!!!Fiaker

Fiaker, Viennese term for a two-horse, numbered hackney carriage, as 
opposed to the earlier, unnumbered carriages called "Janschky-Wagen" 
and one-horse "Comfortables"); "fiaker" also refers to the carriage 
driver. The term "fiaker" became a standard name for this type of 
carriage almost thirty years after the first fiaker was licensed 
(1693), and was adopted from the type of horse-drawn hackney carriages 
in Paris run by an innkeeper who lived in the Rue de Saint Fiacre in 
1662. Around 1790 there were approximately 700 in Vienna, in their 
heyday between 1860-1908 there were over 1,000 fiakers. The carriage 
drivers were often local eccentrics, who sometimes publicly performed 
as whistlers or untrained singers. The annual Fiaker Ball held on Ash 
Wednesday also became famous and the chanteuse  "Fiakermilli" was 
immortalised by R.  Strauss in his opera "Arabella". In 1997 there 
were approximately 100 fiakers available for tours around the city for 
tourists. In 1984 women began driving fiakers as well. Since 1998 a 
special fiaker driving license has been required. Vienna's 
17%%sup th/%  district is home to a fiaker museum.

!Literature
B. F. Sinhuber, Die Fiaker von Wien, 1992.


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