edit: a few weeks ago, not this past summer that is still occurring
About the security (or rather the extremely low quality) of the eTicket system: that was developed by a 3rd party that belongs to the Deutsche Telekom group, and that company is indeed quite a high profile system integrator working with a lot of large companies, banks, etc. So it's a bit of surprising (even if corruption is involved) that they released it in this form. Actually I'm surprised by these bugs even for a prototype that was forcefully pushed out of the door, because you just never do these things in the first place.
Age seems like a bit of a red herring to me. Here in San Francisco BART cars are about that old, Muni runs 90 year old Italian trams and American ones that are close to 70 years old. And, of course, the cable cars. BART bears about the worst of it because many parts are no longer available.
They are in such a bad shape and/or hard to rebuild that not much remains of the original during the refurbishment.
The Russians didn't magically win the tender, i think it was realpolitik. They manufactured them originally in the first place, they have the means to do the work, and without knowing if the proposals were technically equivalent, Hungary needs to maintain a good relation not only to its neighbors, and fellow EU members, but to Moscow.
Also the trains are not in a worse working condition than the Siemens Combino trams or the Siemens and Alstom technology at Metro 4 line, which also had integration problems during the first months of operation. The problems will be addressed by the russian firm as well as as the western firms addressed those problems.
Maintaining good relationships with the Russians wasn't part of it, of course. We'll pay them enough for Pask2 (awarded without tendering). But even if not, because enough does not exist, more is always better, if this is the price of a 'good relationship' then we already have a bad relationship with them. I.e. they are blackmailing us. (Of course, it's not the case, but they are probably more willing to pay back than the Estonians...)
No, these problems are not like other problems, though Siemens and Alstrom were also both involved in corruption cases (I mean outside of Hungary), these are more serious and didn't happen with the others. It's not simply only integration problems.
The metro system is owned by the city, and ultimately the government. With all its problems, it is still not a mafia.
Although you are in a different part of the world, but when visiting the poor and backwards Eastern Europe, please use your common sense, or at least do some fact check.
Lets not pretend that the tenders made by the BKK is any more lawful or fair than the rest of the tenders that dominate the market around here.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
That is what I've meant by saying "basically own" - you can do whatever you want with company and you can't be held responsible for any of your actions.
And that's not just some imaginary scheme - that shit happens on daily basis in most of Eastern Europe countries. I'm from Ukraine and we're trying to fight that shit for several years now.
Turns out there are just a lot of incompetent people.
Because we elected them based on their skills in lying rather than governance. And also because government jobs naturally attract and promote incompetence.