The rain is a persistent drip, and the damp quickly chills fingers and toes. But the elderly women are still out in force, bravely hawking homegrown fruits and vegetables, packs of Orbit chewing gum and oversized men’s long johns in a desperate effort to keep bread on their tables and roofs over their heads.
Such hard work is nothing new for Janosne Varga, who has come full circle in her 64 years. As a girl growing up in the Hungarian countryside, Varga helped her family sell produce at the local market. Now she comes to Budapest, where she sells bags of apples, nuts and dried beans, a handful of turnips, carrots and onions and strings of bright red paprika peppers to travelers streaming out of the Nepstadion (People’s Stadium) subway stop.
Although the scene may look like the free market operating at its finest, it actually illustrates the harsh economic reality that has gripped Hungary since the collapse of communism in 1989 and the upsurge in the country’s black-market economy, which officials estimate equals 30 percent of the gross domestic product.
In a country in which pensions are often less than $100 a month and many goods cost the same as they do in the United States, hundreds of older women take to the streets each day, selling whatever they can to help make ends meet.
When she was younger, Varga worked in the orchards of Hungary’s collective farms, but arthritis forced her to retire in 1975. Even though goods were cheap then, Varga worked in her garden so she would have fresh fruit and vegetables.
Since the collapse of communism, gardening has become an economic necessity. Varga sells a bag of apples or a strip of paprika for 80 cents to supplement her $120 monthly pension.
“Everything is so expensive, so for 500 forints ($4) you don’t take anything home,” she said.
In the winter, Varga can come to Nepstadion once a week.
“It’s enough to stand out here once a week in the cold weather. Even if it hurts to work, I don’t like to rest.”
The money helps pay for basic living expenses.
“I have enough clothes until I die,” she said. “I never followed fashion anyway.”
Fashion also is the furthest thing from the mind of another 64-year-old, who stands across town near the Moskva ter (Moscow Square) subway station, a knit cap pulled over her brow, a pair of men’s long johns clutched to her chest.
Her relatives bring the long johns from Romania, where goods are cheap, and the woman sells them three or four times a week on the street corner for $5.50 a pair. With a shy smile, she declines to disclose how much money she makes.
“That’s my secret,” she said.
There are lots of secrets among the women. Many refuse to give their names, fearing reprisals from the police. Others are afraid to talk to journalists or to have their photographs taken, fearing they might show up in the Hungarian press.
Because the women are black marketeers, police can confiscate their goods or fine them up to $16.
“Worst of all is the humiliation,” said the woman selling underwear.
This day, police are only breaking up the crowd. They swing down the street, telling the vendors to leave. A few women pack up their goods and head home, but others simply step aside, wait for the police to move on and go back to selling their wares.
Farther down the street, about a half-dozen women gather outside a legal produce market, selling flowers and vegetables raised in their gardens.
One 67-year-old woman travels 30 miles to Budapest once a week to sell bags of cleaned, cut soup vegetables that came from her garden. At 40 cents a bag, she can earn up to $15 a day.
“It’s a big burden to stand out in the cold,” she said. “It takes one to two days to get back to normal.”
The woman used to work as a seamstress. The last thing she expected when she retired 10 years ago was to be selling vegetables on a street corner to survive.
“Life was better then than it is now,” she said.
Many Hungarians share that view. During the communist era, Hungary was one of the richer countries in the Soviet bloc, with some economic freedom that other Eastern European countries did not have.
But since the collapse of communism, prices have soared by about 20 percent a year while the economy struggles with a big trade imbalance.
To help reverse the imbalance, the government imposed austerity measures in the spring of 1995, including an 8 percent duty on imports and a 9 percent monetary devaluation, followed by frequent additional devaluations. The government also has cut many social benefits, cutting its popularity with the people as well.
“This country is sold out, and we are going down and down,” Belane Szubari said as she sold flowers and squash outside the market near Moskva ter.
This is a surprising view from a woman who was fired from her postal job 45 years ago because she attended church. After that, Szubari said, she was able to find full-time work only occasionally because her work papers branded her as untrustworthy.
“At least before you could get work,” she said. “Now unemployment is increasing. It’s so bad, people don’t even talk about politics. They just hate this whole thing by now.”
Officials are loath to discuss the problems of Hungary’s pensioners.
Vilmos Michaletzky, president of the Pensioners Party in parliament, claimed that of the country’s 3 million pensioners, no more than 2,000 sell goods on the black market. But a quick look at Budapest’s subway stops casts doubt on that figure.
Officials at the National Chamber of Pensioners refused to discuss the issue.
But Teri Radnai, president of the Budapest Pensioners Association, said the transition to a market economy has driven pensioners to become black marketeers.
Her group lobbies the government to raise pensions, pegged to increases in wages.
“Obviously they need the extra income,” she said. “It’s really good they’re growing vegetables and working. It’s better than begging. At least they’re making an effort to make the situation better.”
One woman who exemplifies these words is an 84-year-old who sells Orbit chewing gum at several of Budapest’s subway stops. She buys the gum on the black market for 25 cents a pack, then resells it for 30 cents.
“People who beg get very little money,” she said. “I manage to get a little money” to buy food.
But every day she worries about the police, who have threatened to confiscate her chewing gum if they catch her selling it again.
Despite her situation, she isn’t bitter. After suffering through World War II and the 1956 uprising against the Communists, “it’s comparatively good now,” she said. “War and revolution were so bad. Now there’s peace.”
