Houses in Tykocin
Old house near town
square in Tykocin
Many of the houses in Tykocin look like
barns, with what appears to be a hayloft in the attic space,
but you can tell they are dwellings because they are right next
to the sidewalk and have curtains in the window. Note the cobblestone
street in front of the house.
The house that is shown in the photo
below is a log house, weathered to a natural gray color; notice
the tin roof. All of the houses in Tykocin are built close to
the very narrow streets. I didn't select these particular houses
to photograph because they are unique; most of the houses in
Tykocin look like this.
Old log house with
tin roof in village of Tykocin
If these barn-like houses look familiar,
it may be because you have seen houses just like them in the
movie "Fiddler on the Roof." After Poland was partitioned
for the third time in 1795, Tykocin was located in the section
that came under the control of Russia. Between 1835 and 1917,
Tykocin was included in the Pale of Settlement, the reservation
where the Jews were forced to live by decree of Russian Czar
Nicholas I. The movie depicts the life of the Jews in the Pale
and ends with the start of their expulsion in 1881 after the
assassination of Czar Nicholas I during the revolutionary activity,
that was just beginning, which finally culminated in the overthrow
of Czar Nicholas II by the Communists in 1917.
Two million Jews were expelled from the
Russian sector of the former country of Poland between 1881 and
the start of World War I in 1914. Most of the Jews from the Pale
came to America, but some settled in Germany or the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. In 1917, some of the Jews from the Pale of Settlement,
who had emigrated to America, returned to fight in the Communist
Revolution.
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