Since 1st of May is Theme day in the DP family (are you preparing yourselves guys?):) I decided to post on 1st of May one day before. The local government of Budapest helped me, they have raised the flags in advance.
1st of May is the date that Hungary joined to the European Union in 2004 so that’s why you can see so many blue European flags on the Freedom (liberty) bridge.
But as we know originally 1st of May is for celebrating labour (for my dear American visitors: labor). In this part of the globe, this is a controversial celebration today. Before 1989 1st of May was one of the largest communist event in the calendar celebrating the working class as the leading force of the socialism. Usually they organized large marching parades on the main streets of the city. In my childhood, I also participated on events like these with my school and maybe its not trendy to say I’ve enjoyed them as a child. Everyone was on the streets. In Tatabánya where I grew up, the miners marched in their “uniform” and other guys working in the industry were in their cool dresses, and it was totally amazing for a little boy. I always tried to choose the blue flag to carry from the three possible options: the Hungarian national flag, the red communist flag, and the blue flag of peace. And when we arrived to the tribune, where gray haired or almost bald uncles were standing in old fashioned ugly eyeglasses, we had to wave to them following the instruction of our teachers. After a few minutes we arrived to the end of the wide road and aside trucks were waiting for us to collect the flags. And we got sausage with mustard and bread as present for that hard work.:)
Nowadays lot of people think here, that 1st of May is a communist event. But its not true. It comes from Chicago (Illionis, USA) and we remember (or it seems we don’t remember) the so called Haymarkert Riot of 1886. So I think we could continue our funny marching on 1st of May instead of labeling this event as something we have to forget about. The gray haired uncles will be other guys but does is it really makes difference?:) And I guess nowadays I would be more excited to look at marching nurses in their short white coat than about black miners, but the sausage would still be a fix element of the program:)