A Mathematics Teacher as the Town Guide

 A strict mathematics teacher turns out to be an obsessive collector of postcards and phototographic documents. Since then, Álmos József, a retired teacher of the Székely Mikó College, has become a key personality and authority on the processing of the history of Sfântu Gheorghe and its surroundings in pictures.

He has not found photographs of only two of the important events in the town's history yet, he says. One of them was the inauguration of the railway station of the capital of Covasna County on 10 October 1891, because due to some confusion in the disclosure of information, the town officials and the citizens arrived at the station just as the festive train was leaving for Brașov after the celebration. The other is a relief of the goddess Hungaria on the façade of the post office building, which the Romanian authorities have demolished – so far, no image has been found that would reflect the original sight.

It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that more people today know him as a local historian than as a mathematics teacher, even though he has left a lasting mark on the lives of quite a few students over more than forty years. He always corrects anyone who calls him a local historian: he is a mathematics teacher and always will be. But if somebody is going on a city tour of Sfântu Gheorghe, they should not do it without a book by Pro Urbe winner Álmos József.