Hungary— Tattoo scenes & cities

In the novel Fekete gyémántok (1870), Mór Jókai describes Hungarian miners pricking their sweetheart's name into the skin with needles, then rubbing in vermilion or Berlin blue. A double heart pierced by an arrow, or the miners' emblems of hammer and pick, often sit above the name. In 1872 the journal Magyar Nyelvőr called for collecting such folk tattoos; one reader replied that they were seen mostly on former soldiers and coachmen.

A national study of tattooing, organised by Ákos Kovács, ended in 1987 with two exhibitions, in Budapest and Kecskemét. According to the documentary Varrat, reviewed in 2023 by the Telex website, self-taught tattooists in the late 1980s built their machines from Walkman parts; after the change of regime, tourists at Lake Balaton created demand.