Have you ever wondered what it may have been like to live and work in communist Hungary, or do you remember those times? Join us in a vintage, nostalgic time travel back to the “good old days” of Hungary.
First of all: Work, work, work! Socialist society was the society of work and proletarian internationalism.
Just imagine that it was illegal to be unemployed. All right, so everybody had a job… and a register about jobs in the “employment book”. Not having a current place of work listed constituted a civil offence.
Although, it was not so exhausting all the time.
It could take years to get a car… and don’t think of a great selection of models, colors, or other kinds of (luxury) extras.
But you had to celebrate, even if you didn’t want to… There is no communist system without communist, monumental, self-justifying celebrations.
The socialist leaders of the education knew very well that the future is the young generation. The pioneer and little drummer movement was a false copy of scouting extended with socialist ideology.
When you didn’t need (or could not get?) anything else except a “lángos” and a beer.
But the Balaton was the Riviera those days too.
One iconic symbol of the Socialist era is “Túró Rudi”, a dessert bar of cottage cheese coated in chocolate that has retained its enormous popularity among Hungarians ever since. Look for the red dots-on-white wrapping in shop refrigerators across the country!
Rock music, often featuring covertly anti-system messages and idols taking the system’s boundaries to the limit, was highly popular in an age when freedom of speech and foreign travel was limited. Pictured, a concert of the legendary rock band Omega with lead singer János Kóbor in the foreground, Miskolc, 1983.
To sum up and start the real time travel, let’s have a look at the era from the point of view of official propaganda.
via: budapestretro.weebly.com; mult-kor.hu
photos: napitortenelmiforras.blog.hu; retronom.hu; zsiguli.hu; hajdu-negyessy.blogger.hu; mult-kor.hu; ilovebalaton.hu; mnm.hu