The riches of Viktor Orbán’s home village

Driving half an hour west from Budapest, the road drops away into farm lanes and rolling hills before reaching a phalanx of black steel fences and towering brick walls.

The structures hide the vast Hatvanpuszta estate, a former Habsburg manor that once belonged to Archduke Joseph and is now owned by the father of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Its elaborate renovation has turned this corner of Fejér county into a shorthand for a new era of Hungarian power, clustered around the man who has ruled the country for the past 16 years.

A flight taken by the FT over the estate revealed what the roadside hides: carefully manicured gardens; pools cut into the sprawling grounds; a palm house and a chapel; and a grand main building with gleaming wings.

Orbán has long rejected allegations of corruption, as well as any suggestion that the site belongs to him, describing it instead as his father Győző’s “half-finished agricultural operation” bought with legitimate earnings. But people familiar with Orbán’s plans say they understand it is being rebuilt for the prime minister’s own use.

Hatvanpuszta, located in Orbán’s home village of Felcsút, has irritated opposition voters for years. But in recent months, it has become a rallying point. Last autumn, hundreds of people answered a call to protest at its gates despite the rural location, their vehicles forming a line stretching over a mile.

With an election scheduled on April 12 — and Orbán’s party trailing in the polls as the opposition hammers him with graft accusations — Hatvanpuszta has become an emblem of what Hungarians are willing to tolerate and what they might finally vote to change.

A government spokesperson and Orbán’s father did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Opposition activist Róbert Puzsér called the estate “not only the embodiment of shameless posturing, but a symbol of Viktor Orbán’s feudalism and obscene wealth accumulation”.

But Hatvanpuszta is not the only such symbol in tiny, rural Felcsút, which the prime minister’s friends and family have turned into a hive of opulence.

Orbán has spent decades presenting himself as a man of humble roots: a boy from Fejér county who grew up playing football in the fields and tending farm animals after school.

“I have never been a wealthy man, I am not now and will not be,” he told parliament a decade ago, rejecting accusations of ties to domestic oligarchs. “At the fall of communism, we had to choose whether to be businessmen or political leaders. I made my choice.”

But as Orbán’s power has expanded in the 16 years since he took office — making him Europe’s longest-serving current head of government — the wealth around him has thickened into a system.

The prime minister nominally owns little. But a small circle of his associates now controls large chunks of the Hungarian economy and frequently receives lucrative public contracts.

A flight over Felcsút and a tour through its roads brings everything into focus.

Orbán’s own house sits modestly at the edge of Felcsút, a small plain building behind a wooden fence. Aside from a whitewashed exterior, it bears few similarities to his father’s residence and its Habsburg-styled renovation, which local media have estimated to have cost about €30mn.

From above, Hatvanpuszta’s 2,000-square-metre main building glimmers against the surrounding gardens. There are smaller new mansions, built on the sites of the now-demolished officers’ residence and servants’ quarters. The estate’s two sheepfolds and its granary appear to have been turned into luxury guesthouses.

Several people familiar with the matter told the FT that Orbán and his wife Anikó Lévai were intimately involved in the estate’s reconstruction, and local media have reported that Lévai personally oversaw its decoration. The estate’s ownership status first became a national story a decade ago, when Orbán posted a photograph of himself there with a dog, which was publicly registered as belonging to his son and domiciled at the property.

Local media have reported that Győző Orbán paid for and renovated the house with the help of one of his son’s oldest friends: Lőrinc Mészáros.

A schoolmate of the prime minister, Mészáros served as mayor of Felcsút and rose from obscurity to become Hungary’s richest person, thanks in part to massive state construction contracts. He has famously credited his rise to “God, good fortune and Viktor Orbán”.

Hungarian journalist Krisztina Ferenczi reported in a 2014 book on Orbán’s alleged wealth that, after his father bought the estate in 2011, Mészáros rented it for 10 years. He reportedly paid the entire decade’s rent up front in a lump sum worth about half a million euros, helping Győző Orbán repay a bank loan on the property. The FT has not been able to independently verify Ferenczi’s reporting.

Later, photographs published in local media showed machines branded with Mészáros’s company logos working on the renovation. Mészáros did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Győző Orbán owns several businesses, including a nearby stone quarry that, according to local media reports, has profited from orders from state-contracted road builders.

Across the street from Orbán’s small house is the stuff of childhood dreams, realised with the power of the state: a resplendent football stadium. First designed by a Hungarian pioneer of organic architecture, it has almost twice as many seats as there are residents in Felcsút.

The stadium and adjoining training complex are home to Felcsút FC, the club Orbán founded and which has enjoyed tens of millions of euros in public money through a system under which companies could deduct donations to sports clubs from their tax bill. Mészáros is president of the foundation that operates the team.

Next door is the Hotel Pancho, which started as youth sports accommodation but is now a four-star hotel operated by a non-profit founded by Orbán.

Nearby, a narrow-gauge railway — built with EU funds — sends small trains winding through the hills.

Within a stone’s throw is Botaniq, an exclusive golf club owned by Orbán’s father, according to company filings and land records. But he does not operate the club: that is outsourced to a company whose ownership is split between Mészáros and Orbán’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz.

Further down the same road, there is a mansion under construction that belongs to Mészáros himself, land records show. Local media reported in 2024 that a dazzle of zebras was living on land he owned in the area, though these were not visible when the FT flew past.

Like Mészáros, Tiborcz has benefited heavily from government contracts, public records show. Tiborcz has denied his rise has anything to do with his family ties.

No “company directly controlled by István Tiborcz has participated in any state public procurement tenders since 2015,” a spokesman told the FT. Tiborcz’s holding group BDPST owns stakes in publicly listed companies and those “may occasionally take part in state tenders; however, the proportion of these contracts is negligible relative to their total revenues”, the spokesman said.

Billions of euros in EU funds and Hungarian taxpayer money have flowed to associates of Orbán, often in single-bid tenders.

The EU fought to stop the alleged misappropriation of its funds and ultimately froze about €20bn owed to Hungary due to concerns about rule of law and corruption. For more than three years, most of that money has remained locked away.

Orbán has consistently denied wrongdoing and cast the suspension of funds as a political attempt to unseat him. “The situation is clear: Brussels wants a change of government in Hungary,” he said in late 2024.

When a Hungarian MP accused him this month of corruption, he countered that graft was worse when he was in opposition before 2010.

The erosion of rule of law under Orbán has also alienated him from EU peers, as has his frequent support for Russia. Analysts who have followed both Hungary and Russia say their leaders’ associates have accumulated wealth in similar ways — and that this wealth is used to wield power.

“Big deals must always benefit the family” of the leader, said Péter Krekó, director of the Political Capital think-tank in Budapest. “Political and economic power are inseparable. You cannot rule unless you are one of the richest men in the country.”

But Orbán is more accountable to voters than Putin. And Hungary’s economic woes had left him particularly vulnerable in next month’s election as voters struggled to make ends meet while Orbán’s circle enjoys fabulous wealth, said Dániel Hegedűs, deputy director at the Institut für Europäische Politik in Berlin.

“Hungarians have become receptive to the problem of corruption. That was a game-changer,” Hegedűs said.

Opposition leader Péter Magyar is the strongest opponent Orbán, a five-time premier, has faced in years. As Magyar rails against alleged corruption, his Tisza party has surged to double-digit leads over Orbán’s Fidesz party in some opinion polls.

“For the first time Magyar can capitalise on this,” Hegedűs said. “Not abstractions like GDP growth but daily realities like the decay of social services, healthcare, or public transit.”

At the protest outside the Hatvanpuszta, Anna, a student from nearby Székesfehérvár, said the economic divide had become stark.

“Old people have to choose between heating their homes or taking out prescription meds, while Orbán takes private jets to see his favourite footballers across Europe, and comes home to a palace like this,” she said. “That is not a leader. It’s a ruler. And we no longer want to be ruled.”

Cartography by May Bancoyo