Students studying at Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, on Nov. 20.
Photographer: Akos Stiller/BloombergInside Viktor Orban’s $1 Billion Academy for Tomorrow’s Nationalists
The Budapest-based college has turned into a powerful tool for the populist Hungarian leader to export his world view.
In a former four-star hotel in Budapest’s leafy 11th district, Mathias Corvinus Collegium invites young people into a relative world of luxury.
Its headquarters a 20-minute walk up from the Danube River is replete with spa access and study pods overlooking a park with a duck pond. Students can browse seminars ranging from digital transformation to modernism in architecture. They can hang out in a café named after conservative English philosopher Roger Scruton or sign up for study trips to the UK and Ireland.