Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Tha Gas Works colony

■ The workers' colony of the Óbuda Gas Works

coop (but residents were allowed to keep rabbits or, after World War II, cows, too). The unmarried men’s dormitory had 32 sleeping cubicles, a dining hall, and a lounge. The colony lived the life of a closed village community of sorts while the gas works was in operation, with every vital service laid on locally, such as a bakery, a hairdresser’s, a shoemaker's, a butcher's, a grocery, a tobacconist's and a doctor’s surgery offering free medical treatment, a pharmacy, a post office and a workers’ casino (later turned into a community centre and then into the Aquincum Cinema). A circle of self-education was formed in the twenties, there was a workers’ library, and the colony had its own football team. A nursery school was opened for the children, and a primary school section was also operated on the estate.

The residents were united by a shared sense of corporate identity. To be employed in the industry was a distinction with veritable dynasties of gas-workers being formed, even though every new entrant had to start their career on the lowest rung of the hierarchy with a probation period of two years to be served. Workers had every other Saturday off, which they could in fact take in the period between April and late September, while in winter they had to work on Saturdays, too. In times of need, people on the colony could buy potatoes, flour and wood for fuel at a discount and, until 1936, they were provided with free gas and coke. Living in the colony went with certain obligations, too. The garden provided everyone with free

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