About a quarter of Hungarians suffer from psychiatric illnesses, many of them linked to depression, and the nation also has one of the highest rates of alcoholism. That feeling of helplessness was exacerbated under communism, when life was controlled by the almost all-embracing Marxist state.

Is Hungary the oldest country in Europe?

Founded in 897, Hungary is one of the oldest countries in Europe (before France and Germany became separate entities, and before the unification of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.) Around 1000 CE, the Kingdom of Hungary was one of the largest states in Europe, bigger than France.