Szwajcaria--sometimes spelled "Szwajcarja"--is about 3 km northeast of the Suwałki city limits on Route 8, which leads to the Lithuanian border crossing at Budziszko (about 20 km from Suwałki). At the top of a hill, at the end of a long road off of Route 8, it's very easy to miss--but the search is definitely worthwhile. It's a beautiful, forested, peaceful, and quiet connection to an ancient past.

A sign in both Polish and English provides the following information, as well as a drawing depicting a burial:

• The site is dated from the 2nd to the 5th century C.E.
• The people associated with it are identified as the "Jacwing's ancestors."
• The most striking aspect is a burial mound about 6-21 meters wide that consists of several stone layers.
• Both "crematory and skeletal" graves have been found at the site.
• Artefacts found in the graves include bronze, iron, glass, and occasionally silver ornaments, pots, tools, and weapons; these artefacts are currently in the Suwałki regional museum and the state archeological museum in Warsaw.
• "Princes' graves" were particularly richly furnished.
• Apparently, in later periods, warriors were buried with their horses.

If you click on the following thumbnails, you'll go to a page that presents each in a large and clear (but perhaps slow-loading) format:

	Map of burial site		Pictures of artefacts
	Cross-section of graves		Mound of stones
	Big Mound of stones		Second Mound of stones

Landscape	Town of Raczki
Holy Trinity Church	Wayside Shrines
Dowspuda & Pac Palace	Raczki Area Links
Raczki History	Ostrowski Family from Raczki