CAVE-DWELLERS IN HUNGARY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16622, 13 April 1928, Page 4

CAVE-DWELLERS IN HUNGARY

A VILLAGE UNDER A CEMETERY BUDAPEST, Feb. 27. in Budateteny, on the. outskirts of Budapest, about a thousand persons have been living for the past 80 years in stone caves situated under a cemetery, through which their chimneys are trained to the surface. In 1838, after great floods had destroyed many houses, and re-building on a fairly large scale was necessary, work was begun in the chalkstone quarries at Budateteny. Ten years later, at the time of the Freedom War, the workers found the natural caves in the quarry convenient hiding-places, and began to hew themselves out two-roomed dwellings—a labor which usually lasted three months—and to carve such objects of furniture as were possible out of stone. These cave-dwellings had the advantag# of being rent free, the property of their makers ever afterwards. Although most of them still belong to the families inhabiting. them, profiteering has none the less crept in, and some of the cavedwellers now own eight or 10 dwellings which they rent at a profit of 80 to 100 Jl’engo (£9 to £l2) a year. ; The cave-dwellers are so attached to ; their homes that they would be unwill- . ing to exchange them even for a brand new village with every modern convenience. The community is an orderly, hard-working one, and thieves are unknown in it. The caves are declared to be warm in winter and cool in summer. The infant mortality is somewhat high, but longevity is the rule among tfie grown-ups. I ' The community elects a Mayor to 1 watch over its interests and represent .it “above ground,” who employs a vice-Mayor, a postman, and a policeman. A side industry of the village is mush-' room growing, which is done i»i. large underground efiyes; but recreation is : not neglected, for the village possesses a powerful loud-speaker to enliven its leisure hours.