Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

As the thermal waters of Budapest derive from precipitation, they must never be exploited in excess of the available supplies in case the springs run dry. Thermal water is a precious, irreplaceable resource which must be utilised with proper circumspection.

Rudas medicinal baths and swimming pool 9 Döbrentei tér, District I

The derivation of the baths’ name remains unclear to this day. This is what Endre Liber, the late deputy lord mayor of the capital, had to say on the issue in his work Budapest Fürdőváros kialakulása (The Emergence of Budapest as Spa, 1934):

“The [origins of the] nomenclature Rudas Baths keep eluding researchers. Theories suggesting that the explanation of the name Rudas (containing the root rúd, meaning ‘pole’) is that it bears some relation to the pole used in the ferries once in service here or perhaps that the former boat-bridge was connected to some pole stuck down here, are but conjectural”.

Another theory derives the name from the Turkish expression Jesil direkli ilidje (green-pillared bath) on the assumption that the notions pillar and bath got mixed up. Pál Joanovics provides yet another explanation in his Budai notesz (Buda Notebook, 1933). After Buda was retaken from the Turks, the Serbs and Bosnians of Tabán Town called the bath Rudna ilidje or mine bath (which is the equivalent of the German Mineralbad, meaning mineral bath). Thus Rudas would derive from the word rudna.

Another undecided issue is whether the Rudas Baths, or its predecessor, was first built during Turkish times or it predates that period. Some sources mention that before the Turkish occupation, it belonged to the archbishop of Kalocsa. Turkish records claim that the St Gellért Church stood in or very near to its place. And indeed, the ground- walls of this building were uncovered during reconstruction work in 1937. Together with these, the foundations of a bathing basin were also found. What is the most likely is that Buda’s pasha Ali started minor repairs to the original baths in 1556, which were then continued by his successor, who left it to Mustapha Sokollu, a personality who established many more Turkish public institutions in Buda,

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