Left over from the communist days

There are a number of little reminders of the era of Soviet occupation that ended only 16 years ago here in the Hungary. My flat building, for instance, was built after WWII and includes a few relics from that age. When I moved in, I asked the landlady if she had a clothes iron I could use. This is what she gave me:


My first reaction was, "man, that's old, but it's better than nothing so I'm sure it will be fine."








But upon closer inspection, I realized I was going to need some help figuring out how to use it:



That's Russian. The word on the top that starts with "x" is roughly pronounced "KROP-ok" and the next one down is "SHURST," not that I know what that means, and not that Hungarian would have been any easier for me to understand.



Hungary, and especially Szolnok, has been destroyed many times in history (by Germanic and Czech armies, by the Turks, by the Austrians, by the Russians in WWI, by the Americans in WWII, and by the Russians again during the Soviet era). As a result, there aren't too many historic buildings left standing. Oddly though, as an American I look at the buildings in downtown Szolnok and think many of them appear to be "old." Today I asked one of the history teachers about these buildings. She said most of them were built during Hungary's golden era: the second half of the 19th century, when Budapest joined Vienna to co-rule the Austria-Hungary Empire. Varga's building was build in 1856. To an American, that's old! But when you live on a continent that's home to 6-700 year old castles and cathedrals, I guess it doesn't seem like much.