Hungary

About the country

Location: Central Europe
Population: 9,960,000
Language: Hungarian
Capital city: Budapest
Climate: continental
Currency: Hungarian Forint (HUF) – 1 EUR = 260-280 HUF
Learn more: www.hungary.com

National traditions

Holidays:

• December 31- January 1.: New Year’s Eve (Szilveszter) and New Year’s Day (Újév)

• Carnival Season – Farsang
  Costume parties and carnivals take place all month long to mark the end of winter, especially on the last Saturday in February. City festivities usually include carnival, parade and open-air music concert.

• March 15: 1848 Revolution Day – 1848-as Forradalom és Szabadságharc
  The “Hungarian spring” – a bloodless fight for freedom against Habsburg domination which later led to war against Austria and its allies (at the time: the Croats and Romanians). The main demands of Hungarians were: freedom of the press, and the establishing of a Hungarian parliament in Pest with its government. Revolutionists also demanded freedom of religion, a jury, a national bank, a Hungarian army, and the withdrawal of foreign military presence from the country.In 1849 Russia intervened on the side of Austria, and won. The Austrian retorsion included the execution of 13 generals of the Hungarian revolutionary army and of 5 civilian leaders of the short-lived independent Hungary. One of them was the first prime-minister, count Lajos Batthyany.Each year on March 15, the Hungarian tricolors of red, white, and green are prominently displayed all over the country.

• Easter Sunday and Monday – Húsvét
  Easter is an important religious holiday in Hungary. The day before families with children paint eastereggs of all styles and color. Children find small gifts beside their beds early Sunday morning. A traditional breakfast follows of easter-eggs, ham, braided cake bread, horse-radish and hot chocolate. Many families go to church this morning to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On Monday, many people carry on the tradition of “sprinkling”. While once young men used to pour buckets of water over young women’s heads, today they spray perfume or water and then ask for a kiss and a red egg. Painted eggs as well as chocolate-ones are exchanged.

• May I: Labor Day – A munka ünnepe
  Workers unions organize a celebration in Városliget (Budapest’s City Park) with speeches, acrobats, clowns, food and music.

• Early June: Whit Monday: Whit (Pentecost) Sunday and Monday- Pünkösd vasárnap és hétfő
  Religious celebrations are followed by a public holiday.

• June 30: Withdrawal of Soviet Troops – A szovjet csapatok kivonása
  This day marks the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary in 1991.

• August 20: St. Stephen’s Day – Szent István napja
  In the year of 1000, Hungary’s first king, the Christian St Stephen, was crowned this day, and the Hungarian (Magyar) state was founded. Traditionally, the first bread from the new harvest is baked for this day. In 1949, Hungary (then the “Magyar People’s Republic”) accepted its constitution. Parades and music are among the festivities, and an impressive fireworks show is launched over the Danube at night.

• October 23: 1956 Uprising Memorial Day – Az 1956-os forradalom emléknapja
  This national holiday commemorates the outbreak of the people’s uprising against Soviet domination in 1956. The new prime Minister, Imre Nagy withdrew from the Warsaw Pact of “communist” countries. Soviet troops invaded. Hungary appealed for UN assistance against Soviet invasion, but only received verbal help. Holland & Spain withdrew from Olympics, to protest Soviets in Hungary. UN demanded USSR leave Hungary. In November, after lots of bloodshed, the Hungarian revolution was put down by the powerful Red Army of the Soviet Union. Imre Nagy and many other leaders and participants were executed by the sovietregime. Soviet troops stayed in Hungary until 1991. The country also celebrates Hungary’s new constitutional status in 1989.

• November 1: All Saints’ Day – Mindenszentek napja
  People remember their deceased loved ones by lighting candles at their graves in cemeteries.While Halloween is not celebrated in Hungary, you can find several expat-inspired events.

• December 6: Santa Claus (St. Nicholas’) Day – Mikulás
  Children put their clean boots on their window-sills the night before. In the morning, “Good” children find candy, nuts and fruit, sometimes even small toys in their boots, while “bad” ones get bunches of twigs (virgács). Mikulás, however, never finds entirely wicked children in Hungary.

• December 24, 25, 26: Christmas – Karácsony
  The traditional family Christmas celebration, dinner and exchange of gifts takes place on the eve of December 24th. The 25th and 26th are public holidays when relatives visit each-other. Hungarians set up their Christmas tree on the 24th, and leave it on until it lasts.Vörösmarty tér features a large Christmas tree, and there is a cheerful and cosy outside Christmas market there. Live music is often heard in the city.

Food:
The first thing that people recall about Hungarian cuisine is goulash, which is, contrary to popular belief , not a stew but an artistically prepared thick soup. Sour creamis often used to soften flavour. You must try fish soup, chicken paprika, good home-made pörkölt (stew) and the excellent freshwater fishes: grilled pike-perch, trout with almond. Also compulsory is goose liver. Whether fried or grilled, cold or hot, it is simply unforgettable. Lángos (fried bread dough)often eaten with sour cream and cheese, Téliszalámi (or Winter salami, salami made of spiced meat, cold smoked, and dry ripened, the most famous brand made by Pick Szeged),

Sweets:
Maybe the most famous sweet is túró rudi, which is made of cottage cheese and chocolate. The most famous brand of this sweet is Pöttyös, the classic version in polka dotted wrapping. Gesztenyepüré (cooked chestnuts mashed, topped with whipped cream). Kürtőskalács (Stove cake or Chimney cake) cooked over an open fire: a Transylvanian specialty, famous as Hungary’s oldest pastry. Rétes (strudel) is a type of sweet layered pastry with a filling inside, often served with cream. It became well known and gained popularity in the 18th century through the Habsburg Empire. To make a strudel is very difficult, only few housewives are able to do so. The filling can be apple, cherry, cottage cheese with raisins, plums. The beigli is also a special Hungarian sweet which is made for Christmas and Easter. It’s filling is mostly made of walnuts or poppyseeds. Dobos torta is named after its inventor, a well-known Hungarian confectioner, József C. Dobos in 1884. It is a five-layer sponge cake, layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with thin caramel slices. The sides of the cake are sometimes coated with ground hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts or almonds but the original cake is without coat, since it was a slice of a big cake. Dobos’s aim was to make a cake that would last longer than other pastries, in an age when cooling techniques were limited. The caramel topping helps keep the cake from drying out.

Drinks:
Hungarian wines dates back to at least Roman times, and that history reflects the country’s position between the Slavs and the Germanic peoples. The best-known wines are the white dessert wine called Tokaj (North-Eastern region of Hungary). Tokaji Aszú is a real hungaricum, this is the wine which made the Tokaj world famous and is proudly cited in the Hungarian national anthem. The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was “dried”, but it came to be associated with a type of wine made with botrytised grapes. The sweetness of a wine is defined by the level of sugar in the wine. In this case, Tokaji is graded by it’s puttonyos which denotes the number of puttony of aszu berries mixed with the base wine. The more puttonyos are added per barrel of dry wine, the sweeter the final wine will be. Generally wines range from three to six puttonyos. Wine with six puttonyos is highly prized; wine with one or two puttonyos is rarely bottled. Famous are also The red vines from Villány (Southern part of Hungary). and the vine called Bull’s Blood (Egri Bikavér), a dark, full-bodied red wine. Hungarian fruit wines, like redcurrant wine, are mild and soft in taste and texture. One of Hungary’s most notable liquors is Unicum, a herbal bitters, The liqueur is today produced by Zwack according to a secret formula of more than forty herbs, and the drink is aged in oak casks. The name Unicum has it’s own story, which says, that Joseph II., the Habsburg King has tasted this liquor and he cried out: “Das ist ein Unicum”(“this is unique!). Palinka, a range of fruit brandies. is a traditional Hungarian and Transylvanian fruit brandy. It is most often made from various kinds of fruit; the most common varieties are made from plums, pears, or apricots. It may also be made from apples, cherries, mulberries, or quince. Other varieties of the beverage are made from honey, rose hips or pomace.

Other:
The Herend Porcelain Manufactory (Hungarian: Herendi Porcelánmanufaktúra Zrt.) is a Hungarian manufacturing company, specializing in luxury hand painted and gilded porcelain. Founded in 1826, it is based in the town of Herend near the city of Veszprém. In the mid-19th century it was purveyor to the Habsburg Dynasty and aristocratic customers throughout Europe. Many of its classic patterns are still in production. The Sziget festival is one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. The festival is held annually in August in Budapest and takes place on Óbudai-sziget (“Old-Buda Island”), a leafy island on the Danube. Currently it boasts more than 1000 performances each year. The week-long festival has grown from a relatively low-profile 1993 student event to become one of the definitive European rock festivals by the late 1990s, with about half of all visitors coming from outside Hungary, including the UK and France (more information at http://www.sziget.hu/fesztival).

IADS member info

Type of membership: full country membership
Association: Hungarian Association of Dental Students – HADS (Magyar Fogorvostanhallgatók Egyesülete – MFHE)
Address: 1089 Budapest, Nagyvárad tér 4., Hungary
Telephone:
Website: mfhe.hu
Contact: mfhe.neo@gmail.com,
Registration date at IADS: decades ago
Number of Dental schools: 4
Number of students: 600

NEO Contact details

Name: Karolina Rado
E-mail: mfhe.neo@gmail.com

Exchange Programme General Info

Availible cities/universities: Semmelweis University in Budapest, with trips for some days to the other universities in Pécs, Szeged, Debrecen.
Best period for exchange: July-August, 2 week terms from Mondays to Sundays. The terms which you can choose are for 2010 are:

• 2010 July: 5th- 18th
• 19th – 1st of August
• 2010 August: 2nd -15th
• 16th-29th

If you want to stay for 4 weeks, you can choose 2 periods next too each other. In case you arrive or leave some days earlier or later we arrange you accommodation in a hostel for those extra days.

Exams period: 17th of May – 30th of June and 23rd – 27th of August
Exchange duration: 2 or 4 weeks
Language requirements: advanced English or Hungarian
Deadline for applications: 1st of May 2010 for July and August 2010
Form of application required: IADS Application Form with passport number and photo
Deadline for confirmation: 16th of May 2010 for July and August 2010
Type of exchange: unilateral and bilateral
Bilateral contracts: possible in case of bilateral interest (we had contracts previously with Turkey and Poland)
Number incomings accepted per year: maximum 50 persons during July-August
Clinical work possibilities: observing, assisting
Social program: Social programs are organized by Contact Persons who take care of the exchange students. This includes sightseeing, parties, the “international party” at your arrival, occasionally a trip to Lake Balaton, etc.
Estimated cost of exchange: accommodation: 16000 HUF / 2weeks / person (2 weeks = 14 days and 13 nights)

Food:

• a kilo of bread is around 200-300 HUF, a liter milk 200-400 HUF
• a coffee is 150-400 HUF (expressocafé latte)
• some fast food on the street 600- 1000 HUF
• a menü at the university 600 HUF, a’la carte at the same place 1000-2000 HUF
• a meal in a restaurant is 3000-6000 HUF in a very fancy one >10 000 HUF

Pocket money:

• food takes around 2000 a day (if you don’t prepare meals for yourself)
• public transportation for 2 weeks is 6500 HUF, but there is a studentmonth ticket for 3850 HUF available if you have a valid student ID
• and you can spend an endless amount of money on presents

Spare time costs:

• cinema: 800-1500 HUF,
• disco: entrance fee 0-1000 HUF, cocktails >1000 HUF, beer 200-800 HUF

Insurance deposit system requirements: 100 euros should be transferred to the Association’s account before exchange, the whole amount of money will be given back at arrival in HUF, which saves the exchange student the trouble of changing money at arrival.

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