According to legend, the 0 kilometer stone stood on the threshold of the Budavar palace, but during the construction of the Chain Bridge, it was taken down next to the bridge, from where it disappeared. No one missed it for a long time, even without it the bridgehead of the Lánchíd in Buda remained the origin of the kilometer numbering of state national roads. But at the beginning of the 1930s, following the idea of Pál Festetics, the Hungária Automobil Club took up the matter of erecting the new 0 kilometer stone. This meant that the sculptor Jenő Körmendi Frim Körmendi was commissioned to create a statue of the Virgin Mary, who created the one-meter-high Madonna kilometer stone, unveiled on May 7, 1932, out of white marble.
According to the contemporary description, the statue was placed on a two-meter limestone column, which was decorated with three stone reliefs. “One depicts the pedestrian, the wanderer of the country roads, the other the coachman, and the third the car driver. The following inscription can be read on the fourth side of the pedestal: The starting point of Hungarian national roads, 0 kilometers. It was claimed by the Hungária Automobil Club 1932” – they wrote about the work, which stood at the Lánchíd bridgehead in Buda for 12 years, then was destroyed during the siege of Budapest. And since after 1945 no one could seriously think that the 0 kilometer stone was depicted as Mary, the topic was not on the agenda either.
