Statue Park

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Statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Szoborpark or Statue Park is a park in Budapest's XXII district, with a gathering of monumental Soviet-era statues. These include statues of Lenin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as local Hungarian Communist leaders such as Béla Kun. The park was designed by Hungarian architect, Ákos Eleőd, who won the competition announced by the Budapest General Assembly (Fővárosi Közgyűlés) in 1991.

After the fall of the Communist regime in Hungary in 1989, many of the Communist statues and monuments were immediately removed. These formed the basis for the current collection in Statue Park. On June 29, 1993, the second anniversary of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Hungarian territory, the park celebrated a ribbon cutting and grand opening as a public outdoor museum.

A life-sized copy of the tribune of the Stalin Monument in Budapest was built in the Statue Park with the broken bronze shoes on top of the pedestal in 2006. This is not an accurate copy of the original but only an artistic recreation by sculptor Ákos Eleőd.

Memento park also includes an exhibition and film theatre. The photography exhibition, called “Stalin’s Boots”, covers the 1956 revolution, the 1989-1990 political changes and Memento Park itself, with both English and Hungarian captions. In the barrack-theatre a documentary on the methods used by the secret police, titled The Life of an Agent and directed by Gábor Zsigmond Papp, is shown with English subtitles. The park also functions as a cultural and educational sight housing art projects, festivals, professional and public events. There are Retro Festivals, Film Festivals and several cultural programs.^{[citation needed]}.

The park opens every day from 10 o’clock in the morning until sunset. It is accessible by public transport as well as a special tourist bus.