Dear Visitor,

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to greet you on our website. We are trying to grant as much useful information as we can about the life of our city in every field. Our aim is to show you the past of our city, to inform you about the present of Ózd , and to show you our plans and ideas. Ózd is situated in a wonderful natural environment with a lot of places of interest, rich flora and fauna. The atmosphere of the city is still strongly determined by its metallurgical past. But it is being built and improved continuously. I hope that you, dear visitor, will visit us personally soon, and see for yourself! I am confident that people, showing interest in Ózd will find a lot of useful information on this website; and as for our citizens we can help them with their local public affairs.

I wish you pleasant and useful browsing.

Pál Fürjes

Mayor

Ózd – more than a place of residence

Our settlement, built in the valleys of Gömör-Heves Hills, belonging to the North Hungarian Mountains, in northeastern part of Hungary, has been existing for more than 700 years, but the today’s Ózd was established barely half a century ago, by joining of independent villages.

Although the city and its surroundings were avoided far by the storms of history, in the centuries before industrialization daily battles have been fought for utilisation of rich forests and poor plough-lands. The big change happened in the middle of 19th century, when the brown coal beds were opened up, and for their utilisation the ironworks were built. The 150-year metallurgy is mainly history today, but technical culture and creative thinking of people, living here, remained. It was always typical of the locals because they had to live on and find new ways here, far from the capital, despite of the unfavourable historical turns.

In consequence of lasting decline of heavy-industry from the 1990s, the plants of heavy-industry, determining the life and development of the city, stopped, or worked with lower capacity. For today, owing to the favourable processes, new image was created about Ózd: it became a viable settlement that is able to develop. With about 40 thousand inhabitants, Ózd is the second biggest city of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county. Its surroundings include 28 settlements, and together with them about 80 thousand inhabitants belong to micro-region of Ózd.

Ózd is situated 160 km from Budapest, from which 100 km – highway, 60 km – main road. Its distance from the three county seats (Miskolc, Eger, Salgótarján) is almost the same, only 60 km. Its access is possible by road or rail. Slovakian border can be found 12 km from the city, but the Polish and Ukrainian border can also be reached easily.

Nowadays a lot of medium-size enterprises work here, global concerns settled, electronical industry was established, our place of residence is under development. Prettification of city centre, renovation of some city parts and modernisation of road-system go their way.

So the city has a lot of faces. But one thing is constant: resolution of the locals who sticked to the heritage of their ancestors and parents, even in the hardest times. For them Ózd is really more than a place of residence.

Walk in Ózd

Our virtual walk leads along the most interesting parts of Ózd. The whole tour would be tiring on foot, but the single parts – inner town, environs of the factory, Bolyok, Szentsimon – are worth each a real walk.

It is worth walking along main street of Ózd in the pleasant afternoon sunshine: start from the shadow of the eclectic buildings of Petőfi Square to the commotion of the city centre, growing more and more beautiful. Let’s stop in front of atmospheric building of City Library on the nice square – you are invited also by lifted arm of bronze statue of Sándor Petőfi . Then, passing by the first two-storied house of the city, built at the beginning of the 1900s, called Turul-house , we walk to the Roman Catholic Church of Ív Street , built at the end of 19th century. Along the way let’s have a look at the new colony across the street, and at the Calvinist Church with its 25-meter high tower.

Then we can breathe historical air of Gyár (Factory) Street . Architectural memories speak about striving for perfection of that time, and, if we try to glance behind the walls, about lifestyle of factory workers of different social status. Cottages of ancient streets of Nagyamerika (Big America) were built for the factory officers. Kisamerika (Small America) , situated in its neighbourhood, is one of the colonies of the workers. Let’s walk around the renovated building of Olvasó , placed under protection of historic buildings that was at one time the cultural centre of the workers, and today it serves again the people who like culture. Let’s get to know the eclectic building of Tiszti Kaszinó és Rendezvényház (Officers’ Club and Programhouse) , restored in the near past, giving place to higher education and to several famous events of Ózd. City Museum (former school) tells us a lot of facts about life and culture of workers of legendary Ironworks of Ózd.

After visiting the museum we can stop in the gate of industrial park for a few minutes. Let’s imagine in the rusty and tumble-down, but touching environment behind the fences the former metallic crack, the metalworkers, busy as bees and commotion of change of shift, indicated by the siren in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening in the past decades, and even today. Then let’s start! Stepping in the invisible footprints of metal workers, walking home on the Munkás (Workers’) Street, let’s go back to the present: to the centre, bursted into bloom, interspersed with modern buildings, called once Gyújtó. In the world of shop-windows of shops of Vasvár Street and tower blocks, belonging to the city picture it will pay to spend an hour within friendly walls of one of the confectioneries or restaurants, listening to silent music and talking.

After having a short rest we go to Bolyok part of the city to map the surroundings of the popular open-air bath, with the neighbouring youth park and boating lake, hiding at the foot of weeping willows. It is like a foot’s length nature that revived in the middle of civilisation: paradise of anglers, campers and fans of leisure sports, where the natural formations and artworks of human hand are in a special harmony. Statues and memorial places, gardens and playgrounds offer refreshment for the youngest and for the elder, too. The City Stadium, the Thermarium and Swimming Pool , as well as the neighbouring sport hall try to satisfy the needs of the devotees of active life, while the several catering and entertaining units of the city offer programme for the people who wish to spend their free time in an easier way – all this affordably and at high level.

By road, within a short time we can reach famous historic building of Szentsimon, the Roman Catholic Church , forming the part of Gothic Road. Its walls of Roman style were raised in the 13th century, the frescos inside, originated in the 14th-15th century, impress the visitors even today.

By going further the curios wanderer gets into Hangony Valley, which is rich in natural values and religious historic buildings. The area was named after the village of Hangony, here can be found Hangony Lake, situated in the embrace of virgin forests, hills and valleys. It is an excellent tourist spot and fishing place, a hunting paradise, with varied flora and fauna. In the depth of beech-woods and alders red deers and wild cats live together with woodpeckers, chaffinches, hawfinches and common buzzards, and this is the home of big family of dormouses and snakes.

To introduce and to get to know

International relations of Ózd have been established gradually over the last decades. Roots of some relations go back to personal contacts, others to the similar life of partner settlements, and some of them to the European intercultural view. But apart from the motivation in the background of the cooperation, our general aim is to introduce Hungary – and first of all our own residence - all over the world. That is why our important ambition is to become acquainted with inhabitants of more and more countries for mutually fruitful cooperation.

Today we keep up partnership, based on written agreement, with seven European settlements (Chorzów, Rimaszombat, Nagybalog,, Csíkszentsimon, Nyárádszentsimon, Magyarózd, Ózdfalu). Besides a lot of institutional and intersectoral cooperation go through the borders: student and experience exchange of vocational secondary schools with city of Warberg (Sweden), health training has found its sister town in Rozsnyó, and we established a successful sports leader contact with Avion (France) … just to point out some of our partners.

Our realtions with sister settlements contribute to economical, social and cultural development of Ózd and its partners in five very important fields: in the economic sphere, in professional contacts of schools and youth organizations, in cooperation of cultural and civil organisations, and in execution of common sports events.

Industrial past, green-field future

Metallurgy, and later its crisis turned spotlight on economic life of Ózd for long. The situation became stable long ago – and Ózd does not give up further industrial developments.

The past

City of Ózd was put on the way of industrialization by opening the coal beds in the 1840s. The industrial development was based on the coal beds in the area of Ózd, and on the iron ore layers of Murányi Plateau, and as a result Ózd was considered as one of the acropolises of Hungarian heavy industry in the 1960s-1970s. By setting the women to work from the 1960s textile industry, then from the 1980s the precision and electronics industry started to develop.

At the end of 1980s, global crisis of metallurgy reached Ózd, leading to termination of more than 10 thousand workplaces. First half of 1990s was the period of heavy crisis, high unemployment rate, fight for surviving and finding the way out. In second half of the decade marks of growth appeared – first in textile industry, later the metallurgic successor enterprises, dealing with maintenance, metal processing and machining - became stronger and stable.

Present and future

Through the German Max Aicher Group a substantial investor came into this sector of economy. Two big electronics and precision investors: the American General Electrics, and the Swiss Saia Burgess Electronics appeared in the economic life of Ózd almost at the same time.

Self-government of Ózd is aware that the city needs further investments and job creation, that is why we work on significant developments. The most important thing in the background of economy is modernization of communal waste collection and wastewater treatment with help of EU sources, and in the interest of attraction of investments – preparation and supply with public utility of about 35 ha area that is suitable for green-field industrial investments.

Furthermore it is very important to improve public road connections and access to the city, first of all from the highways.