The Lipka Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group who originally settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the beginning of the 14th century.
Lithuanian Tatars in the Napoleonic Army with Red and White banners of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Page from the Dastan-ı Miraç a miscellany of religious works written in a Slavic language in the Arabic script, probably copied in the late 18th or early 19th century CE in western Belarus. Although Lipka Tatars are a Turkic people, they have been using Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian or Russian as their means of daily communication for centuries and the bilingual text of the Dastan gives an example of how important Islamic texts where brought into their actual language. The Slavic translation is written in modified Arabic characters with special letters to indicate sounds that do not exist in Arabic or Turkic.
Tatar mosque and graveyard in the Lukiškės suburb (1830), Vilnius. It was replaced by another, a more traditional one, in 1867
Charles Bronson, actor
Trakai is a city and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies 28 kilometres west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania or just 7 kilometres from the administrative limits of the Lithuanian capital city. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination. Trakai is the administrative centre of Trakai district municipality. The city is inhabited by 5,357 people, according to 2007 estimates. A notable feature of Trakai is that the city was built and preserved by people of different nationalities. Historically, communities of Karaims, Tatars, Lithuanians, Russians, Jews and Poles lived here.
Image: Traku pilis by Augustas Didzgalvis
Image: Trakai Galve 20
Image: Trakai, Lithuania panoramio
Image: Karaite kenesa in Trakai, Lithuania
