A Trabant (I hope I'm correct) as seen in Budapest, Hungary
Trabant, manufactured by East German automaker VEB, is seen as one of the few symbolic 'artifacts' of the communist era in the old Communist Bloc. Surprisingly, this car poses stark similarity with that "little yellow car' owned by Boey. The emphasis of 'everything-being-equal' by the communist government and its effort in cutting down cost so that everyone will be able to own a car leads to the car's simplistic design. Even simpler is its functionality, 2 cylinders, 26 Horse power and a dreadful 21 seconds to go from 0 - 100 KM/hour (perhaps Ivan's Kancil can do better? ) .
The guide of my tour, who incidentally grew up in that era, shared his love and hate of the car. It was the era ( 1970s, before Poland , among the first of the communist bloc to ditch communism), that everyone only allow to drive one such car. No import of other cars were possible, and it was a funny wait of 5-6 years after you first ordered and paid for the car before you will get it. ( Wikipedia says usual waiting time is 15 years !) He lovingly recalled the moment when this car arrived at his doorstep, and how his family of 4 would just squeezed into this tiny little car and go around. He went on to praise the lifespan of the car , which is a staggering 30 years before it will fail you like the 7 years old proton, amazing, isn't it ?
Iron Curtain, Artwork found on the street of Budapest
Iron curtain, refer to the ideological and physical boundary that separates Europe into two after WWII. To put it simply, the democratic, independence, UN-led west and the Russia-Soviet influenced communist east.
The carvings on this artwork says
"Shall we live as slaves or free men?" ,
"It isolated the East from the West" ,
"It Took Away Our Freedom" ,
"It Held us in Captivity and In Fear" ,
"If finally fell"
Traveling through central Europe, You can't help but notice the great influence of communism on its history, and how it leaves traces in the society and how people are adjusting out of it. Walking down a street in Budapest, you can almost notice the variety of architectural styles of adjacent buildings: gothic, neoclassic, baroque, and communist, etc. It's very interesting to note that communist buildings are the easiest to tell: They simply have no decorations on it, and the paint is always grey-ish , or, put it this way: you just have to pick the dullest buildings out of them and you'll most probably get a communist-designed building.
XuShen
P/S: LoL I notice I always have P/S in my post. .. anyway , I wrote this to relief stress of studying.. haha
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