Crossing Historical Borders in the Carpathians

Recently I have been on a mini-vacation, hiking in the Carpathian mountains. These mountains stretch across a number of Eastern European countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia and Romania. 

My trip was from Budapest, Hungary, via the region of Maramureș, Romania, to Zakarpattya and Ivano-Frankivsk regions of Ukraine. This is a very picturesque area, with hills, valleys, rivers and, of course, mountains.

As it happens in Eastern Europe, we crossed a number of current borders:

the European Union and Schengen area borders, as well as Hungarian-Romanian and Romanian-Ukrainian state borders. But also typically for this area, we crossed multiple historical borders: the one of the Kingdom of Hungary and Austrian monarchy, between historical regions Maramoros, Carpathian Ruthenia and Galicia, as well as Romania - Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia - Poland inter-war borders.

The 1920 border between Czechoslovakia and Poland was even represented by physical artifacts - concrete border columns on top of the ridge along one of the hiking trails.

The hiking trail along the 1920 border. On the right side you can see one of the columns.

Lopsided, covered with moss and mold, the inscriptions on the columns were still readable. Letter "P" on one side stands for Poland, and "CS" on another side stands for Czechoslovakia. 1920 is the year, when the border was demarcated.

A border stone on top of peak Turkul

"CS" for Czechoslovakia. 1920.

"P" for Poland. 1920.

On top of the stone there were notches in the direction of the next border stone.

Nowadays this is the administrative border between Transcarpathia (formerly Czechoslovakia) and Ivano-Frankivsk (Galicia, formerly Poland) regions of Ukraine.

In this area borders changed very frequently even by Eastern European standards. This is why researching ancestors from Carpatho-Ruthenia and Galicia is so challenging, yet so fascinating.