Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00on carts, it's still practiced by villagers out of a desire for glory.
00:00:03Success. After more than 10 years
00:00:07of effort, struggle, and preparation, a
00:00:11Pest race is finally authorized. From
00:00:14this day forward, horse racing becomes a natural manifestation
00:00:17of the nation's everyday life.
00:00:43Our contemporary, Dezső Tandori, writer and poet, says horse racing
00:00:47is important because there you face fate directly.
00:00:50szemben.
00:00:53He also says that horse racing prolongs
00:00:56life. From the starting gate
00:01:00to the finish line, there's always one or two horses who complete
00:01:03the distance with peculiar slowness. You have to find
00:01:06your horse among them, and this way you can always gain valuable
00:01:10seconds for a meaningful
00:01:12life. So,
00:01:151827.
00:01:17Miklós Veselényi, Lőrinc Orci, Széchenyi, and others
00:01:21search for a suitable terrain for several days. Finally,
00:01:24the large meadow between today's St. Stephen's Hospital
00:01:28and Soroksári Road is chosen, which
00:01:32is leased by two Pest farmers.
00:01:35They construct a track with a perimeter of 2340 m
00:01:38and a 1000-meter straightaway. They stabilize the
00:01:42shifting sand primarily with mulberry trees and establish a nursery.
00:01:46létesítenek.
00:01:48In September 1826, a patriotic
00:01:51report and invitation to
00:01:54a horse race appears, on the Pest Meadow between Üllői Road and Soroksári Road.
00:01:58And the following summer, the long-awaited
00:02:02big event occurs. The gates of the racetrack
00:02:04open.
00:02:071827, June
00:02:096th. According to the correspondent of the Wiener Moderner Zeitung,
00:02:13the weather was heavy and oppressive.
00:02:17Despite this, as can be read in Miklós Veselényi's account,
00:02:20countless carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians
00:02:24of all ranks were present. The boxes
00:02:27and seats, filled to capacity, were adorned by the ladies,
00:02:30who were enthusiastic about everything patriotic, beautiful, and good
00:02:33in our country. The weather remained
00:02:37unfavorable, sometimes rainy, sometimes hot. The peace was also disturbed by
00:02:40vendors noisily hawking their wares, but nonetheless, as the Viennese reporter notes,
00:02:44the entire spectacle still unfolded every day
00:02:48with order and enjoyable activity, and
00:02:52the main goal of giving effective impetus to Hungarian
00:02:55horse breeding received due attention and will not
00:02:58be in vain.
00:03:01But let's rather listen to Miklós Veselényi. First race:
00:03:05a very tasteful cup, worth 100 ducats, for which horses
00:03:08bred in the Austrian states could run. 22 horses paraded onto
00:03:12the two-mile-long circular track. The winner
00:03:15was my five-year-old brown Arab mare, carrying 127
00:03:18Viennese pounds, which comes from István Széchenyi's stud farm
00:03:22in Cenk.
00:03:25The second race also carries a prize of 100 ducats, but
00:03:28thoroughbreds are not allowed to participate. The third
00:03:32is 60 ducats for horses whose parents were also bred
00:03:36in the country. The fourth is 50 ducats, for which
00:03:39only peasant-bred horses
00:03:41could run.
00:03:44Széchenyi supports peasant horse breeding and improvement
00:03:47by giving farmers the opportunity
00:03:50to achieve glory. Ferenc Kazinczy writes: It's beautiful
00:03:53to see our peasant horses competing with the royally
00:03:57fed English steeds, and our horseherds.
00:04:03a young boy, barely a span tall, has won several times. These
00:04:07lines are about the second Hungarian horse race of 1828.
00:04:11Expressions:
00:04:14Green turf, racing,
00:04:16driver, derby, turf world,
00:04:19betting office, stake, ring,
00:04:22totalizer, favorite, bookmaker,
00:04:25gallop, King's Prize, Jockey Club, and so on.
00:04:30Horse names: Imperial Kinchem, Reihenau,
00:04:33Eltoli, and about 100 more names. Horse racing
00:04:36is a frequent theme in Hungarian
00:04:38literature.
00:04:40The main lessons of the first Hungarian horse race are summarized by Széchenyi
00:04:44in the preface of his book "On Horses," published
00:04:46in 1828.
00:04:48előszavában.
00:04:53The universally known
00:04:56numbers in this area, but due to Pest horse race of 1827 generated much doubt and many new
00:05:00ideas. Some will also find that
00:05:04their horses, which they
00:05:07years. But now, with the removal bred, are much better than they themselves thought, and that they possess
00:05:10a great valuable treasure in their herds that has remained hidden
00:05:14and unknown to the world until now.
00:07:37back then, when my grandparents' plot was still here in Óbuda,
00:07:40we regularly visited the Rókahegyi quarry.
00:07:50This nature reserve consists of three huge quarry yards, which were mined for many
00:07:53decades, but since nature protection has been in charge here,
00:07:57these surrounding quarry walls have all
00:08:00grown over with shrubs, bushes, and smaller trees. However, along the edges
00:08:04on the upper levels, valuable and
00:08:07species-rich rock grasslands could find
00:08:08a home.
00:09:00"Although mining activity here has ceased a very long
00:09:03time ago, people have not abandoned this area, as the
00:09:07steep rock faces are still regularly climbed. This is an authorized
00:09:10activity here, elsewhere in the city, very few such places can be
00:09:14found. Here, however, huge rock
00:09:17fortifications are available to climbers, and
00:09:20of course, not only these activities, but also hiking,
00:09:24birdwatching. Many people come here for geological values.
00:09:28All of this still attracts people, and
00:09:31fortunately, it is now nature lovers who are in the majority
00:09:35and move around here. And in the majority where they feel good, Robi does not
00:09:39need Hungarian, if we look under the bushes or walk up
00:09:42to the edges of the quarry walls, or perhaps examine the surrounding woodlands,
00:09:46we can find natural rarities here that cannot be discovered anywhere
00:09:49else in the city, and which city dwellers do not even realize
00:09:53exist so close by.
00:10:44that we slowly climb up to the dry
00:10:47rocky grassland on the edge of the upper quarry yard, which has a very
00:10:51rich wildlife. Along the path, we can observe
00:10:55many interesting things. Here it is visible that shrub
00:10:58patches have already settled on the edge of the quarry yard,
00:11:01in smaller and larger sizes, which date back to the period
00:11:04after mining activity. There are many species here
00:11:08that were originally characteristic of the woodlands
00:11:12here. Before the mining activity, there were
00:11:15rather Turkey oak and downy oak forests, and the undergrowth of these
00:11:18was primarily a hawthorn with stipules, common
00:11:21privet, or the striped spindle tree.
00:11:34A remarkably rich fauna is associated with these species-rich
00:11:37shrublands, a true rarity, a true curiosity here in the
00:11:40quarry yards. In winter, a bearded tit, which is a
00:11:43rare, protected little songbird, appears regularly. It is very
00:11:47beautiful, adorned in red and blue, and bluish-gray colors, especially
00:11:51the male, the female is a little paler. Here in the
00:11:53shrubs of Rókahegy, four or five individuals regularly
00:11:57appear. Unfortunately, they do not yet breed, but this is no surprise, as
00:12:00there are only about 100-150 pairs
00:12:03in the country, and around the city, no nesting
00:12:06pairs of this species have been discovered yet. And now I hear,
00:12:10that's why I stopped for a moment, because the common buzzard started
00:12:14to make a very interesting sound, but I immediately heard that it wasn't the common buzzard,
00:12:18but a jay, which learns the calls of the buzzards
00:12:21nesting in the surrounding forests, incorporates them into its own
00:12:25repertoire, and regularly uses them.
00:12:28Generally, beginner birdwatchers are also
00:12:31misled by this sound. And if
00:12:34we look up here, then we can see that for some reason
00:12:37a huge rock block has remained, in which there are very
00:12:40interesting thermal water deposits. Well, for some reason they didn't
00:12:43dismantle it, they didn't mine it. Perhaps there wasn't enough
00:12:46limestone in it, which is why this quarry yard was opened here,
00:12:50but it's also possible that there was too much iron ore, or perhaps Buda
00:12:54marl, which they couldn't utilize. So, in any case, it's very
00:12:58beautiful, and for photographers, it's one of the most beautiful,
00:13:02best subjects here in the upper quarry yard, and
00:13:05it also makes Rókahegy very interesting, a real curiosity
00:13:09for geology as well, so it's definitely
00:13:12worth visiting here from the perspective of either
00:13:15flora, fauna, or geology.
00:13:17szempontjából.
00:13:37I've already mentioned my grandfather, but he's not the only one who knows this area well.
00:13:41There are good friends like you, Gábor, who have been coming here
00:13:44to Rókahegy regularly since childhood. How did this quarry look
00:13:48in the distant past? Previously, this quarry was bordered exclusively by residential
00:13:51areas to the south. This meant four streets and... we should understand
00:13:55residential areas as meaning people who lived a rural
00:13:59lifestyle here, with orchards, animal husbandry.
00:14:02For example, as a child, I regularly
00:14:05woke up to the crowing of roosters, and in the 1950s, in this very
00:14:09quarry yard where we are, this middle quarry yard, goats
00:14:12and sometimes cattle were regularly grazed. And in one of the upper
00:14:16streets, you could even buy goat's milk back
00:14:19then. Then this changed, because people moving
00:14:22out of the city from the 1980s
00:14:26moved here. Older fruit trees were cut down. These
00:14:29fruit trees provided a home for very valuable insect species, such as
00:14:33Hungary's largest butterfly, the Giant Peacock Moth, which has almost
00:14:36completely disappeared from the area recently, and one could also mention a type
00:14:40of jewel beetle, the Bronze Beetle, which is also associated with old fruit trees.
00:14:43But despite being common previously,
00:14:47it has almost completely disappeared from the area recently, because
00:14:50the fruit trees have been replaced by ornamental trees by the new owners,
00:14:53which are very beautiful and very showy. But they are a little
00:14:57less favorable for wildlife and cannot sustain the same species community
00:15:00as the old fruit trees that were here before. As we walked
00:15:03now, in August, there are very hot days, and one
00:15:07after another, various arthropods jumped up from under our feet,
00:15:11and you kept naming the species. Could you tell us what we are seeing here? One of the very
00:15:14interesting species was the blue-winged grasshopper,
00:15:18which previously lived in very large
00:15:21the spread of shrubs, this species, which otherwise prefers
00:15:25open grasslands, started to decline and was almost
00:15:28nowhere to be found in recent
00:15:32of the shrubs, it occurs in large numbers again,
00:15:35and with a common species... just as it used to be, now
00:15:39the quarry is isolated from its surroundings. What will the
00:15:42future bring, what can be expected regarding the quarry, will nature
00:15:46remain here? On the one hand, indeed, a kind of
00:15:49isolation occurred, which refers to the
00:15:52permeability with the surrounding natural areas.
00:15:55However, it was not characteristic of this area at all for masses
00:15:59of tourists to visit here. Occasionally, hikers came here by local train,
00:16:03walked around, looked around, but since
00:16:05there were practically no hiking trails at all, the paths that could be used
00:16:09were often life-threatening, and not many people risked this.
00:16:13In the early 90s, these hiking
00:16:15trails were built, with stairs and railings. These were very beautiful
00:16:19and very useful facilities, but they brought with them the fact that much larger
00:16:23crowds could now visit this area, which led to much
00:16:27greater littering and disturbance.
00:16:30For now, this is still a question of the future, how much this can be
00:16:34prevented. Fundamentally, people's way of thinking would need to be
00:16:37changed, because not everything can be influenced by official means.
00:17:10From the upper yard of the hill, a well-built walking path leads to the lower
00:17:14levels, which poses numerous dangers in winter due to ice, and in summer due to
00:17:17crumbling rock. Few people know
00:17:21that this crumbling rock is not imported material, but the
00:17:25hill's own rock, which hikers here have
00:17:28slowly, over the years, crushed into small pieces with their boots.
00:17:31Even fewer people know that along the walking
00:17:34paths, botanical rarities are hidden that can
00:17:38only be found in a few places in the country. Here, under the shrubs,
00:17:41is the highly protected woolly foxglove, which
00:17:44only grows here in the city, and even here we can only
00:17:47see a few dozen plants. If someone is lucky, they might come across
00:17:51this plant, but we won't reveal where the larger populations
00:17:54are located. In the wider surroundings of the hill, this
00:17:58species can still be found in some places.
00:18:01faj.
00:18:08Rókahegy is under continuous nature conservation management,
00:18:11which means that here we can clearly see in the areas
00:18:15above the quarry yard that the bushes, shrubs, and smaller
00:18:18trees are being removed from the grasslands. Somehow,
00:18:21these smaller black pines that are here on the
00:18:25edge of the grassland have remained, even though this is also an undesirable
00:18:28tree species, as it originates from the Mediterranean.
00:18:31In the old days, especially before the World Wars,
00:18:34it was used for afforestation of bare land.
00:18:37And it was primarily planted on those dolomite
00:18:40rocky grasslands that can be found in many places in the city and
00:18:43its surroundings. These small saplings should also be removed
00:18:46in the future, just like the
00:18:50hawthorns and the other shrub species. And in the background
00:18:53you can see that quite a lot of old black pine
00:18:56trees remain from afforestation. Due to their age,
00:19:00these will slowly die off, but nature conservation could be helped
00:19:03a little, because the real value here in this area is the
00:19:07grassland, its species richness, which these grass-forming species
00:19:11attract, especially the fauna. At the same time, the flora also holds
00:19:15many interesting things. For example, after a rainy September weekend, if
00:19:19we come up, we can discover many tiny
00:19:22flowers. This is a rarity, the autumn crocus,
00:19:25which only brings out its flower petals from the
00:19:29soil in autumn, and later in the spring develops leaves, and
00:19:32later a few fruits. Here in the
00:19:35city, this plant species has its largest population.
00:19:39Occasionally, we can even encounter 800 plants here, while
00:19:43in other parts of the city it is a real rarity.
00:19:58The upper quarry of Rókahegy is Budapest's largest
00:20:02climbing wall where climbers can officially
00:20:05climb with permission. You won't find anything like it elsewhere in the capital, but
00:20:09that's not the only interesting thing about this large quarry yard. It's
00:20:13also that for many sciences, very
00:20:16valuable and interesting small cave systems can be found
00:20:20here, systems can be found here, but there are also artificial
00:20:24mine tunnels that open precisely from this upper
00:20:27quarry yard and lead down to the lower
00:20:31parts.
00:21:05A large part of these cavities has already been consumed
00:21:08by the mine, but we can still find longer
00:21:11sections that provide a very valuable wintering ground for
00:21:14one or two animal species, such as bats. For example, not far from us,
00:21:18we found three species
00:21:21in the area that were not previously known here: the common noctule,
00:21:25the lesser horseshoe bat, and the greater horseshoe bat.
00:21:28The greater horseshoe bat itself already represents such a value here in the
00:21:32area that it alone makes nature conservation
00:21:36interested in protecting this quarry. It is a highly
00:21:39protected species, and we don't know of any other
00:21:43wintering population of this species in the surrounding area,
00:21:46only here.
00:22:12What does the rock of Rókahegy feel like to the touch? What is it like to
00:22:15climb in a quarry? Well, it's peculiar, it's a quarried rock, it's limestone.
00:22:19It doesn't have the natural erosion forms of limestone, but
00:22:22the erosion forms of quarrying. But very often you climb with such crystals
00:22:26and little pea-sized stones and such, so it's a bit, you know,
00:22:29you're in contact with the depths of the earth because of the nature of the quarry.
00:22:33So this wasn't exposed for decades, centuries,
00:22:37and you can feel this while climbing, that it was indeed quarried from the earth.
00:22:40There are few naturally water-eroded spots. It's interesting, the climbing is very
00:22:44technical. So those decisive foot placements that make
00:22:47climbing easy are missing. Often you have to hold
00:22:50sideways from below, so you have to be very careful about where you place your center of gravity, how you figure out
00:22:53your movements. One could say the choreography is the primary
00:22:57difficulty in climbing, and then the physical exertion becomes secondary, whether
00:23:01one can hold oneself on a hold. Where are those
00:23:04most dangerous routes that you personally developed
00:23:08here? Well, for danger, it's not sure that you should focus
00:23:12on that, because during climbing, there really is danger. If one falls,
00:23:15that danger is limited, as we fall into the rope. Well, on the big
00:23:19wall, which is almost 30 meters high, there are quite a lot of such
00:23:23grade seven, rather eight, nine difficulty routes, and I even made a
00:23:26grade ten route just a few days ago. Among these, not only are they
00:23:30difficult, but they are also quite run-out, meaning the bolts are further apart. So, from a 6-7
00:23:33meter lead climb, one can fall 8 meters, which in itself is not
00:23:37that dangerous, but it certainly surprises you when you fall 7-8 meters during
00:23:41a climb, which
00:23:42you messed up.
00:24:27"I really like this one that I'm going to show you, this is Yoda, a little
00:24:30from Star Wars, that
00:24:33with Yoda's saying, 'Do or do not. There is no try.' This is also such a route,
00:24:37that you have to do it, you don't just try, because you can fall quite
00:24:40a lot from it if you just
00:24:43try. It's a nice route, it has small overhangs, side holds,
00:24:47the whole thing is very choreographic, I really like it." "The Force is with you, so,
00:24:51if you... well, that's also in it, yes, the Force is with you, don't try, yes,
00:24:54because there is such a situation when you hold the
00:24:57overhangs from below and come out, and there's the Star Wars trick where
00:25:01Yoda stands in the swamp and shows how he lifts
00:25:05heavy objects out of the swamp. This climb is a bit like that, the whole
00:25:08hill is above you, as if the whole, whole, whole world is held by you,
00:25:12even though you're just a tiny part of it, or
00:25:14that's why."
00:25:34"I understand that you try to share this vast experience you've gained
00:25:38over decades in extreme sports and rock climbing
00:25:42with a wider audience, and you work a lot with
00:25:45beginner climbers and those who enjoy extreme sports. Yes, well,
00:25:49I also lead tours and do climbing training, and I love doing it,
00:25:52because I pass on the passion that I love anyway in this
00:25:56field, both here and abroad, precisely on Rókahegy by the way."