Torös, István On the Road to the Stars. Bertalan Farkas, the First Hungarian Cosmonaut

Bertalan Farkas was born in Gyulaháza, Hungary in 1949. His father was a shoemaker. He pursued his studies at a vocational secondary school in Kisvárda, and took to flying gliders at the Nyíregyháza club of the Hungarian Homeland Defense Alliance.
At the age of seventeen, he decided to choose aviation as a lifetime career path, and applied for admission to the Kilián György AviationTechnical College. After two years of successful studies, he went to the Soviet Union to continue his flying training there. He was commissioned as lieutenant in 1972 and transferred to a tactical fighter squadron of the Hungarian air force, where he flew supersonic combat aircraft.
His talent, diligence and love of the vocation helped him to cope with all difficulties. In the rank of captain, together with several of his comrades, he volunteered for cosmonaut candidate training. On 20 March 1978, he started to prepare for accomplishing the most difficult and greatest mission of his life at the cosmonaut training centre in Star City. As researcher-cosmonaut of the Interkosmos program, he lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soyuz-36 spacecraft.

He began his service in 1972 with the rank of lieutenant and was transferred to a tactical fighter squadron in the Hungarian Air Force, where he flew supersonic fighter planes.
His talent, diligence and love of his vocation helped him to overcome all difficulties. With the rank of captain, he and several of his comrades volunteered to train as cosmonaut candidates. On 20 March 1978, he began preparing for the most difficult and greatest mission of his life at the cosmonaut training centre in Star City. As a research cosmonaut in the Interkosmos programme, he lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soyuz-36 space probe.