We followed in the footsteps of Jimmy Zámbó on the streets of Csikágó in Budapest
Budapest is full of hidden wonders that only those who know where to look for them will notice. Who would have thought, for example, that a dirty apartment building on István utca or the Gábor Baross Primary School two corners away also hide treasures? Or what celebrities were hosted by the Garay market sausage shop in the mid-90s? Probably, those who are full-blood Jimmy Zambo fans, who can connect the dots – but those who are not, the Royal Pilgrimage, RTL Club and Hosszúlépés.járunk will help them. joint city walk, which anyone can walk on their own if they are interested in the most important locations in the singer’s life.
We are right in the middle of Budapest’s Csikágó, the defining location of Király’s youth. Jimmy, who sometimes actively skipped school, used to walk these streets with his brothers and friends – at that time he was also Imci – and it was here that I also fell in love with music. The neighborhood is called Csikágó for a reason: on the one hand, its square structure and, on the other hand, the very rapid growth earned it this nickname – says Károly Tósoki, Hosszúlépés.járunk? walking guide. In the 1880s, rapid construction began in the VII. in this area of the district, a lot of people moved to the capital to work here, and there was also an influx of jobseekers from the outer districts.
The location was perfect: the Keleti railway station and Kerepesi út are also close, it is easy to get to the countryside and the outer districts where the factories are located. The sudden growth reminded me of Chicago in America – as, at least according to another idea, did the lack of public safety. The 3- to 5-story apartment buildings developed a never-before-seen density of residents, there were no parks, no spaces suitable for walking, only lots of concrete. The Százház, which has since been demolished, had the worst reputation, its identical buildings were all connected to each other. Supposedly the Jassi gathered herei.e. the suburban vagrants as well.
And this is where Imre Zámbó was born, one of the most decisive Hungarian pop singers of the 1990s, perhaps the only one who managed to break out of the hack circle and really have a serious career.
The Zámbó family lived on the fourth floor of the gang house at 20 István Street: the father, György, the mother, Anna, Tihamér, Árpád (later Árpy), György and Marietta. The elder György worked two shifts to support the family: he also had a job at the Láng Machine Factory and the Fun Park, so the family didn’t see much. The children played in the dim, concrete courtyard, and from there they went to the Gábor Baross Elementary School a couple of corners away – it was up to them whether they got there, because in Chicago it often happens that young people prefer to go to school instead of studying. they spent their time doing something else.
Jimmy and his friends started playing music in elementary school – when they got there, right – but only the later King remained in the profession. The Zambo boys were abused a lot because of their long hair, this kind of hairstyle was not widespread in the early 1970s, it was rather an object of ridicule, especially among children. During the walk, standing in front of the school, we can also see the iconic stone gate into which the royal head was smashed: Jimmy carried the wound for the rest of his life after the atrocity, at one point the hair on his scalp did not grow because of it.
Then we jump back in time to one of the key locations of Jimmy’s partying years: the Garay market, or at least what’s left of it. Today, it is more of a store than a market, although the genuine fair atmosphere can still be found in the basement. What is now the corner gyros was the market butcher in the ’90s: after the parties, at dawn, the best of the art world flocked to such places, Jimmy and his band, for example, to the Garay market. Here they often met, for example, Imré Bajor, says István Joós, the founder and CEO of the Magneoton publishing house. The menu was always sausage and liver loops, with lots of mustard. By the way, Jimmy did not like special foods and was very picky, which is the reason why Mrs. Edit spoiled him, Joós. “If he didn’t like a trip, he said so,” means that when asked how the King likes the exotic cuisines of different countries during the question.
Our walk ends at this iconic place, but those interested can visit the most important places in Jimmy’s life at any time: the tour works with a QR code, you can read it yourself at each location and see where you are and what happened there in Jimmy’s life. The tour includes, of course, Jimmy Csepel’s house (which, by the way, still looks almost exactly as it did when he died), the famous and infamous Casanova bar on Batthyány tér, the former headquarters of the National Director’s Office on Vörösmarty tér, or the Állomás presszó, where Jimmy played the piano before fame.
Not all of the original locations are included in the A Király series, which of course gave the walk something to do. Instead of the birth house, for example, another gang-style apartment building had to be found, because because of the new doors and air conditioning, it was not very contemporary to the 70s and 80s. The Casanova bar also had to be rebuilt elsewhere, because the building is still on Batthyány tér, but it is no longer suitable for representing the iconic locale of the era – for example, there is no stage where the musicians and dancers used to perform. According to director Dániel Richárd Kovács, there are 134 different locations in the series, which was a lot of work to find. “We were very lucky with the locations, because Ms. Edit and Adrián let us into the Csepel house, and you should know that it is like a museum, almost everything remains in its original form.” In Jimmy Csepel’s house, he even hung the gold records on the wall, the throne is also his own, almost nothing has changed since January 2, 2001, when the singer shot himself in the head in one of the rooms. And although not all locations are original, they tried to make the story as authentic as possible.
“We researched the series for three years,” the director told Telex. – We know who we could be with: family members, musician colleagues, girlfriends, ex-lovers, technicians, concert organizers, Joós Pisti, to whom Jimmy Zámbó owes his complete musical career, and who then became his manager. It was very exciting that, even in such a narrow circle, we received very different answers to the same question, everyone remembers it from their own perspective. It is clear that the narrow family circle, who were very attached to him and loved him very much, rather forgot, did not say or remember the bad things, but rather highlighted the good things. Whoever was angry with him for something forgot the good. Our job was to somehow try to do justice to this. I think that we collected so much information that in the end we did not get a distorted picture.”
Of course, it is possible to reproduce everything exactly after more than twenty years, as it happened, the creators also dramatized the story a little, but the aim was to achieve reality in the series as much as possible. Nevertheless, of course there are fictitious characters in it, such as the detective couple. “Rather, we wanted to show the big story of a small person who then became a legend, who can still be relevant more than twenty years after his death. That in itself is terribly interesting.”
Although family, friends, and colleagues all agreed to shape them, a series of conflicts later arose from this. According to Dániel Richárd Kovács, it is no longer their task to smooth this over. “We did everything we could to make sure everyone who needed to see the script saw it, we asked permission from whoever should have. I understand the reactions, because if a person is faced with something that doesn’t shine a good light on him, he will surely ask for it. But we have nothing to do with that.”
The director said that Krisztián Zámbó, who by the way was doing very important work, was able to face his own portrayal, which in many cases was not very positive. “I talked to him a lot, I also took him to the shooting. It’s quite bizarre that when he met himself in the series, he looked at himself from the outside, precisely in a period that people don’t like to look back on. I think the fact that he took part in the series and watched it back was a serious lesson in self-awareness, which he benefited from. A lot of people are taking scenes about him out of context and making judgments about a boy who, by his own eyes, had a very hard life.”
The director also said: the goal was not to get on the nostalgia train when portraying the period, so that the end result would be exaggerated and kitschy. “Retro has become very fashionable now, and I was young at that time, and I have very clear memories of the 80s. I’m bothered by the sugar-coated reality in certain films and series, which is over-stylized, there are a lot of balloons, chewing gum, and macinaci, but that doesn’t make it all the same as in my memories. Sometimes it was dirty, smelly, smelled of sweat, I went into the pub, the ashtray was full, cigarette smoke. We wanted to emphasize that this feeling would come back. I think that with this dirt and the fact that the scenes were not overlit, we can travel back in time a little.”