Lapos Beach sandcastles damaged overnight
Artist Zoltán Koliger builds sandcastles on Szeged’s Lapos Beach. He had already completed two of his major works and was planning to model the Eiffel Tower to honor the 2024 Paris Games when he found his castles damaged on Thursday.
– Someone damaged them overnight – Zoltán Koliger begins the conversation as we approach him with a colleague from another media outlet to photograph the sandcastles.
The castles were built with a special drip technique, requiring long work hours and a lot of patience. Koliger spent over 250 hours creating the two castles that can be seen at one end of the sandbank at Lapos Beach.
– I make them exclusively for the love of the Tisza River and Szeged. I try to represent the underwater world and our connection to the universe too – he explains.
While busily reconstructing one of the castles, the artist tells us he's been working on rebuilding the damaged parts all day. He also spoke about his frustration over the senseless vandalism, pointing out that he just wanted to bring joy to people through his work.
Zoltán Koliger asked us not to include him in the pictures as he already agreed to be photographed for a news article the other day and he didn't want to be featured in any more photos.
In recent years, sand structures have been popular on Szeged's only public beach. At the other end of the beach, next to Belvárosi Bridge, lies a 6-m-long crocodile, that's been rebuilt every year since 2015 by Sándor Szívós.
Photos: Szilvia Molnar / Szegedify
