Mászóka – Climbies in Budapest
The „climbies”, the monkey bars were all manufactured by the Central Monkey Bar Manufacturing Cooperative (CMBMC). Some of them had political meaning: the sphere symbolised the globe and the rocket trained the future generation of kosmonauts. There was also the house, the cat, the wave and the pipeline and that was the selection. Thick oil paint covered them in either peace blue, soviet red, sick piss yellow or green.
They were made of metal so your hands would freeze to them in the winter and they would burn your ass in the summer. The blocks of concrete surrounding them made climbing an extreme sport. Most of the kids suffered severe injuries and boasted about them like veterans boast about their scars. Today the good old mászokas are replaced by safe-to-use, euro-conform wooden or plastic things.
Some of the old ones are still to be seen around, sunken, paint peeled off.