ZSÓFIA SIVÁK

No Credit (2018-2022)

The tavern, the pub was the defining and fundamental venue of provincial life for a long time. The pub was the place where the laborers threw back the cheapest kind of shots at dawn in order to gain strength for the daily sweat; the place where the retired policeman and firefighter met during the mornings to discuss the weekend’s football matches over a fröccs. It was the place where abandoned husbands could lean on the counter and whine about their problems that life is not worth a dime without a wife who left them on their own for good only a week ago. The pub was the place where no one asked you but someone always listened to you.

In the recent years several rural taverns had to close its doors permanently or had to transform themselves into something totally different, deprived from their original functions. In my photo series I am going to visit and photograph the pubs which are still in business in Heves county’s settlements under the population of 3000 inhabitants. I was born and raised in the county of my project, therefore my choice was a rather personal one. 

Heves county is located in the northeast part of Hungary, in the Northern Hungary region. It is composed of 107 villages, 3 towns and 11 cities. According to the census carried out in 2018 the population of the county is around 295.000 people, however the tendencies of the past years are showing a constant decrease of this number. The rural life as I know it has started to transform entirely due to the desolation of smaller settlements.