According to the GfK Group's "Purchasing Power Index" study, the poorest settlement in Hungary in 2006 was Kiscsécs in southern Borsod. Located a few kilometres from Tiszaújváros, at the bend of the Sajó river, the village of barely 200 inhabitants was not even a third of the national average in terms of purchasing power per capita.
In those years Kiscsécs also earned the title of "the most cleanly Roma settlement in Borsod", as 90 per cent of the population was of Roma ethnicity. The unemployment rate was about the same. Both streets of the settlement are well-kept, with neatly mown grass in the ditches, clean houses, flowers and carefully cultivated gardens. But most of the buildings were unplastered, one or two were in their last years of decay, and there was no more room for them. Most of the houses had electricity, but hardly any water, and almost everyone used the wells in the streets. There was no gas or sewage system. For the utility companies, the investment was not worth it because, as they claimed, the locals would not be able to pay the utility bills anyway. There were telephones in one or two houses and in a street kiosk. There were two or three cars. There was no post office, no pub, not even a single shop in the village, and even for the most basic necessities one had to go to neighbouring Kesznyéten or Girincs - mostly on foot. Kiscsécs had no kindergarten, no school and no doctor's surgery.
So this was the situation in 2007, when the Friderikusz Most editorial team decided to leave the studio to show what life was like in Kiscsécs, Hungary's poorest settlement in 2006. They had no idea that they would be revealing a real problematic situation before the eyes of interested viewers.
This is the first part of a two-part show about Kiscsécs, produced in 2007.
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