On his second day in Poland, the Prince of Wales saw a side of the country that many do not often know about. He toured a woodland that included rare European bison, and then later visited a Tatar community.
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Prince Charles arrived at the Bison Reserve in Bialowieza in eastern Poland in the morning. He witnessed bison out in the wild and was taught about how they survive the winter. Europe’s bison, a cousin of the North American version, number around 500.
Later, the Prince went to Kruszyniany, near the Belarussian border, to meet with Poland’s tiny Muslim Tatar community. He was greeted by the village’s spiritual leader Tomasz Miskiewicz, and was given a tour of the its small wooden mosque.
Charles then was entertained by a group of traditional Tatar dancers and had a taste of their cuisine inside a felt tent, another of this group’s traditions.
AFP/Janek Skarzynski
“We made him a ‘pierekaczewnik’, a kind of beef pie, as well as Tatar ‘kolduny’ which are like ravioli stuffed with beef and mutton, plus the water, honey and lemon drink ‘syta’, as well as mint tea and cardamom coffee,” Dzenneta Bogdanowicz, who runs a guesthouse in the village, told AFP.
The Tatars came to Poland in the 1300s to be soldiers in its royal army. They stayed in the country and were granted their own land in the 1500s. Although they maintain their religion and customs, they have long forgotten their Tatar language and have adopted Polish names.
While Prince Charles was doing all this, he was alone. His wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, resigned from taking part in this engagement due to a back pain. Instead, she visited a museum in Warsaw dedicated to the famed pianist Frederic Chopin.
Tomorrow is Charles and Camilla’s last day in Poland. After that, they will head for Hungary.
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