W E E K L Ythe

c e n t r a l e u r o p e a n u n i v e r s i t y

An independent newspaper by CEU students and alumni October 7, 2015, Year 5, Issue 61

CEU HELPS

Stef

an R

och

In this Issue:2- CEU Talks Small 3 - Rents in Budapest 4 - CEU in Action: CEU Responds to Hungary’s Refugee Crisis 6 - Budapest Seen Exhibition 7 - SRO’s Call for Engagement8 - Travel Options

THE CEU WEEKLY

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Small Talk

CEU TALKS SMALL

How many times have you asked or been asked for your name, country of origin, and department in the last four weeks? You probably have forgotten most of the answers by now but the stories remain.

The CEU Weekly believes that everyone has a unique story to tell. You just have to ask the right question:

What has been your best experience so far in Budapest?

Aditi Dikey India, Gender Studies

The best part about CEU is that it is truly international. Sometimes all of the students in a class are of different nationalities and yet we have so much in common. If you start talking they say: “Yes, yes, yes, I know that!”

~ Ann-Kathrin BeckSchool of Public Policy

Germany

Anastasia Zabusova School of Public Policy

Russian Federation

In the second week we went to the immigration service. I expected to wait for two hours or so but in the end it took five. It could have been horrible but there were eight of us. So actually we had a little party in the kid’s corner there. They even had Legos!

Georgios Lamprakoulis, Greece & Faisal Mohammed, Ghana, Cultural Heritage Studies

Janeca NaboyaPhilippines, CCL

Tamer BadawiEgypt, IRES

Nipunika LecamuwascanSri Lanka

Political ScienceThis is my first visit to Europe and I expected people to be cold and reserved but to my surprise they are not. Everyone here is really friendly. Also, the transportation system in Egypt is horrible but here it is great. It is really great for me.

One night as I was walking along the Danube with my classmates all the lights came on... We saw the lights at Buda castle and at the Parliament. It was just so beautiful.

The first two weeks were very hectic and we saw like one hundred monuments. But then we went on this field trip to northwest Hungary. They had a hot tub there so we were just trying to relax. That was really cool.

One day during Zero Week I got off at Deak Ferenc ter and I couldn’t locate CEU. I was looking around and then I saw this Hop On Hop Off bus. I got on and the whole day I was on that bus enjoying Budapest. So whenever my classmates ask whether I have seen a certain tourist attraction I respond that I’ve already been to all epic places in Budapest.

Colin Forber CanadaSchool of Public Policy

ISSUE 61

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Rent in Budapest

The Facebook group “FLATS FOR ERASMUS IN

BUDAPEST” reveals the state of the city’s rental market. To the cash-strapped CEU student, these numbers are discouraging. But if those still hunting for their first place are getting sticker shock, ask someone who’s been here a while. “Small 35m mini SHOE BOX and 770

EUR?” reads one Facebook response to a district V studio apartment posting. “YOU need brain surgery, Honey.”Rents are rising, and locals and

students alike aren’t happy about it. Hungary’s economy is improving, but the reason for the rise might be more complicated. Housing transactions in Hungary increased 17% last year, according to website Global Property Guide. The once-popular trend of foreign-currency mortgages, banned in 2010, put some Hungarian homes underwater as the global financial crisis made exchange rates volatile. This created a great opportunity for investors to snatch up real estate on the cheap. “Foreign investors find Hungary

cheap compared to Western European countries,” says Andras Térfy, CEU’s apartment search liaison. “They have been buying up estates in the capital for some time, which are sold by the families with defaulted loans.”The New York Times says a third

APPARTMENTS FOR RENT

70 m2 one bedroom flat,

fully furnished.

600 Euro

plus 60 Euro common costs.

“Charming” 65 m2 one-

bedroom.

630 Euro plus utilities and

common costs.

82 m2 near city center.

All yours for 750 Euro plus

expenses.

~ Ben Spies School of Public Policy

USA

of residential real estate transactions in Budapest are investment-related, while Daily News Hungary reports foreign-buyer real estate purchases jumped 42% nationwide between 2013 and 2014. Residential construction permits have tripled this year, while the number of new-builds has dropped, suggesting an increase in renovations. But many refurbished flats never make it back to the leasing market.“One of the greatest problems [in the

market] is the popularity of the online social rental sites, mainly Airbnb, which exploded in the Hungarian market since the beginning of the year,” Térfy says. “In most cases if [landlords] can rent their estates for tourists one to two weeks a month, they can get more than if they signed a long term rental contract.” Additionally, he says owners often rent Airbnbs illegally to dodge taxes and environmental regulations, giving them an unfair advantage over lessors.Let’s recap: there is a major squeeze

on Budapest’s housing supply. Folks with money are buying up flats from hard-luck Hungarians, stitching them up with Pergo flooring and IKEA furniture, and throwing them on Airbnb or leasing them back out at twice the price. But someone out there must be fueling demand for this, right?“Each year, more than 2500 new

foreign students arrive in [Budapest],” reads the website of Danubio Homes, a Spanish company marketing Budapest real estate to investors. Capital Real Estate’s Investor Center gives tips on appealing to western students.Budapest’s affordable housing stock

is disappearing as its popularity as an expat city grows. While we feel the burn, the uncomfortable truth is that many of us, as foreign students, are part of the problem..

Ben Spies

RENTS IN BUDAPEST: THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

School of Public Policy Student Ben Spies Investigates Surging Rent Prices in Budapest

THE CEU WEEKLY

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CEU in Action

CEU IN ACTION: CEU RESPONDS TO HUNGARY’S REFUGEE CRISIS

Students were not the only ones flocking to Budapest at the start

of this academic year. Thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North-East Africa (amongst others) poured into the city, in an effort to escape ongoing political turmoil and warfare in their home countries. The recent influx of displaced people generated varied and sometimes-contradictory reactions, from open arms to barbed wire fences, as civilians, organizations, and government forces set out to help, welcome, or control the refugees. The CEU community also acted, with students and faculty mobilizing to welcome and provide aid to those stranded in Budapest even before the 2015/2016 academic year had officially begun.In order to find out more about

the CEU reaction to the refugee crisis, The CEU Weekly sat down with Constanze Jeiter, the creator of the Facebook initiative CEU Helps; Yahya Al-Abdullah, a Syrian student at CEU and volunteer; Kate Coyer, who created the Keleti Wi-Fi and phone charging initiative; and Stefan Roch, who co-led that same initiative.

CEU Helps: A Facebook Сommunication Hub for Student and Faculy Efforts

Constanze, a first year student in the History Department, has made her way to CEU from Vienna, Austria. She described her exposure to incoming asylum seekers to Austria from the war in Kosovo from the young age of seven. Despite this, Constanze corrected the idea of her having an “activism background” (an attribution featured in CEU’s coverage of the 25th Opening Ceremony). Instead, it is better to appreciate her efforts as a student who saw a need for collective reaction and initiated a group to facilitate communication and mobilization, CEU Helps. Constanze created the group on September 1st, only two days after having arrived in the city.Recently featured in the CEU

Opening Ceremonies for 2015, Contanze expressed the overwhelming positive response to her initiative as a large number of students and faculty who “actually wanted to help in the current refugee crisis and not just press the like button.” The group’s efforts

include a trip to TESCO for groceries, which were then immediately brought to Keleti Station and shared with the refugees who needed them. After the September 15th Hungarian border closure and the diverted refugee presence from Budapest, the purpose of CEU Helps has shifted from an aid-mobilizing initiative to the main forum of communication for many of the CEU initiatives addressing the refugee crisis, including volunteer translator and interpreter services; donation drives; academic talks and discussions; and education sessions for those involved and interested in volunteering.

Budapest Through Syrian Eyes

It was not until classes at CEU began that Yahya Al-Abdullah, a first year Master of Public Administration from Syria, came to realize where he had just moved. “The day I arrived in Budapest I went to Keleti Station and I saw thousands of people there. I started by walking around and talking to them, trying to see what was going on.” Yahya told The CEU Weekly. “The

A CEU Weekly Exposé on the CEU Community’s Continuing Efforts during the Refugee Crisis

Asya Metodieva

ISSUE 61third week in Budapest was a little bit strange for me, because I had already been in Budapest for more than two weeks, but it didn’t feel so. I was running to very specific places all the time, then all of the sudden I kind of woke up. It was like a long long nightmare.”A native of Aleppo, Yahya left Syria

in 2011, before the war escalated to its current state. He first relocated to Georgia, and then to Turkey, where he worked as an English professor at a private university for three years. It was in Istanbul that he first became interested in the refugee situation. His first film titled “We don’t Stay in Camps” documents the lives of members of the Domari minority from Syria who now live in the streets of Istanbul.

“... it made all of us really aware of how

important access to

communication is in a crisis...”

“My choice was very clear” said Yahya when talking about what motivated him to come to CEU. “I found CEU, especially the School of Public Policy, to be a good place to get more knowledge of what is going on internationally, get acquainted with policymaking, (…) and get in contact with international organizations working on Human Rights issues.”Yahya was clearly impressed with

CEU’s response to the crisis. “In a way I did not feel like I was alone there. I was meeting people in the classroom and then meeting them again in the evening at Keleti. I was working with people who are part of other organizations and who I also see at CEU. That made me feel like I belonged to an active group within the University. I was happy to see that CEU did not take a passive

stance.” Yahya also highlighted the importance of the charging stations and the free Wi-Fi that CEU provided for refugees. “Those were some of the most useful things (…) because that helped them (the refugees) stay on top of the changes that happened every day, and it allowed them to keep in touch with their families.”

Connecting Keleti

Kate Coyer, Director of the Civil Society and Technology Project at the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), who launched the Wi-Fi and phone charging initiative, stated, “Like so many people across Budapest and across the CEU community, I was incredibly moved by what was happening at Keleti,” which she described as a “mixture of chaos and humanity.”

Visiting the station, Coyer quickly noticed that many refugees had limited means of using their phones.CEU PhD candidate Stefan Roch,

who co-led the initiative with Coyer, explained the need for smartphone access, “It’s absolutely crucial for these people. The whole trip is completely informal and there are so many obstacles, so the only kind of security they have is information. They have whole Viber and WhatsApp groups where they can keep informed of the routes they can take, the political developments. There’s even a rating system for traffickers in Turkey – this guy is trustworthy, etc…having that kind of information is important, and probably life-saving.”Focused on what could be done

“fastest, easiest, and cheapest,” Coyer asked her contacts in technology

[Continued, page 6]

Diego Cupolo

CEU in Action

Agnes SchramAgnes Schram

THE CEU WEEKLY

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CEU in Action/ Budapest Seen

WHAT HAS BUDAPEST SEEN?: A CEU PHOTO EXHIBITION ON THE REFUGEE CRISIS

CEU active response to the refugee crisis in Hungary was not only

about heated academic discussions, expert commentaries and dozens of volunteering initiatives. Expressing emotional side of the humanitarian tragedy through art and personal story-telling turned out to be as important as finding a political solution. Throughout October, CEU Exhibition

Hall is presenting a vivid photographic diary of this last August in Budapest when thousands of people from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and other war-torn countries were huddling on the floor of the city’s train stations. Many of the images have already become symbols of the refugee crisis in social media where they were originally posted by photographer Edd Carlile on his Facebook page Budapest Seen.Edd Carlile, a Hungary based

photographer, says that the exhibition was not only about people desperately looking for shelter and life without war. He dedicated his photos to hundreds of Hungarian volunteers who were spending their days and nights to provide refugees with food, blankets, tents, and basic human Edd Carlile

sympathy. “I wanted Hungarians to feel proud of themselves and of each other, demonstrating their moral instinct to turn toward, and not away from people in need, people living through awful times.”Budapest Seen started just as a

photography project about life of the train station workers, but turned into a story of “humanity,” as put by the exhibition opener Prem Kumar Rajaram, associate professor at CEU’s Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology.

Many of the photos are focused on children, who for Carlile are “the true innocents” of wars and exodus. Their faces reflect human tragedy in the most sincere way: fear, tiredness, and glowing happiness, perhaps because of a teddy bear brought by a volunteer. In Carlile’s own words, Budapest

Seen documents “the new reality of the 21st century borne of war and economic terrorism.”

~ Ekaterina Efimenko Legal Studies

Russian Federation

Edd Carlile

CEU IN ACTION: CONTINUED

activist communities for suggestions of how to help. Through individual online donations, the new initiative quickly raised enough money to start with a few portable phone chargers and 3G Wi-Fi hotspots. When Coyer posted in the CEU

Helps Facebook group that she needed help for the project, Roch and a friend went to Keleti to join the efforts. As a volunteer schedule had not yet been established, he decided to come back the next day and kept returning. Similarly, the project began to expand, with a growing volunteer base, added equipment, and additional equipment and support from Greenpeace. “What began as a two person project, with a few pieces of equipment in our

backpacks, organically developed into this collaborative effort supported by the CEU community,” explained Coyer. But as quickly as the project was mobilized, the situation changed again. The Hungarian government closed the border to Serbia, “and then, suddenly, there was nobody at Keleti anymore,” said Roch. With the demand for the project no

longer present in Budapest, Coyer and Roch are determining how to best adopt the project to work in current refugee transit areas. This process has included conducting needs assessment trips to several border areas and working to create a manual documenting the project’s setup, equipment used, lessons

learned, and other information to help NGOs and individuals in other countries set up similar initiatives.Reflected Coyer, “I think it made all

of us really aware of how important access to communication is in a crisis, and how even the smallest efforts can make a difference.”

~ Corrado Minardi School of Public Policy

Italy

Camilo Montoya-GuevaraCultural Heritage Studies

Canada

Ilana UllmanSchool of Public Policy

USA

ISSUE 61 Student Recruitment Office

STUDENT RECRUITMENT OFFICE’S CALL FOR ENGAGEMENT

What can you get involved in?Event support:- Participate in on-campus events (e.g. Open House, Welcome After-noon, group visits), lead building tours, give CEU presentations and advise prospective students on campus - Get involved in off-campus recruitment efforts such as education fairs, university visits, presentations etc.

Online presence:- Share CEU’s Call for Applications and other promotional materials within your personal network and through social media channels - Recommend someone to CEU at www.ceu.edu/referrals- Respond to email inquiries from prospective students- Participate in online webinars for applicants and prospective stu-dents- Tell your story: be our next #MyCEU interviewee or be featured in CEU’s Planet

Outreach work:- Connect us with universities, NGOS and youth organizations who may be interested in the scholarship opportunities offered by CEU

Administrative work:- Assist with clerical and administrative tasks, such as preparing welcome packs and brochures for different events and campus visits

Why get involved?- Receive training and improve your soft skills - Network with future students, members of various academic institutions, NGOs and stu-dent organizations- Build your CV (voluntary experience)- Receive a CEU-branded T-shirt- Be acknowledged for your help (awards and other forms of recognition)- Gain valuable experience that prepares you for the CEU Student Ambassador program after graduation

Who are we looking for?

To apply, you need to: - be enrolled as a CEU student- have excellent communication skills- work effectively in a team- show initiative- have a positive attitude to University life and CEU’s mission and values

To learn more about how you can get involved, contact us at: zontea@ceu.edu

Did you know that 20% of our applicants last year heard about CEU from a current student or graduate? Would you like to shape CEU’s next generation of students and share the University's mission beyond our campus? Join

the Student Recruitment Office’s Volunteer Program and get involved in spreading the word about the University. Running since September 2013, the Student Recruitment Volunteer Program aims to further expand

the potential of student engagement in recruitment activities by bringing together a group of current students, committed to CEU’s mission, who would like to get involved in finding suitable candidates for CEU. In the pilot year (2013-2014), a group of 13 active CEU students participated in the program.

Student Recruitment Volunteers can join in various events and outreach activities on and off campus, including fair participation in Hungary, campus tours and presentations as well as networking with Hungarian youth organizations.

The Student Recruitment Volunteer acts as a country and department-specific representative, working closely together with students, faculty and the Student Recruitment Office to promote CEU’s programs, services and mission. In addition to assisting in different events throughout the current recruitment cycle, the volunteers may also carry on as CEU ambassadors in recruitment efforts after graduation.

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The CEU Weekly is a student-alumni initiative that seeks to provide CEU with a regularly issued newspa-per. The CEU Weekly is a vehicle of expression for the diversity of the perspectives and viewpoints that in-tegrate CEU’s open society: free and respectful public debate is our aim. We offer a place in which current events and student reflections can be voiced. Plurality, respect, and freedom of speech are our guiding principles.

About the CEU Weekly

Have an Opinion?Contact Us About Our Op-Ed Policy &

Ways to Contribute:ceuweekly@gmail.com

Distribution Points: Reception Nádor 9, Nádor 11, Nádor 15; Library, Cloakroom & CEU Dorm ceuweekly.blogspot.com

Editor in Chief: Aaron Korenewsky Managing Editor: Ekaterina Efimenko Contributors: Ann-Kathrin Beck, Calum Cameron, Malgorzata Lekan, Venghong Ly, Corrado Minardi, Camilo Montoya-Guevara, Maryna Nazarian, Zarina Nurmukhambetova, Ben Spies, Ilana Ullman, Alexandra Wagner, Anastasia Zabusova

Like us on Facebook!www.facebook.com/TheCEUWeekly

TASTE WINE IN ETYEK! The village is 30 km from Budapest. Apart from wine tasting with perfect goulash you can visit a Gingallo Chocolaterie with hand-made chocolate and a gift shop or simply enjoy the countryside and fresh air.

SZENTENDRE 20 km from Budapest. Narrow streets, authentic Hungarian souvenirs and the Marzipan Museum which even has a full-

height Michael Jackson made of marzipan!

SZOLNOK120 km from Budapest. With its wonderful nature and thermal waters Szolnok is a perfect place to get away

from the big city rush.

GO ABROAD! The choice is huge but the cheapest flights are to Brussels and Milan. The best option is to book in advance (in a month would be perfect). If you book an organized tour make sure you take some sandwiches with you because tours are usually very intense. Find cheap flights with Wizzair and Ryanair.com!

Don’t Want to Leave the City? No Problem! RUIN PUBS!

GO TO THE BATHS!

~ Maryna Nazarian Economics

Ukraine

It’s October. Everybody has already obtained (or will soon obtain) their residence permits, so why sit in your room during weekends? We have picked up some top destinations that would be great to visit:

Why on Earth Are You Still Here?

Go to a ruin pub, an exclusive Budapest experience! These are abandoned buildings downtown turned into pubs. I recommend Fogashaz on Akacfa u. 51 (Blaha metro). Nice retro & rock’n’roll & disco music, good prices and an unpretentious atmosphere. There is a night bus stop that is a 7-minute walk from the spot (a huge plus when you’ve spent all our money on drinks!)

It should be no surprise that visiting a thermal bath in Budapest is a must. Gellért and Széchenyi are the most

fancy, but there are cheaper options with fewer tourists, like the Lukács

bath (Frankel Leó utca 29) on the Buda side (2-minute walk from the Business

School). Price of a daily ticket is around 2000 HUF. There is also a nice view on

Danube from the roof.

So quit reading, open a browser and book a trip!

*Any opinions expressed by contributors and/or interviewees herein are those solely of those persons and do not reflect the opinions of The CEU Weekly or CEU.