hebig.org/blog
Personal webnode of Haiko Hebig

Normally, I point to interesting photo galleries in my Quick Links section. Acélváros by Hungarian photographer Imre Benkö deserves a full entry. Acélváros, Steel Town, shows the faces of people in Hungary's steel and iron industry. It is a sad, moving and fascinating account. Possibly, the photos have been taken around the former industrial center of Miskolc which saw its ruin in the late 1990ies. When I spent some time at this town's technical university, people didn't want to talk about "the mill" too much and even more they didn't want us to see it: US Steel had bought the local fully integrated steelworks and closed it down virtually the same day to make operations of its nearby Kosice/Slovakia mill more profitable. After lots of pleas, our guide finally ordered our driver to take us on top of a hill for some brief moments where we could oversee the plant and the endless rows of prefabricated high-rise buildings attached to it. It filled the entire valley, and it was all dead. Noone said a word.

Acélváros I >
Acélváros II >
Acélváros III >