This museum takes you back to the '80s, communist style

Budapest's Retro Museum features eye-popping exhibits, hands-on fun and games, and historical nuggets.

The Final Countdown by glam metal band Europe blares from the jukebox as we enter Budapest's Retro Museum. I'm immediately transported to the mid-1980s, when the song's rousing chorus would have boy-me leaping up and down on my bed, playing air guitar.

Nostalgia, we find, echoes all around this new attraction, which touts itself as an "interactive time travel experience", taking you back behind the Iron Curtain. It's set over three levels of a neoclassical building in downtown Pest, and primarily targeted at Hungarians who came of age during the Cold War. But with its eye-popping exhibits, hands-on fun and games, and historical nuggets (translated into English), the museum has enough to intrigue and entertain everyone else, whether they were born post-Communism or grew up beyond the yoke of the Soviet Union.

We've spent the past week serenely gliding along the River Danube on a Viking cruise, so it's a hoot to be haphazardly whizzing about in a Lada police car. We're not driving for real, of course. A video display masks the inside windscreen of this vintage motor, and I'm in the front seat, clutching the wheel, foot on the accelerator, racing around an imaginary Soviet housing estate. My other half is offering some advice from the back-seat. But it's no use. We crash, bang, wallop several times, and end up going nowhere.

The museum has enough to intrigue and entertain everyone, whether they were born post-Communism or grew up beyond the yoke of the Soviet Union.

That is one of the philosophical themes permeating the museum. Another diversion - created by a Russian poet and video games designer - sees us on foot, roaming a nondescript snowy suburb. It's been called an "anti-game", because there is no challenge or adventure. The protagonist feels aimless, directionless, trapped - a common grumble for many who endured Communism, with its political repression and restrictions on personal freedoms (notably travel).

It wasn't all bleak, for sure. The pleasures and humdrum of daily life behind the Iron Curtain are evoked through hundreds of authentic period items: hair curlers, cleaning products, cigars, palinka, chewing gum, movie posters, vinyls, currency and computers with floppy discs. Touchscreens share personal anecdotes and quizzes test the grey matter (is that a Skoda or a Trabant in the photo?). Stepping into a typical 1970s kitchen and living room with a natty orange and brown colour scheme, you can pose in the decade's clothing fashions using virtual technology.

The museum recalls unifying moments of national pride: Hungary's footballers' 6-3 victory over England at Wembley in 1953, and the "Blood in the Water" polo match against the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The clash ended in a punch-up, taking place just after the Hungarian Revolution, an attempted uprising against Soviet rule that sparked mass protests in Budapest.

We learn more about the regime's efforts to keep everyone in check; its secret police and subtle (and not so-subtle) forms of espionage and propaganda. The museum has bombastic stained-glass panels and murals featuring Soviet luminaries like Vladimir Lenin. Flinging open doors on model high-rise apartment blocks reveals various artefacts, including spying equipment, revolvers and vials of poison. A replica TV studio lets you play news anchor, reading off the autocue before the cameras, while a mock-up space station has you pressing buttons, pulling levers and reliving the Space Race.

On a cobbled lane flanked by fuel pumps, shiny vehicles (including the Lada police car) and an electronics store, there's a row of telephone booths. Stepping in, you're encouraged to dial for jokes, oaths and songs - notably the vigorous USSR anthem (which always makes me think of Rocky IV, my favourite childhood movie alongside Back to the Future).

"Everybody over 40 has some memories from these times," says museum director Andrea Kiss. "So many things have changed - IT, phones, TV, toys, vehicles. It now seems funny, but back then it was normal." Back up in the lobby, pop tunes float from the jukebox into the adjoining retro bistro, where a mostly Hungarian clientele, aged 20-70, snack on hot dogs, langos (deep-fried flatbread) and vodka jelly. We leave them to it. As much as we've enjoyed this window into the past, it's time to return to present-day Budapest, one of post-Communist Europe's coolest city breaks.

THE DETAILS

VISIT

Admission to Budapest Retro Museum is HUF4300 ($17) for adults, HUF3600 ($14) for children and over-65s. See bpretro.com/en

CRUISE

Viking has 7-night River Danube cruises, starting or ending in Budapest, priced from around $2595. See vikingcruises.com.au

MORE

traveller.com.au/hungary

budapestinfo.hu

Steve McKenna was a guest of Viking Cruises.