Basic gear from the Hungarian People's Republic

[David Wilson]

The topic of this thread is the production of basic diving gear in the East European country of Hungary during the era of the People's Republic [Hungarian: Magyar Népköztársaság], which ran from 1949 to 1989.

Between the late forties and the late eighties, Hungary was governed by a Soviet-backed communist régime and effectively became a satellite country of the USSR. More information can be found in the Wikipedia article at Hungarian People's Republic - Wikipedia.

During the 1970s, I toured several East European countries. One of the countries I visited was Hungary. Some time in the 1990s, I went back to the country to attend a conference where I delivered a presentation in a room previously occupied by the local communist politburo.

Fortunately for this thread, there are several online sources of information about basic underwater swimming equipment made in Hungary, which is a landlocked country. All of them are written in Hungarian, which is a Uralic language distantly related to Finnish and Estonian. If I quote Hungarian sources in subsequent messages, I will provide a rough translation into English.

 

[David Wilson]

As was the case with other eastern-bloc countries, the beginnings of Hungarian diving were modest indeed:

The 2013 caption accompanying the above picture on the Búvárinfó (Diving Information) site at Búvárinfó explains: "60 évvel ezelőtt, 1953 szeptemberében Rádai Ödön egy külföldi újság képe alapján búvármaszkot készít. (Képünkön) A házilag készített búvárfelszerelést Rádai kollégájával, Chambre Attilával próbálta ki a Római-fürdő természetes forrásmedencéjében. Ezt a merülést tekintjük a magyarországi könnyűbúvárkodás kezdetének." My rough translation: "60 years ago, in September 1953, Ödön Rádai (pictured above) made a diving mask based on a foreign newspaper picture. The homemade diving equipment was tested by Rádai’s colleague Attila Chambre in the natural spring pool of the Roman bath. This dive is considered the beginning of Hungarian diving."

The site continues elsewhere: "Nine years ago, on 7 March 2004, Dr Ödön Rádai died at the age of 77. He was the outstanding personality of the Hungarian diving scene, who is honoured as the first Hungarian frogman."

"Not only did Dr Ödön Rádai’s personal diving popularise diving activities, but also the four books he wrote about the discovery of the underwater world are important documents of the early period ... (Ödön Rádai's Diving Books: Adventures in the Deep Sea - 1963, Excavations Underwater - 1964, Diving Calendars - 1966, Archaeologists under the water and in the air - 1990.)"

So much for the first faltering steps of Hungarian diving during the 1950s. Pictures of Ödön Rádai's home-made mask and fins below:

These pictures derive from another fact-filled site, Magyar Búvár-Múzeum (Hungarian Diving Museum) at :::... Magyar Búvár - Múzeum ...:::. The mask was fashioned in aluminium with a rubber skirt using an image from a foreign journal. The fins were based on a description in one of Hans Hass's books.

We'll move on next to the 1960s, when mass production of underwater swimming equipment began in the Hungarian People's Republic to supply growing recreational demand both at home and in neighbouring socialist countries.

 

[Bubblesong]

The dive watch in the photo is an interesting example.

 

[iamrushman]

thanks for sharing such interesting subjects.. is that a double hose scuba apparatus or is that a re-breather kit?...thank you in advance.

 

[David Wilson]

thanks for sharing such interesting subjects.. is that a double hose scuba apparatus or is that a re-breather kit?...thank you in advance.

Not really my area of competence as a "vintage snorkeller", but I did some searches online and found another page with the same image at Búvárinfó, where the use of "oxygen apparatus" (Hungarian: oxigénes) is mentioned for Ödön Rádai's dives in 1954 and 1956. Another web page at Négy évtized a búvárkodás bűvöletében confirms the use of oxygen in early Hungarian diving and the vagueness of awareness back then about the dangers of diving with oxygen beyond a given depth. Does any of this make sense?

 

[iamrushman]

absolutely makes sense....this is the beginning of the information we use today...thank you for going beyond the call of duty to increase my knowledge base.

 

[abnfrog]

I jumped (read paratrooped) with Hungarian Airborne in the 90s they showed me the rebreathers they used (same as pics ) they were Russian type , I forgot the numbers but the open circit stuff was MEDI , I belive that was east german .....ill try to dig up the picks

 

[David Wilson]

I'd be certainly interested in seeing your pictures, abnfrog. MEDI was indeed a company in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) / Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), aka East Germany. In one of my other threads at Basic gear from the former German Democratic Republic: East German fins I alluded to MEDI of Leipzig and its rebreather Medi-Nixe (above).

Now on to basic gear manufactured in the Hungarian People's Republic during the 1960s. My online investigations on this topic and period were made so much easier by the amount of historical research on Hungarian diving equipment done and posted on the Web by knowledgeable citizens of modern Hungary. Two web pages stand out in particular as stellar examples of painstaking work in the field: :::... Magyar Búvár - Múzeum ...::: and Búvármúzeum - kiállítás. The former provides very detailed information about individual items of gear complete with contemporary commercial literature, while the latter describes and illustrates the construction of a Hungarian diving museum, where you actually have to don diving gear to inspect the diving exhibits because the museum is located underwater. Do visit these sites and see for yourself, there are plenty of images even if you have to brush up your Hungarian to tackle the text.

Here is what the "Magyarbuvar" (Hungarian diving) site has to say about the early 1960s (my very rough translation):

During the early years of underwater swimming in this country, divers experienced major problems when it came to procuring gear. Apart from some basic items, there was no domestic production of diving equipment, what with the country’s first dive store only opening decades later in 1990. So demand was either supplied from abroad, mainly by the German Democratic Republic, Poland and later Yugoslavia — travel to the West was rare before the mid-1980s — or people made their own gear. Here is a short quotation from Básta Chambre Miller’s book “Frogmen” (1962): about diving gear procurement: “…Although stores do not always have them in stock, the opportunity to obtain good diving masks may arise in Hungary.” Well, this may have been the case, opportunities may have arisen, so it understandable why so many divers homemade the most basic equipment. NB: this book provides advice on preparing several items of gear, complete with specifications and illustrations. The situation slightly improved in the early 1960s because István Kőszegi’s rubber workshop had already produced “Cressi Rondine” style swim fins by then as well as a simple but useful dive mask.

Very modest beginnings, therefore, which was hardly surprising considering that Hungary was a landlocked eastern-bloc country lacking foreign currency reserves to purchase sports equipment manufactured abroad. Here is a picture on the Magyar Búvár web page:

It is captioned: "Basic diving gear made in Hungary amongst underwater camera cases (1965)". The fins in the image certainly resemble Italian-made Cressi Rondines, whose Luigi Ferraro design must be the most imitated fin design in the entire world. During the 1960s in the USSR, a Leningrad enterprise known as the Industrial Combine (промкомбинат) of the Leningrad Association of Hunters and Fishermen (Ленинградское общество охотников и рыболовов) was making a Rondine lookalike called the "L" ("Л" in Russian), presumably in honour of the city where it was made (Leningrad):

The Cyrillic character "Л" is clearly visible on the top of the blades and there is a star on the top of the foot pockets. The other pair of fins in the 1965 Hungarian photograph appear to be Polish Raja fins:

So much for the early 1960s, before basic diving gear production in the Hungarian People's Republic progressed from an artisan level to a more industrial scale. Next time I'll showcase Balaton fins first manufactured on behalf of the Hungarian FERUNION Foreign Trade Company brand in the mid-1960s.

 

[iamrushman]

looked at both the websites...really enjoyed the illustrations of the improbable diving apparatuses shown.

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks, iamrushman, for paying those sites a visit. The illustrations on foreign-language websites can be appreciated by monoglots and polyglots alike. Now for Balaton fins, which I mentioned in my last posting were manufactured on behalf of the Hungarian FERUNION Foreign Trade Company brand in the mid-1960s.

Balaton fins

This model is named after Hungary's - and Central Europe's - largest lake, Lake Balaton:

It's a popular tourist destination:

Returning to Balaton fins, they came with closed heels, open toes and blades with side rails and a centre rib on the top only. Here are the markings:

The use of the English phrase "Made in Hungary" is interesting as it implies that the Hungarian FERUNION Foreign Trade Company marketing the fins was minded to sell them in the West as well as to other eastern-bloc countries. I recall seeing a pair of Balatons in one of the dive stores of my home town in North East England during the late 1970s or early 1980s. The second image shows the incredible ornate detail on the top of the fins: a shoal of fish being chased by a speargun-toting scuba diver, which was and remains an activity forbidden by law in many countries.

The overall design of the Balaton fin may have been more derivative than its manufacturers were prepared to admit. Here is a leaflet from a freediving historian's website, which has a wonderful page of advertising copy from the 1960s at atrezzature subacquee d'epoca.

The leaflet is dated 1960 and publicises diving equipment made byb the Italian manufacturer Tigullio. Note the yellow fins worn by the scuba diver on the left of the image. Here's a closer look from a 1967 Tigullio catalogue:

The catalogue page above showcases Tigullio's Manta fin, which bears a very close resemblance to the Hungarian-made Balaton, right down to the uniquely shaped toe opening and the unusually patterned top of the blade. Nothing is ever quite as truly original as it claims to be in the world of fins. You can also see the Manta in an undated Tigullio diving gear catalogue downloadable from the Finnish Diving Museum website at http://www.sukellusmuseo.fi/esitteet/tigullio.pdf. It's part of a great collection of diving equipment catalogues posted on the museum's web page at www.sukellusmuseo.fi.

So much for the Balaton fin made during the era of the Hungarian People's Republic. According to the Hungarian diving web page at :::... Magyar Búvár - Múzeum ...:::, FERUNION marketed two other fin models named "Sirene" and "Sport", but I haven't been able to find any information about either of them, although a fin called "Syren" will appear later in our narrative. We'll review the next fin in this series, the Najade, in a few days' time.