Óbuda

Óbuda was a town in Hungary that was merged with Buda and Pest on 17 November 1873; it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means Old Buda in Hungarian (in German, Alt-Ofen). The name in Serbo-Croatian for this city is Stari Budim, but the local Croat minority calls it Obuda (the name Budim is used for the fortress in Buda). In Czech, it is called Starý Budín. The island (Óbuda Island) next to this part of the city today hosts the Sziget Festival, a huge music and cultural festival. Óbuda's centre is Fő tér (Main Square), connected to a small square with a sculpture of people waiting for the rain to stop. It is accessible by HÉV (Szentlélek tér station). Settlements dating from the Stone Age have been found in Óbuda. The Romans built there Aquincum, the capital of Pannonia province. Hungarians arrived after 900 and it served as an important settlement of major tribal leaders, later kings. The site was the location of royal and ecclesiastic foundations. King Béla IV built a new capital after the 1241–42 catastrophic Mongol invasion in Buda, somewhat south of Óbuda. In the fourteenth century, Óbuda featured a convent of the Poor Clares. The obscured historical remains of Óbuda, together with the role it played in nineteenth-century poetry, has resulted it being subject to various historical disputes. A commemorative plaque appears on the building erected on the site of the former Jewish Elementary School in Óbuda (6 Óbuda St.) commemorating victims of the Holocaust. Károly Bebo (1712–1779) – sculptor József Manes Österreicher (1759–1831) – physician Pál Harrer (1829–1914) – the first and only mayor of Óbuda Egon Orowan (1902–1989) – physicist and metallurgist István Bibó (1911–1979) – politician and political theorist Aquincum Museum, small museum displays jewels, glassware, metal tools, and wall paintings relating to the lives of ancient Romans living in Aquincum. The museum's outdoor site contains remnants of the town, including courtyards, baths, a market place, shrines, large columns, sculptures, and a stone sarcophagus.