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Wieś Kruszyniany
Kruszyniany in Podlasie is one of the few villages settled by Polish Tatars since the seventeenth century. Next to the wooden mosque stands the mizar, a Muslim cemetery hidden in a small grove on a rise just beyond the houses. It is one of the most important places of remembrance for the Tatar community in the country.
The burial ground was founded in the second half of the seventeenth century, soon after the land here was granted to Tatar soldiers. It is not known when the first gravestone was set; the oldest legible one dates from the end of that century. The cemetery is still in use and is one of the very few active mizars in Poland, protected as a historic monument.
The most striking graves are the nineteenth-century ones shaped as pyramids, columns and polished slabs, often carrying Arabic inscriptions alongside Polish ones. Modern graves resemble Catholic ones. The grounds are fenced but open; visitors are asked to keep quiet and respect the place of worship.
