You're standing between a statue and a church with two towers, the river at your back. Step in front of the statue and look where the poet looks: his arm rises, and his gaze falls on the square you've just come from.
The statue of , the poet and revolutionary who became the voice of Hungary's fight for freedom, has stood here since 1882. It was paid for by a nationwide collection, and you'll find that fact carved into the base. Miklós Izsó began the work, Adolf Huszár finished it, and designed the pedestal.
On , at three in the afternoon, tens of thousands of people gathered here. The actor Imre Sinkovits recited the and then read out the students' demands. It's the same poem that Petőfi had first performed more than a century earlier, in the café down the alley where this walk began, and that afternoon the gathering swelled into an uprising.
The church behind it belongs to the Greek and Macedo-Vlach merchants of Pest. At first they worshipped in the small Serbian church on Szerb utca, and in 1785 they decided to build a house of their own. It rose between 1791 and 1801 to a design by József Jung, and partway through, with the walls already half up, the community changed its mind and chose two towers instead of one. They only finished in the 1870s, when Ybl drew the spires. The southern tower was damaged in the war and has been back in place since 2010.
We cross to Váci utca and head north, until we reach Kristóf tér, a modest little square with a girl on a fountain.
Sources. Story: hu.wikipedia (Petőfi Sándor-szobor) on the unveiling in 1882, the sculptors Izsó Miklós and Huszár Adolf, the pedestal by Ybl Miklós and the inscription about the nationwide collection; Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár (röplap from 1956) on the tens of thousands at the statue on 23 October 1956, the recital of the National Song by Sinkovits Imre and the reading of the student demands; hu.wikipedia and Pestbuda.hu on the Greek and Macedo-Vlach community, the decision of 1785, the construction by Jung József between 1791 and 1801, the decision for two towers in 1792 and the spires by Ybl from 1872 to 1874; Index Urbanista on the war damage to the southern tower and its reconstruction Photos: Historical photo: Budapest Főváros Levéltára via Fortepan, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Cathedral: Dguendel, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
