Kurultáj 2026: Three days when Hungary’s Great Plain returned to the age of the steppe – Photo gallery

Horsemen, warriors, yurts, falconers, archers and delegations from across the Turkic world transformed the plains of Bugac for three days. Kurultáj, one of Hungary’s most spectacular traditional heritage events, returned between 14 and 16 August 2026, drawing tens of thousands of visitors and turning a corner of the Great Hungarian Plain into a vast celebration of steppe cultures, historical memory and identity.

For an international visitor, Kurultáj can be difficult to fit into a single category. It is part historical re-enactment, part folk festival and part international cultural gathering. Its programme combines mounted archery and reconstructed battles with archaeological exhibitions, traditional music, crafts, academic presentations and representatives of nations and communities from Central Asia and beyond.

But the story of the Hungarian Kurultáj did not begin in Bugac.

From Kazakhstan to Hungary: the origins of Kurultáj

The word kurultai historically referred to an assembly or council among various Central Asian and steppe peoples. The contemporary Hungarian event, however, is a modern heritage festival rather than the direct continuation of a medieval institution.

Its modern history is closely associated with Hungarian anthropologist András Zsolt Bíró and research carried out among the Madjar community in Kazakhstan. A study examining Y-chromosomal similarities between the Kazakh Madjars and Hungarian populations was later published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

According to the organisers’ account of the festival’s history, the first modern Kurultáj involving a Hungarian delegation was held in the Kazakh settlement of Saga in 2007. A year later, the first Hungarian event took place at Bösztörpuszta, with more than 30 historical re-enactment groups and a Kazakh delegation attending.

The gathering moved to Bugac in 2010 and expanded dramatically. That year, the organisers invited representatives not only of the Kazakh Madjar community but also of numerous peoples identifying with Hun and Turkic cultural traditions. Seventeen nations were represented, according to the festival’s official history.

Since then, Kurultáj has become inseparable from Bugac, a village and vast grassland area in Bács-Kiskun County, roughly 120 kilometres south-east of Budapest.

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Kurultáj 2026 brings tens of thousands to Bugac

This year’s three-day programme began on Friday, 14 August, before reaching its busiest point over the weekend. The official programme included horse shows, traditional music and dance, combat demonstrations, mounted archery, falconry, wrestling and other heritage sports.

The scale was particularly visible during Saturday’s grand military parade. According to local news portal BAON, tens of thousands attended the weekend programme as mounted and foot re-enactors wearing reconstructed Hun, Avar and Hungarian Conquest-period equipment entered the arena.

One of the major battle demonstrations recreated an episode from the Hungarians’ western military campaign of 926, complete with mounted archers and tactical manoeuvres inspired by early medieval steppe warfare. Falconry and scenes depicting nomadic life were also presented to the crowds.

The visual spectacle extended far beyond the arena. A large yurt village was built for the festival, while Uzbek, Turkmen, Azerbaijani and Uyghur crafts were presented in the Eastern Bazaar. Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Mongolian exhibition yurts introduced visitors to the material cultures of the participating peoples.

Archaeology and anthropology bring the past to life

Kurultaj 2026 also offers a major archaeological and anthropological programme inside the Ancestors’ Tents, a group of giant yurts created in cooperation with several museums and scientific institutions. The exhibitions explore the heritage of the Hunnic, Avar and Hungarian Conquest periods through reconstructed weapons, horse tack, jewellery, everyday objects and original anthropological finds, alongside facial reconstructions of people who lived in these eras. Visitors can also see exhibitions devoted to traditional bow-making, decorated sabretache plates associated with the Conquest-period elite, and a reconstruction based on the skull of a Pecheneg warrior.

At the centre of the exhibition area stands Atilla’s Tent, a yurt more than 20 metres in diameter. It houses archaeological displays, anthropological reconstructions and the monumental Arrival of the Huns semicircular painting, which stretches for more than 20 metres and evokes the Hunnic period in the Carpathian Basin.

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More than historical re-enactment

Kurultáj has increasingly developed an international dimension. More than 25 nations were represented by flags during the main ceremony this year, BAON reported. András Zsolt Bíró, president of the Hungarian Turan Association and chief organiser of the gathering, addressed the crowd alongside Mustafa Şahin, president of the Turkic Academy.

For Hungary, this aspect of the event is also connected to the country’s growing political and diplomatic engagement with Türkiye and Central Asia.

A report by 24.hu notes that high-ranking Turkish, Kyrgyz and Uzbek political figures have visited Bugac over the years, while Hungarian politicians have also appeared at the festival.

This mixture of heritage, politics and national identity is one reason Kurultáj has also generated debate.

Night show at Kurultáj 2026

A temporary world on the Hungarian puszta

What is beyond dispute is the scale of the cultural phenomenon Kurultáj has become. For three days, hundreds of horses, historical re-enactors, musicians, craftsmen and international guests occupy a temporary settlement of yurts and tents on the Bugac plain.

Then, almost as quickly as it appeared, the settlement disappears.

That temporary character is perhaps part of Kurultáj’s appeal. History is not displayed behind museum glass but performed in front of thousands of spectators: horses thunder across the arena, arrows fly, traditional instruments sound from the stages and visitors walk between yurts belonging to communities separated by thousands of kilometres.

Whether approached as historical re-enactment, an expression of national identity or an unusual meeting point between Hungary and the cultures of the Eurasian steppe, Kurultáj has grown in less than two decades into one of the country’s most distinctive summer gatherings – and one of its most visually striking.