Qualifying round of the "Danubian Island of the year 2021" voting

HUNGARAIAN

Time has come again to cast your vote for the Danubian Island of the Year. This will be the ninth year we start this contest. As a tradition, our readers can nominate their favorite islands, and then it is upon them which two Danubian Islands will qualify for the finals. As usual, there are 3 islands in the final, the 3rd one is nominated by the Donauinseln blog. The qualifying round ends at noon on the 12th of October 2021. On the next day, we start the finals which end on the last day of 2021.

Winner of 2020., the Kerekzátony island at Ráckeve

This year you can choose between seven Hungarian, one Austrian and one Serbo-Croatian island. This latter is interesting because it is contested between Serbia and Croatia, because of the two countries' different views on the Danubian border. I hope you can select your favorite nominee for the finals from the nine islands!

Let me introduce the nominated islands in alphabetical order:

Angyali island, Ráckeve. Position: 47.192922, 18.954102

Holiday island on the Soroksári-Dunan, north of Ráckeve. According to local legends, it got its name from King Matthias I of Hungary, who called it an 'angelic' place when he visited it. 

Csepel island. Position: 47.285565, 18.958673

It is one of the largest islands in the Danube, despite the fact that its eastern branch was closed in 1872. It has 12 municipalities, including one district of Budapest, which covers the northern part of the island. 

Csitri island, Esztergom. Position: 47.762243, 18.688559

It is a small but old island, the second smallest island in the Táti archipelago. Interestingly, 'the little girl' is surrounded on both sides by a tributary of the Danube. 

Dunaréti island, Kismaros. Position: 47.821894, 19.001278

The Dunaréti island near Kismaros no longer exists, it was connected to the coast in the 19th century. It is currently crossed by the Budapest-Szob Eurovelo 6 cycle route. 

Koppánymonostori island, Komárom. Position: 47.753536, 18.036960

Named after Komárom's Koppánymonostor district, this four-part Danube island was long ago connected to the right bank by river regulation but still receives water from an underground tunnel.

Körtvélyes island, Esztergom és Tát. Position: 47.753972, 18.677706

Although the name refers to a grove of woods, the best hay in the area was produced by the reapers of Körtvélyesi Island. The largest member of the Táti group of islands, it is the southern neighbor of the also-nominated Csitri Island. 

Sprud, Zmajevac, HR/Bački Monoštor, SRB. Position: 45.790459, 18.859473

Its name means Sandbar. The island formed from a sandbar is located north of the large island of Siga, known as Liberland, and is disputed by Serbia and Croatia.

Tízfás island, Rácalmás. Position: 47.025152, 18.949327

There is a small island on the Rácalmási Danube, south of the bridge by the harbor, which is threatened not only by beavers but also by people.

Insel Wörth, Hößgang-Neustadt a der Donau, AT. Position: 48.230570, 14.887091

The Strudel, a rocky stretch of the Danube in Upper Austria, was once a sailor's nightmare. Many ships were lost between the island of Wörth and Werfenstein Castle. Eventually, the Ybbs-Persenbeug hydroelectric power station tamed the wild river here.

The results: 

bike trails

Wachau's nose

IN HUNGARIAN

Finally, a hybrid solution was born... From the samples taken at the castle in Rossatz, the nose of the mayor's son was combined with the nose of a woman from Hamburg who has lived in Wachau for a long time. The result was a four-meter-high Danube-front artwork near the ferry in the Austrian village of St. Lorenz, home to 22 people. 

Wachauer Nase (photo © Ariane Reither)

  

Wachau in Austria is a must for anyone who loves the Danube. Climb the steep hillsides of Dürnstein and Aggsbach, taste the local white wines, touch the life-size "Willendorf Venus", marvel at the miniature churches in the miniature villages, cycle and sail through this magnificent valley. And on top of that, at the 2014 river kilometer, you can marvel at Austria's largest nose, which would make Cyrano de Bergerac expresses his appreciation.

But before we take a closer look at the nose, let's visit the nearby Romanesque church. 

Weißenkirchen and St. Lorenz on the 3rd military survey (mapire.eu)

The church of St. Lorenz is one of the smallest and oldest in Wachau. But it is still enough for a village of 22 people. Its history also has a topicality, ranked 12th among Austrian sites in the Frontiers of the Danube World Heritage nomination. This suggests that the Romanesque church on the right bank of the Danube, in the former province of Noricum, certainly dates back to the Roman age. 

St. Lorenz temploma 1938-ban. (forrás: Alte Ansichten aus der Wachau)

The Roman age wall of nearby Bacharnsdorf has already been mentioned on the blog. This building, which is at least 1600 years old, is important because it is an example of what a Roman watchtower in the Danube valley might have looked like, as it forms the wall of a family house. Its three levels could be used to construct, among other things, watchtowers of a similar age in the Danube bend. Although the 4th-century remains of St. Lorenz are similar in size, not much is visible. Two buildings, the south wall of the parish and the north wall of the church form the same structure. And as such it only appears in a small part, above the saddle roof of the parish. 

It seems that nearly a thousand years after the construction of the watchtower (in the 13th and 14th centuries), the walls of the church were still at this height when it was built. It is possible that the stones of other walls (which were in the wrong position for the temple) were also used in the construction.

Well, back to the nose!

The Nose of Wachau hides behind the Romanesque church of St. Lorenz (source)

On 13 October 2012, around 70 people gathered at the former castle of the Counts Schönborn in the center of Rossatz to model their sense of smell for the latest project by the Gelatin group of artists. After all, what other nose could be used for a sculpture of the "Nose of Wachau" than an original nose from the Wachau. During the convivial event, beer, local white wine, and apricot liqueur were served, sausages were roasted and the team of artists took plaster samples of the noses of the enthusiastic applicants. 

And the result? A four-meter-high, five-meter-wide, seven-and-a-half-meter-long work of art that rises upstream.

Nose modeling in progress (Photo © Gelitin)

It's like a giant buried on the banks of the Danube, with only its nose showing. Its nostrils can comfortably accommodate a few people. The Danube's floods fill it with silt, on which the vegetation then colonizes. The grass grows in it like the hairs on its nose. 

Within a short time, it has become a real attraction in the 'Austrian Danube Bend'.

Nostril caves

Here, the old and the new blend well together. In addition to fans of ancient ruins and medieval church architecture, contemporary art lovers will also find something for everyone at the Weißenkirchen ferry!

The wall in Bacharnsdorf

IN HUNGARIAN

Roman architecture and archaeology along the Danube is a prominent topic on the Donauinseln blog. This time we present Gergely Buzás' book A királyok Visegrádja (Royal Visegrád), published in an unusually sophisticated format. However, this is not a typical book recommendation, as one of the chapters takes us all the way back to Wachau, Austria. From the reign of Emperor Valentinian I, in the 370s, we will wind our way back to Visegrad and the present. 

The wall in Bacharnsdorf

Bacharnsdorf is a village of 37 inhabitants on the banks of the Danube in Wachau. Three other "Arnsdorf" share the narrow Danube bank with its neighbors, of which it is the smallest. To the southwest of Bacharnsdorf, Mitterarnsdorf, Hofarnsdorf, and Oberarnsdorf lie in a row on the right bank of the Danube. Each of these villages is named after an 8th century Salzburg bishop, Arno.

A terület különösen mostoha körülményeket biztosít az emberi megtelepedéshez. A Dunától délre a Dunkelsteiner Wald középhegység közvetlenül a Duna fölé magasodik, meredek falával akadályozva a parti forgalmat. Járható út nem is létezett a parton a középkor végéig, az utazók vagy délre kerültek,  St. Pölten felé, vagy hajóval utaztak a Dunán. Azt a kevés lapály ami a parton volt gyakran elborították a Duna áradásai. A római korban ez volt a birodalom határvidéke, a szemközti, meglehetősen ritkán lakott parton germán törzsek, markomannok éltek.

The area provides particularly harsh conditions for human settlement. To the south of the Danube, the Dunkelsteiner Wald mountain range rises directly above the Danube, its steep walls obstructing coastal traffic. There was no passable road along the coast until the end of the Middle Ages, travellers either headed south towards St. Pölten or traveled by boat on the Danube. The few flatlands that were on the coast were often devastated by the Danube's floods. In Roman times, this was the frontier of the empire, and the opposite bank, rather sparsely populated, was inhabited by Germanic tribes, the Marcomanni.

Roman settlements in Wachau's northern region (Namare=Melk, Cetium=St. Pölten)

The province of Noricum, largely in present-day Austria, was the western neighbor of Pannonia in Roman times. In the north, it stretched from the Danube to the Alps, as far as present-day northern Slovenia. Its eastern border was in the Vienna Woods, so Vindobona (Vienna) was still part of Pannonia. Because of its topography, it was a sparsely populated area, with its largest settlements in the valleys of the Inn, the Danube, and the Drava. Rome annexed this area in 16 BC, but it had some autonomy until the reign of Emperor Claudius when it was incorporated as a province. During the reign of Emperor Diocletian, the province was divided into two, and the Wachau with the entire Danubian border was called Noricum Ripense, while the southern part was called Noricum Mediterraneum.

From the fortress of Faviana (Mautern an der Donau) upstream, the floodplain has widened slightly by 13 river kilometers. There was no road along the bank, and the Roman soldiers had to cut through densely wooded valleys and then meander down to the river in the Dürrenbach valley when they were ordered to build a watchtower sometime during the reign of Emperor Valentinian I in the early 370s.  

The auxiliary troops sent out from Lauriacum (Enns) unknowingly built a castle that has stood the test of eternity (for now), despite the Roman military used it for only about fifty years. In the 420s, Rome abandoned the Danube frontier, and the massive tower remained hidden in the narrow floodplain. 

In the village of Bacharnsdorf there is a medieval manor house (number 7), which is still inhabited. Its northern wall is 9 meters high and looks nothing like the other paneled walls of the house (see picture above). Many burgi in Hungary, dating back a thousand years, would envy this massive 1.5-meter thick wall. This is the southern wall of the Roman watchtower built by Roman hands nearly 1650 years ago. Its base area was 155 square meters, and it had three levels, based on holes in the wall made for wooden beams. The south wall survives almost intact, but has been demolished to ground level on the north and west - its stones may have been used for the mansion. In its original state, it was covered by a tiled roof. The entrance was on the north, i.e. the Danube side, and on the first floor, where the soldiers' quarters are supposed to have been, there are only small windows. While on the second floor, used as a guard post, the soldiers could look out over the surrounding area through 2 to 2 arched windows on each side. Archaeologists have not found any traces of trenches.

The burgus of Bacharnsdorf from the side (source) 

Annak ellenére, hogy egy ekkora látványos faldarabról van szó, egészen 1964-ig nem is nagyon foglalkoztak vele a régészek, ekkor egy helytörténész azonosította a római eredetét. Az első feltárásra 1970-ig kellett várni, de utána felgyorsultak az események. 1985-ig sikerült régészetileg felmérni és konzerválni. Noricum provincia területéről a zeiselmaueri (Cannabiaca) erőd mellett a bacharnsdorfi burgus a legjobban fennmaradt római rom. Jelentőségét az adja, hogy az I. Valentinianus császár uralkodása alatt épült, sorozatgyártott magyarországi burgusokat is ez alapján lehet rekonstruálni. 

Despite being such a spectacular piece of wall, it was not much studied by archaeologists until 1964, when a local historian identified its Roman origins. The first excavation had to wait until 1970, but after that things picked up. It was archaeologically surveyed and conserved until 1985. In the province of Noricum, next to the fortress of Zeiselmauer (Cannabiaca), the castle of Bacharnsdorf is the best-preserved Roman ruin. Its importance is due to the fact that it is the basis for the reconstruction of the "mass-produced" Hungarian burgi, during the reign of Emperor Valentinian I. 

Theoretical reconstruction of the burgus of Bacharnsorf

Two of the watchtowers in Visegrád, in the Visegrád quarries, and the one at Szentgyörgypuszta, were built according to the type plans and were successfully matched with the burgus of Bacharnsdorf. Fortunately, the inscription of the construction of the stone quarry watchtower has survived, so that its construction date is known for the year. Given the identical construction, we are perhaps not far off the mark if we also date the construction of the watchtower at Bacharnsdorf to 372.

And here we turn back to the present, to Visegrád, where in 2018 the Mátyás király Museum published Gergely Buzás' book "The Royal Visegrád", only 10% of which deals with what we are dealing with now; Roman history. The publication was illustrated by Pazirik Informatikai Kft. of Pécs with spectacular computer graphics, one of which we have already presented - from where else but Visegrád. In addition to the watchtowers at the Visegrád quarry and Szentgyörgypuszta, the Lepence castle is also mentioned, which was slightly larger than the previous two, measuring 18*18 meters. The fortress at Gizellamajor with its four corner towers and the military camp on the Sibrik hill, which in the 11th century could have been the oldest surviving Roman ruin in Pannonia. With relatively little work, the fortress of Pone Navata became the seat of the early Árpád-era county of Visegrád. 

The rest of Royal Visegrád presents the architecture and archaeological remains of the five hundred years of the Hungarian Middle Ages, tracing the history of the castle and the royal palace up to the recapture of 1685. The 136-page, lavishly illustrated book is a fitting memorial to the past of Visegrád. 

What better way to say goodbye than with a short video of the excavation in Szentgyörgypuszta:

Sources:

• Buzás Gergely: A királyok Visegrádja, Mátyás Király Múzeum 2018.
• http://archeologia.hu/konyvajanlo-buzas-gergely-kiralyok-visegradja
• http://okorportal.hu/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2004_2_groh.pdf
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limest%C3%BCrme_in_der_Wachau
• https://www.sulinet.hu/oroksegtar/data/telepulesek_ertekei/Bolcske/pages/Pannoniai_kutatasok/nemet/008_wosin.htm

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

First image of the newborn Kis-Háros Island

IN HUNGARIAN

There are still a lot of people in Hungary who are older than the Kis-Háros Island near Nagytétény, Budapest. 

The Kis-Háros Island emerges from the Danube in 1940 (source: Hadtörténeti Múzeum, section: 5062_1)

Recently, an educational video about the island of Kis-Háros was uploaded to BudapestVideo.hu, showing the hidden natural values of the island. The nearly three-hectare area was protected in 1999, six years after the declaration of the neighboring "big brother" Háros Island. The video takes us back to a story we wrote 8 years ago, which raised a seemingly intractable question that has remained unanswered ever since: when exactly did the Kis-Háros Island form?

"The Kis-Háros Island was born as a gravel bar as a result of river regulation sometime in the 20th century. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact date of its birth, as the gravel bar gradually rose from the Danube." 

Before the above aerial photograph was found, the only answer to the question would have been sometime before 1967, as this is the earliest aerial photograph of the island on the fentrol.hu website. Earlier maps usually omitted the Kis-Háros Island. It is not on the 1941 military map and is also missing from the 1958 town planning base map of the Nagytétényi section. However, it could have been on the 1941 map, next to the last houses of the Baross Gábor district, which stretches down to the Danube, as far as the aerial photo was taken in 1940 is concerned. Unless it is a flyspeck on the map, the black spot is the Kis-Háros Island and its first reflection in the history of the islands in the Danube, which are constantly being created and destroyed. 

The Kis Háros Island during the autumn of 1968 (fentrol.hu)

That black spot cannot be a flyspeck for several reasons. If you compare it with the 1968 aerial photo, you can see that its location is correct. In the 1940 photo, the river color and the flooded bank make it look very much like they were flying over Nagytétény during high water level. Only the canopy of freshly sprouted trees on the gravel reef is sticking out of the water. This gravel reef is where it is because the sister island of Háros was annexed to the right bank of the Danube in 1911 (interestingly, Háros and Hunyadi Islands were probably administratively part of Szigetszentmiklós until 1950 and only became part of the capital through the Greater Budapest concept.

The Kis-Háros Island was therefore already an island in 1940, and the few meters of trees that settled on it suggest that the island's origins are not far off the mark if we put its origins in the second half of the 1930s. In this case, the age of the island would be around 80-85 years. 

To conclude, here is the educational film about the island that inspired this post:

Thanks to the crew for their thought-provoking work! 

Sources:

• https://budapestvideo.hu/video/a-kis-haros-sziget?fbclid=IwAR1kWxrr1mxnWbeqa842zmt2qLR_XAEF9XyIfwMIsrZGfIsxw9RXfRICD2I
• http://www.termeszetvedelem.hu/index.php?pg=pl_20-54-TT-99

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The southern tip of the Égető Island

IN HUNGARIAN

A pile of wood, some planks, a cyclist on a beach, a boat and the Naszály mountain in the background are the backdrop to the Égető Island in 1941 I stumbled across on Fortepan. The island is still an island here, and anyone cycling by today would not recognise the landscape, if only because the southern tip of the island, which is visible in the picture, is no longer there, if it is still an island tip at all.

Égető Island, 1941 (Fortepan 128884)

In the southern part of Vác, next to the cycle path along the Danube, you will find the Égető Island, a quite unknown Danubian island. A similarly old but undated picture of the northern tip of the island has also came to light, which differs from the southern tip in that it is still in roughly the same place. In 1941, the narrow island consisted of just one row of trees, and the keenest eye could tell you exactly how many there were. 

Anyone looking for the island's contours is in for a rough ride these days. The Égető Island gradually merged with the coast, and walking along the main branch you can easily pass the inconspicuous north and south inlets. The oxbow is narrowed, with standing water for most of the year and drying up completely during low water periods. 

The development of the Égető-sziget: (Blue line: Old Danube riverbeds, yellow line:  flood-free zone, red line: current shoreline)

 The southern tip of the island, visible in the initial image, is now hidden in the interior of the island. Today, when the water still flows in the oxbow (mostly during floods), it flows back into the main branch 300-350 meters to the south. The width of a single row of trees has also increased several times. There are no longer any beachgoers in this stretch, the floodplain forest and undergrowth has slowly pushed them away from the shore. The oxbow has become silted up, the level of the riverbed is higher today than it was three quarters of a century ago.

The oxbow of the Égető Island (on the left) in 2016.

The 1941 photograph captures a young Égető Island for posterity. It is as if we are seeing our grandparents smiling in their youth...

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Artificial spring on the Szentendrei Island

IN HUNGARIAN

Despite the fact that the collector wells on Szentendrei Island supply a significant part of Budapest's drinking water needs, there is no natural lake or watercourse on its surface. This is why the spring at the Upper Torda groyne opposite Vác is a curiosity. 

Emerging gravel bank above the groyne at the Torda Island

There are no streams or natural lakes on Szentendrei Island, except of course for the backwaters of the smaller islands nearby. And there is no natural spring. This 'dryness' has geological reasons, the island is mostly made up of river gravel and sand, blown out of the riverbed. In such an environment, rainwater immediately drains away, down to the groundwater table, which is heavily influenced by the Danube. At low tide, the groundwater mirror follows the Danube's water level, allowing precipitation to flow below the surface into the river. When the groundwater level rises, the Danube also swells the groundwater.

It is important to note that this is the natural state. Three lakes have been created on Szentendre Island as a result of human activity. All of them are gravel or sandpits. There is one east of Kisoroszi, one near Pócsmegyer and one at the former highest point of Szentendrei Island, Surány. It is not only the lakes that are man-made but also the only spring I know of.

Minimalist film footage of the Danube and this spring, for example, is occasionally taken during field trips and can be followed on the Danube Islands YouTube channel.

This spring is located at the base of the 1682 river kilometer table, about 100 meters above the groyne, opposite the upsilted southern tip of the island of Buki in Kisvác. There is a dirt road from the Tótfalu side of the Vác river to this point. On the way, you can also see the Révész Island and the island of Torda, unless a large flock of sheep prevents you from passing. Its location means that it is certain to be flooded by the highest tides. Its waters run in a straight line between a few coastal willows to the river, with no major bed.

View on the Torda gravel bank at Vác

The existence of this spring is a curiosity on the "dry" island of Szentendre. Its development is linked to the collector wells of the waterworks from Kisorossi to the 1682 river kilometre marker. It emerges just below the southernmost well, separated from it by a planted poplar forest. It is probably an overflow from the pipe network, so it is possible that there are several similar ones in areas of Szentendre Island that are closed off to visitors by armed guards.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Through high water and hell

It makes me long for the days when I have to go to work. Then I can sleep two hours more. Outside, everything is pitch black, or the first rays of dawn are turning the sky into twilight colors. The alarm clock is on the hour, you can't sleep more than that. No need to pack, just dress warmly, because it is still chilly. Packing is kept to a minimum, I'm not going to carry anything unnecessarily in the jungle. My grandfather's rubber boots still fit, and something long-sleeved to protect against mosquitoes and spiders. The only things that are really necessary are a camera and a bank card, everything else is just extras. Maybe this time it won't fall into the Danube like happened at the ferry of Horány. I'll buy breakfast at the station, nothing's open here yet anyway. There's no one on the street, but I have to walk a long way to catch the train, if I miss it everything will be ruined, the connection, the ferry and ultimately the whole day. The air is crisp and the Danube is mirror-like, like those summer mornings in Budapest when I watched from tram number two on the way to work. You can even sleep on the train on the way there, there's even room. I'm already napping upstairs on the train, while everyone back home is still asleep and will remain so for hours. You have to get to the front of the train, then you can save half a minute for the subway. Why rush like that? Why don't I sleep in my bed at home? The same questions as at four in the morning somewhere in Gerecse Mountains, when there were only a dozen kilometers to go to Tata for the Kinizsi 100 badge...

The subway is infrequent, but it looks like I'll make the connection, and there will even be time to buy a newspaper for the long-distance train, along with the inevitable cocoa drink in the morning. I'll need it, as the journey will take hours. To where? Anywhere. I just made it up the day before, because I read an interesting article at work that I had to look up in some old books and maps. Would be nice to see if it's still there? Or has it been swallowed up by the river? Can you walk it in a day? Yes. Let's go, it's the weekend. Of course, we should have gone to bed early, but we still had to figure out the route, which would be complicated by life. It's as sure as "this shouldn't be here" or "this should be here" will be said on the spot. And where am I anyway? My Nokia C2 won't tell me, and my map is 80 years old because of course, this isn't Slovakia, where there are usable tourist maps of every square inch of the country. 

It used to make me sick, but now I can read on the moving bus. The train has never been a problem. Three newspapers can be read in one journey if something is left, it's good for the journey back home, if not, there's a Scandinavian noir novel, in which the inquisitive inspector doesn't investigate the past of an island in the Danube, but the method is similar, and so is the story structure. Time flies by and you don't have to stare at the strips of asphalt slicing up the living world. Nothing interesting happens on the morning bus anyway. Sometimes you have to put the newspaper down. If the driver is telling the only other passenger besides me about the suicide of a family member, if there are newly released, drunk convicts waving knives, or if my bicycle is being tipped over by some less socialized individual on the train. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we should buy something to eat and some "island chocolate" (to be consumed at the endpoint of the trip) in the village before we are swallowed up for half a day in the riverine forest (what a nice name, for those who haven't spent much time in one). Where is the pub? In case I'll have to return here. Oh, and the timetable, it does matter. Just in case, I'll check and even take a photo of the national park sign, in case it's more up-to-date than my prehistoric map rescued from the antique shop. 

I'll turn off there, cross there (what's the water level? Will my wellingtons be enough?), hope the mud won't be too deep. It's probably passable there (usually not), if not you'll have to detour to the dirt road. But it is a waste of time, you can cut it off here (you can't). Hope there won't be many mosquitoes (yes there will). At most I'll escape them onto the embankment (ah, that would be a detour again). Oh well, not many mosquitoes, how can there be? They were eaten by spiders, which are so big I could easily end up like that. Sometimes the easiest terrain is the most humiliating. You just have to walk out to this chapel. It rained a little, but who would have thought that some tractor had just plowed up the dirt road and was only dropping kilograms of fattened clay from my wellingtons (more incomplete preparation would be my 6-year-old Martens boots). When the sun is shining, it is usually forty degrees in the shade. I might not get sunstroke, but it would be nice if that cloud didn't pass the sun. Anyway, I'm sure another one will come along, it just has to reach the horizon first. Anyway, I'll turn off down this dirt road here and I'm there. But where's the dirt road? It should be here, but the good farmer has plowed it up and planted it with some genetically modified corn that grows three and a half meters high in a ten-centimeter row. Anyway, I'm going over. But which way is ahead? What's that rattling? That's a nice deer. I hope it doesn't run me through.

Now, here's the forest, and there's even a driveway. Beautiful, the sun shining through the foliage. Nice, there's shade at last! Well, look what happened to the other tire track, I had it a while ago by that muddy pit by the waist-high nettles. Too bad I didn't bring long pants. But who would have thought that nettles would grow in the floodplain? Anyway, for the seventh time, I'm not leaving my thick black jeans at home and I don't give a shit about the heat. It's the end of the world here, the anglers have finally disappeared. Luckily, this path is also comfortably accessible. The Danube is almost here! Or rather, the oxbow that used to meander somewhere around here 80 years ago. But at least we'll have the old riverbed to remind us of it. Shouldn't the old stone dam be here? Let's have a look. With the half an eye this ash-leaved maple hasn't knocked out yet. The trail's gone somewhere anyway, while I can wobble over scattered andesite blocks. I'm just about to cross this few metres of blackberry bush. Not ripe yet, bad luck. It's not easy to wade through, but it's nearly the end. Now I've got a bleeding leg, luckily only one of them. I'll wipe it off later at the Danube, but I've got to cross this nettle patch first. What the hell's next? (Just the usual, eh?) Is there a stick to beat the nettle down to at least knee level? No? Deep breath then, the pain will be gone in a day anyway. If I remember correctly, it doesn't sting that much. But the point is, far away there seems to be some water. 

The nettle is gone, I don't even feel it so much, thanks to the blackberry stems. I hope nothing comes in my way, I already have thistles in my hair, I don't know what will get the cobwebs and stickyweed (Galium aparine) out of my pants. I'll rub it off with dry sand. If there's anything like that because so far it's just mud. It's supposed to be a cure for rheumatism. Or for the stinging nettles. In any case, the mosquitoes won't bite through this crust that's dried on my leg. They're breeding nicely here, so I don't know why I had to come here a week after the floods had receded. Goodness, how am I going to look tonight at the Dark Tranquillity concert?

The forest seems to be thinning here... I left behind the bastard indigobush, gone the blond poplar, which in spring can bleach any cloth. There are only willows and mosquitoes. And the driftwood stuck between them. And half a cow stuck between the driftwood. I'd rather go towards the stuck fridge, there's probably a thinner layer of pill bottles there. Wow, these pants would be good for mosquitoes. It's not that bad yet. I'm getting hungry, but I'll eat on the beach, somewhere nice. Where there's not such a cloud of mosquitoes. It'd be nice if the tavern of Dunakömlőd would show up here, a beer would be nice too. On the way home, when I've looked back at the whole thing from the top of the loess wall - I'll have to climb that too. I hope the bus doesn't abandon me like it did at that pub, I drank with the local intelligentsia for another two hours before the bus driver saved me. I wish the rubbish was less. We should organise some rubbish picking on the blog without even mentioning the circumstances. Everyone would be cursing...

Finally, the backwater is here! But how do I get to the riverbank? You can't, the mud is waist-deep under two inches of water, between the waterlogged trees. It's like the island at Sturovo, although there was more rubbish. Back to the driftwood, at least it's dry. Just don't break one under me, then I can go back into the mud. What exactly am I doing here? I couldn't even take a picture. How is this going to be a blog post? I'll have to come back here in the winter, that's for sure. I'm going to look for this dam or something, see if it's still there, it was there eighty years ago. They didn't steal it... Maybe I can get out to the main branch, maybe I can see the sun there. I miss it now. I should have walked here 80 years ago, this jungle used as a garbage dump wasn't here then (riverine forest, what a nice name, isn't it?). Let's just say I'd have been stung by the Sun, lying on the side of the embankment vomiting. I need a hat, don't I...? 

The forest seems to be clearing up over there! Boat horn, the smell of the Danube! At least another Danube smell, not this muddy one. The luring scent, the taste of sunshine. The herd of cumulus clouds. Just get me out there, I'll cross anything now! But I've got to get a photo of that egret or whatever it is! But it flew away, and I'm not Crown Prince Rudolf, who as an ornithologist has done much to make these animals thoroughly hate humans. My goodness, what a big tree it landed on, at least five meters around its trunk. It's been here a long time... No, it's only a willow tree. Then maybe it's not even on my map. You can go out to the banks of the oxbow here. That's a nice picture, once again. There's what I was looking for. I can't believe it was built at least a hundred years ago! It could even be from the Roman ruins, which will be somewhere down here unless the treasure hunters have already destroyed it. I'd like to shake hands with the half-wit who came here to hunt for treasure. It's not going to be a World Heritage site, but at least the museum could come out and excavate, there's never been an excavation here anyway. I'm not going to write about it, I don't want anybody to come here like they did to the Helembai gravel bar. You don't necessarily have to write about protected plants either. They're going to be torn down anyway. I've got it, I've got it photographed, I've got to write it down on the way home, I've got to ask a few people what it is...

Can you go out to the main Danube branch here? The estuary is finally here, but there seems to be too much water... Anyway, I'm not going back into that forest, boots off, trousers off, maybe not more than eighty centimeters. This wooden stick will help me. Wow, damn. I hope nobody sees me. Anyways, I'll wash it off. I've got mud here instead of clay. Instead of mud, it's sand, finally. The water's flowing here, there's the sandbank across the river at the end of the stone quarry. Asps are splashing, chasing the fry. Cumulus clouds, caressing sun, sparkling sand, silence, peace, comfortably numb. You can have lunch here, lie back, close your eyes. For another decade I could listen to the wind blowing the sand, the leaves rustling, the water splashing between the stones. 

Here I am, I'm home. I'm back...

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Measuring the Babacai cliff

IN HUNGARIAN

Stupidity is contagious, especially on the internet, where people copy nonsense from each other. The question of the height of the Babakai rock on the Al-Dunan is like the same wrong answer in a school test example. We don't know who copied it from whom, but I think it's important to have at least one correct answer, so we're going to measure the Babacai rock, located near Coronini.  

"Babakai Rock used to be a 50-metre high cliff in the Danube, but since the construction of the Iron Gate power plant, only the top of the cliff has been sticking out of the river." 

Whether you read (the Hungarian) wikipedia or other online descriptions of the Lower Danube, the Babacai rock was 50 metres high before the construction of the Iron Gate power plant. The same descriptions estimate the height of the current cliff at 6-7 metres. This Jurassic limestone cliff, which in Turkish means grandfather (wise old man), still defines the image of the Danube, which narrows from two kilometres to 400 metres between Coronini and Golubac. Now imagine how a 15-storey cliff would define the Danube?

At 50 metres, the height would most closely resemble a telecommunications tower made of stone. Since it only rises six or seven metres above the Danube, it is easy to calculate that the Danube must have risen by 43 metres in 1972, when the Iron Gate I power station, located about 100 river kilometres from Babakai Rock (1,041 km), was completed. Except that the Iron Gate I power plant has caused a dam to rise 33 metres, up to 35 metres, and this value is decreasing as we move away from the dam upstream. If the Babacai rock had been somewhere around Ada Kaleh there would still have been 15-17 metres left instead of 6-7. It is therefore easy to see that a height of 50 metres is, to put it mildly, a baroque exaggeration.

But how can we determine the true height of the rock? 

We need a contemporary geological description of it, or if not at hand at least a picture to help us. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have a scale next to the rock to give an indication of the true height. It would take a rare stroke of luck to find one, but for once we were lucky. The picture you want is available on the Hungaricana website: 

Judging by the style of the picture, it was undoubtedly taken before the creation of the reservoir. We still have the base of the cliff, where it could have been moored. It shows a tree braving the elements and, directly next to it, two "castaways", just the right scale. If we estimate their height at 1.7 to 1.8 metres, we can determine the height of the Babacai cliff for a given water level by a simple pair of ratios.

Based on this calculation, the height of the Babakai rock is between 14 and 15 metres.

If in doubt about the accuracy of the calculation, validation can be done with the towers of the castle of Golubac, located on almost the same river-kilometre section, which have been flooded by the Danube since the construction of the dam. 

Naturally, the rock appears lower at high tide and higher at low tide. That's no small feat; 4-5 storeys. But by no means 50 metres.

It would be nice if everyone corrected it for the next lesson! ;)

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100 years of the (Czech)Slovak Danubian border

IN HUNGARIAN

In 1910 there were only two Slovak majority settlements on the banks of the Danube. One of them remained in Hungary after the Trianon decision, the other was annexed to Yugoslavia. The fact that there were practically only Hungarians on both sides of the Danube was not a factor in the drawing of the (Czech) Slovak-Hungarian Danube border in 1920. In today's post, we use a series of border maps recently posted on mapire.eu to explore what has changed along the 142-kilometre-long Danube border over the past 100 years. 

Before we start to discuss the changes in the course of the river and its surroundings, it should be noted that since 4 June 1920 the border between Hungary and Czechoslovakia has changed several times. It has changed so much that by the end of this post we may want back the absurd, unrealistic 'Trianon' borders along this stretch.

Before 1920, the Hungarian section of the Danube stretched from the mouth of the Morava river to Ada Kaleh, initially over a thousand kilometres in length. By 1893, this figure had fallen to 997 kilometres as a result of river regulation. Today, the Hungarian section of the Danube is 417 kilometres long (637 kilometres periodically between 1941 and 1944), of which only 275 kilometres are exclusively in Hungarian territory.

The Slovak-Hungarian section of the Danube by right and left bank (source: wikipedia)

On 4 June 1920, at 4:30 p.m., Hungary signs the peace treaty ending the first world war. Under this treaty, the main shipping route on the Danube between the mouth of the Ipoly and the northern administrative boundary of Horvátjárfalu (Jarovce) village south of Bratislava automatically becomes the border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The islands are divided between the two countries according to which side of the shipping route (Thalweg) they fall on. This line is not the same as the river's centre line, which connects points equidistant from both banks. And it did not necessarily coincide everywhere with the drift line of the river, which is officially defined as the imaginary line connecting the points of maximum velocity of successive cross-sections of the river.

The demarcation did not take ethnic considerations into account at all. There were Slovaks living along the Danube, but nowhere did their proportion exceed 25% (Dévény, Devín), and in the free royal city of Pozsony (Bratislava) it was only 10%. On the Slovak side, the closest Slovak-majority settlement to the river was Pozsonyhidegkút (Dúbravka) between Dévín and Bratislava, 3.2 km north from the banks as the crow flies. On the Hungarian side, Mogyorósbánya was slightly closer to the Danube, at 3.1 km.

A further ethnic geographical curiosity was that 88% of the Slovak population living in Esztergom County, cut in two by the Danube border, remained in Hungary, as most of them lived south of the Danube in the district of Esztergom. The same was true to a lesser extent in Komárom county, where 58% of the Slovak population remained in Hungary. Perhaps this is why the Entente negotiating delegation seriously considered leaving the Csallóköz, with its 98% Hungarian population, to Hungary. In the end, this was only an idea, as strategic considerations weighed more heavily. Under the Trianon decision, a short stretch of the Danube flowed exclusively through Czechoslovak territory, as Czechoslovakia was given the village of Pozsonyligetfalu (Petržalka), which belonged to the Transdanubia region.

On 2 November 1938, the First Vienna Award largely abolished the Danube border, except for a short section. Since Germany also received two settlements from Slovakia, such as Dévény and Pozsonyligetfalu, the Slovak Danube border was reduced to a short stretch between Bratislava and Szemet (Kalinkovo), which village was returned to Hungary. The capital of the independent Slovakia, Bratislava remained the only exit to the Danube. The border, measured on the basis of a pharmacy scale and taking ethnic relations into account as much as possible, remained in force until 1945. (you can browse this border here)

On 10 February 1947, under the Paris Peace Treaty, the Danube border between Hungary and the re-created Czechoslovakia was restored with one modification: three Transdanubian villages, the so-called Bratislava bridgehead, were transferred to Czechoslovakia. Dunacsún, Horvátjárfalu and Oroszvár were again separated by a strategic idea, as the majority of the inhabitants (mainly in Oroszvár) were ethnic Germans, while the other two settlements were Croatian-majority, with a significant Hungarian minority and a negligible Slovak population. There were plans to include Rajka and Bezenye in Czechoslovakia, but this was not supported by the Peace Conference. In 1947, the length of the Danube River within Slovak territory nearly doubled. As it later turned out, the decision had a disastrous effect on the Danube, which later allowed the construction of the Bős (Gabčíkovo) power station and the unilateral diversion of the Danube in October 1992. After the construction of the "Variant C", many in Hungary believed that since the border between the two states was still the shipping route, Doborgaz, Vajka and Nagybodak had effectively been transferred to Hungary through the diversion of the river. Unfortunately, as we will see, this is not the case, as the Danube border is not like the border of the Ipoly or the Maros rivers, where the border has to be redrawn at regular intervals to follow the changes in the river's channel.

After the long introduction, let's see what changes have taken place along the border in terms of islands. The map sections for the Danube show a close relationship with the 1:5000 scale site plan of the Danube of 1911. The inscriptions have been replaced by Slovakian ones, but there is still a typical phonetic transcription of Hungarian nomenclature, e.g. sihoť instead of ostrov. Since the 1925 version focuses mainly on the boundary line, all other distractions such as drift lines and inscriptions have been removed. 

The Muzslai-island, below Nyergesújfalu on the Slovak side, was still there. Its closed upper side branch has been almost completely silted up in the last 100 years. It will be worth visiting the buried enclosure one day.

The island of Nyergesújfalu was placed on the Slovak side, despite being closer to the Hungarian side. At that time it was much smaller, and the stone dyke to the Slovak coast did not yet exist. Over the last century, the island has grown upstream, and the forest that has grown on the gravel bar is still well marked by vegetation.

The island of Süttő is also on the Slovak side. Here, the stone dyke was already in place. Fortunately, it was later opened up, and the intervention created some interesting alluvial deposits. There are two islands in the Karva bay that have disappeared, one of them was the island of Karva, the other one I could not find a Hungarian name for, called Vrbinová sihoť in Slovak. 

Above Gönyű the situation is getting complicated. The regulation has changed the sedimentation of the river, creating gravel bars in the middle of the riverbed, which later became forested. However, they 'grew' out of the Danube, just along the shipping lane, so the unchanged border line bisects the upper island. 

The next stop is near Ásványráró at river mile 1818. The situation in Gönyű has deteriorated further, due to the Bős hydroelectrical plant's service water channel shown in the initial image. The discharge of the Old Danube has been reduced to a quarter and an eighth depending on the season due to the diversion. Due to the reduced flow the width of the river has halved since 1993. There are wide gravel bars on the river banks where the encroachment of vegetation seems unstoppable. The border is not on the shipping lane, just as ships no longer pass through. 

A part of the Bős dam and the artificially created Slovak Danube region. The meandering tributary system is mostly silted up, forested and gone.

The abandoned Dunakiliti dam was originally intended to divert the Danube. After the Hungarian side cancelled the treaty, the Slovak side built its own facility upstream at Dunacsun, which was made possible by the already mentioned 1947 Paris Peace Treaty and allowed the Danube to be diverted. 

At Dunacsún you can still see the inscription M.O. Hongrie, marking the pre-1947 border line. The settlement, which has a Croatian population, was annexed to Czechoslovakia in 1947, and a dam was built on its outskirts to divert most of the water flow to Bős. It is used to regulate the flow of water into the Old Danube and the Moson Danube. 

We see the former northernmost point of Transdanubia, northeast of Horvárjárfalu, in the Danube. Between 1920 and 1947 this was the point where the Danube entered Hungarian territory, between the 1860 and 1861 river kilometres. Nowadays, this point is 10 kilometres further south, at Dunakilit at river kilometre 1850. This section of 10 Danubian river kilometres have changed the inter-island landscape of the Danube Valley forever. 

It is quite certain that the Danube, the Szigetköz and the Csallóköz would look different if the "Trianon" Danube border were still in force...

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Reflections on the Somlyó Island

IN HUNGARIAN

The island of Somlyó is practically invisible from the Soroksári-Duna, just south of Budapest. Only three almost invisible landmarks reveal that a large island is hidden on the left bank between Ráckeve and Dömsöd. A bridge, a culvert and a lock ensure that you can find the hidden Dömsödi Holt-Duna, one of the most beautiful tributaries of the Soroksári-Duna.

The Dömsödi Holt-Duna surrounds the largest island of the Soroksári-Duna, the Somlyó Island, from the east. This alone makes the Dömsödi Holt-Duna the longest tributary, at 6.5 kilometres. However, the accurate lenght can be doubtful, since the tributary was cut in two in 1941 [1] with the construction of the Dömsödi Drainage Canal, which divided it into a 4.1-kilometre and a 2.4-kilometre section. It was built at the thinnest point of the Somlyó Island, where the island narrows to only 37 metres. This channel also bisects the odd-shaped Somlyó Island. The lower part, which is called "Upper Island" for the sake of clarity in Dömsöd, has already been described on this blog. 

On 22 October 2020, we walked the upper 4.1 km section of the Dömsödi Holt-Duna on the Somlyó Island side. The walk is not easy, at least not without a lot of patience. The main difficulty comes from the mosaic nature of Somlyó Island. This mosaicism is reflected in the settlement structure, i.e. the layout of built-up areas is not uniform, with clusters of weekend houses often interrupted by ploughs and woods. The topography is also varied, at least for a lowland Danube island, with many deeper parts, formerly remains of old tributaries, where most of the inland water is now drained. In many places there are still traces of former land use, farmland, which has not yet been completely eradicated by the parcelling out of land for weekend houses. Presumably, due to the considerable size of the island (3 square kilometres), this will take more time.

The width of the Dömsödi Holt-Duna is relatively narrow compared to its length, varying between 15 and 30 metres, which can be further narrowed by the reeds on the river banks. It receives some fresh water from the Soroksári-Duna at the island's head towards Ráckeve via an iron pipe under the road, but this is not enough to make it a living river. The estuary can reach a depth of 1.5 metres in places, but this is constantly decreasing as the low flow rate is unable to flush out the accumulated organic matter. It is often covered with frogweed, with reeds appearing in the lower part, close to the sluice. 

On both sides of the backwater, nature reigns, despite the mosaic of coastal cottages that in some places approach the Dömsödi Holt-Duna. There is no direct road along the banks, precisely because of the cottages, but access is easy on the paths perpendicular to the Dömsödi Holt-Duna, although some of these are closed by the residents. Where there are paths along the shore, they are mainly used by anglers. As well as illegal dumps. The left bank, the Danube–Tisza Interfluve, is more monotonous, with forests interspersed with arable land and no passable paths along the banks.

Since the closure of the Soroksári-Duna (1872), the Dömsödi Holt-Duna has not only lost a large part of its discharge, but the riverbed has also narrowed. Evidence of this can be found in the middle section of the backwater, where a ditch runs parallel to the road and is separated from the dead section by a bank. This ditch acts as a kind of suspended basin, filling with water in wet weather, marking the width of the former channel. Which was around 60 metres 150 years ago.  

Strangely, a little island could have formed in this narrow branch. The most interesting hydrological formation of the Dömsödi Holt-Duna is this single unnamed island, located between the line of Kála and Tűvelevelű streets. It is 140 metres long and has a maximum width of only 20 metres. It is much easier to find it on maps than in real life. The streets leading to this island either end in a reed bed, from where you can't see anything, or are closed off by a wire fence. On the opposite bank is also a holiday resort, but a small dug canal leads down to the top of the island (see picture below). There is also an impenetrable "jungle" on this side, but the lower tip of the island is not only inaccessible because of this, but also because of the upsilted backwater. 

This is the smallest island in the whole Soroksári branch, except for the floating bogs. As its upsilting is at an advanced stage, it is worth visiting it as soon as possible. The best way to do this is by canoe, as we found out on our tour. You only have to lift it twice. 

[1] SZABÓ BENEDEK: A társulatok szerepe a Duna-Tisza közi hátság vízgazdálkodási problémáinak megoldásában. in.: A Magyar Hidrológiai Társaság XIII. Országos Vándorgyűlése I. kötet (Baja, 1995. július 4-6.)

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