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

Szent István park

■ The maikó of tragedy and comedy

towards its end the quay was the main destination of Slovakian cargo rafts - 19th century maps show it as the "Ladenhaendler" then from 1986—90 it was Kun Béla rakpart, named for the leader of Hungary’s short-lived 1919 Bolshevik regime.

The park’s statues are representative of the surrounding Modernist atmosphere and also emblematic of important episodes in the neighbourhood's history. There is the Sack Carrier, a worker figure in a neighbourhood that would not likely have been populated by workers. Its simple, blocky form, the work of Zoltán Borbereki-Kovács, was originally erected in 1937 for a different site, and moved here later. The heroic Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is represented in a nude male figure beating a snake to death, by Pál Pátzay. It is meant obviously to represent Wallenberg's courageous spirit, and not his physical appearance. Still, it seems an oddly

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