PHOTOS: This iconic Budapest building’s roof will collapse

Budapest’s Biodome is one of the most unique buildings of the Hungarian capital, but it is not yet finished. Budapest did not have enough money to finish the project, and the government froze all money taps. However, the building needs heating, which costs astronomical amounts. Therefore, the leadership of the capital decided to end the heating of the unused place, which may result in the roof’s collapse.

That is what Anett Bősz, Budapest’s DK-delegated deputy mayor, talked about to Népszava, a Hungarian daily. Mrs Bősz said the municipal local government will no longer pay the bills for the Biodome. That is because the government does not give them enough support.

Based on the data of the Budapest Zoo, between November 2022 and May 2023, maintaining the Biodome cost more than HUF 500 million (EUR 1.3 million) even though it is used for almost nothing. The income reached only HUF 36 million (EUR 93 thousand). The state started and financed the Biodome project, but they have not finished it. Completing it would cost HUF 60 billion (EUR 156 million), and Budapest does not have the money for that. This is how it should look:

Bősz added that without heating, the roof of the Biodome may collapse. That may mean the end of the hall that was designed originally to recreate the Subtropical environment of the Pannonian Sea. The number of visitors of the Budapest Zoo reached one million in 2022.

We wrote HERE that Budapest might go bankrupt due to the unfinished building even though it WON a prestigious award in 2018.

The exterior and the interior of the Biodome:

Energy bills of 3 largest city companies up HUF 19 billion despite savings

Despite successful efforts to make savings, the energy bills of the three largest consumer companies operated by the Budapest municipality nevertheless have gone up by 19 billion forints (EUR 49m), Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss said on Thursday, according to the MTI.

Budapest’s transport company BKV, public lighting company BDK and the Municipal Water Works cut their gas consumption by 46 percent, central heating consumption by 28 percent and electricity consumption by 5 percent between the last quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of this year, compared with the same period a year before, Kiss told an informal roundtable discussion. The energy bills of these three companies nevertheless totalled 37 billion forints in the period, he said.

“The amount would have been much higher had we not chosen the riskier option of paying for energy at the quasi daily spot rate instead of fixed prices set in contract”, he said.