In Lakitelek, a town on the Tisza River about an hour from Budapest, a Kyrgyz yurt was handed over to the local People's Institute in late October by the Kyrgyz National Manas Theater. Alongside the ceremony came a Hungarian-language edition of Kyrgyz poet Alykul Osmonov, performances by manaschi epic reciters and improvising akyn poets, and guests including TURKSOY Secretary General Sultan Raev and Kyrgyz Ambassador Eldar Abyldaev. It's the latest chapter in an unlikely but deep-rooted cultural bond between Hungary and Central Asia.
Lakitelek is no random spot. It was in the courtyard of poet and former parliamentary deputy speaker Sándor Lezsák's home in September 1987 that the Hungarian Democratic Forum was founded, a key moment in the country's shift to multiparty politics. Lezsák and his wife Gabriella later built the People's Institute there, now part of the Hungarikum Liget complex — hotels, museums, a planetarium, sports facilities and a National Pantheon of Hungarian cultural figures. In 2023, sculptor Györgyi Lantos unveiled a bronze bust there of Sayakbay Karalaev, the great Kyrgyz Manas storyteller, and visitors from Kyrgyzstan have reportedly travelled to Lakitelek specifically to see it.
The affinity isn't nostalgia alone. The Magyars arrived in the Carpathian Basin from the east in the late ninth century under Grand Prince Árpád, and medieval chroniclers framed the migration as a return to the lands of Attila's Huns. In the 13th century, Cumans — Kipchaks known to East Slavic chroniclers as Polovtsy — settled in Hungary, leaving traces in place names and family lore. Gabriella Sütő, for one, traces her mother's line to the Cuman-Kipchaks. Hungary's ties to the Turkic world are also formal: observer status in the Organization of Turkic States since 2018, with a representation office in Budapest.
For travellers, the most charming detail may be the institute's house rule: Kyrgyz students at Hungary's John von Neumann University are welcome guests, but they must take the stage themselves and present their own country — no officials, just what they choose to share. The Manas Theater hopes to build a full Manas centre in Lakitelek, with poetry duels and training for Hungarian manaschi. The Pantheon of Peoples Related to the Hungarians already honours Karalaev alongside Abai Kunanbayev, Nizami Ganjavi, Alisher Navoi, Yunus Emre and Magtymguly Pyragy. If you're road-tripping between Budapest and Kecskemét, this small town offers something genuinely off the beaten path: a slice of steppe-to-Pannonia history you can walk around, yurt and all.
