This is a Skansen type museum concerned with the history of the people of the Dnieper plains. It was established in 1969, opened in 1976 and now extends over 150 ha to the south-west of Kyiv. In common with most museums of its kind it displays numerous rural buildings – about 200 in all - which have been removed from their original settings and re-erected. A particularly notable feature is an assembly of many windmills on a hill. There are also watermills, potteries and a horse mill that once ground bark for a tannery. Traditional crafts such as textiles, particularly embroidery and carpets, ceramics and the working of glass, iron and wood are demonstrated, and the works of past generations of craftsmen are represented in large collections of artefacts. There are several churches in the museum of which the oldest dates from 1742. The museum is divided into two principal sections, one showing traditional rural life in six regions of the Ukraine before the Communist revolution, the other showing life in Soviet times, illustrating both the changes that came with the modernisation of agriculture and industry, and the cherishing of old traditions. Unusually for this kind of museum some buildings are displayed which were built as recently as the 1970s.
The Museum of Ukraine Folk Art and Rural Life
Pyrohiv (Pirogovo)
Chrvonopramorna Street
Kyiv
Ukraine
+380 (0) 44 - 2665542
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