Blue memoir

A water superpower runs dry

In 2022 the photographer András Zoltai flew back home to Hungary from India, where he had made a reportage about the people living on, near, and off the Brahmaputra River. His affinity for this landscape had perhaps stemmed his youth, which had also been dominated by a river: the Tisza, Hungary’s second-largest river. Zoltai’s life had been shaped by its presence, and by the thermal springs in the area — as many as 35 near his hometown of Szentes.

Hungary, nestled in the semicircle of the Carpathian Mountains, had always been a water superpower, with resources unique both in quantity and quality. But two centuries of regulating once-meandering rivers, of replacing natural floodplains of rivers with arable lands, of building canals to irrigate these areas — would paradoxically cut some inhabitants off from water and dry up the rest of the soil. In this century, desertification threatens large parts of Hungary’s agricultural lands. The familar green Hungary of rich forests, farmers in the fields and the mighty Danube — doesn’t seem itself anymore. In 2022, almost half as much rainwater fell as usual.