3086 HUNGARY (Bács-Kiskun) - The traditional costume of Kalocsa region

The Kalocsa is a marshy but highly productive district, on the left bank of the Danube River, in south central Hungary, and forms part of the cultural area known as the Great Hungarian Plain. Although is not very large, it has developed a beautiful form of very colorful embroidery which is often considered to be representative of Hungary. This handicraft was born in the second half of the 19th century, and originally the needlework was only white and the embroidery patterns were merely made up by holes.

0610 HUNGARY (Veszprém) - A horse-drawn wagon in Ajka

As said Bernadett, this postcard is part of a series published in 2009, when the city Ajka, situated in the hills of Bakony, in western Hungary, celebrated 50 years of existence. At first glance it seems a bit strange the presence of a postcard showing a horse-drawn wagon in such a series devoted to a mining town founded in 1960, even if the Hungarians are passionate about horses and have a long tradition in their breeding, but things are not so, because the settlement, named after the Ajka clan, was first mentioned in 1214, to the age of the Árpád dynasty, when it was already about a hundred years old.

0491 HUNGARY - A hussar and his wife

The first mention of the Hussarones (in latin) was in documents dating from 1432 in Southern Hungary. According to Webster's, the word hussar stems from the Hungarian huszár, which originates from the Serbian and Croatian husar (pirate), from the Medieval Latin cursarius. According to another theory, the word is derived from the Hungarian húsz (twenty), signifying that 'one in twenty' was selected for service. The hussars originated in bands of mostly Serbian warriors crossing into southern Hungary after the Turkish invasion of Serbia at the end of the 14th century. The Governor of Hungary, the Walachian Iancu de Hunedoara, created mounted units inspired by the Ottomans. His son, Matthias Corvinus, later king of Hungary, is unanimously accepted as the creator of these troops, the first Hussar regiments being the light cavalry of the Black Army of Hungary.

0405 HUNGARY - A chief herdsman in Dévaványa, in 1940

Puszta of the Pannonian Plain, an exclave of the steppes of Asia, is the only region in central Europe which can provide the grazing for a large numbers of horses. It was therefore natural to be preferred by nomadic peoples coming from the steppes of Asia, be they Huns, Gepids, Avars, Magyars or Tartars, whose armies were based almost entirely on cavalry. Probably that, for example, the hordes of Batu Khan would have had to withdraw in the Russian steppe in late 1241, after they have devastated Eastern and Central Europe, had it not been Puszta. In addition, its geographic position was perfect as the basis for raids into Western Europe and Balkans.