Just a few weeks ago Hungarian media wrote that people in the Baranya County village of Geresdlak had begun to burn old Hungarian banknotes in order to stay warm.

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Two days ago I read about farmers in my mother’s hometown Mindszent, Csongrád County, heating their homes by burning corn. Here is why: The price of firewood is HUF 2,500- HUF 2,800 per mázsa (100 kilos), while buyers pay HUF 1,800 for corn, a seven-year-low, and down from HUF 5,000 last year.

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Today I visited my parents, and together we watched the evening news on Duna TV. The world gets small when you know the man that gets interviewed, just as I have had discussions with the farmer pictured in Delmagyar’s article. You get so much closer to the happenings. I guess this is just another untold story, not much has been written about how bad the finance crises have hit (the poorest parts of) Hungary.