Budapest's graveyard for communist statues

I gazed up in awe at a pair of giant bronze boots perched on a red-brick plinth atop a concrete platform. Stalin's Boots – a tribute to the enormous statue of the infamous Soviet dictator that once stood in the centre of Budapest, and which was torn down in anger in 1956, three years after Stalin's death – are the Ozymandian legacy of a communist regime that gripped Hungary for decades.

Located outside a former sports arena in a Budapest suburb, the boots seemed in the unlikeliest of locations – but this was in fact the entrance to what might be one of the world's most curious tourist attractions. Describing itself as "Central Europe's first thematic museum that reminds people of a dictatorship and its fall", Memento Park is a graveyard for communist statues toppled during the country's transition to democracy.

Inside this peculiar open-air museum, gigantic monuments of Red Army soldiers stand next to busts of Lenin, while heroic reliefs of Hungarian workers sit by statues of former communist leaders. And at a time when many countries around the world are grappling with the purpose and meaning of statues, this Budapest site offers a potential model for discussing historical monuments, rather than simply removing them.

In 1989, the People's Republic of Hungary was peacefully dissolved in favour of democracy and, after 50 years of communist rule, statues commemorating communist leaders and ideology began to fall. In Budapest, debates raged as to whether the city's toppled effigies should be destroyed and forgotten or preserved as a warning of the dangers of dictatorship. Hungary's new government decided to relocate the fallen statues to an old sports arena on the outskirts of Budapest, where they commissioned architect Ákos Eleőd to create an open-air museum, which opened in 1993.

"This park is about dictatorship," Eleőd is quoted as saying on Memento Park's website. "And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described and built up, this park is about democracy."

I read up on Memento Park's history as I took the No 49 tram from Deák Ferenc Square to Kelenföld Station, from where I travelled by bus into Budapest's western suburbs. The museum's purpose seemed to be education, but my first impression as I arrived outside the extravagant red-brick entrance was that Memento Park was Disneyland for Soviet nostalgists.

A monumental statue of Lenin gazed down at me from an archway, while an artistic depiction of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (the two philosophers who developed Marxism) stared vacantly towards Stalin's monstrously oversized boots. Music from Hungary's communist era played from an old jukebox by the ticket booth; a polished Trabant (a popular but compact East German vehicle known as the "people's car") was surrounded by selfie-taking tourists; while coffee mugs and posters plastered with Lenin's likeness were on sale in the gift shop.

But Judit Holp, who has been working at Memento Park for more than a decade, quickly dissolved any sense of communist idealisation when she began her guided tour.

"We're standing in Witness Square," said Holp, after our tour group had assembled in Lenin's shadow. "This square outside Memento Park represents every person who has ever lived under a dictatorship, on the political left or the political right. Their silence is shared here on Witness Square because left and right always meet at the same extremes."

Holp explained how Stalin's Boots were placed on a giant concrete platform at the far end of Witness Square as a warning. The real statue was pulled down during the anti-communist revolution in 1956, which was swiftly crushed when the USSR sent tanks into Hungary, killing or imprisoning thousands of Hungarians, and sending hundreds of thousands into exile.

Eleőd meticulously designed Memento Park's layout to represent the dark undertones of dictatorship, and I realised that its nuances ran much deeper than my first impression.

Inside, a long, central path led to the far end of the park. A large red star was placed in the middle of the path, while three smaller pathways lined with fallen statues branched outwards. Holp described these smaller pathways as "endless parades" because the architect designed them as an "infinite loop" that always returns you to the same central path. The only way forward, as with communism, was to conform and follow the same path as everyone else.

The 41 statues in Memento Park are intended to provoke a re-evaluation of Hungary's dictatorial past. Holp demonstrated this when she brought our group to a halt by the Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Memorial, which was cast in 1956, just before the Hungarian Revolution. The memorial depicts a Hungarian worker shaking hands with a Soviet soldier, seemingly in a gesture of friendship. But not all is as it seems. The Hungarian worker holds out two hands in friendship while the Soviet soldier extends only one hand, leaving the other hand clenched in a fist by their side.

"Now, in 2022," said Holp, "we have more time to understand the statues, and what the artists were really trying to say about the uneven relationship between the Soviets and Hungarians."

Not just Hungarians, but Czechs, former Yugoslavians and East Germans also come here, join the tours and say, 'Gosh, every country needs a place like this where you can come with all your troubles and leave cleansed.'

The final section of the park, where colossal statues designed in the communist style of Social Realism dominated through sheer size and stature, led to a tall red brick wall representing the dead end of dictatorships. "It's a remedy for all the bad thoughts Hungarians grew up with," said Holp, when I asked how Memento Park has influenced visitors' relationships with their communist past. "Not just Hungarians, but Czechs, former Yugoslavians and East Germans also come here, join the tours and say, 'Gosh, every country needs a place like this where you can come with all your troubles and leave cleansed.'."

Memento Park is intended to be an apolitical museum where the past can be seen and discussed openly, but inevitably, it's always had its critics. Later that day, I met with Agnes Molnar, a Hungarian tour guide who leads communist tours of Budapest, showing travellers what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.

"Memento Park used to be very controversial," said Molnar, who grew up in Hungary under the communist dictatorship, when we met outside Kelenföld Station on my way back into the city. "Many people said, 'Why do we need this?'."

She explained that many Hungarians would rather have forgotten about the communist era, and particularly the reprisals that followed the Hungarian Revolution. But now that the passage of time has made it easier to forget, Molnar said that many of her fellow Hungarians are simply indifferent to their past. "Hungarians don't visit Memento Park much anymore," she said bluntly, before suggesting it's become more of a tourist attraction than a local attraction.

Memento Park used to be very controversial. Many people said, 'Why do we need this?'

But still, Molnar believed that the site offers a cautionary tale. "If politicians want to build giant statues of themselves, they should think twice," she said . "If anyone wants to make big statues like that of Stalin, we should be scared. Memento Park is a warning from history."

Budapest's Hungarian National Museum also has a permanent exhibition of artworks from the communist period, including remnants of the Stalin statue torn down during the Hungarian Revolution. Deputy General Director, Gábor Tomka, told me via email that these communist artworks are only displayed at the museum in "an appropriate historical context".

"I personally find it good to preserve some of the artworks," Tomka also said of Memento Park. "Of course, they should be ripped from their original propagandist context, but they are nevertheless witnesses of a past period."

During my trip to Memento Park, I couldn't help but draw parallels to recent debates regarding the treatment of statues elsewhere, including in the United Kingdom, my home country. I lived in Bristol when the statue of Edward Colston (a divisive slave trader who donated large sums of money to the city in the 18th Century), was torn down in 2020, sparking debates across the country about the purpose and treatment of historical monuments.

In recent months, the Baltic states (which were formerly part of the Soviet Union) have been pulling down Soviet-era statues in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and debating what to do with them. Finland also recently followed suit and removed its last Soviet-gifted monuments in August; while across the US, statues of Confederate leaders have been torn down or renamed.

As an educational museum, perhaps Memento Park will inspire other countries dealing with the divisive topic of fallen statues. "You could collect all the slavery statues in the United Kingdom," Holp had suggested to me. "Put them in a park in London and give them a name like the 'garden of unwanted statues'. Whatever you want, just don't vanish them away for good."

-bbc