This sculptural composition is located on Fő Square, next to an ordinary Hungarian house. Four young women stand under umbrellas beside an ornate streetlamp.
Perhaps this is the only monument in Budapest that has so many interpretations. Some claim that it is dedicated to women waiting for their husbands to return from war. Others see in it a symbol that rain unites us all (we may be hurrying about on different errands, but as soon as it starts to rain, we all take out our umbrellas). And some believe these are female students standing at a stop and waiting for their bus. There are countless interpretations, and most of them mainly come from foreigners and are copied from one guidebook to another. But the locals call it the ‘monument to prostitutes,’ and apparently not without reason.
The author of these sculptures, Imre Varga, said that during a trip to France he saw prostitutes shivering in the rain while waiting for their clients. They were dressed in lace stockings, light clothes, thin coats, making it painful even to look at them. The sculptor felt sorry for these women, and he decided to immortalize their memory. One of them is French, another is Hungarian, and then there are a German woman and an Englishwoman.
Not far from them there is a stand with an image of these same sculptures and oval cutouts for faces - excellent entertainment for tourists who like taking photos.
