Ukrainian culture of the 19th century | Walking tour into the past

Ukrainian culture of the 19th century | Walking tour into the past

Welcome to our channel! If you’re watching this video in the year 2055, and time travel hasn’t been invented yet, and you don’t know how to peek into the past, then we’ve got great news for you! In our video, you’ll be able to journey back to ancient times and see what Eastern Europe looked like in the 16th to 19th centuries!

The National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine is an architectural and landscape complex of all historical and ethnographic regions of Ukraine: Polissia, Slobozhanshyna, Poltava, Carpathians, Middle Dnieper, Podillia and the South. The open-air museum founded on February 6, 1969 is located on the historical land that once belonged to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. It welcomed its first visitors in 1976.
Today museum exposes about 300 monuments of folk architecture that date back to the 16th-20th centuries.
Among them there are houses, storehouses, wells and other belongings that used to be in Ukrainian villages. The oldest architectural exhibit is a house from Samara village from Volyn region (1587). The funds of the museum have about 100000 various exhibits: folk clothing, fabric, furniture, tools, pottery, the craft works of coopers, carpenters, joiners and blacksmiths, folk painting, musical instruments, children’s toys etc.

Museum constantly develop the spiritual culture of Ukrainians. It has become traditional to conduct national holidays such as Christmas, Malanka, Kolodiya, Kupala, meeting with Saint Nicholas etc. Every event is unique due to the interesting rituals and customs that are shown to the visitors.
The ‘Creative workshop’ operates on the territory of the museum where anyone can learn folk crafts and make their own handicrafts: from straw angels to a spoon.

Each visitor can walk along the paths of the museum independently or accompanied by a qualified tour guide. Moreover, visitors can visit interactive programs where they can learn about everyday life of Ukrainian villagers, try themselves at some traditional crafts such as spinning or embroidery, as well as to sing traditional Ukrainian songs and dance some folk dances.

Welcome into the trip about ancient Ukraine!

📍 Polissia
Ukrainian Polissia stretches from west to east, encompassing the Volyn, Rivne, northern districts of Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions. This is the realm of ancient Ukrainian architecture. The museum exhibition preserves 48 original monuments of traditional construction in Ukrainian Polissia: cottages and semi-cottages with adobe stoves and ‘volokovyi’ (wooden latticed) windows, illuminated by a ‘svitoch’ (a small window). A characteristic feature is the layout of a Polissian homestead: single-row construction, a house with lean-tos, an open or enclosed courtyard, a yard for two houses. Polissia has always been famous for its smoked ‘gray’ pottery, embroidered clothing, woven carpets, and towels.

📍 Poltava and Sloboda Ukraine
In the eastern part of the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, the exhibition ‘Poltava and Sloboda Ukraine’ is unfolded, occupying an area of approximately 4 hectares (9.88 acres). Here, over 50 buildings are installed, reproducing elements of life and everyday life of the region’s population. Since the cultures of Poltava and Sloboda Ukraine are closely intertwined, these two ethnographic regions in the museum are united and presented together.

📍 Southern Ukraine
The exposition is located in the flat part of the museum, which corresponds to the landscape of the southern region of the country and covers the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Kirovohrad regions. In ancient times, most of Southern Ukraine was vast steppes with dense grass, herds of wild horses, and tall mounds. The distinctive feature of the region is the use of natural stone and clay as the main building materials, which determined the uniqueness of folk architecture. Analogues of southern Ukrainian dwellings can be found in the monuments of many archaeological cultures, starting from the Trypillian culture.

The “Pirogovo” Museum is one of the largest open-air museums in Europe, so we’ve divided video into two parts. Here is the link to the first part: https://youtu.be/sWLz_3oJLkA
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🕒 Timecode:
00:00 – Intro
01:52 – Pamfir’s House
07:34 – Polissia region
20:20 – Sloboda Ukraine
23:48 – Poltava region
36:12 – Ukrainian Fair, ‘Singing Field’
41:13 – Naddniprianshchyna
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🌍 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ARX2Ag2SE1KFc6Er7

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