Trakai

Coordinates: 54°38′0″N 24°56′0″E / 54.63333°N 24.93333°E / 54.63333; 24.93333
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Trakai (disambiguation).

Trakai
City
Lake Galvė
.
UTC+3 (EEST
)

Trakai (Trakai

Trakai district municipality. The city is inhabited by 5,357[1] 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.

Historically, the Trakai Island Castle, which construction was finished by Grand Duke Vytautas, served as a residence of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.[2]

Names and etymology

See also:
Names of Trakai in different languages

The name of the city was first recorded in chronicles from 1337 in German as Tracken (later also spelt Traken) and is derived from the

Russian Imperial Police,[8][9] the Polish variant of the surname is Trocki.[10]

Demographics

The majority of Trakai's inhabitants (66.5%) in 2011 were Lithuanian, although the city also has a substantial Polish minority (19%), as well as Russians (8.87%).[11]

According to the census of 2021, there were 5426 inhabitants in Trakai city: 3694

Litvaks), Russians Old Believers
and others.

Geography

Trakai Island Castle

There are 200

Galvė with its 21 islands. Galvė covers an area of 3.88 km2, Vilkokšnis lake – 3.37 km2, the lake of Skaistis – 2.96 km2. There are Trakai Historical National Park and Aukštadvaris
Regional Park founded in the territory of the region.

Trakai Historical National Park was founded on 23 April 1991 to preserve Trakai as a centre of Lithuanian statehood as well as the park's authentic nature. The park covers 82 km2, 34 km2 of which are covered by forests, and 130 km2 of which are covered by lakes.

Aukštadvaris Regional Park was founded in 1992 to preserve the valuable landscapes in the upper reaches of Verknė and Strėva. The area of the park is 153.5 km2, most of which is covered by forests. There are 72 lakes here, the biggest of which is Vilkokšnis.

Trakai is a city built on water. The city is surrounded by the lakes of Luka (Bernardinai), Totoriškės, Galvė, Akmena, Gilušis. There are a number of architectural, cultural and historical monuments in Trakai. The history museum in the castle was established in 1962. Festivals and concerts take place in the island castle in summer.

History

Beginnings

The first settlements in this area appeared as early as the first millennium A.D. The city, as well as its surroundings, started developing in the 13th century in the place of

Teutonic Knights' chronicles in 1337. This year is considered to be the official date of city's foundation. When Grand Duke Gediminas finally settled in Vilnius, Senieji Trakai was inherited by his son Kęstutis. The Duchy of Trakai
developed and the city entered its best decades.

Golden age

The old Trakai Peninsula Castle

Kęstutis moved the town from Senieji Trakai to its current location, which is sometimes known as Naujieji Trakai. The new location was a place of intensive construction: a new castle was built in the strait between lakes Galvė and Luka and known as the Peninsula Castle, and another one, known as the Island Castle, on an island in Lake Galvė. A village grew around the castles. Vicinity of Trakai was protected by Senieji Trakai, Strėva, Bražuolė, Daniliškės and other hillforts from attacks of the Teutonic Knights. Despite the protection, both wooden castles were successfully raided by the Teutonic Knights several times in a row.

The town was in the center of a conflict between Grand Duke

Astrava Agreement
ending their quarrel. Vytautas became the Grand Duke of Lithuania while Jogaila technically remained his superior. Vytautas also regained his father's lands, including Trakai. Despite his official capital being in Vilnius, Vytautas spent more time in Trakai. In early 15th century he replaced the older, wooden fortress with a stone-built castle. Some design elements were borrowed from the castles of the Teutonic Knights as Vytautas spent some time with the Teutons forming an alliance against Jogaila in earlier years.

A typical triple-windowed wooden Karaim house in Trakai

Trakai became a political and an administrative centre of the Duchy, sometimes named a de facto capital of Lithuania.

Magdeburg Rights; it is one of the first towns in Lithuania to get city rights. The village started rapidly developing into a town. In 1413, it became a seat of the Trakai Voivodeship
and a notable center of administration and commerce.

Decline and reconstruction

The old post office building
Užutrakis Manor, which previously belonged to the Tyszkiewicz family
Panorama of Trakai, engraving by Tomasz Makowski (1600). The panorama shows the city's most important buildings, including the Tatar mosque.

After the

Grand Duchy of Moscow. The castle was refurbished by King Sigismund I the Old
, who set up his summer residence there; however, after his death in 1548, the castle gradually fell into disrepair.

During the wars between Russia and Poland between 1654 and 1667, the town was plundered and burnt. In the aftermath of the war with the Tsardom of Russia in 1655, both castles were demolished and the town's prosperity ended. The castle ruins remained a historical landmark. During the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Trakai was plundered again, as famine and plague swept the country.

watercolor on paper by Stanisław Masłowski

After the

Lithuanian SSR in the Soviet Union; subsequently many of the city's and area's ethnic Polish inhabitants left for the recovered Territories of the Polish People's Republic
.

In 1961, the reconstruction of the upper castle and a high tower construction were completed; however, the works came to a halt as a result of Nikita Khrushchev's speech of 21 December 1960, where the First Secretary declared that reconstruction of the castle would be a sign of glorification of Lithuania's feudal past. Restoration work in the lower castle were not resumed until the 1980s and were completed by Lithuanian authorities in the early 1990s. Today the Island Castle serves as the main tourist attraction, hosting various cultural events such as operas and concerts.

Karaim community

The Karaim kenesa

Polonisation, Trakai remained a notable center of Karaim cultural and religious life. Scholars who were active in Trakai in the 16th and 17th centuries include Isaac of Troki
(c. 1533 – c. 1594), Joseph ben Mordechai Malinowski, Zera ben Nathan of Trakai, Salomon ben Aharon of Trakai, Ezra ben Nissan (died in 1666) and Josiah ben Judah (died after 1658). Some of the Karaims became wealthy and noble.

The local Karaim community, which was the backbone of the town's economy, suffered severely during the

wooden synagogue with an interior dome.[14] Kibinai, which is the traditional Karaim pastry, became a local speciality and are mentioned in tourist guides.[15]

Twin towns – sister cities

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Lithuania

Trakai is twinned with:[16]

Notable people

See also

References

  1. ^ © Department of Statistics to the Government of the Republic of Lithuania Archived 7 July 2012 at archive.today M3010210: Population at the beginning of the year.
  2. ^ "Trakų pilys". Lietuvos vyriausiojo archyvaro tarnyba (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  3. ^ "Lietuvos miestų pavadinimų kilmė – tik upės ir pavardės?" [The origin of Lithuanian city names - only rivers and surnames?]. Delfi (in Lithuanian). 28 January 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
  4. ISBN 978-1-57181-264-3
    . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  5. ^ Isidore Singer; Cyrus Adler (1912). The Jewish encyclopedia: a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day. Funk and Wagnalls. p. 264. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  6. ISBN 978-0-306-81358-0
    . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  7. ISBN 978-0-313-32110-8
    . Retrieved 24 March 2011.
  8. S2CID 14625717
    .
  9. JSTOR 40922059
    – via JSTOR.
  10. ISBN 978-0-19-508137-4
    – via www.oxfordreference.com.
  11. ^ "Lithuania 2011 Census". Lietuvos statistikos departamentas. 2011. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012.
  12. ^ "Viduramžių Lietuvos visuomenė" (in Lithuanian). Archived from the original on 17 March 2007. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  13. ^ See (in Polish): Maciej Masłowski: Stanisław Masłowski - Materiały do życiorysu i twórczości, Wrocław, 1957, Ossolineum, p.140
  14. ^ PRESERVED WOODEN SYNAGOGUES IN LITHUANIA, documented by the Center for Jewish Art at Hebrew University in 1996 and 2004 "Wooden Synagogues in Lithuania". Archived from the original on 5 August 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2008.
  15. ^ Lonely Planet Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, 2012, p. 25.
  16. ^ "Miestai partneriai". trakai.lt (in Lithuanian). Trakų rajono savivaldybė. Retrieved 29 March 2021.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Trakai.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Trakai.
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