Bugac

Hungary

Bugac is a small village in the Great Hungarian Plain, on the sandy soils of the Kiskunság ("Little Cumania") region. There are two most likely scenarios that you end up in this village: either visiting the puszta, or the steppelands, of the Kiskunság National Park or attending the Kurultáj, kind of a cross between a reenactment festival and a geniune celebration of the life of the Hungarians' nomadic ancestors, with a neo-pagan twist.

Bugac (pronounced BOO gahts) is a fairly new town founded in 1909 on a land that is as flat as a pancake and as sandy as a beach, partially covered with natural grasses tall and short. Afforestration efforts in the area has been ongoing since the 18th century, when the Austro-Hungarian queen Maria Theresa (r. 1740–1780) decided to stop the wind erosion and to stabilize the sand dunes that were growing larger and larger.