Budapest with Gabi - part 2

in between heartbeats

gabi and her parents took me to a little suburb of budapest when i was there. it's called szentendre (saint andrew) and i loved it there. there are a few museums there, and though i'm not usually the museum type, the ones we saw were fatastic! what i saw in a three room "museum" (which is actually up a wooden spiral staircase above someone's flat, probably) was so fascinating i'm certain i'll never forget it. there are teeny tiny miniature eensy weensy sculptures, paintings, and statuettes made by an unimaginably patient guy.

to prepare you for the museum (or by mere coincidence) there is a strikingly narrow path between two buildings in the center of the town. and it leads to the door of the place containing the tiniest stuff i've ever seen.

when you come in you notice little display cases that look like this. there is a tiny thing (whatever it may be) with a light and a microscope pointed at it.here is a close-up of the microscope aimed at what looks like nothing.

but here is what was actually on that little stick of nothing (head of a pin):

top row: a working padlock and key
bottom row: a disassembled padlock and key

here was another almost-nothing on a tiny pin. side view. oh, it's upside down on the pin and the microscope inverts the image.

here's what we were "looking at" in the above pic:

(by the way, that urn and those cups are sitting on a sliced grain of sugar)

this is the smallest book in the world.

it has hungarian poetry hand-written on its thinner-than-paper-thin pages. there are 12 pages... and you can turn them to read it, if you have the tools to do so. omg.

you've heard of things being so small you can fit them on the head of a pin? in the micro-museum they did it! here is a chessboard with movable pieces! i zoomed in with my camera AND we're looking through a microscope. freaking minuscule!

so, here is a poppy seed - you know those little things that get stuck in your teeth? well, these people cut one opened and made it a nest for golden sparrows... and a caterpillar.

nothing...

the most amazing thing ever!

in matthew 19:24 jesus said, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." watch out, rich folks - i know it wasn't easy to get these camels in there.

i didn't/couldn't take pictures of everything. but there was also:

a bust of abraham lincoln carved in a sloe seed (size of a mustard seed). it's 3mm.

a life-sized baby golden flea wearing shoes.

a spring from a miniature watch with a little man walking on it. the man is 5 microns tall. (1mm=1000microns)

a golden yacht sailing on a sea – a grain of rice – with a standing woman, and a flying seagull.

a map of australia carved in glass and held in a half poppy seed.

a human hair, carved length-wise and inscribed with the word "peace" in 5 languages.

another human hair, hollowed out to make a tube, inside of which was a perfectly carved rose.

the guy who does these things (oh he also paints really small things on really small things) is some ukrainian-hungarian named Mikola Szjadrisztij. there is some info about him in the museum. he first had to make the tools necessary to make these tiny things. when he wants to make a stroke on a painting or carve a line in some gold, he has to be very still and quiet and listen to his heart beating. he has to make his move in between heartbeats or he will make an error.