Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Teleki László tér

stand there just having their cheap lunch. As the article noted, "Already at dawn there’s little to buy, when the village is there to help out, a few peasant women and a few carts. By noon it's completely empty and bleak."

An earlier newspaper chronicle, from July 1917, gave even darker details about wartime conditions at the market.

"Teleki tér even in peacetime is one of Budapest’s most sorrowful squares, but now, since the war has placed its own sad stamp on it, Teleki tér itself with its boisterous, loud marketplace is truly a bleak place. Among the tents and kiosks the women and children loiter in nearly unbelievable numbers, and the poor Pest consumer can get hold of goods or foodstuffs after only the greatest struggle."

Finding even rice, beans and peas — the most basic of staples — was a struggle. The poorest of the city's population had to wait in absurdly long lines, and many of the customers were illiterate and thus unable to even read the signs saying that everything had run out or that wares wouldn't be delivered until later. Women would come at 4 and stand in line until the evening, some even sleeping there among the kiosks, so terrible was the food crisis. There were also allegations that - because some gave priority

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