The Hungarian Parliament gets more and more beautiful year by year. The restoration works of the historical neo-Gothic building have been going since 1988, but they have still not been finished. There are plans for 2013 too. No worries though, the beautiful river front view of the Parliament in Budapest will be without scaffolding.

Reneszansz Kofarago Zrt is the biggest stone company in Hungary with about 300 employees. During the restoration works they have replaced the soft crumbling limestone pieces with higher quality, more weather resistant stones. The new stones of the Hungarian Parliament are made from hard limestone from Sutto (Süttő, HU). The new limestone is covered with a special layer to withstand the urban smog in Budapest. The restoration works will eventually help to get back the beautiful neo-Gothic parliamentary building of the Magyars, and we can enjoy scaffold-free photos of the ‘Orszaghaz’. The restoration works have been going on for more than twenty years in 2012. The total cost of strengthening the walls, statues, etc. of the Parliament are well over twenty billion Hungarian forints.

According to the restoration plans of the Hungarian Parliament, the project scheduled for 2013 will get the northern and southern edge walls as well as the walls from the Kossuth Square restored and cleaned from the dirt and smog.

Hungarians love to joke ironically about the long drawn restoration works of the Hungarian Parliament. To mention but a few of the common wisecracks:

The Parliament is not the parliament with scaffolding. It has always been with scaffolds and will always be.

By the time they finish the restoration works of the Hungarian Parliament, they can start it again.

OK, it is pretty clean from the outside, now we only need to clean it from the inside…

No scaffolding any more? No problem, we will have cordons! [referring to the political unrest when the Parliament gets cordoned away from the dissatisfied crowds]

Little country, big parliament, big costs.

And the buttocks of the Parliament has still not been restored.