Spring Clearance

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a garage sale.

Ok, very well.

Now raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a flea market.

Ok, good, good.

Now, raise your hands if you’ve ever been to a Lomtalanítás.

What? You haven’t? Well, you are not alone. But you should. And in order to do so, you need to be in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, around the beginning of Spring or Autumn. Because for the people of Budapest there are special days during the year to get rid of their unwanted bulky furniture and other garbage.

Hungary had a communist past that very few people in the country miss nowadays, made of terror, police control, limited freedom and almost zero privacy. But there were also nice traditions and some of them lasted like the Lomtalanítás, a special day in which the Government offers a free service: picking and disposing your garbage of any size. Just dump it in front of your house. Easy.

And there is more: the authorities will come and collect everything the day after, allowing the city to become for one day an open air museum of memories and antiquities able to define Budapest and its people like very few other things. To really understand the lives, the history and the memories of the two millions Magyars in the capital, it’s mandatory to experience this massive clearance day.

Ok, someone less romantic might just define it a huge pile of rubbish in the city centre, and Lomtalanítás is not so popular like it used to be and might end very soon. But up until now there is at least one category of people who like it: those most in need.

Like taxes, Lomtalanítás is a system of repartition of wealth. What has close to zero value for someone might become very precious for others, and since the early morning on that special day, many people can be seen involved in a big Scavenger Hunt looking for something of value, in order to sell it then in a proper flea market.

And yes, also the bathtub in the picture was already “booked” by someone that very kindly lent it for the time of the picture. I couldn’t miss the chance of a calm, relaxing bath on the sidewalk of the most trafficked boulevard in Budapest.