Donauinseln: The lost Danubian park of Paks

IN HUNGARIAN

There are several bad examples form riverside settlements, just like qays in Budapest, on how to isolate the inhabitants of a municipality from the Danube with transport infrastructure. On a smaller scale, this has happened elsewhere in Hungarian rural towns. In Paks, this is still a sore point, despite the fact that the investment in question, the construction of Route 6, took place seventy years ago.

The opening ceremony at Paks, with the Soviet monument still standing on the left.
(Fortepan / UVATERV)

The above picture was taken sometime in late 1952, at the opening ceremony of the Paks section of Route 6. The exact date is uncertain and the event was not reported in the press of the time. The Tolnai Napló also only wrote on 2 November 1952 that "the workers of the Paks Concrete Road Construction Company collectively undertook to connect the Route 6 between Szekszárd and Budapest by 22 November, the time of the 3rd Hungarian Peace Congress." In fact, it is even possible that the pening ceremony was postponed to the following year. According to press reports, the entire route connecting Budapest with Pécs was opened in May 1953, and there were inauguration ceremonies in the villages concerned. The construction work did not go smoothly, with workers often absent without justification or arbitrarily leaving the roadworks, presumably because of the cruel and forced working conditions during the communist era. It was not only the road that was built, but also the ancillary facilities attached to it, such as bridges, overpasses and road crossings. These workers were locked up for months on end in education camps. According to local memories, the road reached Paks from the north, from Dunakömlőd, where the local section was completed in 1951.

Certain geographical conditions at Paks also made the road construction difficult. The Danube floodplain widens for several kilometres north of Paks towards Bölcske and south towards Fadd and Tolna. However, at Paks, the tilted loess blocks of the Mezőföld rise directly above the Danube, for example, at the Brickworks section, more than 60 metres above the zero level of the Danube, but also at the roman-age Lussonium fortress (later Bottyán fort) at Kömlőd, part of which was eroded laterally by the Danube. Paks owes its advantage over other settlements in the area mainly to its location directly on the Danube, which is free of flooding. At the same time, the steeply sloping edge of the Mezőföld and the erosion of the Imsós bend made transport along the Danube impossible. On older maps, the road to Kömlőd was marked on the loess plateau west of Malomhegy. The situation was improved by the cutting of the Imsós bend in 1841, which deprived Kömlőd of its Danube bank, but at the same time deprived the Danube of a hairpin bend particularly suitable for the formation of ice dams.

The almost vertically sloping embankment and the huge cost of securing it was the reason why the Pusztaszabolcs-Paks railway line was not completed as originally planned as far as Tolna. The Paks terminus of the railway, which was opened in December 1896, was far north of the town centre, at the brickworks.

At that time, the major transport line of Paks was the Deák Ferenc Street-Szent István tér-Dózsa György út-Tolnai út, which passed through the city centre. This artery was moved to the Danube bank in 1952. Route 6 was built from the Rókus Chapel to Kölesdi út on a new route, with a significant section of the road being built directly alongside the Danube. The southern section of the new route also required the construction of an embankment, as it crossed a low-lying area (around the cannery) where maps a few hundred years ago had indicated a lake and marsh. Paks was thus separated from the Danube by an increasingly busy road, which also served as a flood protection embankment, and the new road meant that the Danube park, which is immortalised on countless postcards, had to be demolished. Once the main community space of the city, the Danube Park was created from the land of János Flórián. The rose garden with its pergolas and rose beds was later joined by a Japanese garden, and in 1898, the year Queen Elizabeth was assassinated, a chestnut grove was planted along the Danube. All this was lost in the road construction, and only the Elizabeth Promenade was saved.

In 1976 another investment made the connection of the village with the Danube more difficult. The construction of the nuclear power plant made it necessary to extend the railway line, abandoned in 1896, but only as far as the construction site. After 80 years, the construction of the railway resumed, parallel to Route 6 on the Danube side. The Pusztaszabolcs-Dunaújváros-Paks railway line also used to carry passengers, but the service has been closed since 2009.

In Paks, there is occasionally discussion of improving the city's connection to the Danube, but this is unlikely to happen without relocating the road and railway. We conclude this post with a look back at what life on the Danube was like in Paks before the road and railway were built, with its water park and boat mills. We use postcards from before 1945 and photos of Paks dated 1937 by János Kenedi from Fortepan.

Paks, Danubian park, demolished during the construction of Route 6.

Danubian panorama at Paks. In 1861 there were 56 boat mills in operation.

The Haga Danube pool next to the chestnut grove.

The Danubian pool at Paks and seven boat mills.

Full house in the pool.

Paks, ship station. The first steamboat arrived in Paks in 1846.
The scheduled passenger traffic ceased in 1964, after this time the Fishing cooperative used it.