The day before the festival (which featured by my count 29 troupes) some of the groups paraded into Bialystok's (triangular) square.The Tatars are muslim. There's a long history of them helping the Poles, e.g. in Sobieski's defeat of the Turks outside Vienna in the 1600s. There are several small villages not far from Bialystok with mosques (now, I believe, museums) & muslim cemeteries.
There are several wonderful thing about this 5-day "Podlasie Octave of Cultures" (Podlasie the region of Poland, an Octave of Cultures because they feature 8 different cultural groups, each of which may have more than one troupe.) First, it is such a slice of cultures -- East European, Russian, gypsy, even here Indian & a small Nepalese group. Secondly, like Bialystok in general, it hasn't been discovered by the outside world. So I really believe I was the only, or almost the only, American at the entire festival. No Swedes, no Germans, even no Japanese! It's a festival done for the people of Podlasie, who are 99% of the audience. This was the 3rd annual...it's something NOT to miss!
If you go to this website, & click on video, you can see performances from past years.
http://www.oktawa.woak.bialystok.pl/Default.aspx?pid=76&aiid=3339
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