Rákospalota (literally: ''Castle ponRákos rook', ) is a neighbourhood in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. With Pest-újhely and Új-palota it comprises District XV.

History

In the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

there were about six villages in the northern part of the Rákos plain. About 1200 A.D. a church was built on the little hill next to the Szilas brook - the ancestor of the present

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

chapel. The first name of the village was Nyír (Birch) but later it became known as Palota (Palace) after the castle of the landowner. The little community had very hard times in the 16th-17th centuries when

Buda Buda (, ) is the part of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, that lies on the western bank of the Danube. Historically, “Buda” referred only to the royal walled city on Castle Hill (), which was constructed by Béla IV between 1247 and ...

was under Turkish occupation, but it survived thanks to the residents' strong Calvinist religion. After the liberation of

in 1696, by the Habsburgs, Rákospalota became one of the most prosperous villages in the region.

Market gardening A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...

and

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

flourished, and two baroque churches were built: one for the Calvinist community (it was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century) and a little Catholic chapel in 1735 on the foundation of the ancient village church. In 1846 the first railway line of

(Pest-Vác) reached Rákospalota, and the Forest of Palota became a popular beauty spot with restaurants and places of entertainment. Next to the station a new suburb grew with nice villas for the rich citizens of Pest. In the second part of the 19th century Palota was already out of fashion and later the forest was cut down, but in this neighbourhood there are still some derelict, beautiful old homes. From the 1890s the spread of

reached the village and the council sold out the ploughland for new suburbs. The residents of Újfalu (New Village), Benkő-telep, Kovácsi-telep and Kertváros (Garden Town) were lower-middle-class people and workers from Budapest. These new settlements have a regular grid layout and pleasant houses with gardens. The old peasant village became known as Öregfalu (Old Village). A sumptuous

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

cathedral,

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

Church, Moorish Synagoge, a new big Calvinist church and a Town Hall marked the wealth of the town but there were serious social tensions between the new and the old residents. Between August and November 1919, a Romanian garrison stationed here, after the Hungarian Bolshevik army was crushed by the Romanian Royal army in the War of 1918-1919. The peasant farmers of Öregfalu kept their rich folk traditions, religion and sense of identity until the 1950s. Rákospalota became a town in 1923 and part of Great-Budapest in 1950.

Neighbourhoods

One of the most interesting and special parts of the district is MÁV-telep. The

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

was built by the

Hungarian State Railways The Hungarian State Railways (, , formally MÁV Magyar Államvasutak Zártkörűen Működő Részvénytársaság (MÁV Zrt.). The full official name of the company is MÁV-csoport () now commonly known as MÁV) is the Hungary, Hungarian natio ...

(MÁV) in the early 1900s for railwaymen. The big

art deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

blocks of flats were planned in uniform style. Two churches and a market hall served the spiritual and physical needs of the close, tight-knit community. Unfortunately the new M3 freeway cut into two pieces the "telep" (settlement) in the 1980s, but the leafy gardens, narrow streets and nice buildings breathe a special ambience.

Landmarks

Most of the district around Rákospalota is pleasant, leafy suburb. The Fő utca (Main Street) with the tramway has a typical market-town appearance from the turn-of-the-century. In Juhos utca (Sheep Street) and Attila utca there are still some old peasant houses. The Register of National Monuments consists of four buildings from Rákospalota: Old Catholic Chapel (1735), Old Museum (Classic Revival, 19th century), Liva-malom (mill on the Szilas brook, 18th to 19th centuries) and Girl's College (early 20th century). The district is home to sports club Rákospalotai EAC

Sport

Rákospalotai EAC Rákospalotai EAC is a Hungary, Hungarian association football club based in the Rákospalota quarter in the north-east of Budapest. REAC were promoted to the Nemzeti Bajnokság I, the first division in Hungarian football, for the 2005–06 Nemz ...

* Testvériség SE

History

Neighbourhoods

Landmarks

Sport

See also