Łапы: История и современность польского города.

Situated here are the bankrupt Railway Fleet Repair Works, a dairy, and the sugar refinery closed in February 2008. Now, Łapy is a medical and educational centre for the region of the former Łapy county.

The town of Łapy is located in north eastern Poland. According to Kondracki's division of Poland into physico geographical regions, the town of Łapy sits on North Podlasie Plain, over the Upper Valley of Narew. The town of Łapy lies by the Narew river. The terrain is elevated here from 120 to 130 metres. Included in Białystok agglomeration, the town is situated in the buffer zone of Narew National Park. According to data from 1 January 2010, the town area then was 12.14 km2. Between 1954 and 1975 Łapy was the administrative centre of Łapy County of Białystok Voivodeship. Between 1975 and 1998 the voivodeship was smaller.

The name 'Łapy' is of Masovian origin, and it initially represented a soubriquet of the kin, who founded the settlement on Narew. A legend links the foundation of the town with the nobleman Łappa of the Lubicz coat of arms, who settled down here during the 15th century Masovian colonisation. The first historical records of these lands come from the early 13th century. It is known that in 1375 Płonka Kościelna was an independent parish. Firstly Łapy was a backwater where the gentry cultivated patriotic traditions. Soon as a result of the village's development, new settlements emerged on the eastern and the western banks of the river Narew, which was a water trade route from Suraż to Gdańsk in 16th and 17th centuries, and after World War II from Puszcza Białowieska to Tykocin; and at the east side of the high road from Suraż to Płonka.

Following the expansion of the family, a series of backwaters were founded, including Rechy, Brusięta, Barwiki, Korczaki, Pluśniaki, Wągle, Wity, Zięciuki, Kosmyki, Łazie, Stryjce, Wojtysze. Some of those names disappeared replaced by others, such as: Goździki, Dębowizna, Bociany, Leśniki. After the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, Łapy fell to the Prussian Partition. In 1807, after the Tilsit Peace Treaty, it became a part of the short lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and after its dissolution, in 1815, it passed to so called Congress Poland in the Russian Partition of Poland. An important event for the future history of Łapy was Napoleonic army's marching through twice in 1812. In the 1820s the backwaters had 1000 inhabitants and 180 houses. In 1825, a fusion of six backwaters (Łapy Barwiki, Łapy Leśniki, Łapy Zięciuki, Łapy Wity, Łapy Goździki, Łapy Bociany) produced the farm settlement of Łapy.

Łapy owes its development to the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway with a station here, opened on 15 December 1862, and to the French having built here the works for repairing steam locomotives and carriages the same year. That caused an influx of tradesmen and labourers not only from the nearby villages, but also from distant Polish locations and from the Russian Empire. In the beginning of the January Uprising, the railway station was captured by a Polish insurgent detachment of Władysław Cichorski nom de guerre "Zameczek" on the night of January 22–23, 1863, and then recaptured by the Russians on January 27, 1863. Further clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops were fought in Łapy on July 11 and 18, 1863. Following World War I, Poland regained independence and control of Łapy. The repair works exist today as 'ZNTK Łapy S. A.' They played a decisive role in Łapy's urbanization, the town charter granted on 1 January 1925. At the eve of the German Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in 1939, the town population reached 8,000 citizens. Following the invasion, Łapy was first occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941, and then by Germany until 1944, when it was finally restored to Poland. During the war, the town was 80% destroyed, and the entire local Jewish population was murdered by the German occupiers in the Holocaust.

There are many small PKS bus stops and the main one – Łapy, next to the railway station building in the centre, from which local lines operate in the directions of Białystok, Zambrów, Siemiatycze, Bielsk Podlaski, etc.

The officially protected traditional food of Łapy (as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland) is the klinek z Łap, a local type of traditionally produced quark.

Council Kindergarten nr 1, ul. Polna 27
Council Kindergarten nr 2, ul. Cmentarna 23

Primary school, ul. Jana Matejki 10 (managed by 'Edukator' association from Łomża)
Primary school nr 1, ul. Polna 9
Primary school nr 2, ul. Piękna 17
Primary school nr 3, ul. Letnia 1

Gymnasium nr 1, ul. Matejki 19
Gymnasium nr 2, ul. Letnia 1

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