Since its establishment, the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation (MKA) has received more than one billion Forints in state support. Out of its nine board members, four have waived their honorarium, so the rest, including Bishop László Kiss-Rigó, share the annual allowance of 70 million forints.
We noticed the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation on the Hungarian Tourism Agency’s (MTÜ) latest publication list. What starkly stood out was that the MTÜ awarded the MKA a 68 million forint grant with the objective of the creation of a strategic scientific study on the Tokaj-Hegyalja region’s horticultural heritage and potential, as well as the submission of related preparatory materials. The grant is noteworthy because Zoltán Guller is both the CEO of MTÜ and one of the board members of MKA. We asked MTÜ whether they consider the two positions to raise issues of conflict of interest in light of the grant, but the tourism agency did not respond to our questions.
Not much time left to complete the study
It was in October 2021, during the the Mihály Mőcsényi Garden Art and Garden History Workshop and Conference held at the Esterházy Castle in Fertőd, that the establishment of the Garden Heritage Foundation was announced. The foundation was founded with the aim of preserving and promoting the sustainability of garden heritage in Hungary and the Carpathian Basin. In its response to 24.hu, The Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation described itself as follows: “As a civil professional umbrella organization, the foundation is unique in Hungary in that brings together and supports government and civil initiatives related to the maintenance and renewal of Hungarian gardens of historical nature and value.”
According to founding reports, the domestic garden property is located in approximately 1,100 settlements, with an estimated total area of about 660 square kilometres, roughly 690 times the area of Budapest’s Margaret Islands. 58 percent of the 408 historical gardens considered the most valuable are state-owned. The foundation is headquartered in the Buda Castle, at 16 Dísz Square. In a report last year, Mfor revealed that right in the middle of the economic crisis, the MKA leased seven vehicles for 156 million forints.
What kind of study is it exactly that the MKA has to submit, and which gardens fall under the scope of the study and the preparatory materials? – This is what we attempted to inquiry at the foundation in relation to the 68-million HUF grant. In response, the organisation explained that their foundation entered into a strategic cooperation with the Hungarian Tourism Agency in July 2022 to promote garden tourism in Hungary. “This includes the professional development of a touristic garden route covering the vineyards, castle gardens, and manor gardens of the Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region until September 30, 2023. Experts from related fields (landscape architects, garden historians, garden archaeologists, etc.) are also involved in the research on garden history (as well as geological, topographical, hydrological, and settlement history aspects). The research covers more than 30 castle gardens, manor gardens and vineyards in 22 settlements in Tokaj-Hegyalja,” they wrote.
Subsequently, we asked the MKA to specify the exact castle gardens, manor gardens, and vineyards involved. We were curious about this because István Tiborcz (Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law) has recently expanded significantly in Tokaj-Hegyalja. In March, the BDPST Group, owned by Tiborcz, acquired complete ownership of Patricius Borház Plc., a winery company. The transaction also included the
vineyards surrounding the winery, while Tiborcz’s group already operates the nearby five-star hotel Andrássy Kúria & Spa and its restaurant Bobajka, specializing in local and regional cuisine.
In the response that followed, the MKA stated that “the fulfillment of the task undertaken under the contract with the Hungarian Tourism Agency is currently in the survey phase, and due to this, a final number of the involved gardens cannot currently be provided.”
The MKA did not respond to our question regarding whether the material referred to as ‘scientific work’ by the Hungarian Tourism Agency will be published, nor did they provide information about the expected length of the study. However, they assured us that “the MKA, as it always has, seeks to involve the widest possible public in this matter.”
Close to a billion in funding. But for what?
According to the MKA’s financial statements, the foundation received 969 million Hungarian Forints in support in 2021 and 2022. The financing for the MKA began in 2021 with Lechner Tudásközpont Ltd., providing 415 million HUF for that year. In 2022, they received roughly 190 million HUF from this source, but as of September 14th of that year, the Ministry of Construction and Transport took over financing the foundation. In 2021, the foundation received 331 million HUF from the Ministry led by János Lázár, an additional 20 million HUF from the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ), and 2 million HUF from the Petőfi Cultural Agency Plc.
What were these funds spent on? – We asked the MKA, the Ministry of Construction and Transport, and Lechner Tudásközpont. None of these institutions mentioned specific projects in their responses. Both the ministry and the MKA stated that the support provides budgetary resources for the fulfilment of the main tasks defined in the founding document of the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation.
These tasks include, but are not limited to: creating a database of historical gardens, green infrastructure planning, construction, creating the framework for construction and maintenance as well as the development of a professional program along with defining a professional framework, the application possibilities of climate-adaptive plant species in Hungarian historical gardens, and the research methodology and maintenance guidelines for the ancient trees of historical gardens,
the MKA wrote.
The report reveals that the MTÜ’s non-refundable support was provided to fund an international conference titled “Our Garden Heritage’s Past and Future.” MKA directed our attention to its website, where more specific information about the foundation’s operations could indeed be found. For example, it reveals clearly that the MKA’s members participated in several international conferences:
- A delegation from the MKA attended a professional conference in Venice.
- An international conference on heritage preservation was attended by representatives of the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation in Toronto. The delegation included Dr. Ágnes Herczeg, President of the MKA, Dr. Gergely Dévényi, a member of the board, former CEO of Volánbusz (Hungarian state-owned domestic bus travel company), and former Deputy CEO of BKK (Budapest’s public transport Plc.), as well as Edina Eszter Nagy, project manager and strategic advisor of Hellohungary, a tourism portal. Hellohungary received 630 million HUF in public funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The MKA’s delegation also participated in a conference organized by the French National School of Landscape Architecture in Versailles and participated in negotiations in the United Kingdom as well.
The website also reveals a three-day Garden Heritage and Communication Conference held by the foundation in April, with a focus on the field of communication. We have also inquired regarding the amount of support the MKA has received so far this year.
In 2023, the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation received financing totaling 225 million HUF, of which 200 million HUF came from the Ministry of Construction and Transport, and 25 million HUF from the Hungarian Tourism Agency,
replied the foundation, however, this amount does not yet include the recently awarded support from the Tourism Agency.
According to the financial statement, the Foundation’s payroll costs in its first full year, 2022, amounted up to 188 million HUF. The members of the board of trustees received a total of 70,680,000 HUF. The foundation currently has nine members on its board, but according to the response from MKA, Zoltán Guller, Tamás Ákos Kieselbach, Ágnes Herczeg, and Gergely Dévényi have
waived their honorariums. Therefore, the other five members, Albert Fekete, a landscape architect, László Kiss-Rigó, the Bishop
of Szeged-Csanád, László Ferenc Rosivall, a physician, Judit Gabriella Vály, CEO of Euroleasing (the company that purchased the superyacht Rose d’Or which has recently taken Lőrinc Mészáros and his family on a Mediterranean cruise) and Attila Vincze, another landscape architect, receive an equal share of the board fees. This means each of them receives a monthly amount of 1 million 178 thousand HUF.
Machine based translation, revised by Frigyes Harmath.
