BY-274142 288 - ая открытка

Country: Belarus

Distance: 458 km

Travel time:  20 days

On postcard: Belarusian State Open Air Museum

Belarusian State Museum of National Architecture and Lifestyle is open-air museum or skansen. Museums of this type are one of forms of preservation and exhibition of monuments of history and culture in the natural environment. The Belarusian State Museum of National Architecture and Lifestyle shows national, traditional culture of the country in unity of regional and local features and concerns to museums of an ethnographic complex of republican value. An important element of an exposition of an open-air museum is the landscape.

Belarusian skansen is relatively young in comparison with analogous museums around the world.

The idea to establish an open-air museum of national architecture and lifestyle was pronounced for the first time in 1908 by the well-known artist Ferdinand Rushchits. However the First World War and then the Second World War have prevented realization of this plan.

In 50-60th years was the process of building of new houses and agro-industrial complexes in Belarus intensive. It improved the way of life and the unpromising settlements were pulled down. There was a real threat of loss of wooden monuments of architecture and national material culture.

Since 1961 on pages of the republican press were published a lot of articles about necessity of preservation of monuments of national wooden architecture and foundation of open-air museum.

On December 9th 1976 the Republic Government was accepted the Decree № 367 "About creation of The Belarusian State Museum of National Architecture and Lifestyle". To realize the order of the Ministry of Culture was organized the working group that included architects, historians and ethnographers. It was the big scientifically-forwarding work on regions of Republic for the purpose of studying, searching, fixing and transportation piece by piece to the museum monuments of national wooden architecture, objects of mode of life and handicraft from all over the country.

The museum complex should include more than 250 monuments and 50 thousand exhibits, an industrial-economic zone, objects of engineering maintenance and improvement, intramuseum roads.

During 1987 - 1994 for visitors have been opened three scientifically-exposition sector: « the Central Belarus» "Paazer'e" and "Podneprov`e" also are partially generated. Today the exposition of the Belarus State Museum of National Architecture and Lifestyle is included about 40 objects which part is in a restoration stage.