M1 — Budapest termeszeti ertekei
20260920 010500 UTC
328 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:00:00] on carts, it's still practiced by villagers out of a desire for glory.
[00:00:03] Success. After more than 10 years
[00:00:07] of effort, struggle, and preparation, a
[00:00:11] Pest race is finally authorized. From
[00:00:14] this day forward, horse racing becomes a natural manifestation
[00:00:17] of the nation's everyday life.
[00:00:43] Our contemporary, Dezső Tandori, writer and poet, says horse racing
[00:00:47] is important because there you face fate directly.
[00:00:50] szemben.
[00:00:53] He also says that horse racing prolongs
[00:00:56] life. From the starting gate
[00:01:00] to the finish line, there's always one or two horses who complete
[00:01:03] the distance with peculiar slowness. You have to find
[00:01:06] your horse among them, and this way you can always gain valuable
[00:01:10] seconds for a meaningful
[00:01:12] life. So,
[00:01:15] 1827.
[00:01:17] Miklós Veselényi, Lőrinc Orci, Széchenyi, and others
[00:01:21] search for a suitable terrain for several days. Finally,
[00:01:24] the large meadow between today's St. Stephen's Hospital
[00:01:28] and Soroksári Road is chosen, which
[00:01:32] is leased by two Pest farmers.
[00:01:35] They construct a track with a perimeter of 2340 m
[00:01:38] and a 1000-meter straightaway. They stabilize the
[00:01:42] shifting sand primarily with mulberry trees and establish a nursery.
[00:01:46] létesítenek.
[00:01:48] In September 1826, a patriotic
[00:01:51] report and invitation to
[00:01:54] a horse race appears, on the Pest Meadow between Üllői Road and Soroksári Road.
[00:01:58] And the following summer, the long-awaited
[00:02:02] big event occurs. The gates of the racetrack
[00:02:04] open.
[00:02:07] 1827, June
[00:02:09] 6th. According to the correspondent of the Wiener Moderner Zeitung,
[00:02:13] the weather was heavy and oppressive.
[00:02:17] Despite this, as can be read in Miklós Veselényi's account,
[00:02:20] countless carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians
[00:02:24] of all ranks were present. The boxes
[00:02:27] and seats, filled to capacity, were adorned by the ladies,
[00:02:30] who were enthusiastic about everything patriotic, beautiful, and good
[00:02:33] in our country. The weather remained
[00:02:37] unfavorable, sometimes rainy, sometimes hot. The peace was also disturbed by
[00:02:40] vendors noisily hawking their wares, but nonetheless, as the Viennese reporter notes,
[00:02:44] the entire spectacle still unfolded every day
[00:02:48] with order and enjoyable activity, and
[00:02:52] the main goal of giving effective impetus to Hungarian
[00:02:55] horse breeding received due attention and will not
[00:02:58] be in vain.
[00:03:01] But let's rather listen to Miklós Veselényi. First race:
[00:03:05] a very tasteful cup, worth 100 ducats, for which horses
[00:03:08] bred in the Austrian states could run. 22 horses paraded onto
[00:03:12] the two-mile-long circular track. The winner
[00:03:15] was my five-year-old brown Arab mare, carrying 127
[00:03:18] Viennese pounds, which comes from István Széchenyi's stud farm
[00:03:22] in Cenk.
[00:03:25] The second race also carries a prize of 100 ducats, but
[00:03:28] thoroughbreds are not allowed to participate. The third
[00:03:32] is 60 ducats for horses whose parents were also bred
[00:03:36] in the country. The fourth is 50 ducats, for which
[00:03:39] only peasant-bred horses
[00:03:41] could run.
[00:03:44] Széchenyi supports peasant horse breeding and improvement
[00:03:47] by giving farmers the opportunity
[00:03:50] to achieve glory. Ferenc Kazinczy writes: It's beautiful
[00:03:53] to see our peasant horses competing with the royally
[00:03:57] fed English steeds, and our horseherds.
[00:04:03] a young boy, barely a span tall, has won several times. These
[00:04:07] lines are about the second Hungarian horse race of 1828.
[00:04:11] Expressions:
[00:04:14] Green turf, racing,
[00:04:16] driver, derby, turf world,
[00:04:19] betting office, stake, ring,
[00:04:22] totalizer, favorite, bookmaker,
[00:04:25] gallop, King's Prize, Jockey Club, and so on.
[00:04:30] Horse names: Imperial Kinchem, Reihenau,
[00:04:33] Eltoli, and about 100 more names. Horse racing
[00:04:36] is a frequent theme in Hungarian
[00:04:38] literature.
[00:04:40] The main lessons of the first Hungarian horse race are summarized by Széchenyi
[00:04:44] in the preface of his book "On Horses," published
[00:04:46] in 1828.
[00:04:48] előszavában.
[00:04:53] The universally known
[00:04:56] numbers in this area, but due to Pest horse race of 1827 generated much doubt and many new
[00:05:00] ideas. Some will also find that
[00:05:04] their horses, which they
[00:05:07] years. But now, with the removal bred, are much better than they themselves thought, and that they possess
[00:05:10] a great valuable treasure in their herds that has remained hidden
[00:05:14] and unknown to the world until now.
[00:07:37] back then, when my grandparents' plot was still here in Óbuda,
[00:07:40] we regularly visited the Rókahegyi quarry.
[00:07:50] This nature reserve consists of three huge quarry yards, which were mined for many
[00:07:53] decades, but since nature protection has been in charge here,
[00:07:57] these surrounding quarry walls have all
[00:08:00] grown over with shrubs, bushes, and smaller trees. However, along the edges
[00:08:04] on the upper levels, valuable and
[00:08:07] species-rich rock grasslands could find
[00:08:08] a home.
[00:09:00] "Although mining activity here has ceased a very long
[00:09:03] time ago, people have not abandoned this area, as the
[00:09:07] steep rock faces are still regularly climbed. This is an authorized
[00:09:10] activity here, elsewhere in the city, very few such places can be
[00:09:14] found. Here, however, huge rock
[00:09:17] fortifications are available to climbers, and
[00:09:20] of course, not only these activities, but also hiking,
[00:09:24] birdwatching. Many people come here for geological values.
[00:09:28] All of this still attracts people, and
[00:09:31] fortunately, it is now nature lovers who are in the majority
[00:09:35] and move around here. And in the majority where they feel good, Robi does not
[00:09:39] need Hungarian, if we look under the bushes or walk up
[00:09:42] to the edges of the quarry walls, or perhaps examine the surrounding woodlands,
[00:09:46] we can find natural rarities here that cannot be discovered anywhere
[00:09:49] else in the city, and which city dwellers do not even realize
[00:09:53] exist so close by.
[00:10:44] that we slowly climb up to the dry
[00:10:47] rocky grassland on the edge of the upper quarry yard, which has a very
[00:10:51] rich wildlife. Along the path, we can observe
[00:10:55] many interesting things. Here it is visible that shrub
[00:10:58] patches have already settled on the edge of the quarry yard,
[00:11:01] in smaller and larger sizes, which date back to the period
[00:11:04] after mining activity. There are many species here
[00:11:08] that were originally characteristic of the woodlands
[00:11:12] here. Before the mining activity, there were
[00:11:15] rather Turkey oak and downy oak forests, and the undergrowth of these
[00:11:18] was primarily a hawthorn with stipules, common
[00:11:21] privet, or the striped spindle tree.
[00:11:34] A remarkably rich fauna is associated with these species-rich
[00:11:37] shrublands, a true rarity, a true curiosity here in the
[00:11:40] quarry yards. In winter, a bearded tit, which is a
[00:11:43] rare, protected little songbird, appears regularly. It is very
[00:11:47] beautiful, adorned in red and blue, and bluish-gray colors, especially
[00:11:51] the male, the female is a little paler. Here in the
[00:11:53] shrubs of Rókahegy, four or five individuals regularly
[00:11:57] appear. Unfortunately, they do not yet breed, but this is no surprise, as
[00:12:00] there are only about 100-150 pairs
[00:12:03] in the country, and around the city, no nesting
[00:12:06] pairs of this species have been discovered yet. And now I hear,
[00:12:10] that's why I stopped for a moment, because the common buzzard started
[00:12:14] to make a very interesting sound, but I immediately heard that it wasn't the common buzzard,
[00:12:18] but a jay, which learns the calls of the buzzards
[00:12:21] nesting in the surrounding forests, incorporates them into its own
[00:12:25] repertoire, and regularly uses them.
[00:12:28] Generally, beginner birdwatchers are also
[00:12:31] misled by this sound. And if
[00:12:34] we look up here, then we can see that for some reason
[00:12:37] a huge rock block has remained, in which there are very
[00:12:40] interesting thermal water deposits. Well, for some reason they didn't
[00:12:43] dismantle it, they didn't mine it. Perhaps there wasn't enough
[00:12:46] limestone in it, which is why this quarry yard was opened here,
[00:12:50] but it's also possible that there was too much iron ore, or perhaps Buda
[00:12:54] marl, which they couldn't utilize. So, in any case, it's very
[00:12:58] beautiful, and for photographers, it's one of the most beautiful,
[00:13:02] best subjects here in the upper quarry yard, and
[00:13:05] it also makes Rókahegy very interesting, a real curiosity
[00:13:09] for geology as well, so it's definitely
[00:13:12] worth visiting here from the perspective of either
[00:13:15] flora, fauna, or geology.
[00:13:17] szempontjából.
[00:13:37] I've already mentioned my grandfather, but he's not the only one who knows this area well.
[00:13:41] There are good friends like you, Gábor, who have been coming here
[00:13:44] to Rókahegy regularly since childhood. How did this quarry look
[00:13:48] in the distant past? Previously, this quarry was bordered exclusively by residential
[00:13:51] areas to the south. This meant four streets and... we should understand
[00:13:55] residential areas as meaning people who lived a rural
[00:13:59] lifestyle here, with orchards, animal husbandry.
[00:14:02] For example, as a child, I regularly
[00:14:05] woke up to the crowing of roosters, and in the 1950s, in this very
[00:14:09] quarry yard where we are, this middle quarry yard, goats
[00:14:12] and sometimes cattle were regularly grazed. And in one of the upper
[00:14:16] streets, you could even buy goat's milk back
[00:14:19] then. Then this changed, because people moving
[00:14:22] out of the city from the 1980s
[00:14:26] moved here. Older fruit trees were cut down. These
[00:14:29] fruit trees provided a home for very valuable insect species, such as
[00:14:33] Hungary's largest butterfly, the Giant Peacock Moth, which has almost
[00:14:36] completely disappeared from the area recently, and one could also mention a type
[00:14:40] of jewel beetle, the Bronze Beetle, which is also associated with old fruit trees.
[00:14:43] But despite being common previously,
[00:14:47] it has almost completely disappeared from the area recently, because
[00:14:50] the fruit trees have been replaced by ornamental trees by the new owners,
[00:14:53] which are very beautiful and very showy. But they are a little
[00:14:57] less favorable for wildlife and cannot sustain the same species community
[00:15:00] as the old fruit trees that were here before. As we walked
[00:15:03] now, in August, there are very hot days, and one
[00:15:07] after another, various arthropods jumped up from under our feet,
[00:15:11] and you kept naming the species. Could you tell us what we are seeing here? One of the very
[00:15:14] interesting species was the blue-winged grasshopper,
[00:15:18] which previously lived in very large
[00:15:21] the spread of shrubs, this species, which otherwise prefers
[00:15:25] open grasslands, started to decline and was almost
[00:15:28] nowhere to be found in recent
[00:15:32] of the shrubs, it occurs in large numbers again,
[00:15:35] and with a common species... just as it used to be, now
[00:15:39] the quarry is isolated from its surroundings. What will the
[00:15:42] future bring, what can be expected regarding the quarry, will nature
[00:15:46] remain here? On the one hand, indeed, a kind of
[00:15:49] isolation occurred, which refers to the
[00:15:52] permeability with the surrounding natural areas.
[00:15:55] However, it was not characteristic of this area at all for masses
[00:15:59] of tourists to visit here. Occasionally, hikers came here by local train,
[00:16:03] walked around, looked around, but since
[00:16:05] there were practically no hiking trails at all, the paths that could be used
[00:16:09] were often life-threatening, and not many people risked this.
[00:16:13] In the early 90s, these hiking
[00:16:15] trails were built, with stairs and railings. These were very beautiful
[00:16:19] and very useful facilities, but they brought with them the fact that much larger
[00:16:23] crowds could now visit this area, which led to much
[00:16:27] greater littering and disturbance.
[00:16:30] For now, this is still a question of the future, how much this can be
[00:16:34] prevented. Fundamentally, people's way of thinking would need to be
[00:16:37] changed, because not everything can be influenced by official means.
[00:17:10] From the upper yard of the hill, a well-built walking path leads to the lower
[00:17:14] levels, which poses numerous dangers in winter due to ice, and in summer due to
[00:17:17] crumbling rock. Few people know
[00:17:21] that this crumbling rock is not imported material, but the
[00:17:25] hill's own rock, which hikers here have
[00:17:28] slowly, over the years, crushed into small pieces with their boots.
[00:17:31] Even fewer people know that along the walking
[00:17:34] paths, botanical rarities are hidden that can
[00:17:38] only be found in a few places in the country. Here, under the shrubs,
[00:17:41] is the highly protected woolly foxglove, which
[00:17:44] only grows here in the city, and even here we can only
[00:17:47] see a few dozen plants. If someone is lucky, they might come across
[00:17:51] this plant, but we won't reveal where the larger populations
[00:17:54] are located. In the wider surroundings of the hill, this
[00:17:58] species can still be found in some places.
[00:18:01] faj.
[00:18:08] Rókahegy is under continuous nature conservation management,
[00:18:11] which means that here we can clearly see in the areas
[00:18:15] above the quarry yard that the bushes, shrubs, and smaller
[00:18:18] trees are being removed from the grasslands. Somehow,
[00:18:21] these smaller black pines that are here on the
[00:18:25] edge of the grassland have remained, even though this is also an undesirable
[00:18:28] tree species, as it originates from the Mediterranean.
[00:18:31] In the old days, especially before the World Wars,
[00:18:34] it was used for afforestation of bare land.
[00:18:37] And it was primarily planted on those dolomite
[00:18:40] rocky grasslands that can be found in many places in the city and
[00:18:43] its surroundings. These small saplings should also be removed
[00:18:46] in the future, just like the
[00:18:50] hawthorns and the other shrub species. And in the background
[00:18:53] you can see that quite a lot of old black pine
[00:18:56] trees remain from afforestation. Due to their age,
[00:19:00] these will slowly die off, but nature conservation could be helped
[00:19:03] a little, because the real value here in this area is the
[00:19:07] grassland, its species richness, which these grass-forming species
[00:19:11] attract, especially the fauna. At the same time, the flora also holds
[00:19:15] many interesting things. For example, after a rainy September weekend, if
[00:19:19] we come up, we can discover many tiny
[00:19:22] flowers. This is a rarity, the autumn crocus,
[00:19:25] which only brings out its flower petals from the
[00:19:29] soil in autumn, and later in the spring develops leaves, and
[00:19:32] later a few fruits. Here in the
[00:19:35] city, this plant species has its largest population.
[00:19:39] Occasionally, we can even encounter 800 plants here, while
[00:19:43] in other parts of the city it is a real rarity.
[00:19:58] The upper quarry of Rókahegy is Budapest's largest
[00:20:02] climbing wall where climbers can officially
[00:20:05] climb with permission. You won't find anything like it elsewhere in the capital, but
[00:20:09] that's not the only interesting thing about this large quarry yard. It's
[00:20:13] also that for many sciences, very
[00:20:16] valuable and interesting small cave systems can be found
[00:20:20] here, systems can be found here, but there are also artificial
[00:20:24] mine tunnels that open precisely from this upper
[00:20:27] quarry yard and lead down to the lower
[00:20:31] parts.
[00:21:05] A large part of these cavities has already been consumed
[00:21:08] by the mine, but we can still find longer
[00:21:11] sections that provide a very valuable wintering ground for
[00:21:14] one or two animal species, such as bats. For example, not far from us,
[00:21:18] we found three species
[00:21:21] in the area that were not previously known here: the common noctule,
[00:21:25] the lesser horseshoe bat, and the greater horseshoe bat.
[00:21:28] The greater horseshoe bat itself already represents such a value here in the
[00:21:32] area that it alone makes nature conservation
[00:21:36] interested in protecting this quarry. It is a highly
[00:21:39] protected species, and we don't know of any other
[00:21:43] wintering population of this species in the surrounding area,
[00:21:46] only here.
[00:22:12] What does the rock of Rókahegy feel like to the touch? What is it like to
[00:22:15] climb in a quarry? Well, it's peculiar, it's a quarried rock, it's limestone.
[00:22:19] It doesn't have the natural erosion forms of limestone, but
[00:22:22] the erosion forms of quarrying. But very often you climb with such crystals
[00:22:26] and little pea-sized stones and such, so it's a bit, you know,
[00:22:29] you're in contact with the depths of the earth because of the nature of the quarry.
[00:22:33] So this wasn't exposed for decades, centuries,
[00:22:37] and you can feel this while climbing, that it was indeed quarried from the earth.
[00:22:40] There are few naturally water-eroded spots. It's interesting, the climbing is very
[00:22:44] technical. So those decisive foot placements that make
[00:22:47] climbing easy are missing. Often you have to hold
[00:22:50] sideways from below, so you have to be very careful about where you place your center of gravity, how you figure out
[00:22:53] your movements. One could say the choreography is the primary
[00:22:57] difficulty in climbing, and then the physical exertion becomes secondary, whether
[00:23:01] one can hold oneself on a hold. Where are those
[00:23:04] most dangerous routes that you personally developed
[00:23:08] here? Well, for danger, it's not sure that you should focus
[00:23:12] on that, because during climbing, there really is danger. If one falls,
[00:23:15] that danger is limited, as we fall into the rope. Well, on the big
[00:23:19] wall, which is almost 30 meters high, there are quite a lot of such
[00:23:23] grade seven, rather eight, nine difficulty routes, and I even made a
[00:23:26] grade ten route just a few days ago. Among these, not only are they
[00:23:30] difficult, but they are also quite run-out, meaning the bolts are further apart. So, from a 6-7
[00:23:33] meter lead climb, one can fall 8 meters, which in itself is not
[00:23:37] that dangerous, but it certainly surprises you when you fall 7-8 meters during
[00:23:41] a climb, which
[00:23:42] you messed up.
[00:24:27] "I really like this one that I'm going to show you, this is Yoda, a little
[00:24:30] from Star Wars, that
[00:24:33] with Yoda's saying, 'Do or do not. There is no try.' This is also such a route,
[00:24:37] that you have to do it, you don't just try, because you can fall quite
[00:24:40] a lot from it if you just
[00:24:43] try. It's a nice route, it has small overhangs, side holds,
[00:24:47] the whole thing is very choreographic, I really like it." "The Force is with you, so,
[00:24:51] if you... well, that's also in it, yes, the Force is with you, don't try, yes,
[00:24:54] because there is such a situation when you hold the
[00:24:57] overhangs from below and come out, and there's the Star Wars trick where
[00:25:01] Yoda stands in the swamp and shows how he lifts
[00:25:05] heavy objects out of the swamp. This climb is a bit like that, the whole
[00:25:08] hill is above you, as if the whole, whole, whole world is held by you,
[00:25:12] even though you're just a tiny part of it, or
[00:25:14] that's why."
[00:25:34] "I understand that you try to share this vast experience you've gained
[00:25:38] over decades in extreme sports and rock climbing
[00:25:42] with a wider audience, and you work a lot with
[00:25:45] beginner climbers and those who enjoy extreme sports. Yes, well,
[00:25:49] I also lead tours and do climbing training, and I love doing it,
[00:25:52] because I pass on the passion that I love anyway in this
[00:25:56] field, both here and abroad, precisely on Rókahegy by the way."