Pogorzelec , is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Giby __NOTOC__ Gmina Giby is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Sejny County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, on the border with Belarus and Lithuania. Its seat is the village of Giby, which lies approximately south of Sejny a ...

, within

Sejny County __NOTOC__ Sejny County () a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Podlaskie Voivodeship, in the extreme north-east of Poland, on the border with Lithuania and Belarus. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result ...

Podlaskie Voivodeship Podlaskie Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in northeastern Poland. The name of the voivodeship refers to the historical region of Podlachia (in Polish, ''Podlasie''), and significant part of its territory corresponds to th ...

, in north-eastern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, close to the borders with

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. It lies approximately west of

Giby Giby (; ) is a village in Sejny County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, close to the borders with Belarus and Lithuania. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Giby. It lies approximately south of Sejny ...

, south-west of

Sejny Sejny (; ) is a town in north-eastern Poland and the capital of Sejny County, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, close to the northern border with Lithuania and Belarus. It is located in the eastern part of the Suwałki Lake Area (), on the Marycha river ...

, and north of the regional capital

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...

. In the village there was a wooden molna built in 1912. In 1982 it was transported to

at present it is the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

parish church of St Anna. Remains of an

Old Believers Old Believers or Old Ritualists ( Russian: староверы, ''starovery'' or старообрядцы, ''staroobryadtsy'') is the common term for several religious groups, which maintain the old liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian ...

' cemetery have been preserved to this day in Pogorzelec.

History

The village was founded in the 18th century by Russian

who fled

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, where they were persecuted on religious grounds In 1827 it was documented that the village population was 326 inhabitants and 26 homes and In 1830, Onufry Yakovlev (Smirnov), who came from Pogorzelec, founded the village of Onufryjevo, which was then in the territory of

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

, thus giving rise to the Mazurian diaspora of Old Believers centred around the molennia in Wojnowo, in 1887 it was documented that the village population was numbered at 544 inhabitants and 72 homes. According to the First General Population Census, conducted in 1921, the village of Pogorzelec had 461 inhabitants, living in 87 houses. The vast majority of Pogorzelec residents, 379 in number, declared an

Old Believer Old Believers or Old Ritualists (Russian: староверы, ''starovery'' or старообрядцы, ''staroobryadtsy'') is the common term for several religious groups, which maintain the old liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian ...

religion. The others reported, in turn, the

faith (81 persons) and the Orthodox faith (1 person). The religious division of the inhabitants of the village almost completely coincided with their national-ethnic structure, as 375 persons declared

Russian nationality Russian citizenship law details the conditions by which a person holds citizenship of Russia. The primary law governing citizenship requirements is the federal law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation" (, ), which Coming into force, came i ...

and the remaining 86 persons reported Polish national identity.

Tourist attractions

The following objects are included in the register of monuments of the National Heritage Institute: * wooden house No. 42, 2nd half of the 19th century (Reg. No. 28 of 13.04.1979)

References

{{Gmina Giby Suwałki Voivodeship Villages in Sejny County