Day 9: bunkers and trains

June 24, 2018

Budapest/Hungary/Romania

Joshua

This morning we saw the Hospital in the Rock.  It is actually quite near us.  The streets on Buda Castle Hill (where we're staying) mostly stripe the hill with a few going up and down (pedestrians have streets of stairs going up and down).  On the street just below us, is the Hospital.  It is in caves that we dug out of the limestone in the 13th century.  They were originally used for storehouses, like root cellars.  They mostly fell out of use in the 1800s.  Then in World War II, they needed space to treat people hurt by the air raids and to keep them safe.  Also, they needed shelters for people during air raids.  They found large rooms, many of them interconnected.  They received doctors and nurses, medical supplies, and food from the nearby hospital.  It was opened to treat 60 people, but when the air raids increased and when soldiers also needed treatment, they finished off more of the tunnels to create space for 600 patients.  They had state of the art equipment, including an X-ray machine.  They had two electricity generators, a ventilation system, and water tanks (water from the Danube) with water treatment.  At one point, their supplies (including water) were cut off and more patients died of  infection than because of their original injuries.  Doctors had to reuse bandages from other patients.

The entrance

An examination room

An operating room

The x-ray room

There were numerous cabinets filled with medical tools--scissors, scalpels, glass syringes, bandages, etc

This communication room was added as the hospital expanded.  They could be in contact with local schools, hospitals, etc.

An overcrowded ward

Photo of the effect of WWII airstrikes

Effect of the airstrikes on the same street as the entrance to the hospital.

When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, they (the Soviet government) changed the hospital into a nuclear bunker.  They had a protocol:  first you were scanned with a geiger counter, then you removed your clothes (which were burned) and went into a small room with a sink to shave all of your hair--body hair included, then you went to shower.  You were issued a one-piece suit and gas mask, at which time you could return to the surface to search for other survivors.  I guess they forgot about residual radiation!  Radiation in the food, in the soil, in the air.  The tour included a bit about nuclear war (with items from Japan following the bombing) and a room about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes (because she died due to leukemia probably caused by the radiation from the nuclear bombs).  The final message was not to be sad, but to think about peace as the way to end the need for spaces such as this.

Recent helicopter (they brought it in in pieces and reassembled it) from the special services.

And a tank

Model of the cave system labyrinth

This is what you wore after you were decontaminated from radiation.  The geiger counter is on the pole with the red handle.

Paper cranes to honor Sadako

The wax characters were a bit cheesy and the part about nuclear wars didn't really need to be included, though it was interesting.

Then we returned to our apartment to finish packing and empty the garbage and recycling.  We stopped by our local grocery store to use up our Hungarian Forints buying snacks for our upcoming train trip to Romania.

Our apartment.  One bedroom in the loft, one behind the kitchen wall.  Under the loft you can see two doors, one is the bath, the other is the toilet.

Kitchen/dining space

A bee we saw on flowers

another bee

Hungary?  Despite few people knowing English (even the young ones), I really liked it.  The people have had to deal with a lot over the years and have shown grit and determination--truly bad ass people.  They and their country have survived and thrived, despite the Soviet occupation.

Next came the trip to the train station.  We stopped for a fast food dinner (all that was available) near the train station and went to our train.  We have reserved seats so we have three of the four with a small table in the center so we didn't need to sit apart wherever we could find room.  Also, we were there early enough that most of the seats were empty.  It filled up though before we took off for our 6 hour train trip.

A photo from an exhibit of a photographer outside the train station.  This is from theSoviets coming in during the Revolution.

On the border of Hungary and Romania, two different border agents came to inspect and scan our passports about 15 minutes apart.  Maybe one was Hungarian, one was Romanian?  But both are members of the EU, so they shouldn't need to check and stamp passports.  One of them is Romania, but I can't read the stamp of the other.  Weird.

Once we arrived in Timosoara, we had to walk 25 minutes to the main city square where our apartment is.  The train station seems to be located in the armpit of the city.  We were walking past vacant, boarded up buildings with broken boards and blankets and other items could be seen inside.  Since it was dark, we were waiting for the zombies to come out of them toward us!  The walk was beside a 4 lane road that was not lined with anything open.  The other side of the road had fence hiding what looked like some industrial businesses.  Not an attractive part of the city.  As we were walking we heard a man yelling through a sound system and people cheering and chanting--a protest??  We met our host at the fountain and she showed us the apartment.  She said that it is a pro-democracy protest against corruption in the government.  After she showed us the apartment, we left to check out the protest--maybe get some pictures.  But it ended just as we were walking toward it--very disappointing.  The protest was at the Opera House which is at one end of Victory Square.  The cathedral is at the opposite end.  Our host said that she was six years old when the Romanian Revolution of 1989 began.  It began here in Timisoara; someone began shooting people from the outside balcony of the opera house.  Many people were shot on the steps of the cathedral, mostly children.  Our host said that her parents sent her far away to stay with her grandparents during the revolution.

The opera house changed as the government changed.  The original opera house looked like this:

And here is the current opera house:

Here are other photos of the square:

Protesters as we were heading to our apartment.  They are waving Romania flags.

The fountain from our apartment

The protest from our apartment window (I had to lean waaaay out!).  

Front of the Opera House

The cathedral is at the far end.

I had camera difficulties at this point, so I don't have closer pics of the Cathedral.  Maybe tomorrow night.