Peter Tasnadi

HVG: Is it just us who feel that you and Ferenc Gyurcsany must be kindred spirits? It's as if both of you are utterly convinced that you are doing everything right. You are getting the Pecs Cultural Capital of Europe programme right, even if the people don't yet realise it.

Peter Tasnadi: I think I see the point of the question, but please remember that I'm implementing a programme whose fundamental outlines were defined before I was elected. If things go to plan, and I'm still mayor after 2010, I certainly won't be undertaking any investments that are unsustainable in the long term.

HVG: But at least explain how you manage affairs relating to the cultural capital project as its managers resign en masse. We don't assume that your style is autocratic, after all you teach management at the University of Pecs.

P.T.: Look, I'm not looking for praise, but I've had enough of a situation where good things are happening in the city, but the media just reports that everything's going wrong. Lajos Kosa, but plenty of other mayors, would rub his hands in glee if they were managing as much as is happening in Pecs at the moment.

HVG: I'm sure the Fidesz mayor of Debrecen will react on his own behalf later - he recently offered to take over the cultural capital project. But in the spring you even managed to get the opposition to sympathise with you when you announced you had cancer. Did you consider whether you would gain more politically from openness or secrecy?

P.T.: I never expected sympathy, and it was over the objections of my advisers that you stood before the public. Since there were rumours about my death in the city, I thought I should be open about everything, to stop my children hearing the rumours. My doctors say that the stress had a part to play in the development of my illness.

HVG: Of course, smoking less might help with your recovery. There are video recordings of you using very raw language when you were spotted smoking in a no-smoking area in Parliament.

P.T.: I made a mistake. I paid my Ft50,000 fine, and then I told the reporter that if the healthcare council's biggest problem was my smoking in a no-smoking zone - then they can lick my arse. But since learning of my illness I haven't smoked a cigarette in 200 days, I've changed my lifestyle. I believe I'll recover - most of the tumours in my lungs have disappeared, and we need to improve my liver readings.

HVG: We're not questioning your fighting spirit. You've come a long way - you were an educator for miners in Mecsek. Don't you miss those days?

P.T.: The mining museum where I worked is now the headquarters of the European Cultural Capital project. When I'm there I always think of sorting mining maps, flags and uniforms.

HVG: And do you have positive memories of being a Young Communist secretary? Some are still proud of their activities there to this day.

P.T.: Let's say that many people didn't join the movement because they were crazy about the ideology. I can see that my children are worse off without the community life, the camping and the kind of tolerance that the Young Communists gave us.

HVG: And of course you must have worked with Gyurcsany there...

P.T.: That's true, although I dealt more with cultural and intellectual activities. Our work led to the first free, alternative workshops.

HVG: How come you weren't appointed to the government? Gyurcsany likes appointing former Pecs colleagues.

P.T.: I have a good relationship with the prime minister, even if it's not as close as my predecessor's was. It took me a good year to find my way around my predecessor's networks.

Norbert Izsák - János Dobszay