The chronicle of Eger Tobacco Factory

The chosen company

During the course of 1965-65 the Lágymányosi machines were brought to Eger, and the manufacturing side switched to the new Skoda machines. At the same time it was becoming increasingly clear that it was going to be impossible to satisfy the evergrowing demand for filter cigarettes without a series of large

capacity western-made manufacturing and packaging equipment. Eger tendered for new machines. The West German Garant-type machines won the tender, and as a result of their installation output increased from its 1964 annual total of 2.5 billion cigarettes to around 3.9 billion. By 1969 the total figure had risen still further, by around another half a billion, while the basic number of working hours dropped by 9.1% as a result of the introduction of the 44-hour week.

Total output value in 1969 was 480 million forint, and in the same year Philip Morris announced that their annual turnover had overstepped the dream mark of a billion dollars. This was the same year that man landed on the moon. It was the year that long-haired boys were kicked out of schools, the year when we were forced to digest both the Paris student revolution and the mandatory invasion of Czechoslovakia, the same year that Jancsó’s film “Fényes Szelek” appeared, the year when we savoured the technical jargon brought to the fore by the new economic mechanism. Dr. Vendrei Géza - dear old uncle Géza - was 61 years old and preparing for his retirement. There were two nominees for his successor: chief accountant Gusztáv Jászi and chief engineer László Domán - and behind each of them

The Domán family in private in the early sixties