This image is part of an album probably published in about 1920 that contains 20 photographs of scenes in Carpathian Ruthenia, a mountainous region, most of which was part of the Austria-Hungary before World War I, but which became part of the new Czechoslovak state in 1919. Today the largest portion of it forms Zakarpattia Oblast in western Ukraine, with smaller parts in Slovakia and Poland. Uzhhorod, in present-day western Ukraine, was the main administrative, commercial, and cultural center of Carpathian Ruthenia. The city, also previously known as Ungvar, was important militarily for centuries because of its position at the southern end of the Uzhok Pass over the Carpathian Mountains. The Uzh (meaning snake or eel) River curls through the city, dividing it in half.