Anna Tchaikovskaya writes about Budapest as a city of frozen time. The local calendar could stop at 1896. That year the country celebrated the Millennium, things were going well, Budapest was one of the two capitals of Austria-Hungary, passionately competed with Imperial Vienna and, despite any difficulties, disappointments and failures, had reason to see the future in bright colors. For this reason, a book about Budapest is about the times of the “Belle Epoque,” about those years when nothing foreshadowed either 1914, or 1920, or what followed them. The city carefully preserves the traces of that time, without, however, turning into a frozen monument to the irretrievable past. Today's Budapest provides many examples of ingenious solutions to problems that arise before any large city. He never strives to be the first or the “best” in anything, but often finds a way to make life in a human anthill acceptable and enjoyable. It is not for nothing that tourists most often choose the following of all the epithets for this city: “human city”, “city for life.”