N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

Turkish cellars, wells and caverns - the Castle Caves of Buda

■ Operating theatre in he Rock Hoópital

In parallel with the reconstruction of the burgers’ town, the labyrinth of caves was upgraded, in the spirit of the cold war paranoia characterising the period, into a system of modern air-raid shelters by the territorial Air-Raid Command. Besides the Rock Hospital which was kept on permanent alert, a water mains and a sewer system were fully developed and toilet facilities were installed in selected chambers; even a number of baths were put in, and the floors of the rooms concreted. Most access holes connecting the caves with the upper cellars were walled in, and the majority of the wall and vault reinforcements were made at this time, too, altering the appearance of the rock caves beyond recognition. Led by József Barátosi, the Karst and Cave Research Association managed to revive the Speleological Museum for a while in 1961; the following year the association exhibited a nearly four-hundred- metre cave section. In 1983, the Domino Pantomime Association installed a historical wax-work museum in a series of chambers stretching from Anna utca to Dísz tér. A rearranged version of the museum welcomes visitors to this day.

Despite the large-scale defence-related alterations carried out in the 1940s, there remained several isolated, "independent" cave cellars in the northern parts of Castle Hill and below Dísz tér. The rediscovery and survey of these started in 1992 as part of the National Programme of Controlling Hazardous Caves. Assisted by the Central Fund for the Protection of the Environment,

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