The Kőbánya cellar system or cellar system of Kőbánya (IPA: [ˈkøːbaːɲɒ]; in Hungarian: kőbányai pincerendszer, "cellar system of Kőbánya", or kőbányai alagútrendszer, "tunnel system of Kőbánya"), sometimes known to non-Hungarians simply as the Kőbánya Mine, or the Kobanya Mine, is an extensive network of subterranea, or underground spaces, in the 10th district of Budapest (Kőbánya), in Hungary. It is considered to be the largest cellar complex in the country. The complex as a whole started as an underground limestone quarry in a wine-growing area of present-day Kőbánya in the Middle Ages. Later wineries and beer breweries were established on the premises and they continued to use some of the underground spaces. During the Second World War, the dimensions of the complex enabled it to be used as a covert aircraft engine assembly plant and a civilian hideout. Since 2008, Kőbánya Asset Manager Jsc. organizes free guided tours annually (during Saint László Days), which introduce visitors to both the complex and the Havas Villa (erroneously also known as the Dreher Villa), one of the most notable properties connected to it. The underground complex is one of the locations that are participating in the European Heritage Days. The floor area of the complex is variously estimated to be somewhere between 180,000–220,000 m2 (1,900,000–2,400,000 sq ft; 44–54 acres) and the combined length of the tunnels is estimated to be around 32–35 km (20–22 mi). Corridors 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft) wide and halls 10 m (33 ft) high are common in it. The deepest part is approximately 30 m (98 ft) under the ground surface. The nature of limestone makes the spaces of the complex moist and moldy, and some parts are actually heavily flooded by groundwater. Currently the bulk of the tunnel system is the property of the Kőbánya district government (through its company Kőbánya Asset Manager Jsc., Kőbányai Vagyonkezelő Zrt.), a small portion is still owned by the Dreher Beer Breweries, who still actively uses some of the cellar spaces, and other small areas are in use by wineries. As of 2007, the Kőbánya tunnel system was not under architectural protection. The complex is sometimes referred to as an "underground city" or as an "underground world".
Name In Hungarian, the tunnel complex is known only as the circumlocutions kőbányai pincerendszer (cellar system of Kőbánya), or kőbányai alagútrendszer (tunnel system of Kőbánya), using no capitalization as per established orthography rules. The complex is also often metonymically referred to as the "Dreher cellars", the "Dreher cellar system", or the "brewery/beer cellars of Kőbánya", by association with the Dreher Beer Breweries which was a main user of it. This is an example of pars pro toto, as the brewery never came close to using the full extent of the complex. The otherwise unnamed limestone quarry sites which formed the network of tunnels gave the later municipal district, Kőbánya, its name, and kőbánya is in fact the sole Hungarian word for "quarry". Non-Hungarian individuals (especially divers) or media sometimes call the cellar system the "Kőbánya Mine", the "Kobanya Mine" or even the "Kobayna Mine" (a clear misspelling), as if this was the actual name of the mining sites, but technically speaking this is a misnomer (and a case of totum pro parte), as the sites never had Kőbánya as a formal name in any manner, and so the capitalized noun Kőbánya can only refer to the 10th district of Budapest in Hungarian. The only semantically correct way to refer to the Kőbánya quarry sites is to use the redundant form kőbányai kőbányák (literally, "the quarries of Quarry").
History
Limestone mining The tunnel system originated as an underground limestone quarry in an area which was known as Kőér (roughly "Stone Vein") in present-day Kőbánya. The area's name appears as Kewer (or Kőér in modern Hungarian orthography) in a royal charter written by Béla IV (in which he donated a piece of land to the city of Pest), a name of a 147 m (482 ft) high hill. This evidence suggests that the area was used as a source of limestone from at least the 13th century, but it is likely that the area provided limestone even in the Antiquity. The exact variant is known as Sarmatian limestone, which was formed from the deposits of the Pannonian Sea in the Central European Sarmatian stage of the upper-middle Miocene era, approximately 11.6–12.7 million years ago.
The Kőér quarry's activity have risen significantly in the early 17th century, and then experienced even more heightened output in the 19th century, as it provided limestone for the construction (or renovation) of some of the most prominent buildings in present-day Budapest;
the Parliament, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, the Citadella, the Fisherman's Bastion, the Matthias Church, the State Opera House, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences's building, the Margaret Bridge, ELTE's University Library and Archive, the Royal Hungarian Ludovica Home Defense Academy's main building, and the Castle Hill Tunnel's façades. The quarry served as a material source for many of the buildings of Pest which were built after the devastating flood of 1834, as well as for many of the villas of Andrássy Avenue. It is likely that the name of Fehér út (White Road) was the result of the presence of white limestone dust, as the road was the main route of transportation from the quarry sites to the Pest construction sites.
Winemaking and beer brewing Even when the quarry was still in active production, routine mining practices, cave-ins (due to the inadequate mining techniques used) as well as the groundwater penetration caused parts of it to be abandoned continuously. Above the quarry there were large vineyards from the 17th century on, and so wineries and wine merchants started to use the abandoned sections, making them more akin to purpose-built wine cellars.
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