Museum of History and Ethnography of Romanians in Zakarpattia "Romanian Manor". 

The museum is located in the village of Nyzhnya Apsha, Tyachiv district, Zakarpattia region, Ukraine. Nyzhnya Apsha is the largest Romanian settlement on the right bank of the Tisza River, with the majority of the population being of Romanian origin: according to the last census in Ukraine in 2001, 97.69% of the village’s inhabitants speak Romanian, 1.59% Ukrainian and 0.5% other languages. The village was documented in 1387, being a part of Maramures County until 1 December 1918, it was also a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and from 1867 to 1 December 1918 it was a part of Austria-Hungary, from 1 December 1918 to 26 July 1921 the village was a part of the Romanian state, de facto and de jure, of Maramures County, then the village fell under the jurisdiction of Czechoslovakia until the end of 1938, for a short time it was part of Carpathian Ukraine – until 24 March 1939 after the occupation and passed under the jurisdiction of Khortyska Hungary until 20 October 1944, when the “liberators”, i.e. Russians, entered the village and annexed Zakarpattia to Soviet Ukraine – the Soviet Union. Since 24 August 1991, we have been part of independent Ukraine.

 The museum is located at 17 Borkaniuk Street, popularly called “Drumul Tsarii”, the main road is Uzhhorod – Rakhiv – Yasynia. The district centre of Tyachiv is 22 km away, the regional centre is 165 km away, and the Romanian city of Sighet, Maramures county, Romania, is 11 km away.

 It was officially established as a legal entity on 27 September 2014 and registered with the Tyachiv District Administration on 05.09.2014. The first steps to create this museum were taken in 1984. I was young with my wife Ilyana and walking down the street, we noticed an old lamp in an old Maramorosh house. It was hanging in the room next to the light bulb, smoky and of no value to the owner. I asked my wife to go to my grandmother Borchanului (her name is Aksenia) and buy the lamp from her. The next day, my wife bought the lamp for 25 rubles (the equivalent of almost $40, my dentist’s salary was 110 rubles at the time). My wife kept asking me why we needed this lamp, and I told her that we would take it home and see… That was the beginning… 

We structured (divided) the museum into the following sections: – The section of the Romanian peasant; – The section of ethnography; – The section of old books; – Documentation; – Numismatics; – Medallic; – Library; – Archive.