You may not have been aware of it, but this was the ‘Year of the Karaim’ in Lithuania. At the official declaration, Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonyte described the Karaim people as a “unique treasure”, though official figures show there are only 196 living in the country today. Yet, despite being one of the smallest minorities in Europe, Karaim culture is still a big part of Trakai, the former Lithuanian capital (about 30km south-west of Vilnius), where they were once the city's champions.
In 1397, Vytautas, ruler of what was then the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, invited several hundred Karaim
