Wąsosz ' is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Grajewo County

Grajewo County

Grajewo County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Podlaskie Voivodeship, north-eastern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Grajewo, which lies ...

, Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship

Podlaskie Voivodeship , is a voivodeship in northeastern Poland. It borders on Masovian Voivodeship to the west, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship to the northwest, Lublin Voivodeship to the south, the Belarusssian Voblasts of Grodno and Brest to the east, the Lithuanian Counties of Alytus and...

, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina

Gmina

The gmina is the principal unit of administrative division of Poland at its lowest uniform level. It is often translated as "commune" or "municipality." As of 2010 there were 2,479 gminas throughout the country...

 (administrative district) called Gmina Wąsosz

Gmina Wasosz, Podlaskie Voivodeship

Gmina Wąsosz is a rural gmina in Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. Its seat is the village of Wąsosz, which lies approximately south-west of Grajewo and north-west of the regional capital Białystok....

. It lies approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) south-west of Grajewo

Grajewo

Grajewo , is a town in north-eastern Poland with 23,302 inhabitants .It is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship ; previously, it was in Łomża Voivodeship...

 and 73 km (45 mi) north-west of the regional capital Białystok. The village has a population of 1,600.

Wąsosz received city rights from Prince Władysław on 13 May 1436, and lost them in 1870 under the Russian rule

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 following the Partitions

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...

. The already well-developed town was destroyed in the Swedish Deluge of 1655-1656 and then rebuilt. The Town Hall was erected in 1789. Almost all of the streets were paved at around the same time. The Carmelite monastery was established in Wąsosz as far back as 1605, but was closed in 1864 by the authorities in reprisal for help offered by monks to victims of the January Uprising

January Uprising

The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...

. They were sent to Katorga

Katorga

Katorga was a system of penal servitude of the prison farm type in Tsarist Russia...

 chained by the neck.

One of the most impressive points of interest in Wąsosz is its late Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

church from 1508, with three altars adorned with religious paintings. It is located at the Old Market Square.