Budapest Coat of Arms on a Manhole Cover Postcard

"Budapest Coat of Arms on a Manhole Cover" by Catherine Sherman. The Coat of Arms of the city of Budapest, Hungary, is emblazoned on a manhole cover in an historic area of Budapest. The manhole cover, which is situated on a street paved with stones, is inscribed with "Fővárosi Csatornázási Művek Zrt" and "Budapest." The coat of arms glistens after a recent rain. The coat of arms of Budapest, which is the capital city of Hungary, has existed since 1873, when the three main cities next the Danube river (Buda, Pest and Óbuda) were united intp one city after existing for a thousand years as separate cities. The city committee that was planning the city's unification asked the master-painter Lajos Friedrich to design the coat of arms based in the cities' previous symbols and coats. The coat of arms is composed by two blasons: the top one contains a castle with one tower that represents Pest, while the lower image is a three-towered castle that symbolises Buda, which is where the Royal Palace of Buda is located. The undulating white stripe in the middle of both blasons represents the Danube river which separates Buda and Pest (passing through the middle of the city). At the the top of the coat of arms lies the Crown of the King Saint Stephen. A standing lion grabs with its protector claws the city symbol on the left side,; a mythological griffin stands on the right side holding the other side of the symbol. After Hungary was invaded by the Soviet armies, soon the coat of arms lost the Holy Crown on it, and was used from 1946 to 1949 without it. Between 1964 and 1990, a new coat of arms was used, avoiding to use the traditional Hungarian symbols that did not match with the communist ideals. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Hungary recovered its independence and in 1990 the original coat of arms created in 1873 was again reestablished.