The building of the wooden Tatar mosque in Vinkshnup and the surrounding cemetery, which existed at the time of writing, is recalled in the text. The interior of this temple is also described in detail, and the iman Abraham Bogdanovich is mentioned. The history of the establishment of the mosque is also recalled, thanks to, inter alia, the intercession of the royal governor, Zajączek (Source: 'Tygodnik Illustrowany', Warsaw 1868, Series 2, T:2, pp. 296, 298, after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text.

Mosque in Winksznup

There are only two mosques for the use of Tatars settled in the Kingdom: one in Studzianka in Lubelskie, and the other two hours away from the district town of Kalwaria, in the village of Winksznup, once a hereditary Tatar village, and today owned by Mr Tomasz Wolski.

We are about to talk about the latter mosque, the image of which is attached here.

There would be little to say about the building itself. But at the sight of the crescent crowning it, is it possible to stop at a mere mention of it as a local curiosity? Doesn't the crescent gleaming from the top of the Muslim shrine, standing alone in the fields where the images of the Saviour's Passion shine, inspire deep reflection on the strange vicissitudes of human fate?

The Tartar mosque in Vincunup, with its crescent moon at the top of the dome, also encourages such contemplation. It is a poor and modest, timber-built temple, now in decline. It exudes a melancholy of orphanhood, abandonment or indifference. A cemetery surrounds it on two sides. Stone slabs with Arabic inscriptions, in Eastern custom, stand at the head of the graves.

This cemetery adds an even more melancholic touch to the mosque. There are no monuments with which art decorates Christian graves, no gardens tended by the hand of a woman around such monuments, no majestic trees whispering with their leaves their silent dissolution over them.

The slanting tombstones have a look on their faces, as if they were leaning one behind the other to observe and communicate with the neighbouring mosque, or perhaps to lament the fact that the balustrade of the narrow cloister of the tower in danger of collapsing, intended to serve as a minaret, has collapsed, and there is no one to give a new one and support or straighten the minaret; That the shingle roof, damaged in many places, allows rain and snow to enter and accelerate the destruction, and there is no one to repair this roof; that the walls have become warped, rotten in many places, overgrown with moss; that the foundations underneath them are falling apart, that stones are falling out of them and rolling down the slope, and there is no one to think about removing these damages. The grave boulders are perhaps surprised that the locks of the temple's gates are rusty and the paths leading to the interior are overgrown with grass.

The interior shows the same bare, wooden, darkened walls as the exterior. Not even the Qur'anic sentences, usually adorning the walls of Muslim shrines with golden voices, can be seen on them. After all, in the wall where the great altars are housed in Christian churches, there is a frame in the shape of a small shrine. This is what is known in Turkish as a 'mihrab', signifying the direction of Mecca to which those praying should turn. Next to it, on the left, you can see a hill with a few steps in the shape of a low pulpit, called the "courses", where the iman or mullah stands when he wants to teach the people.

This interior is divided into two unequal parts by a transverse wall. In the smaller one, from the entrance at the front, with a gap in the transverse wall a few cubits long and a few inches wide, through which one can see what is going on in the other part, there is a place intended for women. The men's section is entered from the side. Opposite the mihrab by the partition is a gallery supported on pillars, in the shape of the choir of our churches. On the floor during prayers spread carpets or large ones made of green cloth, quadrilateral sheets, decorated with different coloured embroidery. And everything.

The local Tatars gather to pray in this mosque, sometimes from quite distant places, every Friday after the first of the month. The Iman, or as the Tartars call their present mullah, Mr Abraham Bohdanovich, is only distinguished on weekdays by the light green colour of his long frock coat and his beard, which his parishioners tend to shave. In the mosque, he appears in a veil.

According to a hint found in an article written by B. Tykel about the former Augustów Gubernia and printed in 1858 in the "Library of Warsaw". 1858 in "Biblioteka Warszawska", this mosque was erected between 1818 and 1824 at the instigation of King Zajączek, after the previous one, built there by one of the Baranowskis, former heirs of Winksznupia, had fallen into ruin, with the help of a grant from the treasury and under the supervision of the then iman Mustafa Baranowski. According to local traditions, this is the fourth or fifth mosque on the site that locals are aware of.

Czacki, Narbutt, Bartoszewicz, Muchliński and others wrote about the privileges and origins of the Tartars who settled in the area, and these privileges are contained in the "Volumina Legum".

According to the aforementioned account by Tykel, in 1858 there were 155 Tatars within the former Augustów Province, i.e. 76 men and 79 women, while in 1866, according to official sources, there were 171 Tatars, i.e. 79 men and 92 women. This means that in eight years the population increased by 16 souls, 3 men and 13 women.

As for the place of residence of the local Tatars, in 1866, according to the sources in question, there were 26 of them in the Sejny district, 120 in the Calvary district, 26 in the Marvampol district.

As far as the status and employment of these Mohammedans is concerned, they are divided into noblemen, heirs and tenants of estates, and there are only a few among them who work as tanners, manufacturers or servants.

In general, the local Tatars are educated, hospitable, polite, helpful, honest and popular. In domestic manners they hardly differ from other educated local residents. Deviation from the ancestral faith among them is unknown in these parts.

They enjoy games, entertainment, dancing and music. At gatherings they fete, among other things, a national delicacy, which is dumplings made of meat scraped with a knife, with mutton fat, pepper and onion, rolled in pastry, known in Warsaw under the name of 'Lithuanian dumplings', but here more properly called 'Tatar dumplings'. Good kołduny taste delicious, but you need to know how to make them. They are eaten with a spoon, and the art is to make sure that the kolduny can fit entirely in the mouth without damaging the dough and spilling out the juice, which is precisely the delicacy of amateurs.

There are those who claim that the ancestors of the local Tatars enjoyed eating horse meat and that their real kolduny should be made from young foals. We do not vouch for the truth of this statement, and do not see anything insulting in it, all the more so when in our times, in many European capitals, the consumption of horse meat is not small and very common.

The national superstitions include a kind of disgust with dogs which, until thirty years ago, was quite common among local Tatars. We have seen some who would spit in disgust and return home if by chance they came across a dog. However, this superstition has weakened considerably with time and today it only appears in traces.

The Tatars speak Polish among themselves and have retained the Arabic letters only for the words of their prayers and for their names in the parish books. They no longer know the language of their ancestors; only a few words remain from it, the meaning of which they explain only by tradition.

Their religion, Mohammedan, has not undergone any significant changes in these parts. Our Tatars observe their religious duties according to the Sunni rite. Of the fasts, the largest and most strictly observed is Ramadan, the end of which is sometimes celebrated as a holiday.

Funeral rites are simple yet solemn. The deceased is washed, wrapped in a shroud and placed in a grave without a coffin, directly on the ground. The grave is marked by a stone with an Arabic inscription. They believe in the final judgement, in heaven and hell, in the supremacy of works over faith, and at the end of time they await the coming of the Mahdi.

In homes, especially of older people, yellowed copies of the Qur'an, written by the hand of their ancestors, on parchment and sometimes even on leather, are sometimes kept with reverence. They are surrounded by an almost religious reverence, kept in separate boxes and only used on solemn days.

They also preserve some traditional family customs. Thus, for example, on a wedding day, a ceremonial procession is held to the mosque, where the imam blesses the bride and groom. This rite, full of dignity and solemnity, although devoid of external pomp.

Among the local Tatars, there are sometimes faces of a distinctly Eastern type, with black, slanted eyes, olive complexion and a straight, strong profile. However, quite European features predominate, indicating blood mixture and gradual assimilation into the local population.

And so, in the midst of Lithuanian fields, in a poor wooden temple, with language and traditions almost disappearing, the fire of old beliefs is slowly dying out, dampened by the breeze of new times, and only the slender crescent on top of the mosque is a reminder of the past glory of the Tartar ancestors.It is difficult to suppose that a sensible Mohammedan would consider it a great crime on earth for someone to nourish himself with the juice of wine berries, if getting drunk with it in paradise is to be a reward for a virtuous life.