The World Heritage is one of the UN programs, an education and teaching
domains project, which is organised by UNESCO. Every country, which has joined
this project, has picked up a few (usually from three to five) nationally
important objects which have national value as relaying traditions and
remaining those traditions to the coming generations. The Suomenlinna, the old
Rauma, the Petäjävesi old church and the factory museum property of
Verla (which is owned by the UPM Kymmene OY) have been chosen to this program
from Finland.
A group of senior secondary school students from Ii and their two teachers
visited Hungary in the end of April to get to know the Hungarian World
Heritage. The visit had been prepared during the winter by searching the
history and backgrounds of the Finnish objects or sites. The students and
teachers of the Dunaharasztian friendshipschool Baktáy Erwin
Gimnázium had been preparing the introductions and guidings of their
sites.
The other purpose of this visit was to get to know the Hungarian people and
their customs, the culture and, of course, the Hungarian school. At the airport
there was a group of students, who had visited Ii last autumn, waiting for us.
There were also some new acquaintances. The reception was warm and the
cooperation started in good atmosphere.
During the week we visited many interesting places: First we were
introduced the centre of Budapest and the World Heritage area of the Buda hill.
In Budapest tourists are usually taken to the plaza of Heroes. A
Millenium-monument has been set up on the open field. It celebrates the
Hungarians who settled Hungary 1,000 years ago. The historical characters
create an impressive scene to the plaza. The highest pillar, which rises up to
36 meters, carries the statue of archangel Gabriel. Around one of the pillars
prince Árpád and the chiefs of the tribes are riding on their
horses. In front of the monument there is the tomb of the unknown soldier. The
enlightened statue of King Mátyás belongs to "the crowd on
the prominent".
After the plaza we got to know the actual World Heritage area - Buda Hill.
We visited Mátyás Church, which is concecrated to Virgin Maria.
King Béla has had the church built in 13th century and its also called
the church of the crowning. The church is named after the Hungarian Middle-Aged
king and it is beautiful both outside and inside. In the church museum, which
was in connection to the church itself, there were some sculptures, relics,
historical costumes and religious art from the Middle Ages to be seen.
After the sightseeing, we spent the rest of the day in a really big
shopping-centre, the Duna Plaza. Many of us popped in to eat at
Mac-Donald´s. The day was truly interesting but also tough. Although we
saw only a small part of Budapest, it convinced us how wonderful and big
Budapest really was.
The next day we had a boat trip to the Danube. The weather was sunny, but
especially in the morning the wind was blowing hard, so we couldn´t spend
our time on the deck. The boat trip began from the centre of Budapest and we
had an opportunity to admire the beautiful buildings on the Buda Hills. The
sight from the Danube with its bridges was absolutely wonderful.
Our destination was a town called Szentendre. It took two hours to get there. At first we went to an art museum where we could admire Hungarian ceramist Margit Kovács´s fascinating works. Many of us also visited the Marsipan Museum. There was, among other things, Michael Jackson in his natural size - made of marsipan. The town reminded us of the towns of the Mediterranean with its white buildings, shallow alleys, cafes and shops. They had a lot of souveniers to offer but also traditional Hungarian handicrafts, food and drinks. Szentendre is also the place where Sanna Koivisto (an artist from Ii) has her art exhibition this spring.
In our program there was a day reserved for us to visit the families and the
school. We went to a music lesson and to an art lesson. The art teacher told us
about expressionism and he showed us some paintings that were made by his
former student. This former student is a very talented and promising artist.
The art lesson was held at the school library and we were very pleased when we
saw our national epic, Kalevala, on the book shelf. Kalevala and
Väinämöinen are familiar, not only to our host students but also
to many other Hungarians. They are very interested in the kinship between the
Finns and the Hungarians.
After the school we had a short visit to Budapest and after that we went to our host students for supper. The Hungarians usually have some soup first and after that they have the main course. Of course, we didn´t remember that, so we ate soup quite a lot. Because of that, our Hungarian friends wondered why we only tasted the main course. On Friday there was a celebration in the school. It was Baktáy Ervin -celebration, which is held every year in April and it is quite similar to Acricola´s and Runeberg´s days celebrations in Finland. Baktáy Ervin was the founder of this school. In the celebration there were students´ presentations, drama and a band that played the Renaissance music. The plays must have been funny because everybody laughed, but because we didn´t understand our kindred nation´s language we didn´t have much fun. The band´s music was interesting, at least the girls thought so, because the players were fine-looking Hungarian boys. Finally, the scholarships were divided for the best students of the school. They were rewarded for their meritorious school-work.
Baktáy Ervin Gimnazium also operates as some kind of art gallery.
There were a lot of paintings donated by painters on the schoolwalls and they
were just about to put up an art exhibition to the assembly hall. The idea is
that a school net is formed whose memberschools exchange exhibitions regularly.
The classrooms were clean but the equipment there a bit old-fashioned. Surely
there were all the necessary things, even videos, but the furniture was
worn-out if we compare it with Finnish classrooms. We were surprised that the
staff smoked even inside the school. The school itself was two-storey and they
were building additional classes on the third floor in the second wing of the
school.
The yard of the school was different from the school yards in Finland. There was only a little inner yard where one little tree grew. At the edge of the yard a sapling of the tree of friendship grew which our teacher Teijo Liedes had set last spring during his visit to the school. The students were usually inside during their breaks. Discipline must have been strict in this school, because we didn´t see any disruptive pupils. What do you think about a school, where you can hang art works on the walls without them being soon damaged? The strangest thing in the school and its teachers was the fact that the students and their teachers had a really close relationship. The teachers were just like parents to the students, and that amazed us.
There were 14 people altogether on the trip and 12 of them were students.
Unfortunately we couldn´t accomodate in families, because most of the
families lived far away from the school and the commuting was difficult to
arrange. Instead there was a nice student hostel, where we all slept. The
families were quite small, there were usually a mother, a father and two
children and two dogs which were loose in the garden catching the burglers. All
the families were friendly and nice in spite of the language problems. Only a
few parents could speak English because German was the main foreign language.
They started to learn it in primary school. Mother and father, who were always
friendly, were very close with the children and they were hugging each other
all the time. Those who were accomodated in the families one night got
acquainted with the nice habit of kissing each other all the time, and that
habit we have surely continued here in Finland.
Our friendschool, Baktáy Ervin Gimnazium, is a so called UNESCO
associated school. Our own school, Iin lukio, isn´t connected in this net
of UNESCO schools but it hasn´t prevented our co-operation with the
Baktáy Ervin Gimnazium or the World Hertage program in any way. One of
the World Heritage sites was the limestone cave in Aggtelek, which we visited
on Saturday. The cave is situated about 200 km from Budapest to North-East,
near the border of Hungary and Slovakia. The nature there was absolutely
fantastic, the wild rocks and the giant trees made us thrilled. Then it was
time to see the cave itself. Our guide led us down to the cave through a tight
tunnel. After we had climbed 240 steps, we were faced with a beautiful sight:
it was as stoned icesticks were hanging all over the place. It felt amazing
that the nature had done it.
At this point we were adviced to stay closely in one group, because there
were gallaries for 25 km in all and if you had got lost in there it would have
been terrible. The cave was protected very strictly: you weren´t allowed
to touch anything and we were supposed to take photos only when we stopped. The
temperature there was about 10 degrees (Celcius). The highest spot of the cave
was 100 meters and the broadest was 60 meters. On the gallaries we were able to
see deeps that were covered with water. The deepest spot was even 159 meters.
These stalagtites dropped water with high lime level. This water forms
mangnificant pillars, which are called stalagmites. Some of them are named with
fantasy names like Romeo and Juliet, Turtle, Crocodile... If you used your
imagination you could even recognize them.
After walking about 2,5 kilometers we reached the end of the excursion.
Before that, however, we had a great experience. We were in the biggest
"hall" of the cave where few spotlights were hidden. Mood music was
being played while the lights were put on and off. The lightshow was very
emotional and we were feeling a little bit sad because of our departure.
We were staying the night in Miskolc at a hostel and the next day we were
going to visit the last World Heritage site. We took the bus to Slovakian
border, where an old village of Hollókö is situated. There live a
couple of hundreds of inhabitants there and the houses are protected in the
same way as the houses in the old Iin Hamina, a village in Ii in Finland. The
traditions have been preserved and made lively. The beautiful Hungarian houses,
the churh and the cemetary make the landscape idyllic.
The area is dominated by a fortress which is hundreds of years old and was
attacked by the Turkish.
In the village we were first offered a traditional Hungarian meal, during
which an old village woman told us about her youth and the traditions of the
village.
She showed us how to spin with a spindle and she sung one traditional
spinningsong. Then she chose a Hungarian girl and a Finnish boy and dressed
them as a bride and a groom and told about the local wedding traditions. The
groom was allowed to fire up the campfire so that we could conclude if he was
"fiery" in his love. After that the bride made popcorn on the
campfire so that we could conclude if she was a hard working wife.
After the meal we walked around the village and bought some handicrafts as souveniers. Some of us climbed to the fortress and enjoyed the great view until it was time to go home to Dunaharaszti. In the evening we had a farewell supper at the hostel with the host-students. And on Monday morning it was time to leave Hungary. At the airport we all cried but the departure was inevitable and when we were sitting in the aeroplane it felt nice to get home and - to sauna.