The Bálványosi Summer Free University and Student Camp awaits visitors in Tusnádfürdő between July 18 and 23 this year.
The event, which will now be held for the thirty-second time, was presented by Réka Horváth, the official Transylvanian organizer, president of the Hungarian Youth Council (MIT), and Ilona Popa, the main Transylvanian organizer of Tusványos, on Friday.
The two invited guests spoke to those present about the process, challenges, experiences, and interesting things of organizing events in Tusványos, as well as the organizing team. They recalled that the first free university was organized in Bálványosfürdő in the summer of 1990, based on the idea of David Campanale, a British journalist from the BBC, by young politicians from Hungary and Transylvania, including Zsolt Németh, a representative of Fidesz, and Tibor T. Toró and Zsolt Szilágyi.
Today, the official main organizer is the Hungarian Pro Minoritate Foundation, and on the Transylvanian side, the umbrella organization based in Cluj-Napoca, the Hungarian Youth Council.
At the initial events, the focus was not on everyday political events, but a more universal approach to different disciplines (literature, history, sociology, economics, political science, law) was discussed with the participation of speakers from English, Hungarian, Romanian and Romanian Hungarians. However, the size of the camp grew year by year, more and more people took part in it, so from 1997 the meeting place was moved to the nearby Tusnádfürdő, but the summer student camp kept its original name.
Over the years, Viktor Orbán, János Martonyi, Zsolt Semjén, László Tőkés, Béla Markó, Zsolt Németh, Ferenc Mádl, Zsolt Hernádi visited here several times, while Adrian Severin, Traian Băsescu and Emil Constantinescu also visited here from the Romanian side.
"Tusványos is not just a simple festival, it's more than that, as a rich program offer awaits those interested in thirty locations," announced Popa.
During the 33 years of the free university, 90 bands have appeared on the main stage, mainly up-and-coming bands from Transylvania or Hungary, which have enriched the history of the event series with their different styles and trends. As in previous years, the organizers expect around 70-80 thousand participants this year, and admission is free until 4 p.m. every day.
The organizers also talked about the fact that Tusványos also presents challenges as a location, because there are fewer accommodations in the area than the number of people visiting the location, and there are more cars compared to the capacity of the camp.
The main problem, however, is keeping the bears away, as the bears that have proliferated since the hunting ban have been coming into the town to litter in Tusnádfürdő, which is surrounded by pine forests.
