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Before Establishing The City

The isthmus between the lakes Niegocin and Kisajno must have been a road in very distant times, along which caravans of merchants hurried to collect the yellow amber treasure. On this isthmus, it was also easy to organize the defense of the country against invasions from the East and the South, or during fights between neighboring tribes. Thus, although the chroniclers of the 13th century describe the entire area of the great Masurian lakes as a huge forest in which only wild animals farm, it is impossible not to see an exaggeration in this, all the more that archaeologists' works also indicate numerous traces of age-old human activity in this region. In pagan times, it was a border area between three neighboring Prussian tribes: Sudov (Yotvingians), Galinds and Barts. It was guarded by a fortified settlement. After the catastrophe of the mission of St. Wojciech was launched in 1008. second mission to the country of Prussia. It was led by the author of the life of St. Wojciech, bishop Bruno of Kwerfurt (born around 974, died in 1009). Bruno went north not following the footsteps of his predecessor, i.e. not from Pomerania, but from the Łomża region, from the border between Poland and Russia. At a great, distant lake, Bruno converted a leader named Izegup or Jesegup to the Christian faith and baptized him and his subjects in the waters of that lake.