But which city, and how can you tell (no cheating with AI or google piccie match, please)?
Photo: A roofscape of a CEE city: bonus points - and extra pint for me - if you can estimate the year this piccie was taken, with reasons given.
Going through my boxes of "remainder" prints (because most of them still lie in newspaper and photo libraries) I have realise there is more in the can with which I can offer the chance of global celebrity status to eagle-eyed readers here.
Answers please via the website system or an email, kindly label your answer KT117 so the Competition Committee don't miss your sleuthing brilliance!
UPDATE - Contestants and the Winner!
Hmmmm. KesterTesters rarely fail to surprise me, and this one certainly has, in a way I wasn't suspecting. More anon.
The earliest systematic sleuther for this one was Chris Dalton. I really liked his whole approach.
“This was a good one…”
Pleased to be of service, Chris!
“My thoughts/observations:
Relatively few satellite dishes, which makes me think it’s either not eastern Europe or not taken in a time frame of the boom in TV dishes (before, or after).
Dense building, which makes it either a regional centre or a major city. No advertising anywhere, which is odd as surely something would be stuck on a roof.
Relatively few new builds, so probably not a city devastated by bombs or 20th century invasion. Many buildings don’t look too well maintained or added to, so (unless very old) I doubt this is a western European city
Church, not mosque. So I don’t think it’s southern or eastern Balkans.
Taken from a height, so either in a tall building, or on some ground or hill above the city/town.
Only one distinctive building, with a glass pyramid, which looks pretty ugly but must surely be the clue… No idea what or where it is, though.
Damnit, I couldn’t do much other than eliminate a bunch of places I’ve been to, or which would not have anything like the topography… not Cluj. Not Prague. Not Budapest (or my memory is way off).
Brno? Graz? It’s messy enough to be a part of Bucharest, but… there’s a sort of Italian messiness in there.
’m going for Bucharest, but I think it’s wrong. C
Italian messiness, eh? Interesting. Very interesting approach, Chris. Thank you.
We got this puzzling answer in from Jerry Taylor.
“Hi Kester
I’m going to say 1991, no other reason than that new building was the focus of York shot (or so I think)
Cheers, Jerry”
You have some distinctly near miss material in that answer, Jerry – just I'm bemused by your reference to York. I just don't know where you conjured up that from?
Péter Bózsó came in with a very straight answer, citing the Hungarian capital.
“Dear Kester,
I guess, it is a photo taken of the inner Fifth District in Budapest. The "dome" is the roof of the University Library. The East-West centre is standing at Astoria but the new office building in Rákóczi út is not, the old concrete structure is visible. My guess is the early 1990s.
Peter”
Longtime ex-pat Richard Lock was next.
“Hi Kester, I am curious where exactly you took this from, but it’s looking away from the river in Pest with the East West center in the top right, looking quite new, whereas everything else looks a bit tired, which probably dates it to about 93 or 94.
Hope all is well. Greetings from the countryside, hiding from the heat!
Richard”
And that, friends, is, was the sum total of responses, which was a real surprise. I mean, I know the shot needs a bit of care to analyse, but I imagine 75% of readers frequent this area quite a bit, and I thought there were enough clues to garner a few more correct responses.
But given Chris' careful analysis, and subsequent failure to recognise the roofscape, this was obviously harder to do than I imagined.
Yes, the East-West Center is what I considered the main clue, both for the location and the time of the photo. Thanks to Peter for that dome – I knew that I knew it, but I couldn't fathom what it was. It's a few metres up from the old Karpathia restaurant, of course.
I think that is the Serb Church in the foreground – oh, and about half way up the pic, centre right, is a sort of rooftop colonnade which I believe is part of a school roof in Cukor utca. I suspect it's quite a prestigious school, though I have no idea why it's built like that.
As to timing, I'm fairly sure this pic was taken in summer, 1992 – so more or less every punter got that part correctly. If I remember correctly, the East-West Center has the date 1991 on it.
Oh, and the piccie was not actually taken from the Pest bank, Richard, but from Buda, somewhere on the hill between the Gellért hotel and the Saint's statue at the end of Erzsébet Bridge - about half way along, I'd guess. I probably used a 200mm lens to clear the river, which then compresses the actual roofscape perspective.
Right, that only means we have to draw the lucky winner! And since there are only two correct answers, the draw will be by the toss of a Ft 200 coin – Chain Bridge for Peter, Ft 200 side for Richard.
The coin was expertly tossed by my daughter, in town for a couple of weeks and … the winning side was Ft 200, making the winner of KT117 one Richard Lock, who is currently hiding from both the heat and now from adoring fans in the hills above Balaton. (They do go to great lengths to show their loyalty though, Richard, so don't be surprised to find some at the gate tomorrow morning :))
Okey dokes – have a good weekend, or long weekend if you are in the land of the Magyars, Monday and Tuesday being official holidays.
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