Sziget: “First” impressions

Guest blog by chargé d’affaires Theresa Bubbear

Team GB might not have won any medals on 8 August (although we were very happy to see Hungary doing so well), but for me it was a day of firsts: Day 1 of the Festival was also the first anniversary of my arrival in Budapest and I made my first visit to the Sziget Festival and my first speech in Hungarian.

I had no idea that Sziget was so big – in any sense. It took us a while to navigate onto and around the island and to find our first appointment, not least because there were so many interesting things to look at and listen to along the way. My first impression was of dust. And more dust. And tents of every shape and size pitched in the most unlikely places and at some unlikely angles. And people. And unexpected snatches of music of every kind.

Our first stop of the day was at a tent set up by the Interior Ministry to raise awareness of human trafficking. The Embassy had helped sponsor this initiative so, with colleagues from the Dutch, German and Austrian Embassies and Deputy State Secretary Krisztina Berta from the Ministry we held a short press conference at the official opening.

I had practised my very short Hungarian speech carefully, only to discover that (as the only native English-speaker) I was the only one not speaking English – but it didn’t matter. I gave a short TV interview about the Embassy’s interest in human trafficking and had a go at a quiz on the subject before moving on to some of the other tents.

At the Jewish Meeting Point and Israel Cultural Centre tents my colleague Levi and I tested our knowledge of famous Jewish people on a “stepping stone” quiz, learned about the Hebrew alphabet and what my name would look like in Hebrew script and pictograms, and ate a delicious Israeli salad.

We have worked closely with a number of Jewish organisations on various projects this year, including a theatre production for schoolchildren, the launch of a book of holocaust poems, and our annual human rights movie day, so it was good to catch up with them again.

Our last stop of the day was at the Hungarian LGBT Association tent and their neighbours the Friss Gondolat Association. Again, the Embassy has close associations with LGBT groups in Hungary. The Ambassador opened this year’s Budapest Pride, I opened the LGBT Business Leaders’ Forum at the EuroGames, and we co-ordinated a joint statement of support for Budapest Pride from 16 embassies.

Levi and I were able to identify most of the European countries which allow same-sex marriages or partnerships, but we did less well on identifying famous LGBT faces. All the organisations are looking forward to having lots of visitors to their tents, so if you are at Sziget do go and see them and see if you can beat the Embassy with your quiz scores.

Day 2 brings a water fight in the name of transparency and some US and Hungarian experiences. I’ll let you know how it goes.