Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

hammered home, each with four hundred or so strikes of the ram. For two years the Danube banks echoed the rhythm of dull bangs-monotonous and yet most cherished music.

The ceremonial laying of the foundation-stone took place in the pit of the Pest abutment on 24 August 1842. Participants were literally encircled by the Danube. After being read out to those assembled, a document relating the events that had led up to the beginning of the construction was placed in the cavity of the foundation-stone where some gold and silver coins were also deposited. These were then buried under a thirteen-ton limestone boulder where it has since remained. Six years on, construction work had reached a stage that, on Kossuth’s orders, the royal crown of Hungary could be rescued from Buda and transferred to the city of Debrecen via the bridge on 1 January 1949. A few days later Austrian troops were also marched across, over temporary planks. Thus did history lay claim on the Chain Bridge. Due to its utmost strategic importance, the bridge was endangered even before its completion. First Colonel Allnoch tried to blow it sky-high to save the hard pressed Austrian defence forces. The perpetrator himself was killed by the explosion of the gunpowder kegs, but the

A FOREST OF SCAFFOLDING AT THE LAST RENOVATION

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