2. Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in
Bucharest
• The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului in Romanian) is an open-air
ethnographic museum located in the Herăstrău Park (Bucharest, Romania),
showcasing traditional Romanian village life. The museum extends to over
100,000 m2, and contains 272 authentic peasant farms and houses from all
over Romania. Is one of the biggest and the oldest outdoors museum in
Europe.
• It was created in 1936 by Dimitrie Gusti, Victor Ion Popa, and Henri H.
Stahl. In the 1930's, in Europe there were only two open-air museums: The
Skansen Museum in Stockholm (1891) and Bigdo Museum in Lillehamer
(Norway).
3.
4. Life in the countryside and rural customs have a major significance in the history of
Romania. In the first centuries of this era, Roman colonization had to have a rural
character, and before the first half of last century, the twentieth, much of the population
lived in the village.
5. Rural communities were
organized so as to meet all
daily needs. Clothes were
made manually.
To build Village Museum
which used to call "bells
knell of Romanian
history”, houses have been
dismantled, piece by piece,
transported by train,
wagon or boat to
Bucharest where they were
assembled in place on the
surface.
6. The houses in the hilly regions and mountain areas are different from those of the plain
by high foundation, that of the plain is mostly of low foundations, those from areas
where invading enemies often being half buried in the ground.
7. Most of the houses date from the mid 19th-century, but there are some, such
as those from Berbeşti, in the heart of Romania - celebrated for their intricately
carved entrances - which date from as early as 1775. The highlight of the
museum is probably the steep belfry of the wooden Maramureş church,
complete with exquisite but faded icons.
