Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Page 35
—Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook
“By turns hilarious and incredible, this stuff just can’t be made up.”
—Maxim
“The vivid and riveting story of Attila Ambrus, Transylvanian-born immigrant, outlaw, and gentleman, also hides a key to the still inexplicable and mad passage of communism to capitalism. This is a grand thriller, perhaps the first of a genre.”
—Andrei Codrescu, author of Wakefield
“A wonderful read…. Rubinstein’s treatment of Ambrus is a deft and poignant example of compassion and humor.”
—Sports Illustrated
“Robin Hood tales always entice, yet few are as madcap and captivating as this rollicking portrait of Attila Ambrus, a Transylvanian refugee turned lousy pro-hockey goalie turned legendary Hungarian bank robber and gentleman heartthrob in the waning days of Communist rule. The subtitle of Rubinstein’s book, the product of three years of foreign reporting, underscores how truth is still stranger than fiction…. This is a Hollywood film waiting to be made, a crazy outlaw caper from ‘The Wild, Wild East.’ ”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Hilarious…. A thrilling and oddly enticing book.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Must be read to be believed…. Rubinstein surveys the whole tale in grand storytelling fashion, following the action and the chase in entertaining detail…. A heartrending study of a character whose bungling tells the story of a world much bigger than his own.”
—Onion A.V. Club
“Offers that simple pleasure, a great story.”
—Esquire
“An instant classic…. At once sad and funny, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, a rollicking tale of the Wild East, also has a deeply compelling political purpose.”
—Globe and Mail
“An amazing story. Unreal.”
—ESPN’s Cold Pizza (An ESPN Book Club Selection)
“An all-too-real political fairy tale….. Underneath all of the action and intrigue that makes Ballad of the Whiskey Robber nothing short of a page-turner, there’s a subtle commentary on corruption and capitalism…. With such high stakes and the story’s built-in suspense, Rubinstein’s Ballad never borders on a lackluster history lesson, nor does his attention to political injustices ever interrupt the fictionlike flow of Ambrus’s story. Grade: A.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“As outrageous and entertaining as any piece of fiction in recent memory, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is a page-turner almost too fantastic to believe and too engrossing to put down.”
—Columbus Dispatch
“Never was there a more entertaining case history of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Breezy, informative, and wholly enjoyable.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Bittersweet, comic-tragic, sadly funny, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is Julian Rubinstein’s wonderful saga of Hungarian cops and robbers, where, if crime doesn’t pay, it at least beats playing hockey goalie.”
—Frank Deford
“A rollicking tale told with glee and flair…. Rubinstein has a knack for telling a good story…. He has a rootin’-tootin’ style that’s a perfect fit for this Jesse James–like tale, which has the chance to be a sleeper that transcends nonfiction categories.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“You don’t have to be Hungarian to enjoy Ballad of the Whiskey Robber. It is a funny, moving, edge-of-your-seat true story which beautifully captures the mood and ethos of post–Cold War Budapest. I loved it, and Willie Sutton would have too.”
—Donald Blinken, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary 1994–98
“Julian Rubinstein mixes the tale of Ambrus’s raids with a political history of Hungary that puts these robberies in perspective and explains how an armed robber’s crimes might seem heroic in the face of the massive government corruption that accompanied Hungary’s transition to capitalism…. Rubinstein keeps the pages turning…. He delivers a work of history and entertainment with all of the panache of his subject’s successful raids.”
—Forbes.com (A Forbes Book Club Selection)
Appendix
LIST OF ATTILA AMBRUS’S ROBBERIES
LOCATION DATE ACCOMPLICE HAUL (IN FORINTS)
1. Villányi Street post office January 22, 1993 548,000 ($5,900)
2. Hvösvölgyi Street post office March 12, 1993 667,000 ($7,200)
3. Budapest Tours travel agency (Árpád Street) May 3, 1993 1,166,000 ($12,500)
4. Nagykáta and Vidéke savings bank June 18, 1993 László Veres 2,912,000 ($31,300)
5. Pilisvörösvár Bank (Ágoston Street) August 3, 1993 László Veres 398,000 ($4,300)
6. Orczy Square post office August 27, 1993 Károly “Karcsi” Antal 3,351,000 ($36,000)
* Budapest Tours travel agency (Nyugati train station) November 3, 1993
7. Colibri Travel Agency December 27, 1993 407,000 ($4,400)
8. Mór and Vidéke Savings and Loan February 2, 1994 1,380,000 ($12,900)
9. Bakonyvidéke Savings and Loan March 21, 1994 4,562,000 ($42,600)
10. Eurotours International travel agency July 21, 1994 955,000 ($8,900)
11. Bakonyvidéke Savings and Loan January 12, 1995 2,797,000 ($22,400)
12. Pilisvörösvár Bank (Lajos Street) July 24, 1995 2,467,000 ($19,700)
13. Kemenes Street post office March 25, 1996 9,536,000 ($62,300)
14. Fehérvári Street post office August 29, 1996 Gabi Orbán 5,267,000 ($34,400)
15. Grassalkovich Street OTP Bank September 24, 1996 Gabi Orbán 7,546,000 ($49,300)
16. Budakeszi OTP Bank November 21, 1996 Gabi Orbán 13,598,000 ($88,900)
17. Budakeszi OTP Bank January 15, 1997 Gabi Orbán 7,909,000 ($43,200)
18. Heltai Square OTP Bank March 10, 1997 Gabi Orbán 9,635,000 ($52,500)
19. Etele Square post office March 10, 1997 Gabi Orbán 3,965,000 ($22,000)
20. Vasút Street OTP Bank April 24, 1997 Gabi Orbán 1,500,000 ($8,200)
21. Grassalkovich Street OTP Bank May 28, 1997 Gabi Orbán 25,302,000** ($138,300)
22. Grassalkovich Street OTP Bank December 16, 1997 Gabi Orbán 8,002,000 ($43,700)
23. Irinyi Street OTP Bank February 5, 1998 Gabi Orbán 5,705,000 ($26,900)
24. Heltai Square OTP Bank March 11, 1998 Gabi Orbán 5,051,000 ($23,600)
25. Újhegyi Street OTP Bank January 5, 1999 Gabi Orbán 297,000 ($1,250)
26. Frankel Leó Boulevard OTP Bank January 15, 1999 Gabi Orbán 18,394,000 ($78,900)
27. Grassalkovich Street OTP Bank July 29, 1999 1,507,000 ($6,500)
28. Vecsés OTP Bank September 28, 1999 224,000 ($960)
29. lli Street OTP Bank October 18, 1999 50,738,000** ($217,800)
Total haul (in forints) 195,745,000
In dollars (using 1999 exchange rate) 840,000
* failed robbery attempt
** Some of this sum was in foreign currency.
Note: The year-by-year conversion rates are cited in the Notes on Sources.
Attila’s first Hungarian passport, issued when he finally received citizenship in 1994. He’d begun robbing the previous year. (BALÁZS GÁRDI)
Attila and his grandmother, Anna, who raised him, standing near their home in eastern Transylvania, circa 1975, a year before she died. “When she died, my life took a fatal turn,” Attila said. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
From left to right: Attila’s father, Károly Ambrus; Attila in his Romanian army uniform; Attila’s girlfriend Katalin; and Attila’s uncle László, who raised him after his grandmother died. Standing outside Attila’s military barracks in Galati, Romania, in 1987, the year before Attila escaped from the country. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
Two future Hungarian hockey stars, Karcsi (left) and Bubu, broke and homeless, at the Keleti train station in Budapest on the day they arrived in Hungary from Transylvania in 1990, months after the Romanian revolution. (COURTESY OF JENO “BUBU” SALAMON)
&nb
sp; Attila and Éva, having dinner together on vacation in Thailand, 1995. He almost gave up the life of crime for her. (COURTESY OF ÉVA FODOR)
UTE goalie Attila Ambrus in 1994, the year the team saved itself from bankruptcy by signing up as a sponsor the Western-funded desk wholesaler Office and Home, which put its logo on the front of the vaunted Hungarian team’s jerseys. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
The 1994–95 UTE team. Top row, second from right: Gabi Orbán. Middle row, far left: Coach George Orbán. Bottom row, second and third from left: Karcsi Antal, seated next to his one-time robbery accomplice, Attila. (Bubu had departed for UTE’s crosstown rival, FTC.) (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
Attila (left) and his girlfriend Betty scuba diving on one of their island holidays, circa 1997. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
László Juszt, host of the hit TV program Kriminális, during his heyday in the mid-1990s as Hungary’s most famous journalist and chronicler of the Whiskey Robber. He would be arrested and thrown off the air in 1999.(SIPOS ISTVÁN/RED DOT)
The Whiskey Robber, mid-1990s, gets a Christmas present he likes: a bottle of his signature drink, Johnnie Walker Red. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
The bandit at rest. (COURTESY OF ATTILA AMBRUS)
Police photo from a lineup at the Gyorskocsi Street jail, January 21, 1999, six days after Attila (second from right) and Gabi (second from left) were arrested for the first time. Two of the other three men pictured are the Szucs brothers, who had been in jail for the previous ten months for several of Attila and Gabi’s robberies. Gabi has to pucker his lips to keep the fake mustache on his face. None of the witnesses fingered Gabi or Attila as the perpetrators. (COURTESY OF BUDAPEST POLICE DEPARTMENT)
Attila and former Budapest robbery chief Lajos Varjú, who unsuccessfully tracked the Whiskey Robber for five years before resigning from the force, meet for the first time at the jail in March 1999. Attila is muscle-bound from a daily exercise regimen developed to aid his impending escape. He is also drunk.(PÉTER VÁRKONYI)
The view from one floor above the street, looking up at the fourth window of the jail administration building out of which Attila escaped on a rope made of bedsheets, towels, and shoelaces. The rope ended seventeen feet above the ground. (COURTESY OF BUDAPEST POLICE DEPARTMENT)
Hours after Attila’s escape from the Budapest jail on July 10, 1999, the city of Budapest is sealed. Police search every car leaving the city. (GÁBOR CZERKL)
Attila’s lawyer, George Magyar, sits next to a life-size cardboard cutout of his famous client for a press conference in summer 1999. Magyar claimed he had received an offer for a “Hollywood movie deal” and an energy-drink sponsorship for Whiskey Robber beverages. Attila could not attend because he was being hunted by INTERPOL and the entire Hungarian police force. (SIPOS ISTVÁN/RED DOT)
The fugitive Whiskey Robber in action, captured by bank surveillance cameras inside and outside the Ulloi Street OTP Bank three months after Attila’s escape from the Budapest jail.
The Whiskey Robber’s hockey teammate and robbery accomplice Gabi Orbán, in handcuffs, being led into the courtroom during the trial, which began in the summer of 2000. (GÁBOR FUSZEK
Like a final score for the ages, Whiskey Robber fans spray-painted the number of Attila’s robberies versus his number of arrests on the wall of the apartment building in which he hid during his escape. Viszkis, in Hungarian, is an informal term meaning “the whiskey guy.” BM is the abbreviation for the Belugium Ministerium, or Interior Ministry, the government branch in charge of the police. (Gábor Fuszek)
Attila in prison-issue garb and behind glass at the maximum-security prison in Sátoraljaújhely, Hungary, June 10, 2003.(LISA HYMAN)
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Notes on Sources
This book is the culmination of more than three years of work, including eight months spent on the ground in Hungary and Transylvania and a couple of weeks in Berlin and Prague. I interviewed more than a hundred people over the course of my reporting, many of them several times. Almost all my interviews were done in person, most of them through an interpreter. I was careful to discuss each interview with my interpreters so as to ensure accuracy not just of the language but also in style and nuance. I assume responsibility for any errors of translation.
The scenes and dialogue that I depict come primarily from my direct interviews with the subjects involved but are often augmented by other sources. I was able to gain access to numerous official documents, including the forms Attila filled out at the immigration office when arriving in Hungary, as well as his passport applications and visa requests. These were particularly helpful for the scene in the immigration office as well as the details of Attila’s escape from Romania.
I spent five weeks at the Supreme Court building in Budapest poring through all the police and court files from the case. These documents greatly enhanced my ability to portray many of the robbery scenes as well as specific meetings and measures taken by the police (most of whom consented to my numerous interview requests). I was present at the final Metropolitan Court hearing in the case on December 14, 2000. I spent several days viewing videotape at the Hungarian Television (MTV) archive, which provided much of the basis for the scenes involving Kriminális. In addition, I had literally hundreds of Hungarian newspaper stories translated, many of which are specifically cited in the text.
Attila’s first girlfriend in Transylvania, Katalin, whom I could not locate, appears under a pseudonym. His first girlfriend in Budapest, Judit, did not wish to be interviewed for this project, and she too appears under a pseudonym. Information about them comes from my interviews with Attila, Attila’s aunt and uncle, as well as, in the case of Judit, a section of Attila’s first book Én a Whiskys, written with Judit P. Gál (IPM Konyv, 1999).
The prison in Sátoraljaújhely, where Attila is held, and the lesser-security pen in Márianosztra, where Gabi is held, were strict, but for the most part fair, and allowed me long days with my subjects. Over a span of three years, I spent twelve full days with Attila and three with Gabi. Most of my other sources with whom I spent significant time are thanked in the Acknowledgments.
For money conversions, I used an average of the official exchange rates on the first and last day of each year. For 1988, it was 50 forints: U.S. dollar. For 1989, it was 58; 1990: 62; 1991: 69; 1992: 80; 1993: 93; 1994: 107; 1995: 125; 1996: 153; 1997: 183; 1998: 212; 1999: 233; 2000: 267.
Below is a citation list of sources I used for specific information that did not come from my own reporting. I have not listed sources for information about widely known events. I also do not repeat the sources for information when the citation is already specified in the text.
The “century’s most persistent” quote comes from a story in Magyar Hírlap that appeared on January 18, 1999.
The “nest of Robin Hoods” quote comes from a story in Hargita Népe by Zoltán Szondy, July 24, 2002.
John Whitehead talking about the “gray, monstrous snake” from an Associated Press story by Frieder Reimold, October 12, 1988.
Both of Antall’s quotes come from a story in the Los Angeles Times by Carol J. Williams, October 9, 1990.
The story about Wayne Gretzky appeared in Hungary’s Népsport, August 2, 1990.
Some of the information about Attila’s father is augmented by interviews he gave to Erdély Napló in the summer and fall of 1999 and to Nk Lapja on August 4, 1999.
The detail about more than a thousand cops being arrested comes from a story in the Guardian by Carol Williams, October 13, 1990.
The scene with Uncle Béla comes from my interviews with Attila (who once accompanied Béla on a hunt) and László and with villagers living near Béla.
The detail about the IKEA billboards comes from intervi
ews as well as a story by the Inter-Press Service by Ken Kasriel, June 9, 1992.
The detail about the Warsaw protesters comes from an article in the Chicago Tribune by Linnet Myers, December 20, 1995. The details about the town meeting regarding the Jewish Quarter comes from an article in the New York Times by Jane Perlez, August 18, 1993.
Information about the Budapest police chief’s being disciplined came from MTI Econews, October 13, 1992.
The excerpt is from a police robbery department file, dated September 14, 1993.
The press release is from a police robbery department fax dated July 22, 1994.
The detail about the largest military operation comes from a speech by President Clinton cited in the New York Times story by Alison Mitchell on January 14, 1996. FBI “trained some 27,000 officers, including one Hungarian,” from MTI Econews, March 2, 1995. The quote from Louis Freeh comes from a story in the Chicago Tribune by Linnet Myers on December 20, 1995.
The information about thirty-seven illicit shipments comes from a story in the New York Times by David Johnston on April 17, 1995. The story in Blikk appeared on January 14, 1995.
The figure of 1,200 openings in Hungary for police comes from a story in the Los Angeles Times by Dean Murphy on February 28, 1995.
The statistic about crime committed every sixty-three seconds comes from MTI Econews, November 12, 1996. The statistic about thirty-seven daily car thefts comes from MTI Econews, July 17, 1996.
The detail about the waiting list for telephone lines comes from a story in USA Today by James Cox on November 7, 1994. The information about the automobile accidents and destruction of property cases comes from MTI Econews, September 26, 1996. The tourism minister’s quote comes from a story in the Virginian Pilot by Greg Raver-Lampman, October 29, 1995. The information about the sewerage museum comes from the Budapest Business Journal, January 27, 1995.