Out in the Mountains
Gay Life in Hungary
Kevin Moss

After ten years of visiting Hungary, the
gates of gay Budapest finally opened for
me two summers ago. In a crowded cafe
on busy Vaci street, the fashionable pe-
destrian mall on the Pest side, I struck up
a conversation with some men at another
table. Soon three of the maybe fifteen ta-
bles in the place were discussing the
merits of various gay meeting places in
the city: baths, cruising areas, piano bars,
discos... Budapest, it turned out, was not
the kind of wasteland I had learned to
survive in Moscow.

With the collapse of the Soviet empire,
each country in Eastern Europe is find-
ing its own path to independence, and
each gay community its own path to lib-
eration. Even in Kadar’s communist
Hungary, homosexuality was not a
crime. In spite of the Spartacus Guide’s
claim that “the attitude of the Hungarian
population towards gays is intolerant,”
Hungarian gays now have organizations,
bars, and a newspaper. Some of the baths
seem to be predominantly gay, and no-
body seems to mind. The baths are the
pride of Budapest, actually the reason for
establishing a city here since Roman
times. There are perhaps ten in operation
now, ranging from the oldest, Kiraly,
built by the Turks when they occupied
the city, through the pseudo-baroque
Széchényi in the city park and the art

_ nouveau Gellért resort complex, to the

modern Terrnal. Most have saunas,

steam rooms, and swimming pools as
well as the pools of natural hot spring
water with various medicinal properties
(some of them radioactivel). And most,
being segregated by sex and requiring no
clothing or only a small napkin-like
apron, are active cruising areas. The larg-
est and most popular complex is the Gel-
lért, which also has a mixed outdoor pool
with a wave machine, a small restaurant,
and a sunning terrace. Entry to the entire
complex runs a few dollars, and a ten-
minute massage can be had for $1.25.

1989 marked the change from People’s
Republic to Republic of Hungary and
also saw the opening of the first gay dis-
co, the Lokal, complete with drag shows
and an adjacent leather bar. The oldest
gay bar in Hungary (perhaps in all East-
ern Europe), the Egyetem, closed this
year, after more than 25 years. From the
outside it looked like a typical cafe, but
behind the tables on the street there was
a bar, and further back a piano room
where gay men gathered in the evenings.
By this summer there were two more pi-
ano bars and a second disco, the Angel
Bar, advertised as “not just for angels.”
All of these seemed friendly, clean, pop-
ular, and cheap by American standards:
roughly $1 cover and $1 drinks.

In April of this year the first issue of
Mdsok (Others), the gay monthly, ap-
peared. The first three issues are 16 pag-

es of news, fiction, photos, and’per-
sonals. A sampling: an article about
Zsuzsa Lantos, torch singer at the Eg-
yetem who died recently; a plea to Hun-
garian lesbians to participate: “Women,
we’re waiting for you——it will be easier
together!” and complaints about dis-
crimination against minorities (read gyp-
sies) in the gay bars. Some of the per-
sonals are also telling: because of the
shortage of housing and meeting—places,
people advertise their own apartments
for use by gay couples and add that in
exchange they expect to take part in any
sex.

The provinces of Hungary remain... well,
provincial, but Budapest is developing
from a great atiraction for straight tourists
into an exciting and worthwhile destina-
tion for gays as well.

The author is an Associate Professor of
Russian at Middlebury College.V

 

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