The Ferenc tér events were formed like a real grassroots movement.
Elenóra Kulpinszky’ s interview.
Original interview was made with Gabriella Borbás , published in Life in 9
The renovated Ferenc square was opened to the public handed by the council of Ferencváros on 22 September, 2016. The space has since filled with life, becoming a popular venue for smaller and larger events. But how did it all happen? And who were the key people? I talked about this with dr. With Eleonóra Kulpinszky, a former municipal representative.
I also live in the Ferenc Square with my family of 3 young sons . We moved here just after the renovation of the square, so we are regular visitors to the Ferenc tér events. What is the origin story? How were the idea for the Ferenc tér events coined?
In 2014, when I became a municipal representative, Mayor Bácskai said, “Eleonora, bring Ferenc Square to life!”. This coincided with my image of one of the municipal representative tasks. Also, I considered it a crucial part of my five-year tenure to also deal with community forging, at least in my nearest neighboorhood. ( with my husband and sons I live in the vicinity of the square, Viola Street.)
It all started back in 2014, on Christmas prior to the renovation of the square. I wrote a letter to Fradi (Ferencvaros Sport Club) that I would like to set up a green and white Christmas tree on Ferenc Square, could they send some athletes to decorate the tree with the children. I was the most surprised by the immediate positive response! Athletes come and bring gifts. Fradi is coming, but there is no tree. I asked the director of Feszofe ( Council Street & Park Maintenance Bureau ) if they had any tree. They have delivered a pine tree, the FMK ( District Culture Hall ) brought the green and white ornaments. Sportspeople are coming, there is chrsitmas tree, there are ornaments , but what will be the gifts for the decorating kids? Local grocery store Teveszed gave me oranges and chocolates, so they became a gift. I bought 60 kg of apples, and Santa Claus also came, whose sack got filled to the top. The children arrived in the company of Dénes Berecz. The very first event was low-cost, but it was ours!
Since I was organizing Easter egg painting in the József Attila housing estate market in 2014, I invited dear Aunt Anna, folk artist of traditional egg-decoration from Ghymes ( unfortunately is not with us any more ) to the 2015 Ferenc Square Easter events that became more popular with a puppet theater and a bunny petting zoo.
Thanks to God others got the tasted the wonder of giving through events. They came up with their ideas, the result was the Ferenc tér Operetta Gala, where an Ferencváros operett artist and his friends were performing.
Let’s turn to the events in Ferenc tér. When did they start? Who were in the organizing team?
During the renovation of the square, as part of the community planning, there were many public forums, I also hosted them and saw the great enthusiasm, so I suggested the establishment of the Ferenc tér Club, led by Péter Berczeli, who has a business in the square. The aim of the club is to organize community life in Ferenc tér, to compile the policy of the new square, and to rent and take care the flower beds. We started planning the handover of the space, we were brainstorming about programs people would be happy with, that resulted in a pretty little event in September 2016. It became the ancestor of the Autumn Waiting Day, and also the birthday of the tulip tree that we planted near the well.
I got acquainted with the residents of Ferenc tér in the area, the aunts of Ferenc tér, Flóra Kovács, the owner of Vekni and Réteskék Artisan Bakery & Café, the Liliput Family Day Care, Annamária Békési-Vanek, the founder of the Facebook group of mothers and fathers of the 9th district. The fruit and grocery grocery shop owner donated 500 eggs on wholesale price for egg painting. The eggs were sorted out among us, I also cooked 100. The flower shop made the Advent wreath for free with three purple and one pink candles because that’s the tradition. The Liliput daycare workers and children, led by Zsófi Martos, painted faces, handicrafts and folded ornaments in the all event throughout the day. I started the Christmas season with this team, but professionalism also mattered, so acquaintances joined: Bernadette Kis and Vertikaland a professional PR expert and an event organizer helped. In 2016, the aces of Fradi water polo came, there was a fair, a merry-go-round, a raffle, we named it “Waiting for Christmas”. Encouraged by the success, “Waiting for Easter” came. Then it became clear that we should kick in another event before summer vacation, this was undertaken by a foundation, they applied for the tender of the municipality, and a newborn event was inaugurated: “Waiting for Summer”
Many people in the area worked for free in the events, without them it would have been impossible. Their enthusiasm, perseverance and ideas were needed to make the Ferenc tér events a well-known and recognized spot in the district. But here we are not only talking about the events, but also about the orderliness and family atmosphere of the whole Ferenc tér. We did this as a team and people were happy to turn to us, the news came: the tap is broken, it’s not good, something is not working. Thus we accompanied the birth of the new playground, and we also had a say in the arrangement of the equipment. By the effect of our efforts the use of the public sink became free (it was very justified in view of many expectant mothers).
How did the program elements develop? Did you invent everything well in advance, did you plan it? Have there been failures over the years?
We experimented a lot. We considered it important to have something new every time. Of course we faced many failures as well. For example, I tried the Easter egg tree claim for two years until I finally gave it up. The people weren’t interested so I let this program item go.
One of our team members, Berni had a brainchild “the Christmas train” that idea I didn’t like, we debated about it, until we finally decided by vote: the train was a huge success. Other changes were also made by votings, the green and white ornaments eventually were changed to gold ornaments on the Christmas tree.
There was no nativity scene in Ferencváros, we thought a lot about how we could implement this plan, so I was very happy when in 2018 we received a beautiful nativity scene made of natural materials from the Iris House in our sister city Sepsiszentgyörgy. The scene was “unveiled” together during one of the candle lighting. What I am very proud of, since 2017 there has been an Advent candle lighting in Ferenc Square without official conferences or large-scale speeches, no cultural performances, simply with the holiday itself and the singing together. In the first year, we were at most 10-15 on every Advent Sunday. The fourth Sunday event fell on Christmas Eve, 5.30pm. I told my husband, I would run down for a short visit, I thought only me and the reverend would be there, everyone else would definitely be busy… I was shocked to see the crowd that was larger than the sum of the participants in the 3 preceding evenings. It was touching, it gave me strength to continue.
We tried to deal with the aesthetics and the sight as well, so the Christmas light string came to the square, but I was never satisfied with the design, they scolded me properly so as not to be dissatisfied.
And what does this whole look like in terms of resources? Meaning, where does the money come from?
As a representative, I did not have a budget, so I always courted the District Culture Hall to spend its budget on Ferenc tér. Later, we planned it in advance when compiling the council budget, this amount was initially HUF 300,000, later HUF 600 000 and finally HUF 1.2 million. As the popularity of the event grew, so did the quality: there were 1,200 visitors in the last Autumn Waiting. To this money the work value of another 8-10 volunteers was added. For the 2018 Christmas Eve, the Aunts of Ferenc tér put together the 200 packages of Santa’s package or stood guard at the egg-finding site until the egg-finding team arrived. This cannot be priced, it has made everything real, good, homely. On the days of the events, I stood outside the square from 6 a.m., checking the construction and starting the day in a traffic management “job,” and then the others came in line, as it’s not an easy situation when all the 20 vendors want to drive in the square at once. We did not charge rent from the vendors, they came for free. We were glad that the Pancs-Gastroplacc handicraft market joined us.They were beginners back then, and the the advertisement and the popularity came very well for them and we also benefited from their presence. We spent 5-6 thousand forints from the baby-mom’s garage sale income on chocolates, which we distributed among the drawing children ( because we always announced a thematic drawing competition.)
The question may rightly be raised, why was did I needed, why was it not organized by the local culture hall? They created great things in its own field, in its own genre, they had a well-established large event routine, they organize 1,200 different programs a year, and Ferenc tér was another hitherto unknown terrain. We practically did the work of the event organizer, we gave the concept and the implementation ready, and in the meantime we forged a community. The donations collected at the events were always taken to the Transitional Home on Fehérholló Street.
What’s next? What do you suggest to the new leadership?
Close your eyes and think with your heart about what you want to offer to the people, and let the festival be a festival.
