Budapest Hammer & Sickle Tour - Communist Times, 56 Revolution, WW I and WW II

The Hammer and Sickle tour, the way it was comrade! Written and raved about in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal and other major newspapers, this tour takes you on a journey back to the times about how life was like during our 50 years of communism.

We summarise how it all started, how big brother told us what to do and what not to do. We’ll teach you about how life was like behind the iron curtain. How children were brought up, how families lived, how we travelled, where we could travel, how long it took to get a passport and many other interesting experiences from black markets to banana lines.

Also included on the tour is a visit to our own private exhibition room, where we will introduce you to the real features of a Hungarian home through relics to typical furniture and furnishings. Furthermore we have an extensive collection of many communist related artifacts and relics, such as red and blue passports, party member’s registration book, pins, medals, currency and huge placards to help your understanding of the propaganda we once lived under!

Along the tour we introduce you to the historical approach through the last 200 years of contemporary Hungarian history. Hungary's past is filled with victories, failures and struggles. We lead you through these eventful times through the sights depicting the historical outcome and how it shaped Hungary today.

On the tour we go through the Hungarian history that “shook” the world with the 1956 revolution as one of the main highlighted themes. Prior to the revolution in 1956 a plethora of events such as the War of Independence, Great Compromise, WWI, WWII gave huge significance to the meaning behind the Hungarian quest for freedom. After delving through the recent history we take a microscopic approach towards the newly appointed communist government after World War II that led to the events of the 1956 Revolution. The tour leads you through the remembrance of the first protests and marches and the first shootings and killings that led the Hungarians to fight back against an unethical regime and some of the major areas where all the action happened. Some of our stops and stories will be about our Liberty Square for Cardinal Mindszenty’s part in the revolution as well as the significance of the square and the last remaining tribute to the Soviet Union! We will embrace the character of Imre Nagy by his memorial in remembrance of the man who defied the leaders in Moscow and paid dearly on the gallows two years later. Another stop will be the Parliament area where shots were fired, which instigated the revolt to take up arms and defend one’s freedom.

We reserve the right to alter and change tour programs without prior notice due to construction, city closures for events, festivals and so on throughout the year.