Buhara and the first Europeans

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Buhara was one of the most important stops on the famous Silk Road. The city and its surroundings have been inhabited for almost 5 millennia, making it one of the cradles of Turkish civilization, one of the centers of historic Turkestan.

Since 2011, the city has been decorated with a monument commemorating Ármin Vámbéry, the famous Hungarian Eastern explorer and his work. It was Vámbéry who was the first European to map the area, including Buhara.

Vámbéry was born in 1832 in Szentgyörgy, Hungary, one of the most prominent orientalists and oriental researchers. After graduating from Piarist High School, he continued his studies in Sopron and Bratislava, and by the age of 20 he spoke more than 8 languages. After completing his studies, he first arrived in Istanbul in 1857, where his first work, a German-Turkish dictionary, was published. From 1860 he was a correspondent member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a year later, with the support of the Academy, set out on his eastern journey to search for traces of Hungarians.

He returned to Hungary in 1865, where he became a lecturer at the Budapest University, where he established the world’s first department of Turcology. On his eastern journey, he reached the ruin town of Persepolis, where, to this day, the name of the palace and the inscription: “long live the Hungarians” are on the wall of the palace.

Hungarian architect of Shanghai: László Hugyecz

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Only few people know that several iconic buildings in Shanghai were designed by a Hungarian architect. The architect, László Hugyecz took an adventurous trip to the remote city from Besztercebánya (now Banská Bystrica).

László Hugyecz was born in the Hungarian city Besztercebánya (now Banska Bystrica, Slovaia) in 1893 as the son of a family of six. At a young age, he moved to Budapest, where he studied architecture at the Budapest University of Technology but was hired as a soldier due to the outbreak of World War I. During World War II, he was captured by the Russian military, where with his exceptional language skills and architectural talent, he quickly gained the recognition of his detainees. Due to his abilities, he was entrusted with managing more and more construction sites during the captivity.

However, during his captivity, he became seriously ill so he was taken to a train wreckage which he escaped with his companions near the Chinese border and headed to Shanghai. Once in town, he began working at the Rowling A. Curry Architecture Bureau, where he quickly climbed the ladder. He had no language problems since he had learned not only Russian but also Chinese since his captivity.

Thanks to his architectural success, he was able to establish his own company by 1925, known as L.E.Hudec, which has become one of the most fruitful architectural firms in the city. He designed 37 buildings in Shanghai himself of which stands out the 24-storey Park Hotel, which has been the tallest building in the city for nearly 50 years.