Thousands Claiming Ties to the Huns Descend on Hungary

A Hungarian festival for those claiming kinship with the ancient nomadic Huns wound down Sunday after drawing tens of thousands of distant cousins from across Asia and the Caucasus.

Police said some 80,000 people descended on the village of Bugac for three days of concerts, horse racing, folk dances, archery and other activities at the "Kurultaj" festival, a word of Turkish origin meaning "tribal meeting".

Many of the participants came dressed as the nomadic people or as their ferocious fifth-century ruler Attila the Hun, to the event that drew delegations from 20 nations, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Japan.

"All the nations descended from the Huns are represented at the Kurultaj festival," organizer Andras Biro told the press.

The event, which was also organized in 2008 and 2010, has traditionally been associated with nationalist circles, with the Hungarian far-right party Jobbik using the festival as an occasion to ask the government to set up a committee of experts to prove "the true legacy of Hungarians, related to the Huns".