Genuine pearl

If this small icon of St. George is familiar to you, it is not a coincidence. Similar ones have been produced by Romanian families in the Transylvanian Plain since the early 19th century, and the Hungarian intellectuals visiting Transylvania preferred to bring/smuggle home the naive pictures painted on glass. As I look at the little horse with a gentle smile, stepping forward from the frame with a slightly raised hoof above the dragon, I can understand it.

This icon, however, did not come from Transylvania, but from this side of the Romanian border. And its makers are Hungarians and Gypsies.

Nóra L. Ritók and the Genuine Pearl Foundation and art school in Berettyóújfalu have a growing awareness in Hungary, mainly due to the blog written by her. Nóra originally planned to start a basic art training for the socially disadvantaged children living in this little town and in the surrounding small settlements.

The school has by now achieved a great number of professional successes, and the children have done well in international competitions. More important than the prizes, however, are the good impressions they have in the school. The experience of creation grants them a real sense of achievement, an improved self-esteem, a strengthened self-image, and this is also felt in their other results. If there is a route out of poverty, then this is that.



It soon turned out, however, that any result can be achieved only through a social work closely related to education, as well as through a complex assistance which re-establishes cooperation between people who has long forgotten how to cooperate.

It is essential that all those involved in this process, both the kids, the parents and the authorities see the meaning of the efforts, and believe in it. The rebuilding of this faith and joint thinking is the most difficult task, which, however, cannot be spared, or substituted with campaign-like donations.

This is why the Genuine Pearl Foundation has launched, among other projects of assistance, the Szuno, which offers work for the women living in this region struggling with an extremely high unemployment, a work which they can carry out on the site and also with a low education.

This project, based on the collaboration of generations, offers work for the adults on the basis of the paintings and designs created by the children in the school. The selected children’s drawings are converted into embroideries by the adults, and these are used in the products sewn by them.

There were already instances that we asked for help here in Río Wang, for the flood victims of the Transylvanian Szék (here, here and here). The then generous helpfulness of our readers now encourages us to a further request. Still in the advent period look around in the Szuno webshop, and if you can afford, buy there. And if you like what you see there, monitor the evolution of the project, check back regularly to the shop or to Nóra’s blog, because this issue has implications which are vital to us all. Is it possible to produce a chance from almost nothing, only through gradual work, for those who, due to their geographical, social and employment position are in the most difficult situation, and to adapt the good practices in different places? Not only the fate of a few settlements in difficult situation, but that of all of us depends on this.

Be silent partners in this work, which is more important than anything else happening today in Hungary.

Whom does it hurt

The pár perc Budapest (a few minutes of Budapest) blog reported in a sad little news on the cleaning off of a small graffiti that has survived more than a hundred years.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the era of horse railways, flag-officer György Adorján etched into the clinker wall of the University during the probably boring hours of his job whatever just came to him. The naive work, made with great care, has conserved his memory until this spring.

The graffiti since 1901 and (under the mouse) in 2012

In some cities they manage to consciously preserve such little signs of the past, and this is not only mere sentimentalism, but also image building. Because the history of a city is made especially personal, and the city itself attractive and unique by these little stories which invite you to get to know it. Where we destroy our own values so that we do not even realize the devastation, the culture of poverty has won.

Larger map

How easy it would have been to draw a frame around the interesting area, and to spare only a few bricks from grinding. No specialist of city history or protection of monuments can always watch over every detail of a renovation; the porter of the building, even if he knows the spot, is not so much concerned to intervene in others’ work; and this otherwise minimal attention, care, independence or initiative cannot be expected, it seems, either from the workers or from those directly controlling the work. Therefore we stay in astonishment only afterwards at the sight of one more piece having been planed off from our own common memory.

I think this is the same problem that we so often face during our efforts of public garden development. Such as the public worker who cuts off even for the third time the freshly planted shrubs instead of going round them, because it really does not matter to him, and anyway, when else could he play with an electric lawn mower. How much richer we would be if we could just attain the blessed state of leaving things alone.