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The Vitoslavlitsy Museum of Wooden Architecture

Novorood Wooden Architecture Museum The Vitoslavlitsy Museum of Wooden Architecture [Photos at bottom of page.  All images are thumbnailed.] South of Novgorod and not far from the outlying Iur'ev Monastery is an outdoor museum of wooden architecture.  It is one of several to be found now in Russia (others are in Suzdal and Kostroma), where often quite old buildings have been dismantled in their original locations, brought to the museum, reassembled and restored.    The "villages" which result are, of course, artificial creations, since they never existed in the given location with the same grouping of buildings that one now sees.   However, an obvious effort has been made to ensure authenticity at least in the houses, which have been furnished with genuine objects and in which items have been placed according to what is known from ethnographic surveys of still living traditions which can reasonably be assumed to correspond to those of the former inhabitants of the houses on display.  Granted, the houses have a kind of museum cleanliness about them that surely could not have been typical of homes actually being lived in.  The attendants dress in authentic regional costume (perhaps the Sunday best, rather than workaday clothes?), and at various times in the year there are folk festivals attempting to recreate the atmosphere of traditional holidays.  The Novgorod Museum web pages have some photos of such festivals at the Vitoslavlitsy Museum.

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