BUDAPEST EAST STATION (HUNGARY)

Hungary station an international crossroads

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Toshiaki Shimizu

By Keiko Nakamura

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Many passengers wearing backpacks and carrying bags in their arms streamed out of the crowded second-class car of a train one day recently, a stark contrast to the desolate picture of Budapest East Station painted by Teru Miyamoto in his novel "Donau no Tabibito" (Traveler of the Danube) 21 years ago.

The station is now the main international rail terminus in Hungary, and a wide variety of languages can be heard throughout the building.

"People who returned from exile often buy books," said bookseller Vasvari Karolina, 64. "We're also getting more and more customers who drop by here on their way to the office or school nowadays."

Restaurant operator Mecseki Attila, 36, said: "Just after the democratization in 1989, the station house was run down and security was poor, so I hired guards by myself. But now it's safe, and the long lines to buy tickets have disappeared."

Completed in 1884, the station reflects the nation's eventful history. Its magnificent entrance and brick construction were then considered appropriate for a national railroad's central station.

Budapest West Station was completed seven years earlier by a private Austrian railway company. The building was designed by Gustave Eiffel, better known for the tower in Paris he designed.

Railroad researcher Soltesz Jozsef, 49, said: "Citizens at that time yearned for Paris and they liked the modern west station, but what they were really proud of was the east station. Because of its dignified style the east station is really the symbol of the Magyar culture.

Damaged by World War II bombings, the east station was further changed by the socialist government after the war. The walls became gray, and the clock on the front facade was fitted with a conspicuously large face that was widely considered unsightly.

Restoration work is now under way to return the station to its former glory.

"It's natural to cherish tradition and history. The age where it could not be done was unnatural," stationmaster Putics Istvan, 56, said.

The big clock was restored five years ago.