association

Association. During our stay in Mataró, after a while we realized that strangely it reminds us to a hungarian city, where we have worked several times. Dunaújváros is in 60 km distance from Budapest, set on the side of the river Danube. It is a traditionally working city, as its was born with the factories around it. On the other hand it is an important cite for art, as the Institute of Contemporary Art Dunaújváros is based here, which supports young art and contemporary moovements. The firs generation of artists mooved here in the late 50’s, early 60’s, as they were employed in the factories. It was one of the few cities where artists were integrated with their work into the life of the factories, and the city. The new generations are independent, and many of them move to the capital, but the city still has a extraordinary contact to art.

Our aim is, to introduce this city, and make a formal connection in between Dunaújváros and Mataró.

Dunaújváros (Between 1951–1961 was named as Sztálinváros which means Stalin City) is a city in Central Hungary, along the Danube (Hungarian name: Duna) river. It is in the county of Fejér.

History Dunaújváros is one of the newest cities of the country. It was built in the 1950s during the industrialization of the country under Socialist rule, as a new city next to an already existing village, Dunapentele.

Dunapentele: The area has been inhabited since ancient times. When Western Hungary was a Raman province under the name Pannonia, a military camp and a town called Intercisa stood in this place, at the border of the province. The Hungarians conquered the area in the early 10th century. The village Pentele, named after the medieval Greek saint, Pantaleon, was founded shortly after.

Between 1541 and 1688 the village was under Ottoman rule, and during the 15-year war it was completely destroyed. During the freedom fight led by Prince Francis II. Rákóczi the place was deserted again. In the 18th the village began to prosper. In 1830 the village got the right to hold two market days every week. In 1831 there was a cholera epidemic and the peasants revolted. In 1833 Pentele was granted town status (oppidum) by Ferdinand V. The citizens took part in the freedom fight in 1848-49.

After the Second World War the new, Communist government started a major industrialisation programme, in support of its rearmament efforts. In 1949 Dunaújváros was chosen as site of the largest iron and steel works. Originally they were to be built close to Mohács, but the Hungarian- Yugoslavian relations worsened, and this new site was chosen, farther away from the Yugoslav border. The city was designed to have 25.000 residents.

The construction of the city began on May 2, 1950, near Dunapentele. Within one year more than 1000 housing units were built and the factory complex was under construction. The city took the name of Stalin officially on April 4.1952; its name was Sztálinváros, "Stalin City" as a parallel to Stalingrad in the USSR.

The metal works were opened by 1954. The city had a population of 27,772 at this time; 85% of them lived in nice, comfortable apartments, while about 4,200 people still lived in uncomfortable barracks which originally provided "homes" for the construction workers.

In the middle of the 1950s, public transport was organized, buses carrying 24,000 passengers each day. During the 1950s many cultural and sports facilities were built, the Endre Ságvári Primary School being the largest school in Central Europe in the 1960s.

In 1956, the construction was hindered by an earthquake and a flood, and in October by the start of the 1956 Hungarian Revoluion. During the revolution the city used its historical name Dunapentele again. The Rákóczi radio station, which was created by the revolutionaries, was broadcasting from Dunapentele (in fact from a bus that was constantly moving around in the city so that it couldn't be located.) Even though the citizens of Dunapentele tried to defend their city, the Soviet army occupied the city on November 1956. The city fell under martial law, Russian tanks were standing everywhere.

After the revolution the city was still the "trademark city" of socialism in Hungary, and was presented as such to foreign visitors. Among the visitors were Yuri Gagarin and the Indonesian president Sukarno. The city also provided scenery to popular movies.

In 1960, the ten-year-old city already had 31,000 residents to celebrate its anniversary.

On November 26, 1961 the city's name was changed to Dunaújváros (Duna|új|város meaning Danube-new-city; "new city on the Danube". See also Tiszaújváros) as a consequence of Stalin's death (1956) and the Hungarian Revolution (1956).

The DUNAFERR factory complex is still is a determinant enterprise in the Hungarian steel industry, and a major employer in the area.

Today "New Danube City" is home to many new infrastructures (New Danube bridge, direct highway link between Budapest and Dunaújváros) and the new South Korean Hankook factory, Europe's biggest tire factory of Hankook. This and other projects make Dunaújváros a new Hungarian boomtown.

Twin towns: Dunaújváros is twinned with: Elbasan, Albania; Linz, Austria; Silistra, Bulgaria; Villejuif, France; Terni, Italy; Giurgius, Romania; Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia; Inegöl, Turkey; Alchevk, Ukraine.

http://www.dunaujvaros.hu/

Institute of Contemporary Art Dunaújváros: http://www.ica-d.hu/

Frankfurters

Frankfurters. From the first day, we noticed a gastronomic phenomenon which was interesting for us: the popularity of “Frankfurter bars”. Seeing Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, or even Turkish restaurants would not have been such a surprise. But why exactly Bockwurst? In the majority of the bars we experienced almost perfect German menu, just as if we were in Berlin. There were some places where the spelling had slightly transformed, but we had to appoint that in Catalonia but at least in Mataró the German sausage is as much a national food as at the Bavaria. In Mataró we saw no end of sausage grill bars but we saw the same type of bars in Calaf, Manresa or Barcelona, too. We asked about the reason of their popularity as many people as we could. Some of them said it was in fashion, others came up with its cheapness: there can be something in this. As a significant part of the inhabitants are not really wealthy, so a relatively cheap form of entertainment and nutrition is drinking beer and eating sausages, combining them sometimes with watching a football match.

Trains, rock etc.

Trains, rock and artists. According to our interpreter, the town – to present its cultural heritage- has been planning to establish museums of railway, rock and art for years.

Railway is important because the first railway in the country was built between Barcelona and Mataró. The apropos of the rock museum would be those several rock band that originated from this town. It must be characteristic of industrial towns – several bands stem from Lyon, Manchester, or the Hungarian Dunaújváros. Hungarian visitors see the promotion of contemporary art, visual arts in Catalonia significant, there are relatively many cultural organisations in Mataró. The Can Xalant itself is a centre which every Hungarian settlement - including Budapest – dreams of.

music and people

What music do you dance to? On May 20. we were witnesses of an interesting event, which reveals a lot about the connection of the local people to cultural diversity: There was a festival at the weekend (19^th-20^th). At night a stage was built on a big square next to the mobile fun-fair. On the stage, a female singer was singing popular and traditional Spanish songs in Spanish. After these came the performance of a flamenco group.

The target audience of the performance was obviously those 20-30 pensioners who were sitting on some benches placed opposite the stage. They were probably Spanish inhabitants of the neighbourhood. They were minority, as we could see. The majority of visitors were the inhabitants of Maghrebi or Central-African origin. They were obviously uninterested in the performance. In contrast to the Spanish pensioners they were hundreds, standing at the sides of the square, on the square, also behind the stage at the fun-fair. And of course, in front of the “locutoria”. Especially teens (boys more), mums (who usually could not be seen in these streets during the day) and their little children. The performance on the stage drew the attention of only a couple of them.

Districts

Districts. Adapting to the cliches of the soap opera, Katalin requested the children to chose the “bad places” and the “good places” for the scene of the film. Most children named Rocafonda district as ‘bad place’, in the second place, usually the Cerdanyola district, only a couple of children proposed completely different places and two of them thought there were no bad places in the town.

Despite the different characters of the distinct parts of the town, on the actual day of shooting the children did not really boggle about shooting scenes of one particular district at a different place. It can mean that the differences between various districts in town are not so significant. Also this information tells us about what teenagers think of filmmaking: they know, the characteristics are important, not the actual space.

Change

Change and distinctions. Due to its economic power and favourable geographical location immigration from other parts of the country as well as from foreign countries is significant. Investors are also interested in the city. In the future, the expansion of new housing subdivisions and industrial areas near the coast might highlight the social differences.

Mataró

Mataró. Mataró is a relatively small town in Europe, its population is 118 891 (in 2006), but it is a commercially and industrially important settlement of the region. Naturally, its vicinity to Barcelona and the fact that the town is part of a touristic zone has a strong impact on it. It tells a lot about the relation of the two towns that Spain’s, just as Catalonia’s first railway was constructed between Barcelona and Mataró. Still today the importance of industrial establishments, factories and warehouses is big. The touristic importance of the town is growing, and many of the formerly industrial areas get new functions: primarily expensive flats of office buildings are being built in place of the old plants.