In a past life Vitae Shelter was a notoriously wild party hostel — now it’s on the frontline of humanitarian aid.
I first met Ian as a fresh-faced backpacker in the summer of 2009, when he checked me in to his hostel Carpe Noctem. He made me a cup of tea and spent 15 minutes telling me about Budapest, including all the ways we were going to ‘seize the night’.
Carpe Noctem was well on its way to winning Hostel World’s ‘Most Fun Hostel in the World’ award, so I knew to expect a party. But it wasn’t until I arrived that I realised what the name actually meant. I hadn’t learnt any Hungarian before visiting Budapest, and I sure as hell hadn’t learnt any Latin.
Over the next decade I checked in to that hostel about 20 times, seizing in excess of a hundred nights. It wasn’t long before I felt part of the furniture and I’d often book my next trip before I’d even finished the last. As the sign warns above the door: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Carpe Noctem soon gained siblings and Budapest Party Hostels was born, growing to an empire of six hostels, comprising of over 500 beds. And although Ian is far too humble to admit it, there’s no doubt the hostels he co-owned helped propel the city of Budapest to one of Europe’s top backpacking destinations.
But then along came Covid to ruin just about everything. And a couple of years later along came Putin to ruin it some more.
In February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and refugees began pouring over the Hungarian border, Ian wanted to do something to help. “People wanted to go and fight Russians” he told me, with the hint that by ‘people’ he really meant himself, “but I think everyone realised they’d just get shot in the first week”.
Ultimately, Ian decided that his talents lay elsewhere. “Making beds and filling them with people - that’s probably the only thing I’m actually qualified to do which is any use at all.” So he decided to use one of the empty hostels that had been a casualty of Covid and turn it into a refugee shelter.
My film Vitae Shelter: From the Ashes not only tells the story of the shelter itself and some of the people who found refuge there, but also of its previous life as a hostel, and draws an unlikely parallel between the two.
