The Trakai Karaites made two groups of inhabitants engaged in different activities: those of warriors and civilians. The warriors defended castles, the bridge to the castle Karaites defended in the Island of Atkočiškės or Karaite, while the civilians acted as clerks, interpreters, cultivated land, earned their living by small crafts, and trading.

Karaites were settled in the part of the peninsula between two castles. Even in Vytautas’ times the End of Karaites from the Christian part was partitioned by the so-called "lebednyj most" (in the literature of the early 20th c. it was interpreted as "the bridge of swans") – a bridge across a rivulet joining the lakes of Galvė and Totoriškės (crane drawbridge). Later - already in the 18th – 19th c. Karaites also inhabited in the heart of the town when the impoverished nobility had withdrawn from it.

On a Karaite Ende warriors lived. Their temple - kenessa, and school was constructed there. In the 15th c. in Trakai could live approximately 2000 of Karaites.

By the privilege of December 17, 1492 the Grand Duke Alexander relieved Karaite merchants from all the customs of GDL, moreover, he relieved from the defence of castles and reaping and gathering in the harvest in the manor of the Senieji Trakai (Old Trakai), GDL. Since grand dukes ever scarcely visited Trakai, the town began to fall into decay and with it the decay of the Karaite community began.

The privilege of Sigismund the Older of November 23, 1507 and some of his other acts indicate that he had taken care so that the town was not on the decline. Sigismund Augustus who became the Grand Duke of GDL and the King of Poland in the year 1548 was following the same policy. In Trakai trading livened up on which Karaites had an immense effect. They would not only conclude transactions with foreigners, but would go with their goods to the fairs of Gneznas, Prague, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main. The Karaite merchants of Trakai would lend and borrow money, mortgage valuable things. When the financial situation of Karaites improved in the year 1576 they built a new school. Long-lived traditions and the culture of the epoch developed the celebrated Karaite theologian – Isaoc Trakietis (1533-1594) physician Ezra ben Nisan (1596-1666) of the manor of the Radvilos, later Jan Casimir, physician, mathematician, and physicist J. Zubickis.

However, the economic increase was temporary, therefore, in the 17th c. Karaites began to move from Trakai to other Lithuanian towns. After the war with Russia in 1655-1667 Karaites were very scarce in Trakai.

 Part 2