text:
Łapy

Łapy is a town in north-eastern Poland, in Białystok County, Podlaskie Voivodeship; the administrative centre of the urban-rural gmina Łapy. It is situated in the North Podlasie Lowland, on the river Narew.

According to data from 31 December 2010, the town had 16,049 inhabitants.

Situated here are the bankrupt Railway Fleet Repair Works, a dairy, and the sugar refinery closed in February 2008. Now, Łapy is a medical and educational centre for the region of the former Łapy county.

Location
The town of Łapy is located in north-eastern Poland. According to Kondracki's division of Poland into physico-geographical regions, the town of Łapy sits on North-Podlasie Plain, over the Upper Valley of Narew. The town of Łapy lies by the Narew river. The terrain is elevated here from 120 to 130 metres.

Included in Białystok agglomeration, the town is situated in the buffer zone of Narew National Park.

According to data from 1 January 2010, the town area then was 12.14 km2.

Between 1954 and 1975 Łapy was the administrative centre of Łapy County of Białystok Voivodeship. Between 1975 and 1998 the voivodeship was smaller.

Residential areas

Presently Łapy comprises the following parts:
 * Barwiki
 * Bociany
 * Goździki
 * Leśniki
 * Osse
 * Wity
 * Wygwizdowo
 * Zięciuki

Foundation
The name 'Łapy' is of Masovian origin, and it initially represented a soubriquet of the kin, who founded the settlement on Narew. A legend links the foundation of the town with the nobleman Łappa of the Lubicz coat of arms, who settled down here during the 15th-century Masovian colonisation.

The first historical records of these lands come from the early 13th century. It is known that in 1375 Płonka Kościelna was an independent parish. Firstly Łapy was a backwater where the gentry cultivated patriotic traditions. Soon as a result of the village's development, new settlements emerged on the eastern and the western banks of the river Narew, which was a water trade route from Suraż to Gdańsk in 16th and 17th centuries, and after World War II from Puszcza Białowieska to Tykocin; and at the east side of the high road from Suraż to Płonka.

Expansion
Following the expansion of the family, a series of backwaters were founded, including Rechy, Brusięta, Barwiki, Korczaki, Pluśniaki, Wągle, Wity, Zięciuki, Kosmyki, Łazie, Stryjce, Wojtysze. Some of those names disappeared replaced by others, such as: Goździki, Dębowizna, Bociany, Leśniki. After the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, Łapy fell to the Prussian Partition. In 1807, after the Tilsit Peace Treaty, it became a part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and after its dissolution, in 1815, it passed to so-called Congress Poland in the Russian Partition of Poland. An important event for the future history of Łapy was Napoleonic army's marching through twice in 1812. In the 1820s the backwaters had 1000 inhabitants and 180 houses. In 1825, a fusion of six backwaters (Łapy-Barwiki, Łapy-Leśniki, Łapy-Zięciuki, Łapy-Wity, Łapy-Goździki, Łapy-Bociany) produced the farm settlement of Łapy.

Industrialisation
Łapy owes its development to the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway with a station here, opened on 15 December 1862, and to the French having built here the works for repairing steam locomotives and carriages the same year. That caused an influx of tradesmen and labourers not only from the nearby villages, but also from distant Polish locations and from the Russian Empire.

In the beginning of the January Uprising, the railway station was captured by a Polish insurgent detachment of Władysław Cichorski nom de guerre "Zameczek" on the night of January 22–23, 1863, and then recaptured by the Russians on January 27, 1863. Further clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops were fought in Łapy on July 11 and 18, 1863. Following World War I, Poland regained independence and control of Łapy.

The repair works exist today as 'ZNTK Łapy S.A.' They played a decisive role in Łapy's urbanization, the town charter granted on 1 January 1925.

At the eve of the German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in 1939, the town population reached 8,000 citizens. Following the invasion, Łapy was first occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, and then by Germany until 1944, when it was finally restored to Poland. During the war, the town was 80% destroyed, and the entire local Jewish population was murdered by the German occupiers in the Holocaust.

Roads
There are two voivodeship roads crossing the town:
 * Roszki-Wodźki – Łapy – Brańsk – Ciechanowiec
 * Łapy – Markowszczyzna

Furthermore, the national road runs 19 km to the north, being upgraded to  express-way.

Railway
There are two railway routes going through the town:
 * Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway (Białystok – Warszawa)
 * Łapy – Ostrołęka (partly out of order)

Łapy hosts a railway station for all kinds of trains, which is situated in the town centre; and a railway stop Łapy Osse for slow trains only, in the Osse quarter, 3 km from the centre.

Łapy's railway destinations are numerous: Bielsko-Biała, Warszawa, Suwałki, Białystok, Wrocław, Opole, Częstochowa, Kraków, Szczecin, Poznań.

Bus services
There are many small PKS bus stops and the main one – Łapy, next to the railway station building in the centre, from which local lines operate in the directions of Białystok, Zambrów, Siemiatycze, Bielsk Podlaski, etc.

Bike and foot trails
Choroszcz – Zawady – Baciuty – Dobrowoda – Turośń Dolna – Borowskie Michały – Suraż – Łapy – Płonka Kościelna – Stara Łupianka – Jeńki – Waniewo – Kurowo – Stare Jeżewo – Tykocin – Choroszcz Łapy Osse – Gąsówka-Osse – Płonka Kościelna – Płonka-Strumianka – Stara Łupianka – Bokiny – Jeńki – Waniewo – Kurowo – Stare Jeżewo Łapy Osse – Grochy – Turek – Pietkowo – Suraż
 * Szlak rowerowy czerwony.svg Red bike trail; the ring route of Narew National Park
 * POL Szlak czerwony.svg Red foot trail of Włodzimierz Puchalski – 36 km
 * POL Szlak zielony.svg Railwaymen's green foot trail

Economy
Until 2009, Łapy's economy was mainly based on the then functioning: Unfortunately for the town, both of the works have been closed.
 * sugar refinery, being one of the best in Poland and selling its sugar to inter alia Islamic countries and to the Middle East;
 * and Railway Fleet Repair Works.

There are plans to create a subzone of Tarnobrzeg Special Economic Zone. A corresponding bill has been submitted at The Cabinet.

The development of industrial economy in Łapy and its neighbourhood is hindered first of all by the close proximity of Narew National Park. On the other hand, the town has a potential for the tourism industry.

Historical buildings

 * St. Archangel Michael's parish church complex in Płonka Kościelna:
 * 1800 wooden chapel
 * c. 1905 brick church
 * c. 1905 fence and brick gate
 * Water tower in the complex of the railway station, built at the beginning of the 20th century
 * 1920s Etkun's House in Spółdzielcza Street
 * St. Peter and Paul's parish church complex:
 * 1920-27 brick gate
 * c. 1929 wooden presbytery
 * c. 1930 brick vicarage
 * 1920 chapel
 * St. Adalbert's parish church complex in Uhowo
 * Four wooden houses built in 1924 in the railwaymen's settlement Wygwizdowo
 * 27 brick houses built in the 1930s in the railwaymen's settlement Osse
 * Block group in Sikorskiego St. and Spółdzielcza St.
 * Market square

Memorials

 * The statue of Jan III Sobieski in the nearby village Płonka Kościelna
 * A stone dedicated to LTC Stanisław Nilski-Łapiński
 * The statue of Heroic Polish Children, dedicated to the children killed during the World War II

Graveyards

 * Historical church graveyard in Płonka Kościelna
 * Roman Catholic graveyard in Płonka Kościelna
 * Orthodox graveyard in Osse
 * Roman Catholic graveyard in Uhowo
 * Jewish cemetery in Łapy

Nature

 * Narew National Park
 * Bike and foot trails

Cuisine
The officially protected traditional food of Łapy (as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland) is the klinek z Łap, a local type of traditionally produced quark.

Sport clubs and organisations

 * Pogoń Łapy, the town's main football club
 * UKS Olimp LO Łapy
 * UKS Łapa Łapy

Cultural organizations and associations

 * Łapskie Towarzystwo Regionalne

Kindergartens

 * Council Kindergarten nr 1, ul. Polna 27
 * Council Kindergarten nr 2, ul. Cmentarna 23

Primary schools

 * Primary school, ul. Jana Matejki 10 (managed by 'Edukator' association from Łomża)
 * Primary school nr 1, ul. Polna 9
 * Primary school nr 2, ul. Piękna 17
 * Primary school nr 3, ul. Letnia 1

Gymnasiums

 * Gymnasium nr 1, ul. Matejki 19
 * Gymnasium nr 2, ul. Letnia 1

High schools

 * High School nr 1, ul. Bohaterów Westerplatte 10
 * Vocational High Schools of Mechanics' Group, ul. Władysława Sikorskiego 68
 * Vocational High School
 * Basic Vocational School
 * High School nr 2
 * Specialised High School nr 2
 * Postgraduate School
 * High School for Adults
 * High School for Adult Remedial Education
 * Postgraduate School (extramural)

Prominent people

 * Józef Kosacki (1909–1990), Polish engineer, inventor, officer, who invented the first mine detector. His device was a significant contribution to the Allies' victory in World War II.
 * Waldemar Kikolski (1967–2001), Polish paralympic athlete born in Łapy

History literature concerning Łapy

 * Bitwy i potyczki 1863-1864, oprac. Stanisław Zieliński, Raperswil 1913.
 * Rocznik Statystyczny Królestwa Polskiego za 1913, Warszawa 1914.
 * Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z oznaczeniem terytorialnie im właściwych władz i urzędów oraz urządzeń komunikacyjnych; Warszawa-Przemyśl 1933.
 * Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Warszawa 1887.
 * Księga adresowa Polski (wraz z W.M. Gdańskiem) dla handlu, przemysłu, rzemiosł i rolnictwa na 1930 r., Warszawa 1930.
 * J. Beszta Borowski, Pół wieku zarazy 1944-200. Moje zapiski faktów i refleksji, Komorów 2002.
 * S. Chankowski, Powstanie styczniowe w Augustowskiem, Warszawa 1972.
 * A. Dobroński, Infrastruktura społeczna i ekonomiczna guberni łomżyńskiej i obwodu białostockiego (1866–1914), Rozprawy Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 197, Białystok 1979.
 * Ł. Lubicz-Łapiński, Łapy i ich mieszkańcy. Zaścianki Łapińskich w XV-XVIII w., Białystok 2004.
 * S. Łaniec, Partyzanci żelaznych dróg w roku 1863, Warszawa 1974.
 * M. Olechnowicz, Z przeszłości Łap i okolic, z. 1, Łapy 1999.
 * J. Szumski, Łapy w latach 1862-1914, Białostocczyzna”, nr 1, 1997.
 * P. Sobieszczak, Poświętne wczoraj i dziś. Rys historyczny parafii i gminy do końca XX wieku., Łapy 2008.

title: Łapy


text:
Mońki

Mońki is a town in northeastern Poland and, as of 1999, is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. From 1975 to 1998 it was part of the Białystok Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Mońki County.

History
In the 16th century, Mońki was a village owned by the Mońko family. In the 19th century, when building railroad from Grodno was in progress, in the neighborhood of Mońki a train station was built. After the First World War a Catholic church was built. In the late World War II Germans destroyed the church. After the war, in 1954, the village was adopted as capital of the Mońki county. That increased development of the village and in 1965 Mońki became a city. In 1975 the county was deleted, but it returned in 1999 (1998).

Symbols
Mońki's coat of arms presents a lady with potatoes. It is connected with an old type of farming in Mońki village and it neighbourhood. In city (also in 2012) was organised a day of potato.

Many of Mońki's inhabitants have moved abroad, particularly to the US, so they can send remittances to their families.

Economy
In Mońki existed especially food enterprises. The largest is Moniecka Spółdzielnia Mleczarska (dairy).

Education
In Mońki existed two primary school (one connected with first grade music school), gymnasium. general liceum, technikum and szkoła zawodowa.

Transport
Through Mońki goes droga krajowa 65 (road), connecting city with Białystok and Grajewo.

Export
Several tech companies have risen during the last 10 years.

Tourism
Near Mońki there are some of the greatest swamps in Europe, the Biebrza River Swamps, and in 1993 the government created the Biebrza National Park (BNP) to recognise and protect their unique nature. The Biebrza River Swamps are an important habitat for rare birds such as the ruff (pol. batalion), which is a symbol of the BNP.

Notable people

 * Maria Janion (1926-2020), literary critic and feminist
 * Józef Piotr Klim (born 1960), politician
 * Katarzyna Żakowicz (born 1975), shot putter

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mońki


text:
Siemiatycze

Siemiatycze (Сямятычы Siamiatyčy) is a town in eastern Poland, with 14,391 inhabitants (2019). It is the capital of Siemiatycze County in the Podlaskie Voivodeship.

History
The history of Siemiatycze dates back to the mid-16th century, when the village was part of the Podlasie Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1542, King Sigismund II Augustus granted town charter to Siemiatycze, and with the 1569 Union of Lublin, it passed to the Kingdom of Poland within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

For centuries Siemiatycze remained property of several Polish-Lithuanian magnate families. The town, conveniently located along the Bug River, and near local administrative centers at Drohiczyn and Mielnik, became a popular market place, where farmers sold their produce. The disastrous Swedish invasion of Poland (1655–60) did not bring widespread destruction to Siemiatycze. The town continued to prosper, at the expense of other municipalities of the region of Podlachia, some of which burned to the ground by the Swedish, Transilvanian and Russian invaders.

In the 18th century, Siemiatycze was among most developed towns of the region. At that time it belonged to the Sapieha family, which founded the town hall, synagogue and other buildings. Noblewoman Anna Jabłonowska founded a midwifery institute, hospital, Christian monastery, palace with a museum and a new printing house. She also obtained a permission from the kings of Poland for the town to hold two annual fairs. In 1807 Siemiatycze was annexed by the Russian Empire, and during January Uprising, the Battle of Siemiatycze took place here, after which most of the town was destroyed, together with the Jabłonowski Palace, which has never been rebuilt. Following World War I, Poland regained independence and control of the town.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, Siemiatycze was invaded by Germany, which then handed it over to the Soviets in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviets carried out arrests of prominent local Poles, including the town's mayor. The Soviet Union occupied the town until 1941, and afterwards it was occupied by Germany until 1944. Siemiatycze was to a large extent destroyed during the war, and its significant Jewish community was almost completely exterminated by the Nazis (with the help of the local Poles) in the Holocaust, although a few Jews survived by paying their neighbors to hide them. After the war, the population of the town shrank to 4,000.

From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Białystok Voivodeship.

Sports
The local football club is Cresovia Siemiatycze. It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable people

 * Marek Antoni Nowicki (born 1953), human rights lawyer

Twin towns — Sister cities
Siemiatycze is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇹 Castrolibero, Italy
 * 🇩🇪 Zehdenick, Germany

title: Siemiatycze


text:
Sokółka

Sokółka (Саку́лка, סאקאלקע) is a town in northeastern Poland, seat of the Sokółka County in Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is a busy rail junction located on the international Warsaw–Białystok–Grodno line, with additional connections which go to Suwałki and the Lithuanian border.

History
The settlement was founded as a royal village located on the route connecting Knyszyn and Grodno. Sokółka was granted town rights by King Sigismund III Vasa in 1609. The town's layout with its central square is attributed to starost Antoni Tyzenhauz.

In the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, the town was annexed by Prussia, and in 1807 it passed to the Russian Partition of Poland. In 1861, Walery Wróblewski came to Sokółka and founded a secret organization in preparation for a Polish uprising, which broke out in 1863. He was one of the main organizers of the January Uprising in the territory between Białystok and Grodno. He organized an insurgent unit and commanded in many battles in the region, and eventually became one of the leaders of the uprising for the entire Białystok and Grodno regions. Sokółka was one of the sites of Russian executions of Polish insurgents during the January Uprising.

In 1873 Sokolka was the birtplace of Alexander Bogdanov, polymath and revolutionary, who was a serious rival to Lenin for leadership of the Bolshevik Party in its early years.

Following World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the town.

In the course of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, Sokółka was captured by the Red Army on 21 September 1939, and then occupied by the Soviet Union under which it was annexed into the Byelorussian SSR on 14 November 1939. It was administered as a part of the Belastok Region of the Byelorussian SSR. Several Poles from Sokółka, including the town's mayor, were murdered by the NKVD in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940. Sokółka was under German occupation from June 1941 until 24 July 1944. It was administered as a part of the Bialystok District of Nazi Germany. The Germans established the Sokółka Ghetto for the imprisonment of Polish Jews. The ghetto served as staging point for deportations to death camps during the Holocaust similar to most Jewish ghettos across the occupied country. The Jews of all surrounding villages and towns including Krynki, Janów, Czyżew, and Zaręby Kościelne were kept there. In total, 8,000–9,000 people were murdered. The main synagogue was destroyed. The Jewish community was not restored.

On 24 July 1944, troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front of the Red Army dislodged the German occupying forces from the town. Its administration reverted initially to the Byelorussian SSR, but on 16 August 1945, it was restored to Poland. Administratively it was located in the "large" Białystok Voivodeship until 1975, then the "small" Białystok Voivodeship until 1998.

Sights
The sights of Sokółka include the Museum of Sokółka Land (Muzeum Ziemi Sokólskiej), historic townhouses and the historic churches: the Catholic church of St. Anthony built in a neoclassical style in 1848, and the St. Alexander Newski's Orthodox Church from 1830.

Transport
Sokółka is located on the S19 highway, parts of which (including the local part) are still under construction (as of 2021). There is also a train station in the town.

Sports
The local football club is Sokół Sokółka. It competes in the lower leagues.

Twin towns—sister cities
Sokółka is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Rochlitz, Germany
 * 🇱🇹 Šalčininkai, Lithuania

title: Sokółka


text:
Suchowola

Suchowola (Suchovola, Сухаволя Suchavolja) is a town in north-eastern Poland in Sokółka County in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, located on both banks of the Olszanka River. Its population is 2,196 (2017).

History
Suchowola was founded in the 16th century and in 1777 it was granted town rights. It is a former Polish royal town. In 1775, royal astronomer Szymon Antoni Sobiekrajski published a report in which he stated that Suchowola is the exact geographic centre of Europe.

During the Polish–Soviet War, the invading Soviets murdered five Poles in Suchowola on August 9, 1920.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was initially occupied by the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the war, the town's population was about 3,000, about 1,500 of whom were Jewish. Several Poles who worked or lived in pre-war Suchowola were murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in 1940. In June 1941, the town passed under German occupation, and an auxiliary Polish police force recruited. The SS in conjunction with the Polish police and some local Poles, brutalized, raped, robbed, and murdered Jews with impunity throughout July. On one occasion, Jews were driven into a pond and beaten until several drowned. Dozens of Jews were burned alive after the Polish police and SS drove them into a house and setting it on fire. Visiting German dignitaries watched and took photographs of the violence. Later in July, the Germans established a ghetto, which was seriously overcrowded and without adequate water. Jews from neighboring villages were brought to the ghetto over the next few months. The Poles and Jews robbed and beat the Jews as they entered the ghetto. To try to make the ghetto livable, and to combat starvation and disease, the Jewish population established a bakery, planted vegetable gardens, opened a medical clinic and pharmacy, and mandated periodic baths in a public bathhouse.

In November 1942, the Polish and German police rounded up the Jews in the ghetto. The sick and elderly were shot there. Others were loaded onto horse drawn carts or made to walk 34 miles to a transit camp in Kiełbasin, south of Grodno. Though most Jews in the transit camp were sent to Treblinka or Auschwitz, Suchowola's Jews were sent to the Grodno ghetto in December. Many Jews died there after contracting diseases in the transit camp. A few Suchowola Jews were able to escape and were sheltered by local Poles. There are thought to have been 23 Jewish survivors from Suchowola. Though several Polish auxiliary policemen were charged and tried for war crimes, after initial convictions, they were let off in the Polish postwar trials. A summary of Suchowola's wartime experiences can be found in the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.

Due to serious losses in population during World War II, namely the entire Jewish population and some Poles who also lost their lives, the rights of a town were halted in 1950. On January 1, 1997, Suchowola became a town again. Polish priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, who was born in the nearby village of Okopy, was baptized in the local Church of Saints Peter and Paul. He also attended school in Suchowola. Currently, the municipal park by the church bears his name. His monument is located in the park, and in the town there is also a small museum dedicated to him.

Other sights include the historic Church of Saints Peter and Paul, and a boulder symbolizing the geographic centre of Europe, located in the municipal park. Many people still visit Suchowola today.

Cuisine
The officially protected traditional food from Suchowola is sękacz z Suchowoli, a local type of sękacz, a traditional cake of north-eastern Poland (as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland).

Notable residents

 * Zenon Mróz (born 1930), materials science engineer

title: Suchowola


text:
Supraśl

Supraśl (Су́прасль; Supraslė) is a town and former episcopal see in north-eastern Poland.

Supraśl is in Podlaskie Voivodeship (province) since 1999, previously in Białystok Voivodeship (1975–1998) (1975–1998), and is in Białystok County, about 15 km northeast of Białystok. It is the seat of the Gmina of Supraśl. Its population is 4,526 (2004).

History
The settlement was founded in the 16th century. After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, it was annexed by Prussia. In 1807 it passed to the Russian Partition of Poland. In 1823, a 10th-century manuscript, the oldest Slavic literary work in Poland, named the Codex Suprasliensis, was discovered in the Supraśl Monastery by Michał Bobrowski.

After 1831, the textile industry developed. In 1834 manufacturer Wilhelm Fryderyk Zachert came from Zgierz to Supraśl and significantly contributed to the development of the village into a town. Until the mid-19th century, it was the largest center of the textile industry in the region, before it was surpassed by nearby Białystok. In the 19th century, mostly Catholics lived there, but also Protestants, Orthodox and Jews. During World War I from 1915 to 1919 it was occupied by the Germans. After 1919, in independent Poland. During World War II it was occupied by the Soviets from 1939 to 1941 and by the Germans from 1941 to 1944. The Soviets destroyed part of the monastery's interior, and the Germans destroyed most of the industrial plants.

In 2001 Supraśl was recognized as a spa town.

Ecclesiastical History

 * On 6 March 1798 was established the Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy (Eastern Catholic Diocese) of Supraśl / Supraslien(sis) Ruthenorum (Latin adjective), on presently Polish territory not previously served by that particular church sui iuris (Byzantine Rite in Ruthenian language). Pope Pius VI's papal bulla Susceptam a Nobis di papa, thus canonically executed its erection, which was devised by the Prussian kingdom (Fredrick William II) in January 1797 for the parts of the Eparchy of Brėst and Archeparchy of Kiev that became Prussian in the Third partition of Poland. The Pope made it exempt, i.e. directly subject to the Holy See, not part of any ecclesiastical province, and installed a cathedral chapter comprising a provost and four canons.
 * It was suppressed on 1809.02.14, without Catholic successor, by imperial edict of the Czar Alexander I of Russia, annexing it to the Eparchy of Brest, after the Convention of Bartenstein (April 1807) and Peace of Tilsit (July 1807) transferred its territory from Prussia to the Russian empire.

It has had only three incumbents :
 * Exempt Eparch (Bishops) of Supraśl of the Ruthenians
 * Theodosius Wislocki, Basilian Order of Saint Josaphat (O.S.B.M.) (1797 – death 1801.05.18)
 * Nicholas Duchnowski (1803.05.16 – death 1805.06.25)
 *  Bishop-elect Father Leo Jaworowski (1807 – 1809 not possessed lacking confirmation by Rome), next Auxiliary bishop of Eparch Jozafat Bułhak in Brest and titular bishop of Volodymyr.

Supraśl is also a titular bishopric of the Polish Orthodox Church.

Culture and heritage
It is the home of the Supraśl Lavra, founded by Aleksander Chodkiewicz, one of six Eastern Orthodox monasteries for men in Poland. The Codex of Supraśl, the oldest Slavic literary work in Poland and one of the oldest of its kind in the world, is named after the Supraśl Lavra. Since September 2007 it has been on UNESCO's Memory of the World list. The Museum of Icons is located in the Chodkiewicz Palace within the monastery complex.

Other historic landmarks include the Buchholtz Palace, which now houses the Art High School, the Catholic churches of Our Lady Queen of Poland and of the Holy Trinity, the town hall, cinema, a 19th-century park and historic wooden architecture.

Twin towns — Sister cities
Supraśl is twinned with:

 * 🇵🇱 Zgierz, Poland

Nature
Supraśl is surrounded by the Knyszyn Forest Landscape Park with the very interesting nature - see the picture below.

Sources and external links

 * Official town webpage
 * GCatholic
 * Bibliography - ecclesiastical history
 * Augustin Theiner, Die neuesten Zustände der Katholischen Kirche beider Ritus in Polen und Rußland seit Katharina II. bis auf unsere Tage, Augsburg 1841
 * Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, vol. 6, p. 389
 * Alfred Ignatowicz, Greckokatolicka diecezja supraska (1796–1807), in "Wiadomości Kościele Archidiecezji w białymstoku" 1976, r. 2, nr 4, pp. 105–116.
 * Radosław Dobrowolski, Opat Supraski Biskup Leon Ludwik Jaworowski, Supraśl 2003, p. 333.
 * Nikolaj Dalmatov, Supraslskij Blagowescanskij Monastyr, St. Peterburg 1892, p. 611.
 * Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, vol. 71, Venice 1855, pp. 76–78
 * Leonard Drożdżewicz, Overheard in Suprasl Academy, „Znad Wilii”, Viešoji įstaiga „Znad Wilii” kultūros plėtros draugija, ISSN 1392-9712 indeks 327956, nr 1 (81) z 2020 r., pp. 91–97, (in Polish)http://www.znadwiliiwilno.lt/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Znad-Wilii-1-81m-1-1.pdf

title: Supraśl


text:
Suraż

Suraż is a town in north-eastern Poland situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, seat of Gmina Suraż in the Białystok County.

Suraż, which has a long and rich history, and was a royal town in the Kingdom of Poland, currently is one of the smallest municipalities of the country, with a population of only 1,012 (as of June 30, 2012).

History
The history of Suraż dates back to the 11th century, when a defensive gord was established on the right bank of the Narew river. In 1390, King Władysław II Jagiełło handed Suraż, together with other towns in the area, to Mazovian Duke Janusz I of Warsaw. The Suraź Castle is mentioned in a 1392 Teutonic Knights chronicle, when it was destroyed by forces of Grand Master Engelhard Rabe. Some time in the late 15th century, a new castle was built, with a brick tower, and a prison. The castle was destroyed during the Swedish invasion of Poland (1655-1660).

Suraż received Magdeburg rights on September 16, 1445, from King Casimir IV Jagiellon. In 1520, it became seat of a powiat in the Land of Bielsk Podlaski, and in 1569, following the Union of Lublin, Suraż was transferred back to the Kingdom of Poland. Until the Partitions of Poland, it was administratively located in the Podlaskie Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. The town was inhabited by three communities - Polish, Jewish and Ruthenian.

Following the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, the town was annexed by Prussia, and made part of the newly formed province of New East Prussia. On defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in 1807 at the following Treaty of Tilsit the area was part of the territory ceded to the Russian Empire. Its area was one of the centers of the Polish January Uprising of 1863–1864. A Polish insurgent unit entered the town and fought a victorious battle against the Russians already on the night of January 22–23, 1863, shortly after the uprising broke out. Further clashes took place on February 8, 1863 and May 13–14, 1863. After the rebellion, the Russians imposed heavy taxes on its residents, and the population of the town rapidly declined. Furthermore, construction of the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway (1862) bypassed Suraż, which deepened its decline. During World War I, the town was occupied by Germany. After the war, Poland regained independence and control of the town. According to the 1921 Polish census, the population was 94.2% Polish and 5.6% Jewish.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, and then by Germany until 1944. Afterwards it was restored to Poland.

From 1944 to 1975, it was administratively part of the "large" Białystok Voivodeship, and then from 1975 to 1998, it was part of the "small" Białystok Voivodeship.

title: Suraż


text:
Tykocin

Tykocin is a small town in north-eastern Poland, with 2,010 inhabitants (2012), located on the Narew river, in Białystok County in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is one of the oldest towns in the region, with its historic center designated a Historic Monument of Poland.

Middle Ages
The name of Tykocin was first mentioned in the 11th century. Through the 14th century, it was a castellany in the Duchy of Masovia on the border with pagan Lithuania. Tykocin received its city rights from prince Janusz I of Warsaw in 1425, but several months later, the settlement was transferred to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (within the Polish-Lithuanian Union) by the Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło. Shortly later, in around 1433, Duke Sigismund Kęstutaitis gave the town along with other surrounding villages to Jonas Gostautas, and it became the most important seat of the Lithuanian Gostautai noble family.

Early modern era
In the 1542, upon the death of Gostautai family's last member, the town was acquired by Polish king and Lithuanian Grand Prince Sigismund II Augustus who had the medieval stronghold remodelled into a Renaissance castle. One of the largest arsenals of Poland was located in Tykocin. It subsequently became a royal town of the Polish Crown, located within the Podlaskie Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province and was eventually awarded to Hetman Stefan Czarniecki for his military service during the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1661. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Tykocin was granted new privileges by kings Stephen Báthory and Władysław IV Vasa. Later on, through the marriage of Czarniecki's daughters, it passed to the Branicki (Gryf coat-of-arms) family. From 1513 until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Tykocin was a county (powiat) seat.

It was Tykocin, where in 1705, King Augustus II the Strong established the Order of the White Eagle, the highest and oldest Polish order.

Most of Tykocin's landmarks was built in this era, including the Holy Trinity Church, monasteries of the Congregation of the Mission and the Bernardines, the former 17th-century military hospital, the synagogue and the statue of hetman Stefan Czarniecki.

Late modern era and recent times
Following the Partitions of Poland Tykocin was annexed by Prussia and Izabella Poniatowska-Branicka sold the town to the Prussian government in 1795. In 1807, it was briefly regained by Poles as part of the Duchy of Warsaw in accordance to the Treaty of Tilsit. In 1815, it became part of the Congress Kingdom of Poland, later on forcibly annexed by Imperial Russia. During the November Uprising, on 21 May 1831, Polish insurgents won a battle against the Russians at Tykocin. After the massacres of Polish protesters committed by the Russians in Warsaw in 1861, Polish demonstrations and clashes with Russian soldiers took place in Tykocin. Shortly after the outbreak of the January Uprising, Tykocin was the site of a battle between Polish insurgents and Russian troops on 24–25 January 1863. During the uprising, Tykocin was attacked by a Cossack unit led by Captain Dmitriyev, who forced the populace to sign a request to the tsarist administration to make him the town's military superior. In this way, he obtained office, and then committed macabre murders of the inhabitants. Dmitryev's cruelty even caused the Russians themselves to report him to the tsarist authorities, but he was only fined.

Tykocin was reintegrated with Poland after the country regained independence after World War I in 1918. During the interwar period, the population of Tykocin had reached an estimated 4,000 inhabitants.

During World War II, it was occupied by the Soviets from 1939 to 1941 and the Germans from 1941 to 1944. The Jewish population of Tykocin, estimated at 2,000 people, eradicated by Nazi Germans during the Holocaust. On 25–26 August 1941, the Jewish residents of Tykocin were assembled at the market square for "relocation", and then marched and trucked by the Nazis into the nearby Łopuchowo forest, where they were executed in waves into pits by SS Einsatzkommando Zichenau-Schroettersburg under SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper. A memorial now exists outside the town for the Tykocin pogrom.

In 1950, Tykocin lost its town rights due to population loss in World War II, only to regain it in 1993. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the former Białystok Voivodeship.

Points of interest

Tykocin contains a preserved historic center listed as a Historic Monument of Poland. Notable heritage sights and points of interest include:
 * Tykocin Castle built before 1469, extended in 16th century and partially reconstructed in 2005
 * The Baroque Tykocin Synagogue Bejt ha-Kneset ha-Godol, built in 1642, one of the best preserved in Poland from that period and a major tourist attraction.
 * A baroque Church of the Holy Trinity and former monastery of Congregation of Mission founded in 1742 by Jan Klemens Branicki
 * Baroque Bernardine Monastery from 1771–90
 * Monument of hetman Stefan Czarniecki from 1763
 * Former military hospital from 1633–1647, the Alumnat, one of the oldest of its kind in Europe, now a hotel
 * Baroque manor house Rezydencja ekonomiczna, currently the Center of Culture, Sport and Tourism
 * Catholic cemetery, dating back to the 18th century
 * Jewish cemetery – one of the oldest in Poland
 * Monument of the White Eagle from 1982, referring to the establishment of the Order of the White Eagle in Tykocin in 1705
 * Abundance of white storks and their nests in the area

Transport
The Voivodeship road 671 runs through Tykocin and links it with the S8 highway, which passes nearby, south of the town.

Notable individuals

 * Joshua Höschel ben Joseph, a Polish rabbi born in Wilno
 * Jan Klemens Branicki, Field Crown Hetman of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
 * Bolesław Gebert, Communist Party official
 * Łukasz Górnicki, Chancellor of Sigismund Augustus of Poland
 * Mikołaj Ostroróg, a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman
 * Bogusław Radziwiłł, an Imperial Prince of the Holy Roman Empire
 * Janusz Radziwiłł (1612–1655), Polish prince, magnate and Field Hetman of Lithuania
 * Paweł Jan Sapieha, Hetman and military commander
 * Jan Smółko (b. 1907, AK alias Lokalizator), wife Władysława (b. 1908), Polish Righteous among the Nations – produced over a hundred fake IDs for Tykocin Jews during World War II, based on Catholic parish records.
 * Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner (d. 1550)
 * Krzysztof Wiesiołowski

title: Tykocin


text:
Wasilków

Wasilków is a town in north-eastern Poland, in Białystok County, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, about 3 km north of Białystok, with 12 559 inhabitants (2022). It is a northern suburb of Białystok, situated on the Supraśl River.

== History ==

The first traces of settlement in the Wasilków commune date back to the Middle Stone Age. Excavations conducted near the town of Nowodworce provided evidence of the settlement of these areas in the Bronze Age, which lasted in Poland until around 1800 BCE. One of the most interesting was the discovery of a flint mine in the Knyszyn Forest near Rybniki. As a result of the research, about fifty archaeological sites have been discovered in the commune. Traces of prehistoric and early-historic settlements have been found in the vicinity of almost every modern village in the Wasilków commune. However, nothing is known about the beginnings of Slavic settlement in Wasilków.

Early history
In the 11th century the territory of Wasilków belonged to Kievan Rus. In 1340, the area of Wasilkow was incorporated into Lithuania by Duke Gediminas. However, earlier this area belonged to Mazovia within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. The first mention in written sources about the area where the town and the Wasilków starosty was later established in 1358.

A breakthrough date in the history of Wasilków is December 8, 1566, when King Sigismund II Augustus granted town rights and a coat of arms. The town was inhabited by people from the vicinity of Goniądz, Tykocin and Białystok. Two days after granting town rights - on December 10, 1566, King Sigismund II Augustus issued a privilege allowing the creation of a Catholic parish.

In the middle of the 17th century Wasilków was inhabited by about 500 people, and the entire starosty additionally 400 people. The first records from this period appear about Jews who came from Choroszcz and settled in Wasilków. Before the first partition of Poland, Wasilków had about 1,500 inhabitants. After the Third Partition of Poland, Wasilków was incorporated into the Białystok Department of New East Prussia, and from 1807, under the Treaty of Tylża, into the Russian Partition of Poland.

Late modern period
Around 1880, Wasilków had 3,880 inhabitants. There were 12 textile factories in the town, ten of which were owned by Jews. All plants employed a total of about 300 people.

The tragic date in the history of the town is May 5, 1895, when a great fire destroyed almost half of Wasilków, and 10 people died in the fire. At the end of the 19th century, Wasilków had approx. 4,000 inhabitants. residents.

In November 1918, there were only two textile factories operating in the town, employing nearly 70 workers. In the 1921 census, 85.8% people declared Polish nationality, and 13.2% declared Jewish nationality.

World War II began in these lands on September 16, 1939, with the entry of the German army. Less than a week later, a cavalry detachment of the Soviet Red Army entered the Tui. This is how the Soviet occupation began, during which several dozen of Wasilkow families were deported to Kazakhstan. In August 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in Wasilków, in which about 1,250 Jews were held. The following year, they were taken to Treblinka, where they were murdered.

As a result of the war, the industry in Wasilków ceased to exist. The town was destroyed in 20%. In the post-war period, a significant date is July 1, 1947, when Father Wacław Rabczyński was appointed vicar and administrator of the parish under the invocation of Transfiguration of the Lord in Wasilków. The summary of the activities of Fr. Rabczyński began in 1958 and completed in 1966 the construction of the church of Of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy at Kościuszko Street. Father Wacław Rabczyński was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding figures in the post-war history of the Wasilkow region.

In 1946 Wasilków had 3,948 inhabitants. The determinant of the changes taking place in the post-war years was the development of Emilia Plater Wool Industry Plant, which in its heyday employed about 2,500 employees. In 1959, the construction of an elementary school on Mickiewicza Street began, and in 1982 a primary school on Polna Street, which was officially opened on May 22, 1985.

After World War II, Wasilków became a satellite town of Białystok. On May 27, 1990, the first half-century free and democratic elections to local self-government took place.

In 2022, the number of inhabitants of the town and commune of Wasilków reaches nearly 19 thousand. and is constantly growing. Wasilków has become one of the most dynamically developing local government units in Podlaskie.

== Monuments ==

Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy
The construction of the church was completed in 1966 thanks to the efforts of Fr. Wacław Rabczyński. The previous church, which was demolished in 1867 by the tsarist authorities, was situated in the same place. The building combines the styles of old Christian and modernist architecture. In the middle of the church there is an altar, in line with the changes introduced to the liturgy by the Second Vatican Council. Since 2015, the International Festival of Organ and Chamber Music has been held here every year.

Orthodox church of Saints Peter and Paul
The five-dome, brick church was built in the mid-nineteenth century and consecrated in 1853 by the Bishop of Brzeg, Ignacy. In 1857, a free-standing, brick belfry was built in the style of the church, which also serves as a gate. In 1867, the church was partially burnt. The following year, after being struck by lightning, it burned down completely. Reconstruction ended in 1875.

Church of Transfiguration of the Lord
The beginnings of the parish are closely related to the granting of town rights to the settlement of Wasilków by king Zygmunt August on December 8, 1556. Two days after this event, the king issued a foundation document under which a wooden temple in Wasilków was erected. The first temple was built on the so-called "Kościelisko" - on the hill behind the present church. The modern brick neo-baroque church was built in 1883.

Roman Catholic cemetery
The oldest tombstones in the cemetery come from the end of the 19th century. The decor of the cemetery is rich in details of small architecture: turrets, terraces and miniatures of ancient temples. Hilly terrain with dignified old trees additionally enhances the aesthetic value of this place.

In the cemetery there are seven groups of sculptures referring to the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, two fountains and about sixty historic tombstones, the oldest of which is from 1896. There are also statues of angels, gates, balustrades and walls with engraved verses from the Holy Scriptures.

At the entrance to the cemetery there is a tombstone of Fr. Wacław Rabczyński, who with his hard work contributed to the construction of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy in 1958-1966, as well as the chapel with accompanying facilities in Święta Woda. Thanks to him, unusual cemetery sculptures were created

In 2002, the Wasilków cemetery was entered into the register of monuments. For many years, the Society of the Friends of the Wasilkow Region has carried out fundraising activities for the renovation of historic figures in the cemetery.

Jewish cemetery
It was established at the end of the 19th century. A dozen or so matzevot have survived to this day, but there are probably more of them under a thick layer of earth. Metal stars of David have been placed in the place of the entrance gate.

In June 2007, a stone path and a lapidarium were made in the cemetery commemorating the Jews who lived in Wasilków before World War II. For the construction of the monument, found fragments of matzevot.

The first Jews settled in Wasilków in 1650. They came from the nearby Choroszcz and in 1714 established an independent Jewish community. At the end of the 19th century, as many as 1,470 people lived in the town of 3,800 inhabitants of the Jewish faith. About a thousand of them lived here before World War II. The cemetery is a special, historical place that honors the victims of the German occupation and attracts followers of all religions.

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sorrows "Holy Water"
On the outskirts of Wasilków - by the national road No. 19 - there is the "Holy Water" Sanctuary. It owes its name to the spring around which there are many legends related to healing dating back to the Middle Ages. The first documented mention of the uniqueness of this place comes from 1719, in which a man named Basil, after washing his face, regained his eyesight, which he had lost two years earlier. As a gratitude, the nobleman donated a wooden chapel, which stood over the spring.

After many historical turmoil (the later brick chapel was destroyed by the Red Army during World War II), the reconstruction of this place was undertaken by Rev. Wacław Rabczyński in the 1950s. The chapel was completely restored, a Grotto was built by the spring (similar to the one in Lourdes in France), and seven Passion altars were placed on the adjacent hills. After the visit to this place in 1996 by the Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, the Hill of Crosses and the Monument of the Third Millennium were created. In the same year, the parish under the invocation of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Nowadays, the area around the Sanctuary is constantly modernized. There is a Pilgrimage and Tourist Center in the immediate vicinity.

Podlaskie Museum of Folk Culture
An open-air museum, the purpose of which is to protect monuments of wooden architecture in Podlaskie, as well as to recreate the traditional rural landscape of the region, is located on the vast area within the administrative boundaries of Wasilków, by the national road No. 8.

The collections of museum pieces collected in the open-air museum document the material culture of the Białystok region from the end of the 19th century to the 1970s. Visitors to the museum can see the historic wooden architecture of the Podlaskie village. At the entrance gate there is a magnificent windmill - Koźlak from 1836, and next to it there is a forge brought from Gródek. In total, about 30 buildings have been moved to the open-air museum since the beginning of the 1990s.

title: Wasilków


text:
Zabłudów

Zabłudów (Заблудаў, Заблудов, זאַבלודאָווע) is a town in Białystok County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. Prior to 1999 it was part of the Białystok Voivodeship (1975–1998).

History

The town of Zabłudów was founded in 1553, it was also granted Magdeburg town rights. An annual fair and weekly market were established. It was a private town which in the late 16th century passed successively to the families of Pac, Sapieha, Leszczyński, Sanguszko, and from 1598 until the beginning of the 19th century it was owned by the Radziwiłł family. In the 17th century, there were guilds of tailors, shoemakers and potters; agriculture also developed. Also in the 17th century, Protestants, including the Polish Brethren, as well as Jews, settled in the town. In 1654, King John II Casimir Vasa confirmed Zabłudów's town rights and granted the coat of arms. In 1659 during the Russian-Polish War it was destroyed by invading Russian forces.

It was annexed by Prussia during the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. In 1800, the Prussian administration ordered the demolition of the local Catholic church, Germanisation attempts began, in 1803 a German school was founded. In 1807 the town passed to the Russian Partition of Poland. Initially, Polish language was briefly restored to schools and offices, but soon Russification began. The marching Russian troops during the Polish November Uprising in 1831 brought a cholera epidemic. Later, similar to other cities in the region such as Białystok and Supraśl, the textile industry developed.

The town was home to a thriving Jewish community for hundreds of years. It was once the location of the notable Zabłudów Synagogue, a wooden synagogue of a type unique to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, built in 1637. A replica of the Zabłudów synagogue was made in 2004 at the University of Wisconsin in the course study.

During World War II, Zabłudów was occupied by the Soviets from 1939 to 1941 and by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. Upon entering Zabłudów, the Germans burned part of the town, destroying the Zabłudów Synagogue in June 1941, and in July 1941, they created a ghetto for some 1,800 Polish Jews from the vicinity. On 2 November 1942, the ghetto was liquidated by Germans and the Polish police and approximately 1,400 Jews were transported by Holocaust trains to the 10th Cavalry camp near Białystok and from there to the Treblinka extermination camp on November 10. All were gassed that day. A few dozen managed to hide from the ghetto roundup, though most of those were found and shot. Several local Polish and Belarusian families did shelter some Jews, but in May, 1945, seven of the ten survivors were shot by an armed Polish gang.

Points of interest

 * Classicist Church of Saints Peter and Paul at the market square built in 1805-1840
 * Eastern Orthodox Church of Virgin Mary built between 1847–1855 at the main square
 * Chapel of Saint Roch, built in the 18th century

title: Zabłudów


text:
Brańsk

Brańsk (Podlachian language: Бранськ, Branśk, Бранск, Branskas) is a town in eastern Poland. It is situated within Podlaskie Voivodeship (province).

Etymology
The name of the town comes from the river Bronka, a nearby tributary of the Nurzec River.

Location
Brańsk is located in the geographical region of Europe known as the Wysoczyzny Podlasko–Białoruskie (English: Podlaskie and Belarus Plateau) and the mesoregion known as the Bielsk Plain (Polish: Równina Bielska). The Nurzec River, a tributary of the Bug River, passes through Brańsk. The town covers an area of 32.43 km2.

It is located approximately:
 * 140 km northeast of Warsaw, the capital of Poland
 * 69 km southwest of Białystok, the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship
 * 25 km west of Bielsk Podlaski, the seat of Bielsk County

Climate
The region has a continental climate characterized by high temperatures during summer and long and frosty winters. The average annual rainfall exceeds 550 mm.

History
On 23–25 June 1264 the Battle of Brańsk was fought in the town's vicinity. Polish forced led by Duke Boleslaw V the Chaste defeated the forces of Yotvingia led by Komata (Kumata).

On 18 January 1493, Brańsk received a town charter based on Magdeburg rights from the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander Jagiellon. It was the first town in Podlachia to receive such a charter.

Brańsk was a royal town of Poland, administratively located in the Podlaskie Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province. The 3rd Polish National Cavalry Brigade was stationed in Brańsk before the Third Partition of Poland. In 1795, as a result of the Third Partition of Poland, Brańsk was annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia and administered as a part of the newly formed Białystok Department. In 1807, as a result of the Treaties of Tilsit, Brańsk was annexed to the Russian Empire and administered at first as a part of Belostok Oblast and from 1842 on as a part of Grodno Governorate. The town was reintegrated with Poland, after the country regained independence following World War I in 1918.

World War II
On 1 September 1939 Germany attacked Poland and started World War II. Within days of the war's beginning, Brańsk suffered German bombardment. On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, and in partnership with Nazi Germany, partitioned Poland under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23. Brańsk along with all areas of Poland east of the Bug River was then occupied by the Soviet Union. All Polish and Jewish businesses of substance were confiscated by the Communist State. Several Poles from Brańsk were murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in 1940. The Soviets remained in control of Brańsk until June 1941 when the Germans invaded their erstwhile Soviet allies.

The German Army occupied the town and ordered the Jewish community to build a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire, to which the Jewish population (some 65% of the town) was confined. On 8 November 1942 the Jews of Brańsk were ordered to report to the town center, forced to march to the nearby town of Bielsk, and then transported by train to Treblinka. Within weeks, the vast majority were murdered by gassing at the Treblinka extermination camp. Several local Jews were hidden and rescued by Poles (including the local parish priest) in Brańsk and nearby villages. Some hiding places in nearby villages were discovered by the Germans, who then murdered captured Jews. Their Polish rescuers were either also murdered or managed to hide from the Germans until the end of the German occupation.

On 1 August 1944 the town was captured by Soviet forces. On 4 August 1944 the Russians arrested 12 officers of the Polish underground Home Army in Brańsk, after they were deceitfully gathered for a supposed formal meeting with the command of the Soviet 65th Army. The town was soon restored to Poland.

Population
According to the 1921 census, the town was inhabited by 3,739 people, among whom 1,474 were Roman Catholic, 100 Orthodox, and 2,165 Jewish. At the same time, 1,530 inhabitants declared Polish nationality, 2,165 Jewish, 32 Belarusian and 12 Russian. There were 493 residential buildings in the village.

Detailed data as of 30 June 2021:

Municipal government
It is the seat of Gmina Brańsk, but is not part of Gmina Brańsk.

Executive branch
The chief executive of the government is the Mayor (Polish: Burmistrz).

Legislative branch
The legislative portion of the government is the Council (Polish: Rada) composed of the President (Polish: Przewodniczšcy), the Vice President (Polish: Wiceprzewodniczšcy) and thirteen councilors.

Neighbouring political subdivisions
Brańsk is bordered by Gminy Rudka and Brańsk.

Roads and highways
Brańsk is at the intersection of a National Road and a Voivodeship Road:

 * National Road - Zambrów - Brańsk - Bielsk Podlaski - Kleszczele - Czeremcha - Połowce Border Crossing (Belarus)
 * Voivodeship Road - Roszki-Wodźki - Łapy - Brańsk - Ciechanowiec

Streets
The major streets (Polish: Ulica) in Brańsk are:

 * Rynek
 * Armii Krajowej (National Road )
 * Bielska
 * Binduga
 * Boćkowska
 * Błonie
 * Jagiellońska
 * Jana Pawła II (Voivodeship Road )
 * Kapicy Milewskiego
 * Kasztanowa
 * Klonowa
 * Konopnickiej
 * Kościelna
 * Kościuszki (Voivodeship Road )
 * Mickiewicza
 * Piłsudskiego
 * Poniatowskiego
 * Senatorska
 * Sienkiewicza
 * Skłodowskiej-Curie
 * Szkolna
 * Słowackiego
 * Witosa
 * Wyszyńskiego
 * Ściegiennego

Bus service
Regular bus service is provided by Państwowa Komunikacja Samochodowa (State Car Communication, PKS) via PKS Bielsk Podlaskie, PKS Białystok and PKS Siemiatycze

Rail service
The closest passenger train service is provided by Polskie Koleje Państwowe (Polish State Railways, PKP) SA from the following stations:
 * Szepietowo - express and local service to Warsaw and Białystok - 28 km northwest
 * Bielsk Podlaski - express and local service to Siedlce and Białystok - 25 km east

Economy
The land-use is as follows:

 * Agricultural use: 66%
 * Forest land: 27%
 * City: 2.34%

Major business

 * Financial:Banking - Bank Spóldzielczy w Brańsku, ul. Kosciuszki 2A, 17-120 Brańsk, Poland
 * Manufacturing:Plastics - Wald-Gold, ul. M. Konopnickiej 20, 17-120 Brańsk, Poland

Places of worship

 * Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - Roman Catholic. The parish is serving Brańsk, Bronka, Brzeźnica, Glinnik, Jarmarkowszczyzna, Kalnica, Kiersnówek, Majerowizna, Oleksin, Otapy, Patoki, Popławy, Świrydy, Załuskie Koronne, Załuskie Kościelne. It is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Drohiczyn.
 * St. Simeon Stylites - Polish Orthodox. It is a mission church of the Church of the Apostles St. Peter and Paul in Malesze, part of the Polish Orthodox Diocese of Warsaw-Bielsk.

Nearby attractions

 * Our Lady of Hodyszewo Sanctuary (Sanktuarium Matki Bożej Pojedniania) in Hodyzewo - 12 km northwest
 * Ossoliński Palace in Rudka - 7 km west

Notable people

 * Jan Klemens Branicki – Polish nobleman
 * Cezary Kosiński – Polish actor
 * Ignatius Kapitsa-Milewski – archivist and author
 * Shimon Shkop – Jewish scholar and rabbi (1906–1920)
 * Moshe Rosen (Nezer HaKodesh) - Jewish scholar and rabbi (1870–1957)
 * Zofia Drzewiecka – Recipient of the Righteous among the Nations Medal
 * Waclawa and Pawel Sobolewski – posthumous recipients of the Righteous among the Nations Medal
 * Antoni Sobolewski – posthumous recipient of the Righteous among the Nations Medal
 * Aleksander Sobolewski – posthumous recipient of the Righteous among the Nations Medal

Miscellanea

 * The Righteous among the Nations Medal has been granted to 14 current and former residents of Brańsk by Yad Vashem.

title: Brańsk


text:
Talk:Zviad Gamsakhurdia

cleaning up this article
i like being WP:BOLD with my cleanup of crappy articles, but seeing as this one is CTOP-ECP and has had socking issues relatively recently, i thought i'd drop a little note here so no one's blindsided (although it seems the only person who had been maintaining this article has since retired). i've made a dump of sources at User:Sawyer777/Zviad Gamsakhurdia that i'll be using. i also plan on culling a lot of the random old news articles and other stuff in the references and further reading. don't know how long this project will take, but hopefully a green plus sign is in the future. ... sawyer  * he/they *  talk  01:02, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

 * Hi, the list of sources seems really impressive. Good luck, I'll try to offer my feedback. In your opinion, which parts of the article are in the most need of overhaul? Alaexis¿question? 06:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks! in general, the prose is quite poor and the organization is lacking. for now, i'm starting with expanding a bit about his early life & the context of his father having also been a prominent writer, and general copyediting and cleanup so it's easier to expand from there. one thing i think is missing is dedicated discussion of his ultranationalist and messianistic ideology; it's kind of scattered around in a few sentences throughout the article, even though it's something discussed fairly extensively in the sourcing (i have to imagine this is related to the aforementioned POV socking from a few months ago). ... sawyer  * he/they *  talk  20:22, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds good! Lmk if you need help, for example with Russian-language sources (though it seems that there are plenty of English ones so that might not be needed). Alaexis¿question? 20:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Zviad Gamsakhurdia


text:
Talk:Jay Leno

Micheal Jackson
In the section on the Michal Jackson trial it says "testimony regarding a call with the accuser..." Who is the accuser? Might that be the accused? In any case the statement is confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.25.82.154 (talk) 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Conan O'Brien did not take over for Jay Leno. Jimmy Fallon is the host of the Tonight Show.
Jimmy Fallon host of Tonight Show not Conan O'Brien 2600:1700:80B0:BE0:142:8FC1:17A8:E78D (talk) 07:59, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The "Public image" section
...is a collection of opinions by peers who are disproportionately critical, rather than the public. I think this section deserves a re-write. 174.193.133.95 (talk) 15:41, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Godfather of Carnvial Venezia
He was named the first (but not last) Godfather of a Carnival cruise ship, the Venezia (Venice). Traditionally its a Godmother. Carnival Firenze (Florence) is getting a Godfather too, 104.218.69.39 (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Jay Leno


text:
Sinsharishkun

Sîn-šar-iškun ( or Sîn-šarru-iškun, meaning "Sîn has established the king") was the penultimate king of Assyria, reigning from the death of his brother and predecessor Aššur-etil-ilāni in 627 BC to his own death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC.

Succeeding his brother in uncertain, but not necessarily violent circumstances, Sîn-šar-iškun was immediately faced by the revolt of one of his brother's chief generals, Sîn-šumu-līšir, who attempted to usurp the throne for himself. Though Sîn-šumu-līšir was defeated relatively quickly, the instability caused by his revolt, combined with an ongoing interregnum in Babylonia in the south (neither Sîn-šar-iškun nor Sîn-šumu-līšir had formally proclaimed themselves as kings of Babylon) might be what made it possible for Nabopolassar, a southerner of unclear origin, to rise up and seize power in Babylonia. Sîn-šar-iškun's inability to defeat Nabopolassar, despite repeated attempts over the course of several years, allowed Nabopolassar to consolidate power and form the Neo-Babylonian Empire, restoring Babylonian independence after more than a century of Assyrian rule.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the newly formed Median Empire under Cyaxares, then invaded the Assyrian heartland. In 614 BC, the Medes captured and sacked Assur, the ceremonial and religious heart of the Assyrian Empire, and in 612 BC their combined armies attacked, brutally sacked, and razed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. Sîn-šar-iškun's fate is unknown but it is assumed that he died in the defense of his capital. He was succeeded as king only by Aššur-uballiṭ II, possibly his son, who rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at the city of Harran.

Despite the catastrophic fall of Assyria during his time as king, there is nothing to suggest that Sîn-šar-iškun was any less competent than his successful warrior-king predecessors. He employed the same tactics as his predecessors and appears to have utilized his forces rationally and strategically, fighting entirely in-line with traditional Assyrian warfare. What doomed Assyria might instead have been the lack of an effective defensive plan for the Assyrian heartland, which had not been invaded in five hundred years, combined with having to face an enemy which aimed to outright destroy Assyria rather than simply conquer it.

Chronology
As a consequence of Assyria's violent downfall, the period from a few years before the death of Ashurbanipal to the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC suffers from a distinct lack of surviving sources. The annals of Ashurbanipal, the primary sources for his reign, go no further than 636 BC.' Although Ashurbanipal's final year is often repeated as 627 BC''', this follows an inscription at Harran made by the mother of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus nearly a century later. The final contemporary evidence for Ashurbanipal being alive and reigning as king is a contract from the city of Nippur made in 631 BC. To get the attested lengths of the reigns of his successors to match, most scholars agree that Ashurbanipal either died, abdicated or was deposed in 631 BC. Of the three options, a death in 631 BC is the most accepted. If Ashurbanipal's reign would have ended in 627 BC, the inscriptions of his successors Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun in Babylon, covering several years, would have been impossible since the city was seized by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 626 BC to never again fall into Assyrian hands.

Ashurbanipal had named his successor as early as 660 BC, when documents referencing a crown prince (probably Aššur-etil-ilāni) were written. He had been the father of at least one son, and probably two, early on in his reign. These early sons were likely Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun.' Aššur-etil-ilāni succeeded Ashurbanipal as king in 631 BC and ruled until his own death in 627 BC. It is frequently assumed, without any supporting evidence, that Sîn-šar-iškun fought with Aššur-etil-ilāni for the throne.'

Sîn-šar-iškun has sometimes historically and erroneously been known as Esarhaddon II after a letter written by Šērūʾa-ēṭirat, a daughter of Sîn-šar-iškun's grandfather Esarhaddon. The chronology and relations of the royal family were uncertain and Šērūʾa-ēṭirat was believed to have been too young to refer to the famous Esarhaddon. The idea of a separate Esarhaddon II as king has been abandoned by Assyriologists since the late 19th century, but the name sometimes appears as a synonym of Sîn-šar-iškun.

Assyria and Babylonia
In the middle of the seventh century BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire ruled the entire Near East. Due to their powerful standing army and their sophisticated administration, the Assyrians had managed to create the best organized and largest empire that the world had yet seen. Though Babylonia in the south had also once been a large kingdom, it had typically been weaker than its northern neighbor due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. The population of Babylonia was divided into various ethnic groups with different priorities and ideals. Though old native Babylonians ruled most of the cities, such as Kish, Ur, Uruk, Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon itself, the Chaldean tribes, led by chieftains who often squabbled with each other, dominated most of the southernmost land. The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns. The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC, and in the 8th century BC, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand. Babylon's internal and external weakness led to its conquest by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 729 BC.

During the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. The relationship between Assyria and Babylonia was similar to the relationship between Greece and Rome in later centuries; much of Assyria's culture, texts and traditions had been imported from the south. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian). The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical "husband" and Babylon its "wife". In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, "the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her". Though Babylon was respected as the well-spring of civilization, it was expected to remain passive in political matters, something that Assyria's "Babylonian bride" repeatedly refused to be.

The Assyrians attempted various strategies to appease their Babylonian subjects throughout the eighth and seventh centuries BC; ranging from violent subjugation through war to direct rule either by the Assyrian king or by a representative (sometimes a relative such as a son or brother). Though there was some success in pacifying the urban population of Babylonians, the Arameans and Chaldeans remained unconvinced and repeatedly rebelled whenever they saw an opportunity. Despite the enormous effort spent in keeping the region, Babylonia was seen as too important economically and strategically to allow to secede, but no matter what the Assyrians attempted, rebellion and civil war was the inevitable result each time. Prolonged Assyrian control of Babylonia proved so impossible that modern researchers have dubbed it the "Babylonian problem".

Rise to the throne and revolt of Sîn-šumu-līšir
In the middle of 627 BC, Ashurbanipal's son and successor Aššur-etil-ilāni died, leading to Aššur-etil-ilāni's brother Sîn-šar-iškun ascending to the Assyrian throne. Although it has been suggested by several historians, there is no evidence to prove the idea that Aššur-etil-ilāni was deposed in a coup by his brother. Sîn-šar-iškun's inscriptions state that he was selected for the kingship from among several of "his equals" (i.e., his brothers) by the gods.

Also dying at roughly the same time as Aššur-etil-ilāni was the vassal king of Babylon, Kandalanu, which led to Sîn-šar-iškun also becoming the ruler of Babylon, as proven by inscriptions by him in southern cities such as Nippur, Uruk, Sippar and Babylon itself. Sîn-šar-iškun's rule of Babylon did not last long, and almost immediately in the wake of him coming to the throne, the general Sîn-šumu-līšir rebelled. Sîn-šumu-līšir had been a key figure in Assyria during Aššur-etil-ilāni's reign, putting down several revolts and possibly being the de facto leader of the country. The rise of another king might have endangered his position and as such led him to revolt and attempt to seize power for himself. Sîn-šumu-līšir was a eunuch and the only eunuch to claim the throne of Assyria. The possibility that a eunuch, normally trusted due to their perceived lack of political ambition, would do so had never been entertained prior to Sîn-šumu-līšir's attempt.

Sîn-šumu-līšir successfully seized control of some cities in northern Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon itself and would rule there for three months before Sîn-šar-iškun defeated him. Though both of them exercised control there, it is unclear if Sîn-šar-iškun and Sîn-šumu-līšir actually claimed the title "king of Babylon" (or only used "king of Assyria"), meaning that Babylonia could have experienced an interregnum of sorts. Modern historians typically include both Sîn-šumu-līšir and Sîn-šar-iškun in lists of Babylonian kings, as did some ancient Babylonian king lists.

Rise of Babylon under Nabopolassar
Some months after Sîn-šumu-līšir's revolt, another revolt began in Babylon. An official or general called Nabopolassar, possibly using the political instability caused by the previous revolt and the ongoing interregnum in the south, assaulted both Nippur and Babylon. Nabopolassar's armies took the cities from the garrisons left there by Sîn-šar-iškun but the Assyrian response was swift and in October of 626 BC, the Assyrian army recaptured Nippur and besieged Nabopolassar at Uruk. A simultaneous Assyrian attempt at recapturing Babylon itself, the last Assyrian action against the city, was repulsed by Nabopolassar's garrison and the attack at Uruk also failed.

In the aftermath of the failed Assyrian counterattack, Nabopolassar was formally crowned king of Babylon on November 22/23 626 BC, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom. In 625–623 BC, Sîn-šar-iškun's forces again attempted to defeat Nabopolassar, campaigning in northern Babylonia. Initially, these campaigns were successful; in 625 BC the Assyrians took the city of Sippar and Nabopolassar's attempted reconquest of Nippur failed. Another of Assyria's vassals, Elam, also stopped paying tribute to Assyria during this time and several Babylonian cities, such as Der, revolted and joined Nabopolassar. Realizing the threat this posed, Sîn-šar-iškun led a massive counterattack himself which saw the successful recapture of Uruk in 623 BC.

Sîn-šar-iškun might have ultimately been victorious had it not been for another revolt, led by an Assyrian general in the empire's western provinces in 622 BC. This general, whose name remains unknown, took advantage of the absence of Sîn-šar-iškun and the Assyrian army to march on Nineveh, met a hastily organized army which surrendered without fighting and successfully seized the Assyrian throne. The surrender of the army indicates that the usurper was an Assyrian and possibly even a member of the royal family, or at least a person that would be acceptable as king. Understandably alarmed by this development, Sîn-šar-iškun abandoned his Babylonian campaign and though he successfully defeated the usurper after a hundred days of civil war, the absence of the Assyrian army saw the Babylonians conquer the last remaining Assyrian outposts in Babylonia in 622–620 BC. The Babylonian siege of Uruk had begun by October 622 BC and though control of the ancient city would shift between Assyria and Babylon, it was firmly in Nabopolassar's hands by 620 BC. Nippur was also conquered in 620 BC and Nabopolassar pushed the Assyrians out of Babylonia. Though he had successfully driven out the Assyrian army, pro-Assyrian factions still existed in some Babylonian cities, for instance Ur and Nippur, by 617 BC, making Nabopolassar's full consolidation of control in the south slow. The fighting in Babylonia in the last stages of the localized conflict turned conditions so desperate in some places that parents sold their children into slavery to avoid them starving to death.

Fighting in Assyria
While unlikely to have been received positively, the end of Assyrian rule in Babylonia would probably not have been regarded as significant to the Assyrians at the time. All fighting had happened in Babylonia and the outcome was not yet decisive, characteristic of previous Assyro-Babylonian conflicts in the Neo-Assyrian period. In previous uprisings, the Babylonians had sometimes temporarily gained the upper hand as well and there was no reason to believe that Nabopolassar's success would be anything but a temporary inconvenience.

In 616 BC, Nabopolassar entered Assyrian territory for the first time, leading his armies along the Euphrates river into lands in present-day Syria. As he marched on, he took the Assyrian city Hindanu and reached the Balikh River, where he defeated an Assyrian force near the city Gablinu. Nabopolassar then pushed north, reaching as far as the Khabur River. The Assyrians swiftly regrouped in order to deal with the threat. Realizing that the situation was dire, Assyria's ally, Pharaoh Psamtik I of Egypt, marched his troops to aid Sîn-šar-iškun. Psamtik had over the last few years campaigned to establish dominance over the small city-states of the Levant and it was in his interests that Assyria survived as a buffer state between his own empire and those of the Babylonians and Medes in the east. A joint Egyptian-Assyrian campaign to capture the city of Gablinu was undertaken in October of 616 BC, but ended in failure after which the Egyptian allies kept to the west of the Euphrates, only offering limited support. Both the Assyrians and the Babylonians then withdrew, though the Babylonians retained Hindanu and now controlled the middle Euphrates, a major strategical victory and probably the first step in Nabopolassar's plan to counteract the possibility of an Assyrian invasion of Babylonia. That Nabopolassar withdrew at the same time as the Assyrians did suggests that the Babylonians were not yet ready to conduct a full invasion of Assyria and that their plans were at this time just to secure Babylonian independence, not to conquer and destroy Assyria.

In March 615 BC, Nabopolassar inflicted a crushing defeat on the Assyrian army at the banks of the Tigris, pushing them back to the Little Zab.' This victory weakened Assyrian control of the buffer zone that had established around the middle of the Tigris river between the two kingdoms, meaning that the Babylonians now controlled lands directly bordering the Assyrian heartland itself.'

Fall of the Assyrian Empire
In May 615 BC, Nabopolassar and the Babylonians assaulted Assur, the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria and the Assyrian Empire's southernmost remaining city. Sîn-šar-iškun swiftly rallied his army and counterattacked, lifting the siege of Assur and forcing Nabopolassar to retreat to the city of Takrit. There, Sîn-šar-iškun besieged Nabopolassar, but he was eventually forced to abandon the siege. Though the conflict had shifted to Assyria becoming the defender, the war was at this point still being fought according to standard Mesopotamian practice, with attacks, counterattacks and retreats and neither side having the confidence or means to force a decisive confrontation. Despite constant defeats and setbacks, the Assyrian army remained powerful and capable of being deployed rapidly.

In late 615 BC or in 614 BC, the Medes under their king Cyaxares entered Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha in preparation for a campaign against Sîn-šar-iškun. Although there are plenty of earlier sources discussing Assyro-Median relations, none are preserved from the period leading up to Cyaxares's invasion and as such, the political context and reasons for the sudden attack are not known.' Perhaps, the war between Babylonia and Assyria had disrupted the economy of the Medes and inspired a direct intervention.'

In July or August of 614 BC, the Medes mounted attacks on the cities of Nimrud and Nineveh and successfully conquered the city of Tarbisu. They then besieged Assur. This siege was successful and the Medes captured the ancient heart of Assyria, plundering it and killing many of its inhabitants. The brutal sack of Assur came as a shock to people throughout the Near East. Even the Babylonian chronicles, hostile to Assyria, speak of the Medes as unnecessarily brutal, stating that they "inflicted a terrible defeat on a great people, pillaged and looted them and robbed them". Nabopolassar only arrived at Assur after the plunder had already begun and met with Cyaxares, allying with him and signing an anti-Assyrian pact. The treaty between the Babylonians and Medes was sealed through the marriage of Nabopolassar's son and heir, Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyaxares's daughter, Amytis. The onset of winter after the fall of Assur meant that both the Medes and Babylonians then returned to their homelands, preparing for further campaigns in the next year. The Assyrians appear to have not recognized the severity of their situation as they did not use the pause in the fighting to fall back into, and prepare, defensive positions. Instead of repairing the damage in Nimrud, the populace there dismantled the walls further to prepare for future renovation work (which would never happen).

In an attempt to keep the enemies out of Assyria, Sîn-šar-iškun went on the offensive in 613 BC, attacking Nabopolassar's forces in the middle Euphrates, occupied at the time with suppressing an Assyrian-supported rebellion of a local tribe. Sinshariskun successfully rescued the tribe's besieged city of Rahilu, but Nabopolassar's army retreated before a battle could take place. Around this time, Sîn-šar-iškun, apparently finally recognizing the disaster that was about to befall his kingdom, sent a letter to Nabopolassar, attempting to broker peace. Sîn-šar-iškun pleaded with Nabopolassar to avoid any more bloodshed and wrote that he should "quiet his fuery heart". Nabopolassar was not interested; Sîn-šar-iškun had waited too long and there was no longer anything he could offer that the Babylonians and Medes would not be able to take for themselves in battle. A harsh response was sent, in which Nabopolassar declared that "[Nineveh's] roots I shall pluck out and the foundations of the land I shall obliterate". The original tablets containing these letters have not been preserved, with the known text instead having been derived from tablets made during Seleucid times, centuries later. Whether the letters are copies of authentic, more ancient, originals, or fabrications entirely is a matter of debate.

In April or May 612 BC, at the start of Nabopolassar's fourteenth year as king of Babylon, the combined Medo-Babylonian army marched on Nineveh. Sîn-šar-iškun rallied his forces to make a final stand at the capital but stood little chance at defending it on account of the city's massive size. From June to August 612 BC, the Medo-Babylonian army besieged the Assyrian capital and in August the walls were breached, leading to a lengthy and brutal sack. The city was looted, depictions of the Assyrian kings were mutilated and inhabitants as young as the age of ten were slaughtered en masse before the entire city was razed and burned to the ground.' Sîn-šar-iškun's fate is not entirely certain but it is commonly accepted that he died in the defense of Nineveh.'''

Succession
With the destructions of Assur in 614 BC and Nineveh in 612 BC, the Assyrian Empire had essentially ceased to exist. Sîn-šar-iškun was succeeded by another Assyrian king, Aššur-uballiṭ II, possibly his son and probably the same person as a crown prince mentioned in inscriptions at Nineveh from 626 and 623 BC. Aššur-uballiṭ established himself at Harran in the west. Because Assur had been destroyed, Aššur-uballiṭ could not undergo the traditional coronation of the Assyrian monarchs and could thus not be invested with the kingship by the god Ashur and because of this, inscriptions from his brief reign indicate that he was viewed as the legitimate ruler by his subjects, but still with the title of crown prince and not king. To the Assyrians, Sîn-šar-iškun was the last true king.

Aššur-uballiṭ's rule at Harran lasted just three years and he fled the city when Nabopolassar's army approached in 610 BC. An attempt at recapturing Harran carried out with the remnants of the Assyrian army and Egyptian reinforcements in 609 BC failed, after which Aššur-uballiṭ and the Assyrians he commanded disappear from history, never again to be mentioned in Babylonian sources.

The Biblical Book of Nahum "prophetically" discusses the Fall of Nineveh, but it is unclear when it was written. It may have been written as early as during Ashurbanipal's Egyptian campaign in the 660s BC, or as late as around the time of Nineveh's actual fall. If it was written around 612 BC, the "king of Assyria" mentioned would be Sîn-šar-iškun.

Reasons for the fall of Assyria
Although it has been a commonly circulated idea that one of the primary reasons that led to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was a civil war between Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun over the throne which weakened Assyria, there is no contemporary text which suggests that this is true. No inscriptions mention a war or even a dispute between the two brothers. There were revolts at the beginnings of both the reign of Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun, but these were minor and dealt with relatively quickly. As such, protracted civil war between contenders to the Assyrian throne was probably not the reason for Assyria's fall.

The primary reason for Assyria's collapse in the reign of Sîn-šar-iškun is more likely to be the failure to resolve the "Babylonian problem" which had plagued Assyrian kings since Assyria first conquered southern Mesopotamia. Despite the many attempts of the kings of the Sargonid dynasty to resolve the constant rebellions in the south in a variety of different ways; Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon and Esarhaddon's restoration of it, rebellions and insurrections remained common. Nabopolassar's revolt was the last in a long line of Babylonian uprisings against the Assyrians and Sîn-šar-iškun's failure to stop it, despite trying for years, doomed his kingdom. The Neo-Babylonian threat, combined with the rise of the Median Empire (Assyria had for many years attempted to stop the formation of a unified Median state through repeated campaigns into Media) culminated in Assyria's destruction.

It would be easy to ascribe Assyria's catastrophic defeat to a weakened Assyrian military and an incompetent king, but there is no evidence to suggest that Sîn-šar-iškun was an incompetent ruler. Assyria was unprepared for foreign attacks into its heartland since the heartland had not been penetrated for five hundred years; no defensive plan existed because in their experience one had never been needed. Sîn-šar-iškun did not use his forces to defend his territory, instead repeatedly going on the offensive, but he kept entirely faithful to the traditional ways of Assyrian warfare. He used the proven principles of war, as used by his successful ancestors before him; supporting rebellions in enemy countries, using flanking maneuvers, concentrating on one point of the position of the enemy and pressing the attack through taking the war to the enemy. Using alternate tactics probably never occurred to him and with an Assyrian mindset considered, he appears to have been a capable military leader who deployed his forces rationally and strategically. In a normal war, he might have been victorious, but he was wholly unprepared to go on the defensive against an enemy that was both numerically superior and that aimed to destroy his country rather than conquer it.

Titles
From one of his inscriptions commemorating his building projects at Nineveh, Sîn-šar-iškun's titles read as follows:

In another inscription, commemorating his restoration of a temple, Sîn-šar-iškun incorporates his ancestry:

title: Sinsharishkun


text:
Andrychów

Andrychów (Andrichovia, Andrichau, hist. also Andrychau) is the largest town in Wadowice County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland. The town is located in the Little Beskids, in the historical region of Lesser Poland, on the river Wieprzówka. It has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, having previously been located in the Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship (1975–1998). Andrychów has an area of 10.34 sqkm and as of June 2022 it has 18,815 inhabitants.

History
The settlement dates back to the late 13th century. First recorded mention of it comes from 1344's Peter's Pence, and it was called Henrychów (ecclesia de Henrichov). Other names used for Andrychów in the past are Indrzychów and Gendrzychów. During the German occupation of Poland, it was renamed into Andrichau. Historians claim that the name of the town comes from a Polish given name Jędrzej (Andrzej).

Andrychów was first mentioned in the records of Peter's Pence in 1344 as a small village in the Duchy of Zator, however an existing church was already mentioned in 1325. In 1345 Andrychów is said to have population of 105 and to cover the area of 27 sqkm. Most likely, its first residents were settlers from Klatovy in southern Bohemia. Jan Długosz in his Liber beneficiorum calls it Gendrychów, writing that it was a small village in the Silesian Duchy of Zator. In ca. 1440 the Zator Castle was captured by Polish troops, and finally, the Duchy of Zator, together with Duchy of Oświęcim were incorporated into Kingdom of Poland on February 20, 1564, as Silesian County of Kraków Voivodeship, Lesser Poland.

During the reign of Zygmunt August, Andrychów emerged as an administrative center of the area. The village belonged to the family of Schilling, who supported Protestant Reformation. In 1655, during the Swedish invasion of Poland, Andrychów was burned by Swedish units heading for Żywiec. In 1704, first attempt to grant town charter to Andrychów took place, but it did not succeed. Three years later the village was once again burned to the ground by the Swedes, during the Great Northern War. After the destruction, Andrychów's owner invited weavers from Silesia, Belgium and Saxony, and as a result, Andrychów became an important center of weaving. Finally, in 1767 it received town charter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski.

In the summer 1772 (see Partitions of Poland), Andrychów was seized by the Austrian troops. New authorities changed its name into Andrichau, and until November 1918, it remained in Austrian province of Galicia. For some time, both the village of Andrychów and the town of Andrychów existed. In 1778 the village had the population of 598, and the town 2,475. In 1791, first school was opened in the town. In the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution reached Andrychów, together with an influx of Jewish settlers, for whom a synagogue was built in 1884. On June 27, 1868, the town and the village were merged, and two years later, Andrychów received its first rail connection. On June 20, 1893, large parts of the town burned in a fire.

In the Second Polish Republic Andrychów belonged to Kraków Voivodeship. In 1926 the town was electrified, and in 1934–1939, several public works projects were carried out, including a sewage system, improved road system, a swimming pool and a municipal stadium. First gas station was opened in 1929, and since 1926, the town had regular bus connections with Kraków and Bielsko-Biała. On September 4, 1939, Andrychów was captured by the Wehrmacht at the beginning of World War II. The town was incorporated directly into the Third Reich, and on November 24, 1939, the Germans burned the local synagogue. They conscripted Jews for forced labor and beat and tortured members of the Jewish community. In September, 1941, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in a poor part of town, with the displaced Poles taking over Jewish houses. The Jewish community continued to worship, organized clandestine schools for their children, and established a day care and public kitchens to feed the hungry. In July 1942, the Germans rounded up the Jewish population. About 100 ill and unfit were sent to Wadowice and from there to be murdered at Belzec. Another 40 were sent to Auschwitz where most were immediately murdered or perished later from starvation, beatings, or disease. More than 100 were sent to labor camps and another 60 to the Wadowice ghetto.

Later some Jews who had been sent to the Wadowice ghetto were sent back to Andrychów because their labor was needed. In July 1943, the men in this group were sent to other labor camps and in November, the women were sent to Auschwitz. About 25 Jews from Andrychów were thought to have survived the Holocaust.

Germans retreated westwards on January 26, 1945, and next day Andrychów was captured by the Red Army. In the Polish People's Republic, Andrychów was an important center of textile industry, with a large cotton plant (Zakłady Przemysłu Bawełnianego). Another important factory was Andrychów Machine Works (Andrychowska Fabryka Maszyn), which was based on the German World War II era factory Areo-Stall Werke.

Road transport
Andrychów lies at the intersection of national road 52 (Kraków–Bielsko-Biała) and voivodeship road 781 (Chrzanów–Łękawica). Public transport is provided by buses of the Intercommune Transit Authority (Międzygminny Zakład Komunikacyjny) Andrychów–Kęty–Porąbka, which has 18 lines, including 6 in Andrychów itself.

Rail transport
Andrychów has a railway station along the railway line 117 (Bielsko-Biała Główna–Kalwaria Zebrzydowska Lanckorona).

Tourism
Andrychów is a tourist centre in the Little Beskids. Tourist attractions include the old town with historic park, baroque church, an 18th-century manor and a Jewish cemetery. Andrychów has a developed tourist infrastructure: accommodation, theme parks, active recreation infrastructure and local museums.

Sports
Andrychów is home to a sports club Beskid, established in 1919.

Twin towns – sister cities
Andrychów is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Isny im Allgäu, Germany
 * 🇨🇿 Břeclav, Czech Republic
 * Landgraaf, Netherlands
 * 🇮🇹 Priverno, Italy
 * 🇱🇻 Tukums, Latvia
 * 🇺🇦 Storozhynets, Ukraine
 * 🇺🇦 Izyum, Ukraine
 * Khoni, Georgia

title: Andrychów


text:
Żywiec

Żywiec (, Saybusch) is a town on the River Soła in southern Poland with 31,194 inhabitants (2019). It is situated within the Silesian Voivodeship, near the Żywiec Lake and Żywiec Landscape Park, one of the eight protected areas in the voivodeship. Historically, the town has been part of the Lesser Poland region and is the capital of the Żywiecczyzna region, which is ethnically part of the Goral Lands.

The 551231 Żywiec planetoid is named after the town.

History
Żywiec was first mentioned in a written document in 1308 as a seat of a Catholic parish. It was originally located in the place later known as Stary Żywiec (lit. "Old Żywiec"). It belonged then to the Duchy of Cieszyn, and after 1315 to the Duchy of Oświęcim, which in 1327 became a fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The town was a focal point for the development of hitherto sparsely populated Żywiec Basin. The area of Stary Żywiec was prone to flooding so the town was moved to the current spot in 1448. In 1457 the Duchy of Oświęcim was purchased and incorporated directly to the Polish Crown. Żywiec was a private town, administratively located in the Kraków Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown. In 1624 it was sold by the Komorowski family to Constance of Austria, queen consort of the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa. During the Deluge, Żywiec was plundered and destroyed by Swedish troops in 1656. From 1672 it was a possession the Polish chancellor (Kanclerz) Jan Wielopolski.

The Old Castle was built in the mid-14th century. The castle has undergone several restorations and boasts a number of styles of architecture and decoration, including Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. Żywiec's Old Castle is encompassed by a 260,000 square metre landscape park, which was established initially in the 17th century.

The Church of the Holy Cross was built towards the end of the 14th century, and expanded twice, once in 1679 and again in 1690. In the 18th century, a Baroque church was later constructed on the site and still stands today. A second noteworthy church, the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary's Birth, was constructed and expanded during the first half of the 15th century, before being renovated in Baroque fashion after a fire in 1711.

Upon the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Żywiec became part of the Austrian Kingdom of Galicia. In 1810 it was purchased by Prince Albert of Saxony, son of King Augustus III of Poland and again ruled with the neighbouring Silesian Duchy of Teschen (Cieszyn). When he died in 1822, his estates fell to Archduke Charles from the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The town also houses the Żywiec Brewery, established by Charles' son Archduke Albert in 1852, and purchased by Heineken International in the 1990s. A museum was founded at the site in 2006. At the beginning of World War I, over 1,000 soldiers of the Polish Legions from the region marched out from Żywiec to fight for Polish independence; 167 of them died in the war. At the end of the war, in 1918, Poland regained independence and control of the town. Eight Poles from Żywiec were killed in the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920.

Second World War
Following the 1939 Invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Żywiec was occupied by Nazi Germany. The last Habsburg owner Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria refused to sign the German Volksliste, whereafter he was ousted and arrested.

26 Poles from Żywiec were murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940.

Between September and December 1940, the Nazi authorities expelled 17,413–20,000 Polish inhabitants from around Żywiec county in the so-called Action Saybusch conducted by Wehrmacht and Gestapo. A transit camp for expelled Poles was located at the local school. The expelled Poles were taken to the General Government, a different region within Poland under German military occupation. The incident formed part of the Nazis' efforts, led by Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg and his deputy Alfred Meyer, to develop the Occupied Eastern Territories for settlement by German migrants. In 1941, Nazi German Oberpräsident of Upper Silesia Fritz Bracht, while visiting the town, declared that there will be no Poles in the county in five years. German occupation ended in 1945.

Economy
The Żywiec Brewery is located in the town. There is a museum dedicated to the brewery.

Sports
There are several football clubs in the town: men teams Koszarawa Żywiec, Czarni-Góral Żywiec, Soła Żywiec, and women team TS Mitech Żywiec. All four teams compete in the lower leagues, although Mitech also played in the Ekstraliga (Polish top division) until 2020.

Notable people

 * Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria (1860–1933), aristocrat
 * Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria (1888–1951), aristocrat
 * Alice Habsburg (1889–1985), aristocrat
 * Archduke Leo Karl of Austria (1893–1939), aristocrat
 * Wilhelm Brasse (1917–2012) photographer, Auschwitz prisoner
 * Tadeusz Wrona (born 1954), aviator
 * Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), boxer
 * Piotr Haczek (born 1977), athlete
 * Agata Wróbel (born 1981), weightlifter
 * Tomasz Jodłowiec (born 1985), footballer

Twin towns – sister cities
Żywiec is twinned with:

 * 🏴 Adur, England, United Kingdom

 * 🇸🇰 Čadca, Slovakia
 * 🇦🇹 Feldbach, Austria
 * 🇭🇺 Gödöllő, Hungary
 * 🇸🇰 Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia
 * 🇨🇿 Opava, Czech Republic
 * 🇫🇷 Riom, France
 * 🇸🇪 Storuman, Sweden
 * 🇵🇱 Szczytno, Poland
 * 🇩🇪 Unterhaching, Germany

title: Żywiec