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My understanding is that Budapest's growth took off after Hungary successfully compromised with Austria an arrangement in which Hungary was still ruled by the Austrian emperor on matters of foreign affairs but for internal affairs Hungary was now ruled by a Hungarian government based in Budapest. For that reason and presumably booming agricultural income in Hungary in the latter half of the 19th century, Budapest grew at a time of great wealth. It shows in Budapest's plethora of elegant buildings.
I've not been to Bucharest but it seems that for the time being, Romania has emerged as the far better country over Hungary. Hungary is just slightly ahead in per capita GDP, but for years Romania has maintained one of the fastest growth rates in Europe. Unfortunately for Hungary, they are ruled by a mafia-style leader who supports Putin.
The reason Hungary is still growing is because German auto companies moved their factories to Hungary. It's ironic that all these years the Germans have been directly supporting Putin through oil and gas and Hungary's dictator through German car companies. Maybe they should learn a lesson and shift their foreign trade to countries with law-abiding democratic leaders.
With Romania's fast growth, I imagine that sooner or later the center of Bucharest is going to start getting cleaned up and modernized, perhaps similar to German cities that also lost their historical centers in WW2. For the foreseeable future, Romania is the far better country than Hungary and it will be exciting to see Romania's continued evolution. Likely within another 30 to 40 years, Romania's living standards will be where Sweden's living standards are today.
The Romanian growth doesn't show itself in infrastructure or renovation of commie and historic buildings. Unlike Hungary where the Western part of the country looks more developed than Slovakia, parts of Czechia, and man places in Northern Austria. Romania looks less developed and maintained than even the poorer Eastern Hungarian towns and roads.
My understanding is that Budapest's growth took off after Hungary successfully compromised with Austria an arrangement in which Hungary was still ruled by the Austrian emperor on matters of foreign affairs but for internal affairs Hungary was now ruled by a Hungarian government based in Budapest. For that reason and presumably booming agricultural income in Hungary in the latter half of the 19th century, Budapest grew at a time of great wealth. It shows in Budapest's plethora of elegant buildings.
I've not been to Bucharest but it seems that for the time being, Romania has emerged as the far better country over Hungary. Hungary is just slightly ahead in per capita GDP, but for years Romania has maintained one of the fastest growth rates in Europe. Unfortunately for Hungary, they are ruled by a mafia-style leader who supports Putin.
The reason Hungary is still growing is because German auto companies moved their factories to Hungary. It's ironic that all these years the Germans have been directly supporting Putin through oil and gas and Hungary's dictator through German car companies. Maybe they should learn a lesson and shift their foreign trade to countries with law-abiding democratic leaders.
With Romania's fast growth, I imagine that sooner or later the center of Bucharest is going to start getting cleaned up and modernized, perhaps similar to German cities that also lost their historical centers in WW2. For the foreseeable future, Romania is the far better country than Hungary and it will be exciting to see Romania's continued evolution. Likely within another 30 to 40 years, Romania's living standards will be where Sweden's living standards are today.
Strangely Hungary is the target of German retirees and WFH.
I'm going to both here in about 2 weeks. I have been to Budapest twice in the past and absolutely loved it both times. A fantastic city to walk around and explore.
I hope you'll share your experiences when you return from your trip.
My understanding is that Budapest's growth took off after Hungary successfully compromised with Austria an arrangement in which Hungary was still ruled by the Austrian emperor on matters of foreign affairs but for internal affairs Hungary was now ruled by a Hungarian government based in Budapest. For that reason and presumably booming agricultural income in Hungary in the latter half of the 19th century, Budapest grew at a time of great wealth. It shows in Budapest's plethora of elegant buildings.
I've not been to Bucharest but it seems that for the time being, Romania has emerged as the far better country over Hungary. Hungary is just slightly ahead in per capita GDP, but for years Romania has maintained one of the fastest growth rates in Europe. Unfortunately for Hungary, they are ruled by a mafia-style leader who supports Putin.
The reason Hungary is still growing is because German auto companies moved their factories to Hungary. It's ironic that all these years the Germans have been directly supporting Putin through oil and gas and Hungary's dictator through German car companies. Maybe they should learn a lesson and shift their foreign trade to countries with law-abiding democratic leaders.
With Romania's fast growth, I imagine that sooner or later the center of Bucharest is going to start getting cleaned up and modernized, perhaps similar to German cities that also lost their historical centers in WW2. For the foreseeable future, Romania is the far better country than Hungary and it will be exciting to see Romania's continued evolution. Likely within another 30 to 40 years, Romania's living standards will be where Sweden's living standards are today.
While I don't want to steer this topic way off course into the realm of politics , I must say that your claim about Hungary being ruled by a " mafia style leader/dictator " is quite patently mistaken .
I'm no fan of Orbán/Fidesz myslef and I will probably even create an entire thread containing an in depth critique of him/them sometime in the future , but to claim that he/they are a bunch of authoritarians/autocrats/whatever related term you want to use is just as factitious as the claim that any Hungarian head of government/political party in power since 1989 has been the same .
I realize that you may very well have read tons of articles in the English language press stating the essence of the claim you've made , but you must realize that upwards of 90% of those articles are written by monolingual English speakers who probably couldn't string together two coherent sentences in Hungarian if their life depended on it , and thus rely exclusively on extremely biased second and third hand sources as opposed to primary ones .
In short while Hungary does indeed have its fair share of political problems , the claim that the short pudgy fellow from Felscút is a dictator is simply the other side of the equally spurious claim of his tall and skinny counterpart from Pápa ( aka Gyurcsány ) having been one as well .
Last edited by William Blakeley; 05-09-2022 at 10:02 PM..
Strangely Hungary is the target of German retirees and WFH.
Hungary is still a relatively cheap place to relocate to , in spite of the fact that real estate prices have indeed very much risen over there in the past 6 years or so , and is also obviously very conveniently situated near Germany and Austria making it a no brainer for those types of retirees .
Speaking of people who work from home , all of my renters are of that sort with two of them being Anglo expats like myself which only goes to show that Hungary isn't half as bad of a place to live in as some people make it out to be .
Budapest is a modern city with a lot of history. Beautiful, walkable, safe. Great roads in Hungary and, other than most things having to go through Budapest no matter where you are in the country trains are otherwise quick, on time and even as a foreign person, easy to get. I spent a little over a week in Hungary and loved it. Just, easy to get around, awesome value for the money.
I have not been to Bucharest but I have been to other parts of Romania and I was quite shocked at the poor condition of the roads and lack of highways (Serbia has better roads and has extensive highways throughout the country). I thought for an EU country of 15 years, Romania would at least have roads as good as Serbia, but no. When I was in Timisoara (3rd largest city) there were a lot of old buildings in great need of repair. Some of them are indeed being repaired and there are some charming things about that city, but there were also a lot of things in poor shape. Bucharest has the largest parliament building in the world but if you read up on how that was built, awful history, takes away from the luster of the thing (from what I have been told by Romanians and Serbs who have seen it). After all, people were starving across the country and under a dictatorship and the focus was on building that instead. Ya, I was taken aback and thought Romania would have better infrastructure after 15 years of EU membership + all member countries are given a lot of funding prior to joining so probably at least 25+ years of EU funding, and I hear Bulgaria is even less developed!
^Not true, aside from some towns like Vratsa, Sliven or Kazanlak, Bulgaria is generally better. We have poor salaries and it sucks to work here but our old buildings are in a better condition than Romanian ones. Check out V. Tarnovo, Ruse, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv or even Sofia on street view and compare them ro TimiÅŸoara. I like TimiÅŸoara but it's a shame she looks in despair. Only Vidin, Pernik and Dupnitsa could come close from our major cities to that despair and it's still better.
And the Western part of Hungary plus Budapest already look like Western Europe.
I was just going by what fellow Balkan (Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, Macedonians) people have told me in regard to Romania and Bulgaria.
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