Museum of Folk Architecture and Life

L’viv’s open air museum occupies a site of 59 ha in the north-east of the city, and has exhibits from all over the western part of the Ukraine. Its origins date from 1930 when the wooden church of St Nicholas of 1763 was moved to a new site to avoid its demolition. Plans for an open air museum were discussed but were abandoned during the Second World War. The present museum was planned from 1971 and now has 124 buildings, many of them assembled in 54 farmsteads, and divided into groups representing different regions. They include the buildings associated with rural crafts and manufactures found in most Skansen-type museums, mills, smithies, houses used for spinning and weaving, and fulling mills. A particularly imposing exhibit is a 6-sail windmill from the Vyzhnytsya district of the Carpathian Mountains, and one of the most valuable collections is of the richly decorated furniture, stoves and textiles made by the Hutsul people, also from the Carpathians. The museum is well-known for its season folklore festivals, and for its art exhibitions.