Reminiscences of Budapest

Fig. 1. The cover of the 1990 Budapest FEBS Meeting, montage with fireworks on August 20. ‘‘All good things come in threes’’. The joint FEBS-IUBMB Congress in Budapest is the third annual meeting to which the Hungarian Biochemical Society have invited their colleagues from all over the world. I am convinced the large number of participants is a reflection of both a most interesting scientific programme and famous Hungarian hospitality. Budapest hosted the 9th FEBS Meeting in 1974, from August 20–25. It is a pity that I could not participate; all the more as some years later I had several opportunities to experience Budapest as a most attractive city. The 20th FEBS Meeting held in Budapest 1990, from August 19 to 24, offered a good chance to come back (Fig. 1). For the 20th FEBS Meeting, the Hungarian Biochemical Society had chosen three Congress venues: the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the five plenary lectures took place at the Budapest Convention Centre, while the scientific sessions were held at the University of Economic Sciences and at the Technical University of Budapest, these places being located a short walking distance from each other. The Scientific Programme Committee had concocted a rich scientific menu that was served in a total of 25 Symposia, 28 Colloquia, 5 Workshops and three Poster Sessions – but fortunately the organizers had reserved a whole afternoon to offer to all participants a free sight-seeing tour through wonderful Budapest. Another venue of the social programme will stay unforgettable as well: a grand reception at the National Gallery of Arts on the evening of 20th of August followed by fulminate fireworks that night. The significance of this particular St. Stephen s Day celebrated on 20th of August becomes evident from an article contributed by a young journalist to a special Meeting s newspaper produced for the meeting (edited at a FEBS Meeting for the first time, Fig. 2): the organisers included into the congress an extraordinary event, the first national holiday after the breakdown of the communist era. One could easily feel the relief of the Hungarian people, which was also obvious from the fact that the Technical University, former ‘‘Karl-Marx-University’’, had been instantly renamed, and the monument of Marx at the entrance hall had been covered over and over with Hungarian tricolours by the students. In 2005, the FEBS-IUBMB Congress in Budapest, devoted to the Protein World, is the second common venture between FEBS and the IUBMB, a joint Congress was also held in Bir-