Imre Varga

We had a long sleep, and Flemming served brunch in the garden, with fruit and berries from the plantation:

As we didn’t have any plans for the day, we just walked around the town. Attracted by a sculpture of a man standing at the steering wheel of a ship, we found out more.

The statue was a tribute to Count István Széchenyi (1791 – 1860), known as the Greatest Hungarian, who proposed the unification of Buda and Pest long before creating the first bridge crossing between them.

István Széchenyi was born in an aristocratic family. After fighting against Napoleon, and later travelling in Europe, he was impressed by the development of England and France, contrusting so much with his home country. Széchenyi donated his full annual income to establish the Hungarian National Academy of Sciences, and inspired other noblemen of Hungary to contribute to the development of their country.

The younger Széchenyi was a well-known womaniser who turned the heads of single ladies and married women alike. He was no stranger to the world of brothels. Mothers cautioned their daughters against him, and he was turned down several times because of his bad reputation. However, he married to the love of his live, Seilern Crescence, with whom, whilst she was married, he had an 11 years discreet extramarital affair. After her husband died and the widow passed a year of mourning, István Széchenyi and Seilern Crescence got married.

Throughout his life, Széchenyi had the welfare of the Hungarian nation at his heart and strived to achieve a better future for all. His greatest achievement was the construction of a permanent crossing between Pest and Buda, the magnificent Széchenyi Chain Bridge.

The 40 m high Siofok Water Tower, built in 1910, damaged during the WWII, later restored and operated till 1980:

The Tower had panoramic elevators offering views over the town. After I became a pilot, I stopped going to such attractions – you get much better views from an aeroplane.

In the shade of the trees of Millennium Park stands “The Martyrs”, Imre Varga’s sculpture fragments, that was originally made for Kaposvár.

In Kaposvár, they belonged to the Martyrs’ Memorial inaugurated in 1985, but after the regime change in 1991, the works symbolizing the old regime were removed. Imre Varga was born in Siófok (1923 – 2019), and he was regarded as the most skilled sculptor in Hungary. In 1993, Siófok asked the management of Kaposvár to hand over the remaining Imre Varga sculptures, in order to set up a collection, an open-air exhibition. So in 1996 they were set up in the Millennium Park. The figures of the sculpture group were all modeled after citizens of Siófok, and in 2006 the artist reshaped and cast the figure of his father in military uniform as well.