Video: check out what the Hungarian capital looked like during the Turkish occupation

A recent video takes you back in time and shows what Budapest looked like during the Turkish occupation.

Short film about the past

The Hungarian capital is almost unrecognisable in the two-minute short film as it used to look so different than it does today. But the Gellért Hill and Buda Castle help you get your bearings.

The blocks of the city centre were replaced by hipped-roof houses and, of course, dirt roads crossed the buildings instead of asphalt roads.

It goes without saying that the city was also much smaller in size. Pest’s border then ended at the present-day ring road and was enclosed by a city wall. Pastures, fields and marshes can also be seen in the video. The whole settlement is no bigger than a medium-sized village today, says blikk.hu.

A church similar to the present one stood at the foot of the Elizabeth Bridge at the present 15 March Square during the Turkish occupation. In the video the church appears to be in a rather poor condition, even the roof is missing. It was probably destroyed by fire or siege. In addition, we can also spot a minaret and other Islamic religious buildings.

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It’s not just spectacular, it’s authentic

There were few Hungarians on the streets, as many had fled before the war. “We know of a few Hungarian families and Hungarian pastors, but over the decades Slavs, Serbs, Bosniaks, Armenians and Jews from the Ottoman Empire moved in and their families followed. Despite the Turkish occupation, there were not many Turks living here in Buda and Pest at the time,” said Tamás Baltavári, president of the Historical Animation Association, which produced the video.

It is important to point out that the video is not a figment of the imagination, but is based on the analysis of several sources of urban history and ethnography.

“We know what kind of people moved here during the Turkish occupation, and we know how they built. However, it is not clear how much of the architecture in Buda and Pest was dominated by Turkish features, how much of the earlier Gothic elements were left behind and how much the streetscape was influenced by the architectural style of the Serbian settlers, for example, with their more pointed, shingled houses,” the expert said.