The Karaite Ethnographic Museum traces the ancestry of the Karaites, a Judaic sect and Turkic minority originating in Baghdad, which adheres to the Law of Moses. Their descendants – some 380 families – were brought to Trakai from the Crimea around 1400 to serve as bodyguards. Only 12 families (60 individuals) still live in Trakai and their numbers – 280 throughout Lithuania – are dwindling rapidly.
