Note: this topic is from . Thanks lizol.
Posted on 11/12/2007 3:07:24 PM PST by lizol
Travel: The mosaic of East Poland
By : SANTHA OORJITHAM
The Tartar Trail in Poland is off the beaten track, even for locals. SANTHA OORJITHAM meets the descendants of the nomads from the tablelands.
“THIS is the end of the world,” says Dzenneta Bogdanowicz as she surveys her rustic restaurant, horses in the paddock and traditional Tartar “jurta” hut in which tourists can stay.
Kruszyniany in northeastern Poland, 16km from the Russian border, is not a village you “pass through on your way to somewhere else”.
But during the “Sabantuj” harvest festival in June, the bubbly Tartar entrepreneur attracted some 2,500 people with a band, Tartar cooking lessons, archery, riding, children’s games and Tartar cultural shows.
“I want to show people how the Tartars look,” she explains. She’s constructing a cultural centre that will offer lectures, riding, archery and sledding in the winter, as well as accommodation for about 60 people. And since March this year, Kruszyniany features in the “Muslim Package to Poland” which wholesaler AJ Holidays is providing to between 40 and 50 Bumiputera travel agencies within the Klang Valley.
“Malaysia has a very special connection to the Tartar Trail,” notes the Ambassador of Poland, Eugeniusz Sawicki.
“Although many are not aware of this, Puan Sri Laila Taib, the wife of Sarawak’s Chief Minister, is a Tartar from Poland.”
The Polish Tourist Organisation and Furnel Travel of Poland helped to develop the programme that traces the “Tartar Trail” of the nomadic Muslims from Mongolia who fled to the region over 600 years ago from the steppes of central and northern Asia.
Poland, which had about 3,500 arrivals from Malaysia last year (up from 1,000 in 1999), is offering this new type of programme, says Emilia Kubik, project manager for Asian markets with the Polish Tourist Organisation.
“It’s a very traditional part of Poland,” she notes. “The infrastructure is not as developed as other parts of the country and more demanding travellers may not be satisfied. Even for Polish people, it is off the beaten track. But it is a chance to see unspoiled nature.”
The Tartars repeatedly invaded Poland in the 13th century, says Danuta Chmielowska, Professor of Turkology at the University of Warsaw: “Dressed in leather and riding stocky horses, they were fast, brave and athletic horsemen with unique battle tactics.”
But over time they integrated into Polish society and had their own regiment in its army.
“Puan Seri Laila’s late father was a Polish cavalryman, a brave officer who fought against the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939,” says ambassador Sawicki.
“He was an embodiment of the Polish Tartars centuries’ long loyalty to Poland.”
During World War Two (WWII), the Polish Tartars gave the money that they had been saving for a mosque in Warsaw towards the country’s defence.
At their peak, the Tartars numbered 200,000 in Poland and had up to 160 mosques.
But by the end of the 16th century they had lost their language, Chmielowska notes. And since Poland’s borders shifted after WWII, most of them live in what are now Belarus, Crimea, Lithuania and Ukraine leaving only about 5,000 in Poland.
A typical Muslim Package tour from Malaysia lands in Warsaw in the evening and takes Malaysians to the Warsaw Muslim Cultural Centre the next morning, explains AJ Holidays business development manager Ariffin Ali.
“The Tartar Trail starts here,” says Emir Poplawski, whose Tartar ancestors fought in King Jagiello’s Polish-Lithuanian army against the Teutonic army near Grunwald in 1410 and whose father and grandfather are both imams.
“Come to our centre for prayer, talks and have coffee and cakes with us.”
The Trail picks up again in northeastern Bialystok in Podlasie district, where the majority of the remaining Tartars (an estimated 2,000) live and the country’s mufti is based.
Tartar Dagmar Sulkiewicz, who runs the secretariat of the Muslim Religious Association here, urges visitors to try their rich cuisine including meat dumplings (“kolduny”) and a baked pastry rolled up with butter, white cheese, sugar and raisins (“pierekqczewnik”).
Nearby Kruszyniany can still be approached by a gravel road fringed by pine trees, although there is a modern tarred alternative route.
Bogdanowicz’ Tartar ancestors came here from Belarus and her husband Emir’s from Mongolia in 1679.
That was when King John III Sobiesko bestowed land on his Tartar soldiers for faithful service.
Some of their descendants still live in wooden cottages with thatched roofs and pray at the wooden mosque built in 1787.
The wedding ceremonies conducted here are exactly the same as they were 600 years ago, says mosque caretaker Dzemil Gembicki.
So is the “bunczuk” dance during the parties with which they celebrate the end of the fasting month.
“Here four religious cultures met Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Jewish and we have over 500 years’ common experience,” he says as he takes Polish students learning about religious tolerance through the nearby mizar, one of the oldest cemeteries in Poland with tombstones dating back to 1704.
At nearby Bohoniki, Eugenia Zainab Radkiewicz has just hosted an iftar meal for 150 people at the Pilgrims House across from the 19th-century wooden mosque.
At the nearby Muslim cemetery, soldiers who fought in the Tartar Uhlan Regiment between 1919 and 1920 and in the Tartar Squadron of the 13th Vilnius Uhlan Regiment from 1936 to 1939 are buried.
In southwestern Poland, Wroclaw was destroyed by the Tartars in 1241. But by the 16th century, like the rest of Poland, it had become a place of refuge while religious wars were fought elsewhere in Europe.
Today, “Muslims are involved in society here and are accepted,” says Ali Abi Issa, imam and director of the Wroclaw Muslim Cultural and Education Centre.
“Wroclaw is a meeting city, it is a city which unites,” said the late Pope John Paul II during his visit in 1997. “The spiritual tradition of the West and the East meet here.”
Wroclaw is now bidding to host Expo 2012 (also known as the World Fair) with the theme “The Culture of Leisure in World Economies” and is also one of the cities hosting UEFA Euro 2012 matches (which Poland is co-hosting with Ukraine), says Marzena Zuchowicz, an official with the municipality’s Expo 2012 team.
The “Muslim Package” also includes a visit to Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp in Polish territory during WWII, as an option.
Between one and 1.5 million people were killed here. The majority (about 90 per cent) were Jews, but according to Soviet Prisoner of War files, there were at least 58 registered Muslim prisoners. According to Gestapo records, at least five Muslims died here.
Polish Tartars were among them, says Reverend Dr Manfred Deselaers, director in charge of education and programmes at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Auschwitz.
But today, “Auschwitz is more and more a symbol of peace work,” he says. “If it was about the destruction of people and relationships during WWII, now it is about healing relationships.”
And Polish Tartars have taken part in inter-religious prayers, for example, two years ago during the ceremony marking 60 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, he notes.
Wroclaw’s imam Ali agrees: “What happened in Europe and in Auschwitz in the last century is a very good lesson about peace, the rights of the minority, co-existence and tolerance. Auschwitz is one of the places where we can understand ourselves and our religion.”
Nearby Cracow, the 750-year-old former capital, is the last stop on the Tartar Trail. The local legend has it that in 1241, a watchman in the tower of St. Mary’s Church was playing the bugle to raise the alarm during the first Tartar invasion.
“The melody stopped when a Tartar arrow pierced his throat,” recounts Jacek Lodzinski, owner of several upmarket restaurants and cafes in Cracow. “Till now, every hour, the bugle is played as a symbol of taking care of the city and it suddenly stops.”
The Tartars are also remembered every June when a hobby-horse (“lajkonik”) and its bearded “rider” in Tartar traditional dress, accompanied by an orchestra, dances and marches down the streets of the city, says Patrycja Przybysz from the municipality’s City Promotion and Marketing Office.
Tourism Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Victor Wee has visited several of the destinations along the Tartar Trail.
Traditionally, Malaysians keen on visiting Muslim sites have headed to Mecca, Turkey and Iran, he notes, but with such a package, Poland could attract these tourists.
“Malaysians didn’t have the opportunity to visit while Poland was under the Iron Curtain,” he adds. (The communists fell during parliamentary elections in 1989.)
His advice: “Explore and see more of Poland, before it becomes more developed and the prices increase.” 23
They weren’t Tartars. They were MONGOLS...led by, I believe, Kadaan Quan, one of Chagatai’s sons, and Buri Quan, brother of Batu, the Quan whose ulus were being expanded to the West. And the attack on Poland was a subsidiary operation to the main attack- against Hungary, led by Batu, Mongke [son of Tolui], and the greatest general in history...Sabotai Bahadur.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks lizol.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
