★ History and art · Białystok and aroundKruszynianyA green wooden mosque in a country village, built by the Muslim Tatars who have lived here for more than three hundred years.
The storyAt the end of the 17th century King John III Sobieski gave land in Podlasie to the Tatar horsemen who had fought for Poland, in place of the pay the state could not afford. Their descendants are still here: Kruszyniany and Bohoniki have two 18th-century wooden mosques and mizars, Muslim cemeteries in the woods. In Kruszyniany you can try Tatar cooking, including pierekaczewnik, a layered filled pastry.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Białowieża and the southGrabarkaA hill covered with thousands of wooden crosses brought by Orthodox pilgrims, the holiest place of Polish Orthodoxy.
The storyAccording to tradition, during a cholera epidemic in 1710 a local man dreamt that anyone who carried a cross up the hill and drank from its spring would be healed. Ever since, the faithful have climbed it carrying a cross, large or small, and left it beside the church: today there are tens of thousands. For the Feast of the Transfiguration, on 19 August, tens of thousands of pilgrims arrive and pray through the night before the candlelit crosses.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Białowieża and the southSoceThree Orthodox villages along the Narew, Trześcianka, Soce and Puchły, with wooden houses decorated with painted shutters and carvings.
The storyIn these villages of the Narew valley the wooden houses have windows framed with carved surrounds and shutters painted blue, green and white, each one different, following a tradition of the local carpenters. The signposted “Land of Open Shutters” route links the three villages, with their Orthodox churches, including the church at Puchły, famous for its icon. There are very few facilities: it is a journey into the past of the eastern countryside.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Augustów and the Suwałki regionSejnyA small town on the Lithuanian border, where a 19th-century synagogue has become home to a cultural centre devoted to the meeting of peoples.
The storySejny was a town of Poles, Lithuanians, Jews and Russian Old Believers, with a Baroque Dominican monastery, the basilica and the White Synagogue. After the war the Jewish community was gone and the synagogue fell into ruin. In the 1990s the Borderland Foundation (Pogranicze) restored it and organises concerts, exhibitions and the Sejny young people's klezmer orchestra there. A few kilometres away, Puńsk is the centre of the Lithuanian minority, with bilingual signs.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →