Back in 2019, I noticed this little fellow up on the Budapest castle ramparts.
So this time around I did some research. Turns out this Kolodko dude hid little statues all over Budapest, so the search was on.
We stayed in Fö utca, close to the Batthyány tér metro station (Hungarian has 44 letters in their alphabet, I don’t always get it right), so the worm, tank and Rubik’s cube were all right on our doorstep. The russian soldier in the pantry was a short walk downriver (in the rain, which turned out not as bad as forecast).
Brexit teddy in Harmincad u. close to Deak Ferenc.
Not sure what this is supposed to be, maybe a warning? It’s in Dózsa György út next to the Museum of Ethnography.
Not technically a mini statue, the little princess lives on the Pest-side river bank close to Vigado tér.
The balloon dog is not far away from the little princess.
Rattatouille lives on the other side of the river, under the Erzébet bridge.
The dead squirrel lies behind Columbo and his dog on Szent István.
Mekk Elek on Széll Kálmán tér.
There’s a whole collection of dogs at a little park halfway between Széll Kálmán tér and Batthyány tér.
It started out as a Russian hat on a pillow, but a politician called Erik Fülöp took an axe to it, knocked it off the fence, and threw it in the river. Kolodko replaced the statue with an axe on a pillow (more on this later).
In the same park there is also a mini statue of Kermit the frog.
And the moon buggy is not far away, close to the Lajos Batthyányi Eternal Flame.
Tivadar Herzl was a Jewish Austrian-Hungarian journalist, writer and political activist who became known as the father of modern Zionism. His mini-statue lives close to the sinagogue on Dohány utca.
The racecar is rather large, for a mini-statue. It’s in front of the Pesti Magyar Színház (theater).
The story goes that some dude threw the New York Cafe’s key in the river to prevent said restaurant from ever closing. But of course the diver got it back.
King Franz Joseph chills out on Szabadság (Liberty) bridge (which used to be called Ferenc József híd).
Remember the Russian hat that got axed and tossed in the river? Here it is climbing back out, in front of the Houses of Parliament.
We looked hard but we could not find: the urinal, the russian warship and Lisa Simpson.
When it was time for me to fly back, I took the train from Ljutomer, and had to stay over in Budapest . So I took the chance to hunt a few more mini statues.
I stayed in a cheap flophouse close to the Eastern Budapest Station (Keleti) and this back-to-the-future Trabant lives there.
The ark is on Bethlen Gábor tér.
It was pissing down, real miserable — I took this photograph at around nine in the morning, in summer… blargh. This is Jewish war hero Hanna Szenes, at the park named after her.
And then, on my way to the airport on the M3 Metro line, I interrupted my trip to catch this fellow just around the corner from the Semmelweis Klinikák metro station. Why a meerkat, why here?