Context, organiser of critically acclaimed walking tours, expands its program in Budapest with Politics, Conflict, Culture: Contemporary Budapest in Context, a new, topical Tour in the Public Interest that offers visitors and locals alike the chance to understand more about Hungary’s current political situation.

Newly renovated Parliament
 

Context’s Tours in the Public Interest is a special series of lectures, site visits, workshops, and other programs put together for serious travelers. It runs all season long and features incredible opportunities for people who seek to understand deeply the places they’re traveling to. Because these tours open a valuable dialogue between visitors and a city but are often commercially unviable, they are underwritten by the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel and offered for a minimal charge.

Liberty Square
 

With a right-wing government freshly elected, accusations of authoritarian leanings abound both within the capital and the international media. To what extent are these accusations founded, and how can they be understood in a wider historical context? This unique walking seminar explores the contemporary situation—not only in an abstract, theoretical sense but also by looking at the politics of everyday life in Budapest, for example in education, religion, culture, art, architecture and urban planning. Led by a local political scientist, and using the Budapest cityscape as a backdrop, this tour tells a difficult story thoroughly and respectfully. Politics, Conflict, Culture: Contemporary Budapest in Context also asks how international players such as US universities, NGOs and personalities like Hungarian-born American investor and philanthropist George Soros have influenced political developments.
 

“The lively debates around monuments and historical sites in Budapest reveal attitudes and controversies about Hungary past and present,” says tour creator Kata Vincze. “This walk interprets the semantics of the city to uncover diverse attitudes to a complex history, and multiple visions for the country’s future within the global political landscape.”

Newly renovated Parliament

Politics, Conflict, Culture: Contemporary Budapest in Context lasts three hours and is available once a month on a Wednesday. Group walks cost Ft1500 per person. As with all Context walking seminars, groups are led by a credentialed expert and limited to six (6) people maximum.
 

Soviet Monument in Liberty Square