Off the Beaten Track? The Communist Legacy of East-Central Europe as a Tourism Resource
Budapest (population 2025: 1,676,000) is the capital and largest city in Hungary. It is located in the center of the country, on the Danube. Budapest was formed from the merger of the cities of Buda on the left bank and Pest on the right bank of the Danube. Pest was already the capital of Hungary from the beginning of the 11th century and from the 13th century often alternated in this function with Buda. When the both cities were merged as Pest-Buda during the revolution in Hungary in 1848, they already formed a single entity. After the restoration of the monarchy (from 1526 as part of the Habsburg Monarchy), however, this merger was abolished in 1849 and re-established 1873. In this context the Hungarians replaced the Germans as the majority in the city. After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918, Budapest remained the capital of a now independent Hungary. After Hungary's entry into the Second World War on the side of the German Reich in 1941, most of the city's Jews were ghettoized in 1944 and later deported to concentration camps or murdered. The 1956 popular uprising against Soviet tutelage in Hungary began in Budapest. In connection with the uprising and its suppression, the capital lost around 70,000 people. Today, Budapest is not only the country's largest economic and cultural center, but also one of the most important in East Central Europe.
Hungary (population in 2025: 9,488,428) is a state in Central Europe with Budapest as its capital. For several centuries, the country was part of the so-called Habsburg Empire, which was known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 until its dissolution in connection with World War I in 1918. Hungary has been a member of the European Union since May 1, 2004. The country’s largest river is the Danube. Hungary is one of the few landlocked countries in Europe.
Inventing Communism Tours: the “Crazy Guides” in Kraków
Cracow (population in 2025: 816,614) is Poland’s second-largest city and is located on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship in the south of the country. The city was founded before the 11th century and was one of the country’s major centers of power from an early stage. From 1320 to 1795, it was formally the country’s capital. Cracow is one of the country’s most important industrial and cultural centers. The city is known for its Main Market Square with the Cloth Hall and Wawel Castle in Cracow’s Old Town, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978. Cracow is also home to the Jagiellonian University, which is the oldest one in Poland.
Nowa Huta is a district in the northeast of Cracow. It was established in 1949 on the territory of the commune of Mogiła as a housing estate for the workers of the Lenin Steelworks (now ArcelorMittal Poland), which was being built at the same time. In 1951, the area of the housing estate and of the steelworks was incorporated into Cracow. The steelworks complex, which began operations in 1954, was one of the largest facilities of its kind in Europe.
Tracing Communism in Central Prague
At the same time, Prague also offers a few surviving “time capsules” of state socialism—for example, the canteen Světozor, where Czech dishes are still served cafeteria-style, or a number of bunkers, such as the one in the basement of the Hotel Jalta Hotel Jalta This prestigious hotel, designed by the architect Antonín Tenzer and built between 1954 and 1958, primarily accommodated international guests. , located right on Wenceslas Square.
A “Western Gaze” on “the East”
For Czech history, James Krapfl has shown that, as early as the 1990s, this interpretation of the revolution as a “happy ending” began to be supplemented by alternative readings.8 And countervailing interpretations can also be found in the way these tours present the past. When guides speak about the ideological saturation of everyday life and the shortcomings of the planned economy, they often do so in the mode of satire: the era of state socialism is treated with irony. It becomes a bizarre age, and the daily maneuvering of ordinary people comes to resemble life in a comedy. Accordingly, the tours in Prague and Kraków also draw on motifs from films such as Miś (Teddy Bear, 1981) by Stanisław Bareja, Bony a klid (1987)9 by Vít Olmer, and Pelíšky (Cozy Dens, 1999) by Jan Hřebejk, which depict small acts of defiance against Party authorities.10
Experiencing History
Warsaw is the capital of Poland and also the largest city in the country (population in 2025: 1,866,729). It is located in the Mazovian Voivodeship on Poland's longest river, the Vistula. Warsaw first became the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic at the end of the 16th century, replacing Krakow, which had previously been the Polish capital. During the partitions of Poland-Lithuania, Warsaw was occupied several times and finally became part of the Prussian province of South Prussia for eleven years. From 1807 to 1815 the city was the capital of the Duchy of Warsaw, a short-lived Napoleonic satellite state; in the annexation of the Kingdom of Poland under Russian suzerainty (the so-called Congress Poland). It was not until the establishment of the Second Polish Republic after the end of World War I that Warsaw was again the capital of an independent Polish state.
At the beginning of World War II, Warsaw was conquered and occupied by the Wehrmacht only after intense fighting and a siege lasting several weeks. Even then, a five-digit number of inhabitants were killed and parts of the city, known not least for its numerous baroque palaces and parks, were already severely damaged. In the course of the subsequent oppression, persecution and murder of the Polish and Jewish population, by far the largest Jewish ghetto under German occupation was established in the form of the Warsaw Ghetto, which served as a collection camp for several hundred thousand people from the city, the surrounding area and even occupied foreign countries, and was also the starting point for deportation to labor and extermination camps.
As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 18, 1943 and its suppression in early May 1943, the ghetto area was systematically destroyed and its last inhabitants deported and murdered. This was followed in the summer of 1944 by the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation, which lasted two months and resulted in the deaths of almost two hundred thousand Poles, and after its suppression the rest of Warsaw was also systematically destroyed by German units.
In the post-war period, many historic buildings and downtown areas, including the Warsaw Royal Castle and the Old Town, were rebuilt - a process that continues to this day.
Bucharest (population in 2024: 1,709,458) is the capital of Romania. In 1659 Bucharest replaced Târgoviște as the capital of the Principality of Wallachia. After the unification of the Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) under Ion Cuza in 1861, Bucharest became the capital of Romania in 1862. Within a short time, it had become by far the largest city in the Southeast European region between Budapest and Istanbul. Under King Carol I. (1866-1914) Bucharest underwent urban planning changes following Western trends, with palaces, boulevards, parks, Art Nouveau villas and electric lighting. Towards the end of the 19th century, the city also developed into an industrial and financial center. In 1916, during World War I, it was occupied by the Central Powers, with whom a peace treaty was signed in 1918. Between 1936 and 1940, a Parisian-style boulevard was built in Bucharest, which also earned the city the nicknames "Micul Paris" ("Little Paris") or "Paris of the East." In World War II, after a brief period of neutrality, Romania sided with the Germans after General Ion Antonescu and the fascist "Iron Guard" turned Romania into a "national-legionary state." When Antonescu was arrested by King Mihai 1944, this resulted in air raids by the Germans, which destroyed large parts of Bucharest. In 1977, an earthquake caused widespread damage. Beginning in 1984, communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu had parts of the historic old city demolished in order to build a large socialist center, but this was never completed after his execution and the fall of the communist regime in 1989. Bucharest is now the seventh largest city in the EU, of which Romania has been a member since 2007.
Experiencing Oneself
The way “communist heritage” is performed in such moments stands in striking contrast to how heritage and tourism studies usually conceptualize the making of tourist attractions.13 Here, the relics of the past are not sacralized but trivialized, laughed at, and visiting them is staged as an insider tip.

























![Tourist:innen drängen sich auf den Spreewaldkähnen im Hafen von Burg/Bórkowy. Abbildung aus: Der Spreewald und seine Sommerfrischen. Cottbus [1929], S. 57, Reproduktion](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_p/public/externals/75820f253d535b33ce144ce5bdeac6ec.jpg?itok=uYZOSTAe)