Unemployed, in debt and facing another year living on the streets in Hungary, Laszlo Andraschek spent his last remaining coins on a lottery ticket. Now the formerly homeless man has a choice of accommodation around the world after becoming Hungary’s biggest ever lottery winner with a prize of about 630 million forint (US$2.85 million).
Andraschek, whose win in September last year went unnoticed until he made a significant donation to a hostel for the homeless this month, said buying the ticket was a chance decision at a railway station on his way to Budapest for a workshop for recovering alcoholics.
“I had only picked six numbers and the female shop assistant reminded me that I needed to pick a seventh,” he said. “I told her to make it 24 — it doesn’t matter anyway.”
However, he was wrong and now plans to use his winnings to establish a foundation for addicts and women abused by their husbands.
The 55-year-old resident of Gyor, Hungary, said his first act was to repay his debts, before cycling to a car dealer.
“When the car salesman asked me how much I would be willing to spend, I held up three fingers. As I had arrived on a bike, he assumed this meant 300,000 forints, but actually I meant 3 million,” he said.
As neither he nor his wife can drive, the car will be driven only by his children.
Andraschek has since bought apartments for each of his three children, paid off the debts of his relatives and is planning to travel to Italy, having not previously held a passport.
He and his wife, Aniko, said they will invest their money cautiously and avoid the ruinous spending splurges of many a lottery winner.
“I have become rich, but I have not become a different person. I could buy a large-screen TV because I can afford it, but I won’t buy three because I can afford it,” he said.
Having struggled with alcoholism, Andraschek finally quit five years ago and says he “now has no need to return.”
The news of Andraschek’s dramatic upturn in fortunes came as human rights activists organized a wave of protests worldwide against a new law that bans sleeping rough, in a country that has 30,000 homeless people.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the