If you come to Chernivtsi for a few days, then the Regional Museum of Folk Architecture and Life is a must to visit and you should spend at least 2 hours for that. Walking around here, time passes quickly and you will get a lot of good emotions.
Excursion to the Chernivtsi Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life
This museum is also called “Ethnographic” and this name can be found in many guidebooks and websites. If you travel to Chernivtsi, especially for one day, you can easily miss it. And this is not because it is situated far from the historical center, but because you need to spend more time on visiting this remarkable sight in Chernivtsi than any other beautiful place of this city.
When we get to the territory of the Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life in Chernivtsi we see a huge open green area. The first thing our guide will tell us is that we have to stick to one single road, which will take us from the very beginning to the very end. And in the process we will get acquainted with the way our ancestors lived in Bukovina from the middle of the XIX century to 1930s of the XX century.
These are architectural structures – huts with interior decoration, outbuildings, entire courtyards, administrative buildings and even a church. Some of them have been reproduced exactly as they were in their time, and some have been brought from villages and preserved their authentic state.
What can be seen in the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Architecture and Life
If we go clockwise from the entrance (going left first), we will be greeted first by the large mills. After them will come small detached huts, and as we go along the way – there will be more and richer. Little by little interest comes not only to look, but also to read the signs with explanations near each object, to find on the map this or that construction.
I was bored at first, but when I started looking inside and reading the explanations, I immediately became interested and wanted to know more.
On the territory of the museum you can see ancient mills and their inner workings, houses and yards of poor and rich citizens from different districts of Bukovina. There are even vegetable beds, pots on the fences, and bobs of corn hanging from the roofs – the inhabitants probably used to dry the crop.
The interior decoration of the huts is striking, it seems that only recently there were people here who used all these things. There is a tavern, a blacksmith shop, a barn for poultry and cattle – also with all the details.
At the very end of the museum is the village council office from 1920. There is not only furniture, but also documents, photos of real people who lived almost a century ago. There is a gate to the village – with an inscription in Romanian and the year – “1930”. Such gates were made from a single piece of wood and put at the entrance to the village.
The apogee of the exposition is the church. It is built of wood, but with a stone floor. There were actual services in the church. There’s an old iconostasis, and greasy canvases on poles with pictures of Jesus Christ and other saints (I don’t know what they’re called correctly).
What else is there to do at the museum?
When I walked around the museum, I noticed that there are modern pavilions and barbecues, among a small forest – there are benches, there is a children’s area, a photo zone. An improvised “hut on chicken legs” (Ukrainian folk tale).
I’m sure there are often all kinds of festivals held here, you can come for a weekend and sit with company.
How to get there and how much it costs to enter the Chernivtsi Regional State Museum of Folk Architecture and Way of Life
Entrance to the museum costs from 40 UAH for children and 70 UAH for adults. There are also additional services (the same gazebo and barbecue), also for an extra fee guide will tell you a lot of interesting things.
The museum is located at 38b Sichenovyh Streltsov Street (formerly this street was called the Moscow Olympiad). This is a new area of the city (outside the old city).
You can get here by any transport that goes along Russkaya Street. Trolleybus number 4 has its terminus near the entrance to Chernivtsi Museum of Folk Life and Architecture.
The museum is open from 10.00 to 18.00 every day.
I liked it here. It’s a quiet and pleasant place. You can relax both mind and body, learn new things. It took me 2 hours to walk at a leisurely pace (without a guide).