Hungary is a little country with old traditions. Hungarian celebrate the 950th anniversary of the death of the first king Stephan I this year. As regards astronomy, during the Renaissance in the court of the Hungarian king Matthias I there was a modest flowering in astronomy and this continued until 1526, when because of the Turkish occupation, the region was cut off and remained so for centuries. I do not want to list all the tragic historical events. Rather I would like to emphasize what we know by own experiences: what it means to reconstruct destroyed buildings and to try to collect valuable old items that are thrown away by guilty negligence.