Not far from Lake Balaton, beyond the living village that shares its name, lies a place that feels frozen in another era. Szentkirályszabadja, near Veszprém, was once a self-contained Soviet military settlement built for thousands of soldiers and their families. Today, its apartment blocks, theater, schools and deserted streets stand largely empty, slowly disappearing beneath vegetation.
Often compared with Pripyat, the Ukrainian city abandoned after the Chornobyl disaster, Szentkirályszabadja has a very different story. There was no nuclear accident here and no sudden evacuation. The city simply lost the population it had been built to serve as the Soviet presence in Hungary came to an end.
