into our family. It's just people who look at us strangely," says Tessza, who is about to start high school. There is a war for good seats in the minibus and cliques have been formed, but when they leave home they still move together. Gergő would really miss having no one to talk to when he's bored.
The Fenyvesi family is flexible about travel; those who can't fit in the nine-passenger car take the bus. They are also good at hospitality. Andi and István recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. Dozens of guests came to the event, and 30 of them stayed overnight at the house in Felsőtárkány. The children ganged up and preferred to sleep on the floor, next to each other, rather than in their own place. They set up folding tables in the living room, cook outside in fine weather, and no one was left hungry.

Where the value of the gift does not matter

There is a kindergarten and primary school in Felsőtárkány, and István works locally. He drops off the little ones in the mornings, and Andi picks them up in the afternoons with a bit of shopping. They are also blessed to be able to go to folk dance, karate, drama, and music classes at the local Village Hall. The high school students study in Eger and are self-sufficient. 
For more than two decades, Andi focused only on family, but when her youngest, Benedek, turned three, finances forced her to work. "I was temporarily employed as a nurse in the hospital, but it was difficult to get back into the job, the probation period was spent learning new things. When it ended, I soon got another offer. In hindsight, I understood that the initial two months were a stepping stone that God had prepared." 

"I am now a full-time district nurse in three villages. It's a joy to meet newborn babies and pass on my experience to parents."

When Andi gets home from work, the first thing she does is check the tasks. After all, no one should be exempt from housework. Two by two, they are assigned to tidy up the rooms, and there's also a chart on the wall to show who's loading the dishwasher, preparing dinner, or setting the table. István is the chef, it's his hobby. On weekends, there are usually one or two soups and two or three main courses, but weekday dinners are simpler. It's a big help that they get a lot of vegetables from Grandma. The neighbour's also very helpful, willing to look after the children, bake cakes and sew for them.
Although finances are tight, there are personal as well as shared gifts under the Christmas tree. "We mainly buy necessities, but if someone wants something more serious, like a bicycle, the family pulls together," says István, who received a pencil with a homemade ornament from Betti for his last birthday, and Rita got candy and non-alcoholic beer from her pocket money. Because what counts here is not the value of the gift, but the thoughtful love.

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Two Hungarian Nobel Prizes in two days. It would be hard to argue with the claim that this was one of the most outstanding weeks in our country's scientific history. People walked around from Budapest to Szombathely to Békéscsaba as they did when the Hungarian football team beat one of the strongest teams on the continent: proudly, with their heads held high. Because at such times we feel that this is a joint success, the success of a nation whose most outstanding members are applauded by the world. And even though Ferenc Krausz lives in Germany and works as a professor at the University of Munich, he accepted the award as a Hungarian scientist: "My Nobel Prize is a Hungarian prize," he said.

Science for the physicist, magic for the layman

His work looks exactly as we imagine it. Electrical wires piled up to the top, seemingly in a tangled mess, metal boxes with functions we can't imagine, lasers, and all sorts of dazzling devices on metal tables and desks with holes in them, which we don't even need to name because for us it's pure magic. And that need not be understood by everyone; it is enough that only exceptional minds are allowed by God to enter the gate of secret knowledge, which we can only guess at the effect it will have on our lives.

For the scientist, it is possible to do what is inconceivable to anyone else: interpret time in billionths of a second, and even take a picture of this incomprehensibly short moment in time.

For those who may have last heard of atoms and electrons back in their school days, the research for which Ferenc Krausz was awarded the Nobel Prize with two other colleagues, Pierre Agostini, and Anne L'Huillier, is also of interest: “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”

Let's not be frightened by the word "attosecond", which is the unimaginably short moment of time in physics mentioned earlier. "Because electrons are more than a thousand times lighter than the atom and faster, you need a light pulse of extraordinary speed to capture their motion, but this cannot be produced in the visible light range, only much shorter wavelengths than light, so-called ultraviolet or extreme ultraviolet light," Ferenc Krausz explained to Élet és Tudomány (‘Life and Science’) magazine.

The experiment
"An excitation laser was fired into a container of noble gas, where the interaction caused the laser to excite the atoms in the gas, which emitted additional electromagnetic radiation (overharmonics). At certain intervals, these electromagnetic waves come into phase with each other and, in a very brief moment of time, are greatly amplified by the principle of interference, and then extinguish each other in the next very brief moment. A wave activity runs on the attosecond scale from large excursion to extinction. This is one billionth of a billionth of a second, or 10^–18 seconds. There is a special branch of physics that deals with processes that take place in such a short time, called attosecond physics, which is a young branch of laser physics," explains physicist Péter Mati when asked.

If we imagine that we can continuously click with a camera and compile the resulting images as a film, the camera used by the physicist will take real-time pictures of the structural changes in atoms, i.e. the dynamics of the electrons in the atoms, at a much faster "shutter speed" than an ordinary camera. These images can also be assembled into a "film", capturing the changes that occur in a few attoseconds.

Help's on the way!

But you may wonder what we can do with the knowledge we have gained from Ferenc Krausz and his fellow scientists. 
"Perhaps the most promising application of attophysics is in medicine. Illuminating cell samples with attosecond light can vibrate the electrons in their structure. In the cell, the molecules thus vibrated also emit radiation, which, after signal processing, can reveal certain differences between a healthy and a diseased cell, even in the initial stages of disease. Research along these lines is already underway under Krausz's leadership at the recently established Center for Molecular Fingerprinting," says Péter Mati.

One of the goals of the Centre is to make infrared molecular fingerprints a cornerstone of next-generation molecular diagnostics, opening up new ways to comprehensively assess the health of the population and detect diseases early. Today, we can only imagine how this discovery will change our quality of life, but in a few years' time, the technology of attosecond physics is likely to become part of our everyday lives.

And what is the mind of a real scientist like? Instead of leaning back in his armchair and resting on his laurels, he's already thinking of new challenges.

Future projects will focus on mapping the complex processes that take place in biological molecules. This could be best achieved by capturing the attosecond flashes of X-rays, which have wavelengths comparable to or shorter than the size of atoms and can therefore capture the movement of electrons at the atomic or molecular level. This would allow their motion to be reproduced in any complex system, which would be very important for detecting the progress of diseases, for example.

It is possible that Hungary could make a major contribution to the creation of the first electron video camera, which could also be used in healthcare. And there is something else: electrotechnology could be used not only to protect our health directly, but also indirectly: knowing and understanding how electrons move and what causes them to move could help to make computers process data at even higher speeds, or the internet faster. This would not only increase data traffic but would also make it possible to predict natural disasters faster.

One for all

Ferenc Krausz is so much of a non-individualist that as soon as he heard that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize, his first thought was how many colleagues' work had contributed to this achievement, he told the newspaper "Magyar Nemzet" ('Hungarian Nation'). Another important issue for the scientist is to stand up for issues that are important to all of us, such as education.

Within a newly established cooperation (SKOLA+ program), he provides financial support to primary and secondary school teachers who undertake to tutor children in need or from highly disadvantaged backgrounds, be they Ukrainian, Hungarian, or German.

On his visits home, Krausz saw the masses of people fleeing the war and was so moved that he and his colleagues at his research base set up a charity association specifically to support the victims of the war in Ukraine. A significant part of his current Nobel Prize prize money will also be distributed by the association he set up. This is not the first time that the Hungarian physicist has donated to charity: he has already donated a large part of the Wolf Prize he won and the whole of the Frontiers of Knowledge Prize.

Dr Katalin Karikó received the call from Stockholm at 4 a.m. on 2 October 2023 to become one of this year's Nobel laureates. She has spent 24 years researching the mysterious messenger RNA, hoping to find a way to communicate with the body. To use the message-carrying molecule to deliver a biological blueprint to the body that could help with cellular healing.

It took five years for her to publish the results because the scientific press failed to see the enormous value of the discovery. The message we want to get to our cells reaches its destination today. The technique developed by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissmann could in the future also play a role in the treatment of cancer, stroke, or hypertension.

After all, most healing actually depends on our ability to communicate in the right way... Are we sending the right message? Do we have the right messenger? Can we get the message - physical or spiritual - to where it is needed? Is the message inspiring enough to trigger action?

Katalin Karikó's struggles in her private life and in her scientific research show similarities as if she had always seen the things she experienced in the world on a smaller scale, under her microscope.

The girl from Kisújszállás has come a long way to get her message to the right place, and this message could and will be able to shape the destiny of mankind.

"One day, a guy walked into the lab and said they had brought lipofectin for a beta test, it would bring in nucleic acid, and I immediately ran up and said that's what I needed," Katalin said of the moment when her research had a breakthrough. But to get this unexpected gift, she needed to be in the lab with all her knowledge at the right moment.

Katalin Karikó was born in Kisújszállás, her father was a butcher, and her mother an accountant. She went to the local primary school and high school, then became a student at the University of Szeged. During one summer holiday, she locked herself up with her language book for two months, and that's how she learned English in Kisújszállás, never taking a language course, never even crossing the city limits.

Her university lecturer often quoted János Selye's credo, who was then emerging on the international scene: focus on what you can change and don't spend time on what you don't have control over. Let us not try to change others, but simply do our job. 35 years later, Katalin heard these words echoed at a Selye event. "Progress can only be achieved with ideas that are vastly different from those currently accepted," said the chemist and stress researcher János (Hans) Selye, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize 17 times during his lifetime.

Katalin Karikó brought János Selye's worldview with her from her alma mater and incorporated it into her personality.

She started her scientific work at the Biological Research Centre of Szeged in the 1980s, but after a few years of research, she was dismissed due to downsizing and laboratory technical limitations. The family packed up and Katalin got a job at Temple University in Pennsylvania when their daughter Zsuzsanna was two and a half. Katalin wanted to run home after a week because the atmosphere at the university was overwhelming and she missed her friends and relatives.

"I was forced to rely on my talent," she recalls. In American scientific life, jobs ran from grant to grant, and work often went into the night because you had to prove your research direction with successful experiments. How could the mysterious messenger RNA be induced from the outside to instruct the cell to create useful molecules, build medicines to heal the body, or simulate an infection to which the body could produce antibodies?

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has tried to apply the method in the treatment of stroke patients. The basic idea was that it would be worthwhile to dilate blood vessels in the brain area with impaired blood supply by RNA instruction. The body uses a specific compound to do this, but this molecule transforms too quickly in the blood to be delivered to the right place by injection. However, the method did not work initially, with the body treating the partisan RNA as the enemy, identifying the messenger of healing as the enemy.

The secret was that we had to learn about the body's friend-enemy recognition system, the appearance of RNA molecules in our own cells, or as the Katalins called it, "body painting".

It turned out that our cells carry our body's dress code, and access is only possible in the dress code!

Once they found this out, they managed to smuggle their own message into the cells, repainted as friendly. The mRNA vaccines when entering the body use this idea to induce the cells to produce a protective substance.

"I am not a hero, the doctors and nurses who went to the patients are the heroes, I was just having fun in the laboratory," Katalin said with a smile. For decades she was sure of her truth, even though she was subjected to a lot of scientific hostility, lost her job several times, and crossed the ocean to do what she believed in. More than once, she created a new way of life for her family in a foreign environment. When she finally succeeded in getting nucleic acid into the cell, she celebrated with chocolate hazelnuts. When troubles got too much for her, she drew strength from a song by the Hungarian singer, Zorán entitled Diamonds and Gold.

Sources of quotes:
https://medicalonline.hu/kitekinto/cikk/szerdan_jelenik_meg_kariko_katalin_oneletrajza   
https://mta.hu/tudomany_hirei/kariko-katalin-nobel-dijas-111642 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJisRE5BwXo&t=1952s 
 

She lost one parent painfully early: she was just 11 when her 42-year-old father died of lung disease. Her brothers were drafted to fight during the war, and only two of the three returned home safely, as Sári néni's 17-year-old brother was shot dead by the Germans for not obeying an order.

He was given the order to blow up the bridge at Komárom, which leads from Slovakia to Hungary even today. 

"He was a very handsome boy with curly blond hair and blue eyes. My mother found out about his death because my brother's landlord had witnessed the incident and buried my brother in his garden. When the soldiers who had been buried all over the place began to be collected, the authorities approached my mother saying that there would be an excavation and she could confirm her son's body. There were two large brown birthmarks on my brother's feet close to one another, and that's how my mother identified him."

Life and work in the Habsburg castle in Alcsút

Sári néni started working in 1938, before the Second World War broke out, at the Habsburg castle in Alcsút, where she served as a maid for six years. She was the youngest servant of all, having joined the family at the very young age of 13. She joined the Archduke's residence when her aunt, who was the maid to Archduchess Maria Augusta, wife of Archduke Joseph Augustus of Habsburg-Lotharingia, recommended her to the family. 
"I knew every nook and cranny of the castle. The building had at least 200 rooms, but there were also many bathrooms and other rooms.

I had to tidy five rooms and two long corridors every day.

You didn't have to do a major clean-up, but you always had to do a decent job."
Sári néni, like the other maids, lived in the castle, giving her an even better insight into the everyday life of the Archduke's family. It was not difficult for her to see how strict the governesses were with the noble children. Archduke Joseph Augustus' son, Joseph Franz of Habsburg-Lotharingia, had eight children. Sári néni can still remember two of them very well: she can clearly recall what Archduchess Kinga and Archduke Mihály were like as children. He was known to everyone as Mitu. 
"Poor little Archduke Mitu once cried so hard! I told the governess about it, and she said, "Sárika, that's what he's supposed to do!” I broke into tears hearing that sentence. In our house, no one ever said that a little child is supposed to cry, even though there were nine of us brothers and sisters. And the Archduchess Kinga was about five or six years old when her governess caught her primping in front of a mirror and as a punishment, she told her she couldn't leave the house that day."

"They didn't want her to brag about her beauty, even though she was a very beautiful little girl."

Fleeing from the Archduke's residence

The staff serving in the castle of Alcsút were treated in a privileged manner by the archducal family: they were rewarded with new clothes, shoes, or boots on holidays, and no one was singled out for special treatment. But they also helped the people of the village and those in need. They also supported several large families, where, when the girls got married, they were each given dowries. When they were forced to leave the family estate at the end of the war, they hoped to return within two weeks, but this was not to be. In Sári néni’s opinion, they did not deserve this cruel treatment.
Finally, in 1944, the castle was burnt down by the Russian army. Aunt Sári was still working there then, but fortunately, she managed to leave the building in time. Two officers accompanied her home - they on horseback, while Sári néni made the journey on foot. She took only what she could carry with her from the castle, the rest of her belongings were all consumed by the flames.
"As I was leaving with another maid, part of the castle was already so in flames that it was shocking to look at! The two officers told us not to stop and look around, otherwise, we would have burned inside.

Everything we had was left there. All our beautiful clothes, coats, shoes, tablecloths, how could I have carried them all out of the building in my hands?

We gave some of the worst of the Archduke's clothes to German soldiers, we made them change because we were so sorry to leave  everything behind."

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Photo: László Katona

In search of a valuable gold bar

Shortly before the castle was burnt down, Sári néni underwent a severe ordeal, as she was imprisoned in Bicske and interrogated along with several other maids. A valuable gold bar had disappeared from the noble family's estate, and the police questioned the staff of the castle about it.

"When it was my turn, the police asked me how many gold bars I had taken from the castle. I was very surprised, I told them to stop joking about it. Then, in front of my eyes, the Russians started beating up an elderly maid who had committed the crime. They told me that I would get the same treatment if the soldiers found the gold in our house. I told them that then I would never be beaten! They asked me if I was sure, and I said I was absolutely sure." 
Sári néni was not allowed to go home until the next morning. Then she was escorted home by police officers, which made her feel bad, as she was afraid of prejudice and knew that everyone in the village knew her. After that, there was another serious incident when Sári néni had to deal with the police. She was beaten up when she refused to go to forced labour because she was weakened by pneumonia, which had threatened her life before.

She was hit with a shotgun blast - she was lucky that she was well dressed, wearing several layers of clothing, so she was not seriously injured. 

"When I got sick, I had a very high fever, I couldn't eat. One of the military officers, who was also a doctor, asked me to undress so he could examine me. I didn't want to, and I didn't want to let him give me the penicillin injection, which was then coming into fashion, but we didn't know it yet. The doctor knelt down by my bed and begged me, "Let him give it to you, little girl, otherwise you'll die." I finally let him. He gave me three more injections in addition to the first one. He would have given me more, but he had to go on to other places. Thank God, I was healed!"

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Photo: László Katona

Graduating from eighth grade as a mother of two

On 3 February 1951, at the age of 26, Sári néni married the neighbour's son, the same man she went to school with. They had two children, a son and a daughter. She had a good relationship with her husband, but unfortunately, he died of a stroke after 20 years of marriage.
Sári néni was always good at school: her report card, which she still keeps, was full of straight A's. She attended eight classes in all, although the last two she completed as an adult and a mother of two. She graduated from eighth grade the same year as her own son.
"There was a math problem my son had trouble solving. I told him I would go and help him in a minute.

Then he said:” But you haven’t even learnt it yet!”

Nevertheless, I started to look into that problem. It was one with exponentiation. I noticed that he had missed a step. I told him that he should always pay attention and that he should always do a cross-check of everything. He was very grateful for the help."

Her heart went out to those in need

Sári néni loved not only to learn but also to work. After her years at the castle, she worked in a sewing factory, then in the local mayor's office, but she also worked as a caregiver. She had to look after people in three villages, going around to see if the needy had medicine and food. Even though she wasn't allowed to - and it wasn't in her job description - she selflessly helped those who needed it. 
"Sometimes I cooked them lunch. My folks at home hadn't even tasted my cooking and I was already taking it to the poor. And once an elderly lady hadn't had her wood chopped up because the lumberjack had fallen ill, so I sawed a day or two's worth for her."

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Photo: László Katona

Sári néni says that her life has flown by in a flash; she feels as if she had just been a kid. She never thought she would live to be so old. She says the secret of it all is that she is in God's grace.

She still reads the Bible regularly today, she says, because she believes it leads us straight.

She is happy that God has directed her life so that she could stay in her home village. All her memories are here, she could not go anywhere else, and she does not want to. Her family, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are close by and she loves them very much. One of her great-grandchildren told her that she wished Sári néni would never leave her. Not even when she is grown up!

From on-call to the Morca cave

Dr Zsófia Zádor, an anaesthesiologist and intensive care specialist, was on her way to her workplace, the Kenessey Albert Hospital in Balassagyarmat, on the morning of 3 September when her phone rang.

Within hours, it became clear that she had to leave for a faraway destination: Turkey.

The Morca cave in the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey had been the site of a caving expedition for days, but one of the team, American Mark Dickey, fell ill on 1 September while deep in the cave, suffering from abdominal pain and vomiting blood. On 2 September, his fiancée Jessica, who was also part of the team, contacted Dr. Dénes Ákos Nagy, the medical officer of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service (BMSZ), and asked him for advice on what medication she could give Mark to help him at the depth of 1,000 meters. From there, events accelerated, as by 3 September the man's condition had deteriorated and it became clear that rescue would be needed.

At 1276 meters deep, Morca Cave is the third deepest cave in Turkey. Discovered in 1996, the international cave exploration community has increased the number of known passages year after year with regular exploration expeditions. The 2023 expedition, of which Mark and Jessica were both members, aimed to explore the deepest part of the cave and to map new passages that have been discovered in recent years. They also wanted to collect samples of bacteria and fungi of unknown origin covering the wall surfaces.

The rescue, we now know, was a success – the Hungarian team members arrived home on the night of 14 September, and after a few hours' sleep, they gave a detailed account of what happened and how. 

"We are very good friends"

The Hungarian Cave Rescue Service was founded in 1961 and became an association thirty years later. They provide assistance to people in difficult situations in caves or other hard-to-reach places. Since their start, they have had hundreds of alerts, helping around 500 people, mainly within the borders, but this was not the first time they had been called abroad.

In this case, the Hungarians were the quickest to react in Europe: the situation of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service is unique among similar European organizations because they have two doctors on their team who are able to go down to such depths and work there.

One of them is Dr. Zsófia Zádor. 

"I've been hiking since I was a child, which must have had something to do with my fascination with this world," she begins when I ask her how a doctor becomes a caver. She says she started caving during her university years. On the afternoon of 3 September, four of them – Zsófia Zádor and three cave rescuers – boarded a plane from Budapest, arrived at the cave at dawn the next day, and after 13 hours of strenuous climbing, they made their way down to the patient.

Zsófia Zádor didn't know what to expect beforehand, as communication with the people deep down the cave was difficult. "I had a scenario in my head that the patient would no longer be waiting for me. I tried to ignore that one. The other was that we might meet halfway down on the rope," she says. In the end, a third, lucky scenario came true. Mark's paramedic fiancée, after coming out of the cave to ask for help, went back down to join Mark and his team in the deep. She was able to replenish fluids by intravenous infusion and was able to give antacids and medication to him, thus preventing his circulation from collapsing.

And what was the moment of meeting them like?

"Everyone was smiling, I remember that much. But Mark was very pale, which indicated that he had lost a lot of blood," Dr. Zádor recalls.

-  We are very good friends," says the doctor, as the members of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service have known the American caver for a long time.
"An exchange program between Hungarian and American caving instructors started eight years ago. Mark was the first instructor to come to Hungary from the US and then became actively involved in the Hungarian caving scene. So when he got sick, Jessica contacted me straight away," explains Medical Director Dénes Ákos Nagy.

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A moment of the rescue - Photo: Hungarian Cave Rescue Service

Intensive Care Unit at a depth of a thousand meters

The forced ICU was set up in a bivouac at a depth of 1,040 meters. (Bivouacs are small areas away from the water, having as much horizontal surface as possible, suitable for only a few people to sleep in down in the cave).
"It was interesting to create this small intensive care unit at a depth of a thousand meters. Different medical equipment kept coming down to me. I was constantly watching for side effects and kept trying to avoid complications," she explains.
In the meantime, blood products had to be obtained from the Turkish authorities, which were constantly being brought down by small teams.
"By the time the doctor got down, the patient had been bleeding for 30 hours. We knew that a gastroscopy was not possible. There was also no way to stop the bleeding, so we had to use continuous intensive therapy, which could treat the consequences of the bleeding." 

"It was like filling a leaky pot for six days until the patient could come to the surface," the medical director sums up. 

"The danger of gastrointestinal bleeding is that it can worsen or improve relatively quickly at any time. When I was down there, he had such an exacerbation. After the first blood transfusion Mark was fine, he felt he could come out on his own. I suggested that he should be brought out on a stretcher because I expected his condition to deteriorate. 6-7 hours before I left, he almost had another circulatory collapse, which was eventually prevented," says Zsófia Zádor. – When I felt he was better, I took a nap for two or three hours, but I told the others to wake me up if anything happened." During her days in the cave, the doctor also had her low points: she struggled with shoulder pain, and it was alarming for her when Mark's condition worsened.
"If we don't get there on time, he probably won't survive" – she says when I ask her what she thinks the chances would have been for the sick caver without medical help.  Finally, he was brought up on a stretcher, by which time Zsófia Zádor was already on the surface, having been replaced by Italian, Bulgarian, and Croatian doctors. Finally, on Monday 11 September, a few minutes before midnight, Mark Dickey was brought to the surface. The exact diagnosis was not known in the cave, but it was suspected to be a stomach ulcer. This was confirmed: Mark was taken by helicopter to the hospital after the rescue, where he was seen in a state of severe haemorrhage. He was given more blood and a gastroscopy was performed. He has now been discharged from intensive care.

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Mark Dickey during the rescue operation - Photo: Hungarian Cave Rescue Service

Two hundred people took part in the rescue 

The first four-member Hungarian team's flight ticket was bought by the president of the association, Dr. Miklós Nyerges. After that, two more Hungarian missions were able to travel with the help of the Counter Terrorism Centre (TEK), the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The purpose of the mission was to take additional medical equipment to the site, and to keep the first team alive with food and warm clothing.

29 Hungarian cave rescuers took part in the rescue: in addition to the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service, the Bakony Cave Rescue Service and Hungarian cave explorers from Transylvania also helped.

At an international level, a total of 200 people took part in the operation. The situation was made easier by the fact that the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service is a voluntary organization, so they did not have to wait for the bureaucratic channels and an official invitation letter from the Turkish authorities – unlike the state-run services of other nations. "If we had to wait for that, Mark would not have survived," says Ákos Nagy.

The deepest cave in Hungary is 300 meters deep, compared to the Morca cave, which is situated at a depth of more than 1,000 meters. Right at the entrance, you are greeted by a ten-meter drop, so you have to use a full-body harness straight away. The cave system is divided by vertical shafts with horizontal passages in between. "You have to climb up the ropeways by your own human strength, there are no other mechanized solutions. Even the patient in the stretcher had to be carried up by hand," explains András Hegedűs, the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service’s head of operations.
The average temperature is 3-4 degrees Celsius all year round, with a humidity of 100 percent. Working in these conditions, and the lack of communication was also a problem, as between 1040 meters and 500 meters, there were no means of contact or only with the help of couriers. The fact that, after Dr Zádor went down to the patient, those on the surface did not receive any meaningful information about what was happening down there for two days is a good illustration of this problem.

The rescue operation in numbers 
During the rescue operation, 1,500 meters of rope and 400 other devices (carabiners, belaying points) were used. Sometimes there were close to a hundred passages on a single section of rope in a single day, so if something broke, it had to be replaced. A special ropeway was built to bring the patient to the surface on a stretcher: 2,500 meters of rope and 1,000 pieces of equipment were needed. 36 hours was the longest someone could stay down there without sleeping. Fifty descents were made by the Hungarian team, and more than 2,000 working hours were invested in the rescue.

The rescue service has five to seven emergency calls a year, and such an organization can only be sustained by professional caving volunteers who go to caves and practice in their free time because it is their hobby, their passion. 

Their operations are funded by the 1% of tax offerings, but recently they have also received specific donations.

(In Hungary, you can request that 1% of your previous year's paid personal income taxes be given to support a non-profit organization – translator’s note)
They hope that they will be supported even when there is no such large-scale action. Simply so that they can exist and be available when they are needed.
 

We've been friends for 15 years. I remember standing in line at the cafeteria of the Reformed High School in Tata, when you walked up to me, we didn’t know each other but complimented my hair. You have a kind word for everyone, and you always listen to others with attention and interest. Where does this receptivity come from?
It's a spiritual character trait, but I owe a lot to my mother, my childhood role models and perhaps also to adversity. My mother raised me as a single mom, on a cleaning lady's salary, in a small one-room apartment, yet I had a wonderful childhood. We spent a lot of time together and had an intimate relationship – and still do. The school years were not easy because the kids excluded me and often made mean remarks on my origins; I never understood why my classmates did that, because at home it was just natural that we were Roma. Despite all this, I never considered myself a victim.

I don't like the victim role, because it reinforces prejudice.

This start helped me to have a different perspective, I really appreciate what I got from my mother and everything we had.

You were the first in your family to get a diploma and a language certificate. You are a social worker and special needs teacher, you are fluent in German and speak English at an advanced level. What motivated you?
My mother supported and motivated me to study hard, set goals and achieve them. For me, she is the strongest person I know, because she sacrificed her whole life for me, and she is still doing everything for me and my son, living with us in Berlin. I am a single mother and my mother's presence means a lot. She has been through a lot of trials and tribulations, as she was only 15 years old when she was orphaned. She was never able to continue her studies because she had to work, and the hard physical work caused her to develop a number of chronic illnesses, which she still suffers from today. She raised me on a cleaning lady's salary, yet she gave me everything, I never felt short of anything.

Did you have any other role models?
Apart from my mother, I was helped on my way by exemplary people, who were truly great to me, such as Dr. Attila Kálmán, the late founder and former principal of the Reformed High School of Tata, my godmother, or my mother's primary school class teacher, Iza Körmendi, who followed and helped us throughout our lives. Their presence and love meant a lot. The words of Dr. Attila Kálmán are still with me today, his motto was "Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be glory". He lived by this. He was not only my headmaster, my class teacher, my teacher, but also my greatest role model after my mother.

I miss such simple, ordinary, yet great people in today's world who are lights in their own communities.

Last but not least, of course, my faith in God was a big driving force.

How did you find your Roma identity?
Despite all the support, many people made me feel different. Apart from my family, I had no contact with other Roma people in Tata. This changed at college. I studied at Wesley John College of Ministry, in the eighth district in Budapest, where I had several Roma classmates. During those years, I won many scholarships: from Roma Veritas, Roma Education Fund, Cinka Panna Roma Cultural Association. Twice I was awarded a Republican scholarship, which had nothing to do with my Roma background – I earned it for my good academic performance. Later I was also awarded a scholarship to the Central European University Roma English Language program, where my classmates were all Romanian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian Roma. This was a very defining experience in my life and in strengthening my identity. I made lifelong friends there and gained a lot of knowledge and experience. Among other things, I met the girl who later referred me to Germany's largest organization for prostitutes and drug addicts, the Drogennotdienst. It was the first full-time job I ever had, working with Hungarian Roma prostitutes and drug addicts.

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Éva with her mother at her graduation - Photo: Éva Ádám

When I visited you in Berlin years ago, you showed me where you worked in the red light district. For me it was terrifying, I only saw the physical and mental misery and the heartbreaking life-stories of women. But you showed me around enthusiastically, introduced me to some of your clients, asked them how they were doing.Where did this passion come from, this calling to help those who are at their deepest?
I found my calling when I was 15. My German teacher, Eszter Bagdán, gave me a book by Teri Szűcs. The title is: Nobody is here by chance - stories of residents and staff from the KIMM drug center in Ráckeresztúr (‘Senki sincs itt véletlenül – lakók és munkatársak történetei a KIMM ráckeresztúri drogterápiás otthonból’). It is filled with the recovery stories of serious drug addicts who got clean through faith in God and therapy. Eight years later, I did my thesis on how deep faith in God helps people to quit. Besides my job as a social worker I did a year of volunteering in Germany that led me to become a special education teacher working with children with disabilities.

I'm really passionate about helping people, and I've taken as many opportunities as possible during my studies to gain practical knowledge.

I was an intern in the psychiatric unit of the Merényi Gusztáv Hospital, I had the opportunity to study with Dr. Gábor Zacher, I volunteered in several rehabs, women's programs and the Kékpont needle exchange.

At the beginning of your career you were not working with addicts, but provided low-threshold care for Hungarian prostitutes in Berlin. Why?
True, but there was a lot of overlap. I had a total of 120 street prostitute clients. Dr. Attila Kálmán always told me that the most important thing is to be human in all circumstances. That's essentially what I helped the girls with as a street social worker. I gave them condoms, accompanied them when they had abortions, translated, helped them deal with everyday things and listened to them. And the organization offered them a warm shelter. Since they were also involved in drug rehabilitation, I also participated in such a program as a therapist. I can proudly say that I also helped a German lady who had been a heroin addict since she was 12 years old to quit. She started taking drugs as a child in the infamous Zoo train station in West Berlin. The station, due to the failed German family policy of the time, was home to many homeless teenagers in a commune where, in addition to hard drug use, underage prostitution developed. This poignant story has been turned into a book by Christiane F. entitled Zoo Station, a memoire. It is a devastating account of Christiane's years at Zoo Station as a child. The story was later adapted into a film.

You have seen many difficult human fates, very few people can bear it. Was there anyone who had a big impact on you?

I could go on and on. There was a lot of atrocity among the mafia organisations from different nationalities organised on the streets.

Once a nine-month pregnant prostitute ran in with a knife in her back, but there was also a case when a conflict between Bulgarian and Hungarian girls ended with our office being sprayed with pepper spray.

Of course, besides the many difficult stories, there were also a few success ones: for example, a Hungarian girl who had worked as a prostitute for many years was turned to Christ. She gave up her life in Berlin and prostitution and moved back to Hungary to be with her family. 
Besides, the work itself was special for me, a Hungarian Roma woman, because I could see women who had grown up in the Roma tradition – where virginity and early marriage are important values – but were forced into prostitution. When the Transylvanian Roma girl in a traditional skirt and headscarf came in for 100 condoms, I was shocked. Half an hour later, she showed up looking completely different, dressed in the clothes she needed for her job. It is very ambivalent to see when individual tradition clashes with prostitution.

Society stigmatises these women. How did you see them?
What I learned is that these girls are very strong. Without exception, they come from traumatised backgrounds. Most of them are undocumented and some are living on the streets. They also struggle with addictions: to their pimps, gambling or drugs.

I learned that in street prostitution there is no such thing as motivation, only coercion.

The majority of the girls are coming from orphanages and started sex work because of poverty, lack of prospects, unemployment, racism against Roma and lack of education or a good example.

How have you been able to cope emotionally with all the impact that your work has had on you?
Being able not to engage emotionally and be there as a professional is an important pillar of my profession. Of course, there have been times when I have taken a story with me for a short period of time. As a professional I am there to help make the difficulties more bearable. Supervision and faith in God help me to get through a difficult case.

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Giving a presentation to prostitutes in Berlin - Photo: Éva Ádám

You often mention faith as a source of strength in your life. What does that mean to you?
As the Word says, God is my fortress, my rock. An important resting place for me is prayer, silence. It gives me peace of mind to know that I have a Creator who has my best interests at heart, who cares for me. I often don't understand why things happen, what God's purpose is in my life with them, but faith in His promise that He will ultimately work everything for my good helps me to carry the burden of everyday life. Without Him, it would be much harder for me to cope with everything. He is like an oasis for me, an oasis where I can draw strength from whenever I need to, and where I can rest. It also means taking my hands off the things I have no control over and giving them to God.

You have been living in Germany for almost seven years. For more than two years, you have been working as the educational director of Amaro Drom, one of the largest German Roma organisations, to educate the younger generation about Roma culture and history, and to reduce prejudice in society towards minority communities. How do you now relate to your roots?
I am proud of being Hungarian and of my Roma origin. My Hungarian mother tongue and my culture are very important.

After all this time living abroad, I really understand what home is.

I love Tata very much and I often feel homesick. I have many dreams: I would like to continue my studies and become an addictologist, and I want to use my knowledge and experience for the benefit of Hungary and the Roma community back home. I believe I can give hope to many Roma young people like me by telling my story and encouraging them to dare to dream.

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Éva and her son - Photo: Éva Ádám

Who are the people who keep you going, away from home, in the challenges of life in a foreign country?
Besides my faith in God, I have my mother and my two and a half year old son, Nanu. It is touching for me to experience that God cares for me here, even though I have had many difficulties. Dr. Attila Kálmán lives only in my memories and in my heart, but I know a Hungarian lady here in Berlin who is very much like him, Dr. Marianna Katona S.. They are close in age, too. She is also an exemplary person of the old times, I have a very close relationship with her, I owe a lot to her. Soli Deo Gloria, truly to God alone be the glory for all things!

This article was written by the author as a master's thesis for the communication training course "Journalism in the 21st Century" at the Faludi Ferenc Jesuit Academy. 
 

Cold training sessions, heated successes

He would be ninety-four were he still among us, but similarly to his speed on the track field, he reached his death earlier than others. Sándor Iharos became a world-class athlete even though he only started running seriously at the age of 20 - as his legendary coach Mihály Iglói put it, he was just a jogger before that. Under Iglói's tutelage, Iharos, along with István Rózsavölgyi and László Tábori, became a top-class athlete.

All three of them endured the hardship: the four to five hours of running each day that the Finland-trained coach demanded of his students without compromise. For him, there was only hard training, and many of the runners were injured by the pace he demanded, but those who didn't were the best. Iharos recalled: 'We were lucky. All three of us had loose, fibrous muscles and excellent joints that could withstand the agony of years of tremendous amounts of monotonous work."

The agony is well illustrated by a story written by András Kő in Magyar Nemzet magazine: "István Rózsavölgyi remembers running on Margaret island in the winter of 1955. But it was so cold that their breath froze on their faces. They literally refused to do any work that day. But Coach Iglói sat down on a snowbank and declared that he would not get up until Iharos and the others had finished their daily rations. They grabbed him, took him into one of the buildings and started running."

Thanks to this hard work, in 1955 and '56 Sándor Iharos had the best results in the world in all distances from 1500 metres to 10,000 metres, a performance that no other athlete has ever come close to.

That is why he and the public experienced what happened before, during and after the 1956 Melbourne Olympics as a tragic turn of events. Before the Games, even the Saturday Evening Post had predicted that Hungarian runners would be in the race for at least three or four gold medals, with Iharos a massive favourite in the 10,000 metres.

In the latter distance, on 15 July 1956, in the Népstadion, amidst the applause of 40,000 Hungarian fans, he set a world record: he beat Emil Zátopek's record by 12 (!) seconds. Even his defeated Czech rival congratulated him: "I have a feeling that Iharos will compete at 10,000 metres in Melbourne and the record of that distance will only stand until then," he said. And the Magyarország (Hungary) newspaper later wrote: "For the first time since the miracle runner Nurmi, there was once again an athlete on the globe who could call himself the holder of the 1500, 5000 and 10,000 metres world records at the same time".

Revolution and love swept everything away

Time magazine published a piece entitled Five Comrades about the fearsome Hungarian running team coached by Iglói as the world's best 1500m relay team. Iharos, who raced for Honvéd (Sports Club of the Military Forces), was portrayed as a thin, bony-faced Hungarian lieutenant who was not a member of the Communist Party and who, according to him, "had everything he knew about Marxism drummed into him at school". The article notes that "we can say goodbye to communist heroes" and describes Iharos as "In sport-happy Hungary, the atmosphere heats up when he shakes off his sweats and goes for a run."

However, after all these great expectations, the Hungarian revolution broke out in the autumn of 1956, ending Iharos's rising hopes – although we will never know the exact causes and events. One thing is certain: he had previously been suffering from an injury, but everyone was sure he would make it to the Olympics, he was nominated to the Olympic team. The Games were held in late November or early December that year, in line with the weather in the southern hemisphere, but Iharos did not attend the training camp in Tata in October, as his team-mate István Rózsavölgyi recalled in an interview with Napi Magyarország magazine in 1998.

"We came up to Pest for him on 23 October, and that's how we got caught up in the revolution.

So, we saw the Stalin monument fall, but we didn't find Iharos.

We couldn't go back to the training camp in Tata, so we took shelter on the Honvéd sportsfield at Tüzér street. I tried to train, but without much success, because I was shot at from outside. When did I see Iharos again? We went to Prague by bus at the end of October, and once, probably in a car carrying our equipment, Sanyi (Sándor) arrived. I didn't attend the meeting where he announced that he didn't want to compete in the Olympics, but would only travel to Melbourne as a correspondent. He was not allowed to do so, so he did not board the plane with us."

In another interview with National Sport in 1998, Rózsavölgyi also shared why they had to search high and low for Iharos: "He fell in love, disappeared for weeks, didn't even train (...) On the one hand, he wanted to qualify for the Melbourne Olympics at all costs, but at the same time he was scared because he didn't train, he missed out on a lot of training sessions. He obviously didn't want to get embarrassed." He said this of Iharos’s personality: "Exceptional talent, sensational qualities, combined with a peculiar and sometimes completely incomprehensible nature. He was loved by many, his greatness was acknowledged, but he had no real friends."

"It could have been our successful Olympics Games in 1956, but the revolution disrupted our preparations both mentally and physically" - István Rózsavölgyi also said this to Új Magyarország magazine in 1997. The best result in Melbourne was achieved by László Tábori, who finished fourth in the 1500 metres. 

On 31 October 1956, Sándor Iharos himself justified his resignation from the Olympics in the then Népszava newspaper, thus: "I will not participate in the Olympics because I feel that I am out of shape. Since I cannot in good conscience promise to perform as expected, I have decided to cancel the trip. The huge amount of dollars that would have been spent on sending me abroad should be rather spent on medicine, and saving the lives of my countrymen wounded in the struggle for freedom."

Later, however, he followed the others to Prague, and asked the delegation's revolutionary committee to allow him to accompany the delegation to Melbourne as a sports journalist. The committee insisted that he should run, but he refused. He reportedly lost a lot of weight, and the final word was given by Coach Iglói, who, according to National Sport, sent him home.

And how did love come into the picture as a possible motive? According to many, Iharos would have been willing to compete in the Olympics only if his love, the javelin thrower Ilona Laczó, could also go. The two were married in 1957, and she told a journalist of Napi Magyarország in 1998: "It is not true that at the training camp in Prague Sanyi said he would only go to the Olympics if they took me. He couldn't have demanded such a thing, because although I had won the Hungarian and English championships in javelin throwing, I was not among the top international athletes in 1956. But it is undeniable that he came home from Prague because of me, and we left the country together after the revolution."

He was sensitive and quietly gave up

Iharos accepted a contract from a Belgian club, among several offers from abroad, and married Ilona Laczó in Belgium, who recalled the period: "We got everything we needed there, an apartment, a car and a proper job, and we both started learning French.

Despite the excellent opportunities, Sanyi became increasingly tense and homesick.

So in the spring of 1957 he decided to come home. The Belgians, of course, did not understand, articles appeared saying that the Red Runner was going back behind the Iron Curtain. But nothing prevented Sanyi from returning to his homeland. Believe me, if we had stayed in Belgium, his sporting career and his life would have been completely different."
Iharos said in an interview in May 1957: "I can only say what all returnees say: we regret leaving the country. We both missed home, our relatives, the whole country more and more." Back in Hungary, the couple, along with their regrets, were welcomed with open arms. 

After returning home, the sportsman started training again, but without the training of Mihály Igló, who had emigrated to the USA, he could not even come close to his former self: he competed in the 1960 Rome Olympics, but did not even come close to the podium. In 1963 he became the athletics coach of the Central Sports School (KSI), then in 1966 he divorced his wife and later worked as a petrol station attendant and grocer. He turned to drink to escape his deepening depression and died of heart failure at the age of 66. According to his son, Sándor Iharos Jr. 

"He quietly gave up. (...) He didn't want to fight any more."

Ilona Laczó remembered her former partner: "After we got divorced, we kept in touch (...) He was extremely sensitive and he couldn't seem to bear the fact that, despite running a dozen world records, he couldn't achieve on competitions what he was capable of. And in his life outside the track, he was simply a failure. And believe me, he was a man of great integrity and warmth. I can honestly say –not as an ex-wife, but as a former athlete –, that there has never been, and never will be, another Hungarian runner as outstanding as Sándor Iharos. Therefore he deserves all respect."

For his 1955 performance, Sándor Iharos earned the World Trophy, founded by the Helms Foundation in 1936, which he was awarded as the best in Europe. According to many Hungarian sources, the AP news agency also voted him the best in the world, but this was in fact done by a Swedish newspaper, Ny Tid: at the newspaper's request, nearly fifty journalists from different continents voted, and Iharos came out on top. In Hungary, the name of this outstanding runner is commemorated by a stamp, a memorial race and the Honvéd athletics stadium in Budapest.

Resources used:
https://pestisracok.hu/otvenhatban-tort-ossze-a-futozseni-iharos-sandor-alma-egy-legendas-rejtely-avagy-ikarosz-zuhanasa/
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iharos_S%C3%A1ndor
https://www.magyarhirlap.hu/sport/20200317-a-futokiralyt-nem-koronazhattak-meg-melbourne-ben
https://168.hu/sport/iharos-kiraly-korona-nelkul-felejthetetlen-sportolok-elfelejtett-tortenetek-188284
https://magyaredzo.hu/viharos-eletmu-kilencven-eve-szuletett-a-futozseni-iharos-sandor/
 

What makes a good food photo, what's the secret?

The quintessence of a good foot photo is the love of food and drink because you can be technically good, but if you don't enjoy eating, you'll never be a good food photographer. But this is true for any subject of photography: if you don't like mountains, you won't see the beauty in them. When I talk about food, I mean not only the love of flavours, but also the love of the ingredients. I'm picky about food, but I also love to photograph ingredients that I don't eat because they are visually pleasing – the shape, the colour, the texture. Anyway, our relationship with food can go down to an almost instinctual level, because it's vital to eat and drink, so it's not hard to touch the public with this kind of content. Of course, it's not enough to take a photo of what you eat for lunch, because sharing it might annoy others, and I'm thinking here of professional, carefully considered food presentation. It can evoke deep memories and feelings that go back to our childhood.

The taste and smell of a favourite food can be revived just by looking at a picture.

I think a food photo is good when I look at it and my mouth is watering, or when looking at it I feel that I just have to get that!

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Photo: Réka Csulak - Three Pod Studio threepodstudio.com

Where does your deep passion for gastronomy come from?

I grew up in Sződ, Pest County, where our family had a long tradition of home cooking. One of my grandmothers was a catering manager, the other a cook, but my grandfather also liked to cook on an open fire. I could always be counted on to help with the preparation - peeling potatoes, dipping cream - and from fifth grade I cooked my own lunches, learning how to prepare my favourite dishes. I also inherited some artistic inclinations from my mother, who used to draw, paint, and do crafts with me. And my dad is a skilled carpenter, from whom I absorbed an unfailing entrepreneurial work ethic. As we always had a garden and livestock, it was natural for me that meat does not grow in plastic packaging in the fridge, and that vegetables and fruit need months of care before they are in season.

You graduated from the University of Horticulture. How did you later end up in Finland and how did you go from being a horticultural engineer to an entrepreneur and food photographer?

Back in 2015, my ex-husband and I moved to Sweden to volunteer and then to the UK to work. After we went our separate ways, I came north again in February 2021 after meeting a Finnish gentleman. Prior to that, as the positive culture shock wore off in England, I tried to remedy the loneliness of grey weekdays by blogging to find people with similar interests to me. My blog was called Holy Whisk, and in the beginning, I shared mainly Hungarian recipes in English.

The first post was written at Christmas 2016, and around Easter 2018 I had the idea to buy a professional camera to take better pictures than the phone for the blog.

It was a major learning process to learn how to use it and the software needed for post-production, but the feedback confirmed that the effort was not in vain. I took part in social media photo challenges, plus I did a 'food stylist and food photographer' course in London - which prepared me to start my own business in this field.

And you did. Your website currently lists the following titles next to your name: photographer, blogger, food stylist, recipe developer, mentor...

These five areas go hand in hand. Over time, my blog has moved from recipes to more professional interviews, and recipe development has come from the fact that clients don't always provide me with a recipe to work from. Most of them now want to add value to their audience by asking me to develop a special recipe using a particular product, which I not only make after the test phase but also capture the result in promotional photos. I didn't study to do this, but there are many basic recipes in my family that I can use as a starting point and develop further.
The food stylist line was also a given, as it is very important to carefully plan what will be in the picture around the food, choose the equipment - cake stand, small spoon etc. - and equally importantly to keep the visual value of the food from the beginning to the end of the shoot, so that everything would look perfect. Some photographers employ a dedicated food stylist, but I handle everything from A to Z in one person and am responsible for the final look. And I became a mentor because other fellow photographers approached me for advice and I was happy to take it on. But it can only work as long as I am doing it myself, without it I would not be authentic. In such a fast-changing field as photography, you can't pass on knowledge from years ago.

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Photo: Réka Csulak - Three Pod Studio threepodstudio.com

You mentioned how important it is for the food to look perfect from the beginning to the end of the shoot. What tricks are sometimes helpful and necessary – for example, in the case of a fast-melting ice cream?

In promotional photography, I never use artificial substitutes for the sake of better looks, because of advertising fidelity. There, when shooting, the popsicle or ice cream that comes out of the box is the same as the one sold in the store.

But where the ice cream represents a flavour, not a specific product - say the smell of a car fragrance or the taste of lip gloss - you can put a non-melting substitute in the cone. Chocolate ice cream can be made with mashed potatoes coloured with brown food colouring, a harder buttercream, or even sugar paste. To avoid a completely frosted effect, it is also worth drizzling with coloured cooking cream, as if it has already melted. To give you another example, the drizzle is usually made by spraying a mixture of water and glycerine on a tomato peel or other vegetable. When the beer foam settles, salt can be sprinkled in to make it foam again, and whisky can be replaced by a similarly coloured tea. A dried meat pie can be re-greased or brightened if necessary - but, I stress, a substitute is only appropriate when it is not the main element of the image or the product being promoted. What else helps: if the adjustments are not yet made on the final product, but on a test item of similar size and consistency. Because when I use a lamp, it's always hot, and a freshly cut herbs will quickly wilt.

In what ways is a food shoot technically different from any other type of shoot?

It's not very different. Obviously, I don't need to capture a flying falcon from a great distance with a mouse in its beak, so I use lenses suitable for close-up photography. For advertising purposes, if I want to create a controllable environment, I use artificial light to show the best of the food. And the beauty of natural light is that as the clouds go, the highlights and shadows change.

But I prefer to work outdoors only when I have to present a seasonal product or to show how close to nature it is.

There are some products where it looks good to have the trees reflected on the packaging but I don't like having some messy environment show that way. It's important to have unique ideas and a unique vision, but it all depends on what the company wants because even though many people think that a freelancer is creative and always does what he or she thinks, the paying client has their own ideas. If they sticks to a specific idea, it’s rather problem-solving that I do.

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Photo: Réka Csulak - Three Pod Studio threepodstudio.com

For the most part, who are the customers? Do you travel to their places?

The majority of photos are promotional photos, which are requested by product manufacturers less often by restaurants or hotels. This is why, in most cases, I develop the recipe for the product sent by the client and prepare the food myself, which I then shoot in my own studio. If I work for a place where a chef is preparing the menu, he or she is the food stylist, I just do the final setup. One of the tricky things that I do there is, for example, pouring the sauce over the food so that it doesn't run off too soon. But the client can also be a kitchen appliance company - they usually come from Western Europe or America. I rarely have to travel there but I can do that on request.

Overall, I get the feeling from your words: in this area, in this way of life, you have found your place.

Yes, because this form of business allows me to combine my love of food and my love of creating without major compromises. As well as constantly training and developing my skills, I want nothing more than stability, peace of mind, and a good work-life balance.

I'm not aiming too high, if everyday life is perfect, that's enough!

Winning prizes in professional competitions is of course very important feedback that the direction I'm going in is the right one.

You work as a Hungarian, on the international stage. To what extent is it possible to bring a Hungarian approach to your work?

My approach is more international now, but my blog started with Hungarian recipes. And my first major food photography award - the final of the Pink Lady Food Photographer of The Year Awards and within that the Highly Recommended title in the gastroblogger category - was for my picture of a wedding cake from Zala. It is a traditional cake served at Hungarian weddings, with a short pastry as the base. It's made up of two halves, with a little cream in the middle, food colouring on the outside and a leaf stuck in, so it looks like a peach. The flavour of course has nothing to do with peaches, it's more of a cocoa and rum flavour. I'm happy if this and other Hungarian delicacies have sparked interest in Hungarian gastronomy! I'm looking for opportunities to make the Hungarian way of cooking a topic of conversation. The traditional customs associated with our food can also be touched upon, for example, information can be linked to a social media post about the celebrations where a particular cake is eaten. This is a special way for me to raise Hungary's reputation.
 

Regina, who has suffered head and brain injuries, has been learning to walk and talk again for the past 6 years, but her rehabilitation will be a lifelong process. Although there are visible marks of her accident, she is now able to live with the changes and make the most of them. Regina is a member of the Richter Phoenix community and her story is an inspiration to all women in difficult situations to never give up, because you can always get up and start again, you just need to recalculate.

You don't remember anything about your accident, but you remember your life before it. What was Regina like before the accident? How did she live, what were her dreams and aspirations?

Before the accident, Regi was an outgoing, party-loving, confident, and assertive girl, now Regi is more reserved and withdrawn. According to my friend Anna, my core qualities are still the same, such as my endurance and stubbornness, but they've just changed a little bit because of the accident and the years that have passed. But of course, I am sure I’m different on the outside than I experience "me" and my changes on the inside.

Before the accident, I was working in the hotel and catering industry, working nights, living my life with the "you only live once" attitude typical of young people. I don't remember exactly having any big dreams, but I do know that I had high hopes for my American internship. My desire to gain experience in an international setting and to be appreciated seemed to have been fulfilled. I loved the US and I arrived at the American luxury hotel as a waitress. I had to meet very complex requirements and I wanted to prove that I could do it.

I have always loved travelling, I wanted to see the whole world and that desire is still there today. I'm very proud that my injuries didn't get me benched.

Travel may require more planning now, but nothing can hold me back.

Do you remember that moment when you realized that your life would never be the same again as it was before your accident? What was the hardest thing to accept and come to terms with?

I realized that my life had changed forever about a year after my mother and I came home from America. It was after a festival that I realized I could no longer tolerate and deal with as many external stimuli as before. I had already accepted that my movement would not be the same, but it was very bad to be confronted with the fact that I was sometimes too "overwhelmed" by impulses because of my skull injury. At first, of course, I would have crashed and burned to get my old life back, but luckily I had just started writing my thesis, so that distracted me.

Anyone who has seen my short film or exchanged a few words with me knows that it's the change in my speech that I find most difficult to process. I'm upset that I couldn't take the oral part of the final exam when graduating and that I can't converse perfectly in either language. But I try to look on the bright side: I communicate well in writing in Hungarian, English, and Italian. And I think there's a lot of good stuff in the "new" Regi, you just have to discover it.

What physical and mental phases did you go through during your rehabilitation in the US and then here at home? When you received the diagnosis, what did you feel, what did you think: did you immediately feel a surge of "yes, I can do this" or did you hit a serious low?

We came back from America without a diagnosis because no two brain injuries are the same, you can't predict what to expect.

While I was in a coma, no one told my mother exactly what I would be able to do when I woke up. They just told her that there was a possibility that my personality would change, too and to be prepared for that. 

The traumatic head and brain injury was a fact, but they could not say to what extent the affected areas could be improved. I was given advice on what to be careful of in this type of injury and what was forbidden, but they didn't say that anything was impossible and that gave me great strength. It gave me hope that when even the experts don't know where the limit is and there is no pre-written scenario, anything is possible. My physiotherapist in the US also encouraged me by saying that it was up to me what I could achieve. At the time I felt I was unstoppable. I also saw the same thing from my mother, who taught me by her own example, that you should never give up. But I don't want to mislead anybody, because there have been low points. But in the end, I always got up, I recalculated and I kept going. And I still believe that you only live once, but that phrase has now taken on a new meaning for me: you only live once, so take care of yourself, because some things can never be undone.

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Photo: Gábor Dorcsák

What is your focus now, what are your main goals?

Achieving a fully independent life is my main goal and fortunately, I have already taken the first steps on this path. However, in order to keep at it, it is important that I continue with the rehabilitation and the sessions. At the same time, I want to do well at work. However, my accident has taught me one important thing: to focus on really living in the moment, because who knows how long it will last. That doesn't mean that I don't plan at all, of course, but rather that I have shorter-term plans.

You mentioned that there was a time when you hit rock bottom. Where did you find strength then? What and who got you through it?

It was an important realization that I cannot deal with my traumas alone, I need a psychologist who can help me. When I was confronted again and again with the fact that my rehabilitation was still not over, I was very depressed. At those times, my mother gave me strength by pointing out how much I had improved from a year earlier. Then it taught me to compare myself from 1-2 years ago to now and I would always "vitalize myself" and think that I could do even better. But what gave me strength in the beginning, made me tired after a while. The feeling of never having an end and actually not knowing why exactly I was struggling. I am stronger now and I can take such obstacles more easily. In any case, learning to look back and not forget where I started from gives me incredible strength to this day.

How has your relationship with your mother changed over the years? Do you have any common habits?

We had a strong mother-daughter bond since the loss of Dad, and now it has become even more resistant. It's really nice to know that I can really count on her at any time. 
Because my mum raised me on her own, there are some things we are very similar in, like our impatience, but she is a much more firm and quicker decision-maker as a manager. Being my boss has also given our relationship a new framework because there are things I can say to a mother but not to a superior. I had to learn that too. But I'm very grateful to have such a cool mom. We go to concerts and the theatre together a lot and of course, she is my number one travel companion.

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Photo: Gábor Dorcsák

You graduated and wrote your thesis on the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, using your own experiences. What advice would you give to young people who have been through a similar trauma as you?

I would not dare to give advice, because each trauma is different and I am not familiar with the subject in such depth.

However, for anyone who has suffered any kind of trauma, I can only recommend that you see a trauma therapist specialist.

And to those who feel hopeless, I say: don't despair if something doesn't work out as quickly as you'd like. You just have to find the method or strategy that works for you. It is worth focusing on what we can control and looking at where we want to go: forward. In the meantime, it is OK to cry, and even to complain if something doesn't work, but there is one thing you must not do: quit. Because you can always try again. It's OK if we don't know what to do next, but we must always look for opportunities. And you don't need to know the end result to improve. You should always focus on the next step and be happy with every small result.

Have your friends stood by you or has your life changed completely in that way, too?

Some people have stood by the "new" Regi, so there are friendships that have deepened and we have got to know each other better. Most of my friends were open to the change at first, but there were relationships that wore out or didn't revive. It may have been because they expected something different from me, or because they expected my pre-accident self back, or even because my speech was the barrier.

I no longer want to live up to all kinds of external expectations, and anyone who cannot accept me as I am now is better off not being part of my life. Those who are close to me see that I have remained interested, adventurous, and funny and that I can be counted on. Rehabilitation can only be done in a positive and constructive environment, so I try to surround myself with people who convey that energy. This doesn't mean that I need to be sugar-coated, so you can come to me with any problems or difficulties, I'm very happy to help if I can. It's more about the everyday attitude.

What do you think are the qualities and strengths you developed after your accident that will help you achieve your goals?

I'm much more compassionate now and I'm sure that this quality of mine has been strengthened as a result of the accident. I am also more persistent and determined. My mother says that she can now even employ me as a finance officer in her company because I am more precise and I can cope with monotonous work much better. I used to be unable to work in an office and sit in one place for so long.

Where are you now in your rehabilitation? What do you want to improve and make a positive change in?

My physiotherapist and I are now focusing on stretching and functional use of my right arm. Besides that, we don't forget my gait and my legs, the focus is on improving my balance. And of course, I want to improve my speech, so with my phoniatrist we are trying different new techniques because you never know which one will work and which one will help you make progress.
All we know is that there will be a ceiling because too many areas in my head are damaged, but we haven't reached it yet and we can't predict where it is. Fortunately, I have managed to find dedicated professionals who are doing everything they can to help me improve, which motivates me to do my best.

What is your biggest dream that you know you want to make come true?

So far, it has been to return to America, including the scene of the accident. Now that I have done that, my greatest wish is that my mom would take me to Bali, to the monkeys. But I also want to visit my girlfriend in San Francisco or my relatives in northern Europe. I have travel destinations on my dream list because I know they are achievable dreams, but I'm in no hurry. In time, they will all come true.

The Richter Phoenix Community 
”Vivere militare est. – To live is to fight.” (Seneca) 
Life can often present us with situations where we feel weak or feel that our future is bleak. At such times, we can be motivated by an inspiring story that sets an example. One of the aims of the Richter Phoenix Community, launched in 2018 as part of the Richter for Women program, is to inspire others through the courageous women featured in the program – women who not only stood up from a difficult situation but also dared to speak out about it. The program's patrons are Olympic bronze medalist and Paralympic champion fencer Pál Szekeres and Gabriella Jakupcsek, who has been instrumental in its implementation since the beginning.

The interview was supported by Gedeon Richter Plc.
 

Get on the wakeboard!

Wakeboarding is an easy-to-learn extreme sport invented by surfers who wanted to indulge their passion even when there were no big waves. So they invented the idea of being pulled by a rope attached to a motorboat and later built cableways specifically for this purpose. Fans of this sport, which is particularly popular with young people, now have access to a number of wakeboard tracks built on natural water in Hungary.

Lupawake in Budakalász is one of the most professional wakeboarding venues in the country, with four different levels of ropes and twenty-two world-class elements. The Venice Beach Cable Park is located on Lake Velencei next to the open-air beach and the Velence Korzo, but it has become a favourite not only for its idyllic location but also for its 800-meter, five-pole track, which hosts the national wakeboard championships.

The Lido beach in Vonyarcvashegy is one of the best beaches on Lake Balaton in itself, and the exciting 820metres long, five-pole water skiing track is a magnificent bonus.

Another excellent choice is the Bamboo Island in Siofok, which really is an island: located eighty meters from the coast on a 460 square meter pier, it offers wakeboarding lovers a five-pole track no less than a kilometer long.

It's worth a try, as wakeboarding on the open waters of Lake Balaton is a really cool experience.

Where else in Hungary do you find wakeboarding facilities? Near Budapest, you can try this extreme water sport in Dunaharaszti, Martonvásár, or Gyömrő, around Lake Balaton in Balatonfüred, but beginners and advanced wakeboarders can also enjoy it in Kecskemét, Győr, Pécs, Szeged, and Nyíregyháza.

Via Ferrata - more than hiking

Via Ferrata is an Italian term meaning an iron track or climbing path. It refers to mountain trails on which various cables, chains, iron ladders, stairs, etc., are securely installed to allow safe passage. Although via ferrata trekking does not require rock climbing skills, it does require physical fitness, practice, and equipment. The difficulty levels of the routes are indicated on a scale from A to E, where the rating is always determined by the most difficult point of the marked section. However, before anyone sets off on a trail, it is important to know that you must be accompanied by a guide for the first time, and it is essential to learn how to use the equipment correctly! There are four places in Hungary: Tatabánya, Csesznek, Cuha Valley, and Sárospatak, there are fifteen different trails to try out this challenging and extremely spectacular sport.

Tip: Csesznek, a village in the Bakony, is one of the most popular hiking destinations in the Transdanubian region, with different difficulty levels: the "Futrinka ucca" (not a typo) with difficulty level B is easy to complete even with children and even with mild terrain, while the memorial route named after Zoltán Tálos is recommended only for professionals, since in addition to its 70 m length, the elevation rise is forty-five meters, making it extremely difficult. But there is also the Ostromlók (‘Besiegers’) trail, the first Via Ferrata route in Hungary, or the Várpanoráma (‘View of the Castle’) trail, which, true to its name, offers a beautiful view of Csesznek Castle - but only if you walk the 180-meter trail, which is made difficult by slippery stones and some steeper sections, making it a level D trail.

Paragliding – Flying like a bird

If you've ever dreamed of flying, paragliding gives you just that experience. You can spend hours in the air, riding the air currents.

Beginners can learn the basics in courses lasting a few months, while those who are already familiar with the sport can practice almost anywhere in the country.

Paragliding is also available in Budapest and its surroundings, such as Gödöllő, as well as in Gyöngyös, Eger, Tokaj, the Balaton Highlands, and Hajdúszoboszló, but there are also suitable areas in Békéscsaba, Pécs, Győr, and Sopron. Popular paragliding spots include Csolnok near Esztergom, the Csobánc peak near Badacsony, and the Kétágú hill on the western ridge of the Pilis mountains.

Tip: For those who want to try paragliding but are afraid to take on the extreme adventure alone, there is also the option of tandem flying with a qualified instructor. This is the most direct way of flying and, as the passenger is positioned in front (and the instructor behind), the passenger's view is unobstructed. And for those who have tried the experience several times and want to try something a little more, thermal flying is worth a try. The word 'thermal' means warm, rising air, which can be used to soar to altitudes of 1,000 to 2,000 meters, or 2,500 to 3,000 meters in very good weather conditions.

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Paragliding at Lake Balaton - Photo: Profimedia

Mountain biking at a breathtaking pace

There are countless forms of cycling, from simple urban cycling to road racing and off-road cycling. The latter is becoming increasingly popular in Hungary, with downhill and enduro cycling being the two fastest-growing disciplines. Cross-country cycling enthusiasts like the sport for its speed, its struggle with terrain, obstacles, and, sometimes, the weather. Although mountain biking is not allowed on all hiking trails in Hungary, mountain bikers can also enjoy their favourite activity on dedicated trails. In addition to the Bringaréna in Eplény, mountain bike trails can be found in Veszprém, Pécs, Sopron, and several places in the Buda Hills.

Those who would like to enjoy "downhilling" - a more extreme form of off-road cycling, a high-speed descent from a mountainside - can do so at some of the country's legal downhill tracks - apart from the aforementioned Eplény - in Mátra, where a seven-kilometer track awaits the riders of gravity.

The average width of the track from Kékestető Peak to Mátrafüred is two to four meters, and there is a 600-meter altitude difference awaiting riders descending it.

In the Sopron Park Forest, an 11-kilometer track with a 300-meter altitude difference was built in 2013.

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Mountain biker on the Kékestető Peak - Photo: Hungarian Tourism Agency

Diving  – The world from a different perspective

Diving in Hungary? As incredible as it may sound at first, it's not! There are several places in Hungary where you can dive: Dorog, Csepel, Szalkszentmárton, Kőbánya, Ecséd, Gyékényes, Tata, Lake Hegyesdi, and even in the heart of Budapest, in Lake Feneketlen (which literally translates to 'Bottomless'). 
The Fényes spring in Tata is a wonderful hot springs diving place in Hungary, hidden in the ancient marshlands. The 16-25 degree springs were formed two to three million years ago along the fault lines of volcanic eruptions in Transdanubia. The largest lake in the baths was formed by the springs and their run-off water was used for bathing by Countess Esterházy, hence the name Grófi (’of the Counts’) Lake. Today, the main attraction is the constantly bubbling, crystal-clear, quartz-covered bottom of the springs, the 'mini-geysers'. However, there are several lakes in the area where you can dive: the Körtefás lake has the richest vegetation, with sunfish, bream, and carp up to 70 to 80 centimeters in size, as well as amur fish up to a meter long. However, divers say that the best lake is the protected Fountain Lake, which is the longest lake suitable for diving, with the most water lilies and the most aquatic vegetation.

You can dive among huge aquatic plants, chase fish, and look for turtles.

You can practically feel like you're wandering through a tropical jungle while diving.

Tip: Diving in the Kőbánya cellar system is an experience not to be missed. The unique Budapest site offers a glimpse into a lesser-known part of the city's past, as the cellars were once used by winemakers, later by the Dreher Brewery, and during the Second World War, the underground aircraft engine factory was located here. Today, diving is possible at the former industrial sites, which are preserved in thirteen to fourteen degrees of water, and one of the four dive sites does not require a cave diving qualification.

Adventure parks for young and old

Adventure parks are becoming more and more popular in Hungary too, and for good reason, as you can take part in all kinds of extreme challenges and experience the exhilarating effects of the "adrenaline rush" without putting yourself in danger. There are countless adventure parks in our country, each with its own specialty, from the simplest rope and board-based arcades to canopy slides. 
You can choose between complex adventure parks (such as the Sobri Jóska Adventure Park in Kislőd or the Oxygen Adrenalin Adventure Park in Mátrafüred), skill adventure parks (such as the Sherpa Adventure Park in Balatonfűzfő, the Zamárdi Adventure Park or the Tőserdei Adventure Park in Lakitelek) or bobsleigh tracks (in Visegrád, Sopron, Szilvásvárad, Balatonfűzfő).

Tip: For a more extreme experience, try the best technical parks in Hungary, the Skyward wind tunnel in Csepel, or the Hell Kart extreme go-kart track in Miskolctapolca.

Resources: drivemagazin.hu; csodasmagyarorszag.hu 

This article was written with the professional support of the Hungarian Tourism Agency.