Maramureș County Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art and the Village Museum, Baia Mare.
The Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art of Baia Mare County is a public cultural institution subordinated to the Maramures County Council. The museum is located on the Hill of Flowers, in a picturesque area of the city, near the historic centre. The institution consists of two locations: The Rural Museum and the Pavilion Section, located in the former Summer Theatre of the city.
In front of the Pavilion Section is a sculptural ensemble by the famous sculptor Vida Geza, consisting of 12 columns depicting figures from Maramures and masks from local mythology, reminiscent of the massacre committed on 14 October 1944 by the retreating Horthyst troops.
The Youth Field offers a wide green area located in the immediate vicinity of the Queen Mary Municipal Park, a recreational destination for those who enjoy long and relaxing walks.
Brief history. In 1899, the Baia Mare Museum Association was founded in Baia Mare, formed by the city’s intelligentsia, whose members donated the objects that made up the first collections of the Baia Mare Museum. The Second World War interrupted the work of the museum, which was resumed in 1950, but then a special emphasis was placed on the history department. It was only in 1964 that the section of ethnography and folk art was approved.
The significant increase in the collections of the Ethnography Department, as well as the special value of the works recognised by major experts in this field: Tancred Benecianu, Boris Zderciuc, Silvia Zderciuc, Nicolae Ungureanu, Cornel Irimiei, and Giorgeta Stoica, led to the organisation of an ethnographic museum with an ex-pavilion. For this purpose, the building of the Summer Theatre, which was then in deep degradation, was obtained, and later underwent major repairs and refurbishment to accommodate both the exposition and the department’s warehouses. The idea of preserving the space for performances was not abandoned: a stage and an amphitheatre with a capacity of about 800 seats.
On 1 July 1978, the first exhibition of the main pavilion of the Department of Ethnography and Folk Art opened. This exhibition was kept until 2007, when a new main exhibition was opened: Wood in Traditional Communities from Cradle to Grave.
On 15 August 1985, after long efforts by industry experts and local authorities, an open-air section, the Village Museum, was inaugurated. The monuments of folk architecture represent four ethnographic regions of the county: Historic Maramures, Chioar, Lăpuș and Codru.
The museum also tried to present the types of farms according to the main occupation of the inhabitants of the area of origin. Thus, we have farms from the Lapusului region, vineyards from the Baia Mare sub-zone, fruit growers from the Maramuresului region, etc. Technical structures, such as water wheels, pipes, whirlpools and water mills, were not left out.
The museum was developed around a wooden church originating from the village of Chechiș (Dumbravita commune), an area that belonged to the domain of Baia Mare (cf. documentary evidence from 1566). The church has been on this site (Dealul Florilor – Baia Mare) since 1939 and dates back to 1630.
"Baia Mare Art Center" County Art Museum.
The County Art Museum the « Artistic Centre Baia Mare» is a cultural institution located in the Old Center of Baia Mare, at 1 Mai Street, no.8. The building of the museum operates was erected in 1748 and is a historical monument of national importance. Although seen from the outside it may seem quite unimpressive from an architectural point of view, inside visitors will be pleasantly surprised by the vaulted ceilings in the ground floor rooms, by the Art Nouveau ornaments existing on the ceilings of the high halls upstairs, as well as by the stoves made in the Rococo style. Also, the edifice that currently houses the museum’s exhibitions is distinguished by its history. The basement and ground floor of the building were built during the Habsburg Empire with the purpose of serving as a salt deposit and headquarters of the Saline Office. After about 100 years, it was refurbished and transformed into a bank headquarters, and from the early 1900s it became the private house of lawyer Dr. Teofil Dragoș. Being an important personality in the community from a political and social point of view (besides the legal profession, Teofil Dragoș was also President of National Liberal Party of Satu Mare, prefect, deputy, president of the “Aurora” Credit and Savings Institute in Baia Mare and president of the Satu Mare Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and having the necessary financial resources, Teofil Dragoș resorted to extending the building by superposing. After his death in 1934, the building was donated to the City Council, and in 1954 it was given to the administration of the Maramureș County Museum. Subsequently, the Art Department of the museum operated in the building, which in September 2006 was reorganized as the County Art Museum « Artistic Centre Baia Mare ». This museum is distinguished at national level by the fact that it is the only institution focused exclusively on collecting, hoarding and exhibition capitalization of works of art created by artists from Baia Mare, as well as by artists who worked in Baia Mare, although they were born or were professionally trained in other cultural spaces in the country and abroad.
The foundations of the artistic movement in Baia Mare were laid between 1896-1901 by Simon Hollósy and a group of painters from Baia Mare, namely Béla Iványi Grünwald, Thorma János, Réti István and Károly Ferenczy. Hollósy Simon, native of Sighetu-Marmatiei, completed his professional training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he later came to be recognized “as a first-rate talent”. Before his 30th birthday, he became a master of fine arts for students around the world and founded an internationally acclaimed private painting school in Munich. As a result of this resounding success and his Maramures origins, the officials from Baia Mare invited him to come and work together with his students on his native lands. This context was considered by Hollósy to be an excellent opportunity to overcome the limits of studio painting, for which he accepted the invitation of Mayor Thurman Oliver and, in May 1896, brought his first group of students from Munich to Baia Mare.
For six years, until 1901, Hollósy continued to come with his students to Baia Mare during the summer. Thus, during this time, over 400 artists from various European countries, but also from North America, Australia and India, created in Baia Mare under Hollósy’s guidance. The cosmopolitan character of these groups of artists, correlated with the academic and professional studies that many of them followed in other centres, such as Munich, Budapest, Bucharest and Paris, made the artistic activities carried out in Baia Mare to be strongly influenced by the ideas and aesthetic models existing at international level. These influences were reflected in the multitude of stylistic currents existing in the art of Baia Mare, starting from the plein air realism specific to the first creations, and up to the postmodernism that characterizes contemporary art.
After 1901, the pedagogical activity in the artistic field continued in Baia Mare under various forms and names (Free School of Painting, School of Fine Arts, Free School of Fine Arts, etc.), which made over time in the city to carry out their creative activity over 3,500 artists from Europe and beyond. The relief, the natural setting and the beautiful landscapes of Baia Mare and its surroundings were important attraction factors of the artists in this area, significantly influencing their creation. For this reason, Baia Mare, also called “the city of painters”, came to own one of the few European artistic colonies that functioned uninterruptedly, starting from the 19th century until today.
In this context, the cultural heritage of the County Art Museum « Artistic Centre Baia Mare» has progressively increased over time, currently totalling over 6,790 cultural goods, divided into the following collections: painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative art, art photographs and documentary fund. Among them, visitors can admire in the permanent exhibition of the museum, entitled “Baia Mare Artistic Center. European landmarks between traditions and innovations“, a selection of 350 works, exhibited in 11 halls. The exhibition presents a chronological synthesis of the artistic creation made in Baia Mare, starting with 1896 and until now, being organized problematically, thematically and chronologically.
The museum’s opening hours are from Tuesday to Sunday, between 10:00h and 17:00h.
Painters' Colony, Baia Mare.
„Colonia Pictorilor”(“Painters’ Colony”) is located on a plot of land with an area of 13,417 sqm, the settlement consisting of creative spaces, organized in 5 buildings, constructed in 1900 – 1911 – 1920 – 1968, as well as a contemporary building designed and built in 2012, called Documentation and Visual Communication Point. It has been included in the List of historical monuments since 2010 at position 194, registered with the code MM-II-a-A-04494.
This artistic establishment was founded in 1898, at the initiative of the painter and pedagogue from Maramureş, Simon Hollόsy (1857-1918), by the Decision of Baia Mare City Hall of March 27th, 1898, “for the establishment of a permanent painting colony in Baia Mare.” Then, the municipality, represented by Mayor Oliver Thurmann, decided to build 8 workshops, one for each of the signatories of the letter addressed to Baia Mare City Council: Hollόsy Simon, Károly Ferenczy, Béla Iványi Grünwald, János Thorma, István Réti, Oszkár Glatz, Csók István, Horthy Béla. The approach was not completed immediately, in the urban evolution there were several stages, each of them materializing through certain constructions composing today the patrimony of what is called the Baia Mare Painters’ Colony.
Thus, in 1900 the building housing 2 workshops was completed, on a swampy land, on the bank of the Săsar River, property of the city, the area not being systematized at that time. The workshops were rented by the City Council to István Réti and Béla Grünwald. In 1910 and 1911, in the same area, the municipality erected 2 new buildings, based on the projects of Hungarian architects Balint and Jambor. The 2 buildings (a Painting School and a workshops building) were completed in the spring of 1911. The school building consisted of an exhibition hall, illuminated from the top by a glass roof (8×14 m) and 2 workshops. The other building, composed of ground floor and first floor, included 4 workshops, one room each and outbuildings. In the same year, the existence of the Baia Mare School and Colony was formalized from a legal point of view, by establishing the Society of Painters from Baia Mare.
Another stage in the evolution of the municipal dowry of the colony took place after 1968, when 2 new buildings were designed and built (GF and GF + 1), with 6 creative workshops for the Art Galleries of the Baia Mare Fine Arts Fund.
For a century, over 3000 plastic artists from England, Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Switzerland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Norway, Holland, Poland, Romania, Russia, USA, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia have worked here temporarily or permanently. In a chronology proposed by Dr. Tiberiu Alexa (1993), director of the Baia Mare County Museum of Art, the Baia Mare Art Center went through three distinct stages: the affirmation phase (1896-1918), the development phase (1919-1950) and the diversification phase (1951-present), marking the emergence of new institutional forms, but also the presence of historical acts and facts that took place in this field of fine arts. Thus, specialized bodies have covered, over time, all specific areas of artistic life: education, art production itself, public circulation and consumption, purchasing and collecting practices, but also scientific research and capitalization of the historicized artistic heritage. (Dr. Tiberiu Alexa)
Through the rehabilitation project, carried out between 2015-2017, the Painters’ Colony Center for Contemporary Art proposes today a multifunctionality of the spaces, in order to host courses and creative activities, conferences, current large-scale cultural activities. Some of 28 artist residencies are part of an exchange project in which the space of the Painters’ Colony will become more dynamic and regain its European dimension. By vertically systematizing the outdoor space, very generous and with vegetation preserved very well for the central area of the city, the contrast between the 6 buildings from the premises and the natural element with the appearance of a park is highlighted. The function of an art gallery is optimized, an imperative space for an artistic center with such a history.
This cultural site represents the community, which identifies and participates in defining it. In other words, the Painters’ Colony Center for Contemporary Art becomes a powerful device through which the artistic guild of Baia Mare manufactures and reveals its own identity. This space thus conceived and created is, on the one hand, a mirror of the artistic guild, a place of hospitality, an interface, allowing tourists to discover this local specificity with an international character. Through everything it is, this place will communicate about its uniqueness.
The financing of this project was provided entirely from the local budget of Baia Mare Municipality, amounting to approximately 3,200,000 Eur. The Baia Mare municipality recovered the investment made from the local budget, thanks to the Regio financing project, “Valorization of the cultural heritage through the restoration and rehabilitation of the Painters’ Colony” through the contribution of the European Union through the financing contract no. 3466 / 11.12.2018.
Folk-park "Hutsul Land"
The Hutsul Land ethno-park on the territory of the Bukovel ski and SPA resort is an original, carefully dismantled and moved wooden huts of the XIX-XX centuries, along with utensils and recreated everyday life, where representatives of various Carpathian ethnic groups lived: Hutsuls, Boyky, Lemky. There is also a skansen, as well as domestic and wild animals, poultry in spacious enclosures, suspension bridges, photo zones and master classes, a Carpathian cinema club, and various attractions.
Kosiv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts of Lviv National Academy of Arts.
Kosiv Art School is a leading regional higher education institution that has celebrated its 140th anniversary and is of great importance for the development of culture and art not only in the Carpathian region but also throughout Ukraine. The Institute and the College of Decorative and Applied Arts perform an important national task – to preserve and give a modern sound to folk crafts, to develop the tradition through the synthesis of culture and life of the Hutsul region, a protected artistic land that requires not only detailed study but also enrichment through awareness and perception of the past. Graduates of the institution are donors of artistic personnel for centres of folk arts and crafts that are disappearing or on the verge of extinction, and are the bearers of Ukrainian traditional culture and its future.
Yosaphat Kobrynskyi National Museum of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia Folk Art.
Over its almost century-long history, the Kobrynsky National Museum of Folk Art of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia has become a significant cultural institution for research, preservation and promotion of folk culture and artistic heritage of the Carpathian region.
It was founded in 1926 on the initiative of Volodymyr Kobrynskyi as the first Ukrainian Folk Museum in Galicia. It is located in the former People’s House, built at the expense of the Ukrainian community of the city (1895-1902) with the active participation of the Greek Catholic priest, parish priest from the village of Myshyn, Josaphat Kobrynskyi. The museum was opened to the public on 31 December 1934.
The museum’s collection includes about 50,000 items dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries. However, some exhibits date back to the 4th millennium BC and represent the agricultural culture known in archaeological and historical science as Trypillian. The museum collection is the largest and most complete collection of Hutsul folk art in the world and annually attracts 300,000 visitors from over 70 countries.
All types of traditional folk art of Hutsuls and Pokutians are presented in 18 exhibition halls: artistic woodworking, metal and leather processing, pottery, decorative weaving, carpet weaving, embroidery, clothing and jewellery. In addition to traditional folk culture, the museum has a permanent exhibition of sacred and fine art, a department of traditional Carpathian furniture, and a recreation of the exterior of a Hutsul dwelling and the courtyard of a hut-grazhda. The museum exposition is completed by a recreated memorial room of the famous public and political figure, writer Andriy Tchaikovsky, whose political and literary heritage was banned in Soviet times.
The museum was granted national status in 2009 by a Presidential Decree for the uniqueness of the collections collected and preserved under totalitarian regimes and international recognition.
The National Museum has four branches: The Museum of Easter Egg Painting, the Kosiv Museum of Hutsul Folk Art and Life, the Yaremche Museum of Ethnography and Ecology of the Carpathian Region, and the Shukhevych Family Museum-Estate in the village of Tyshkivtsi, Horodenka District.
Branch: Easter Egg Museum (Pysanka).
Address: 43b Chornovola Street, Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ukraine
Phone: +380343347513
Email: pysanka@hutsul.museum
Website: https://pysanka.museum
Social networks: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069078320931
The world’s only Museum of Easter Egg Painting, a branch of the Y. Kobrynskyi National Museum of Folk Art of Hutsulshchyna and Pokuttia, was opened on 24 October 1987 in the premises of the Church of the Annunciation, an architectural monument of the late sixteenth century (1587). In 2000, an original building in the shape of a pysanka egg over 13 metres high was built especially for the museum, and the Pysanka Museum itself became a visiting card of the city and the region, visited annually by about one hundred thousand tourists from Ukraine and more than 70 countries. Tourists are attracted by both the original building and the opportunity to see a variety of original miniature masterpieces. The museum’s exposition includes about three thousand unique exhibits: pysankas, malyovankas, driapankas created on chicken, goose, ostrich or quail shells, as well as decorative eggs decorated with various techniques. In total, the museum’s collection includes more than 12,000 pieces. A significant part of the collection belongs to Easter eggs from the Hutsul and Pokuttia regions, where the ancient tradition of Easter egg making was uninterrupted and on the basis of which the museum’s collection was formed. It is therefore symbolic that the renewal and modernisation of the exhibition began with the hall where they are presented. Thanks to the project supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, the exhibition equipment and lighting were completely renewed, a video installation and three-dimensional stained-glass compositions were created, which enhance the emotional perception of the exhibition, making it more accessible to people with visual and hearing impairments and generally more interesting for visitors of all ages. The collection includes Easter eggs from all historical and ethnographic regions of Ukraine and more than thirty countries of the world where Ukrainians have spread Easter egg art or preserved local traditions of decorating eggs as a symbol of the birth of the world and life. Decorative eggs made of semi-precious stones or decorated with various techniques come from India, Turkey, China, Israel, gilded eggs from Egypt, silver pysanky coins from Canada, pysanky, malyovanky, driapanky, decorative eggs from Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany, France…
The oldest not only in our collection, but also in Ukraine is a 500-year-old Easter egg painted with natural dyes on a goose egg, which was found in Lviv during archaeological excavations. The Museum of Easter Egg Painting is a nominee of the All-Ukrainian campaign “7 Wonders of Ukraine” (ranked 8th), was awarded for its high tourist rating by the world’s most famous travel website TRIPADVISOR, and was recognised at the state level as a tourist “magnet” of Prykarpattia. In 2018, the element “Tradition of Hutsul Easter eggs” was included in the National List of Elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukraine, which was submitted by the Museum of Easter Egg Painting to the Expert Council of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. Throughout the year, the museum hosts masterclasses in Easter egg painting and other art forms, which can be attended by prior arrangement, and exhibitions of various genres. The Museum of Easter Egg Painting gave impetus to the launch of the annual All-Ukrainian Folklore Festival “Pysanka” in Kolomyia, which usually takes place on Palm Sunday and brings together Easter egg painters, folk art researchers, and artists from all over Ukraine and many countries of the world for two days.
Branch: Kosiv Museum of Folk Art and Rural Life of Hutsul Region.
Address: 55 Nezalezhnosti Street, Kosiv, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ukraine
Phone: +380347821643, +380968469984
Email: kosivmuzeum@gmail.com
Social networks: https://www.facebook.com/kosivmuseum
The museum is located in the city centre, on Independence Square. The building is known locally as the Rabbi’s Wall. Before the Second World War, it belonged to the Jewish community and served as a residence for a rabbi. The building attracts attention with its classical architectural forms and is a monument of architecture and urban planning of the late nineteenth century.
The museum collection includes about 6 thousand items. It was based on the once well-known collection of Hutsul artworks of the couple Yevhen and Zoia Sahaidachnyi, who settled in Kosiv after the Second World War. Yevhen Sahaidachnyi was a Ukrainian artist, theatre decorator, sculptor, teacher, ethnographer and collector.
A visit to the museum begins with a tour of the exhibition halls, where exhibitions of contemporary art change every month. Painters, graphic artists, sculptors, photographers, designers, collectors and masters of decorative art from different parts of Ukraine present their works here.
The permanent exhibition of the Kosiv Museum of Hutsulshchyna features more than 700 unique exhibits. They are housed in four spacious themed halls: “Hutsul costumes and life”, “Ceramics”, “Artistic woodworking” and “Textiles”. Most of the exhibits date back to the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. The pearls of the collection are the works of the coryphaei of Hutsul folk art: Oleksa Bakhmatyuk, Yurii Shkribliak, Vasyl Devdiuk and many others. Acquaintance with the museum artefacts reveals the historical value and continuity of the traditions of Hutsul folk crafts that exist in Kosiv district to this day.
The highlight of the museum is a unique interactive exhibition dedicated to the history of Kosiv painted ceramics. Visitors can actively interact with its elements: explore, touch, watch videos, look into drawers and caskets, and perform various game tasks. The hall is equipped with designer showcases for ceramic artefacts from the museum’s collection. Original products by Oleksa Bakhmatyuk, Pavlyna Tsvilyk and other famous potters are displayed alongside historical photographs and interesting texts.
Another innovation of the exhibition is its accessibility for blind visitors. This is the only permanent exhibition of ceramics in Ukraine that is partially adapted for the visually impaired.
Today, the Kosiv Museum of Hutsulshchyna is one of the most popular cultural leisure centres in the area: museum staff regularly organise exhibitions, art events, masterclasses, interactive children’s activities and quests. For fifty years in a row, the institution has been bringing together masters of folk art, enthusiastic ethnographers and connoisseurs of Hutsul history and culture.
Branch: Yaremche Museum of Ethnography and Ecology of Carpathian Region.
Address: 269 Svobody Street, Yaremche, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ukraine
Phone: +380343422208, +380984407644
Email: yar.museum@gmail.com
Social networks: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076014465497
In a picturesque part of the Carpathians, not far from the foot of Hoverla, where the waters of the fast-flowing Prut are born, there is a beautiful town of Yaremche. Today, it is one of the largest tourist centres with a number of hotels, holiday homes, entertainment complexes and art fairs. This was facilitated by scientific research of the region, which has been gaining more and more publicity since the second half of the nineteenth century. Industrial and ethnographic exhibitions played an important role in popularising the region, one of the first of which was the economic and industrial exhibition in Kolomyia in 1880. Here, for the first time, the folk artists of the region presented their works: carver Andrii Tymchuk from Dora, embroiderers Yevdokiia Orfeniuk from Mykulychyn and Hanna Mysiuk from Yamna, and women’s beaded jewellery by Mariia Filiak from Mykulychyn. Subsequently, in the twentieth century, the works of Hutsul masters were presented at the exhibition of books and press held in Vorokhta in 1938. This popularisation of traditional Hutsul culture was the impetus for the formation of Hilovskyi’s private collection in Yaremche, which included more than 700 pieces of art and household items of the Hutsuls. Thus, in the 1930s, the first museum was founded in Yaremche, and in the early 1960s, the creation of the local history museum began, which opened in 1963.
The purpose of this museum is to demonstrate the traditional life support system of the Carpathian ethnic group in the natural and socio-cultural conditions of their habitat, the use of the natural environment by the ethnic group, the traditions of rational nature management, the patterns of formation and functioning of ethno- and ecosystems, and the presentation of all types of traditional folk art of the inhabitants of the Carpathian region.
In recent years, the Yaremche Museum has become a cultural and artistic centre for the community and guests of the city, where all talented artists, both domestic and foreign, can receive residencies, where everyone can share their art and find like-minded people.
Art Museum of Prykarpattia.
The Museum of Arts of Prykarpattia is a rich treasure trove of fine and folk art of the region. Currently, the 15,000-strong museum collection includes unique monuments of Galician iconography and Baroque sculpture, including 5 sculptures by Pinsel; works by the classics of Western Ukrainian painting – Kornil Ustianovych, Ivan Trush, Yaroslav Pstrak, Julian Pankevych, Oleksa Novakivskyi, Osyp Sorokhtei, and Olena Kulchytska; works by Ukrainian artists of the 2nd half of the twentieth century, as well as works by Polish, Austrian, German and Italian masters of the 17th and 19th centuries. The most valuable exhibits of the museum’s collection are on display in the museum’s exhibition hall. It features iconography of the region dating back to the 15th and 19th centuries, baroque plastic works by Johann Gaspar Kohlert, John Georg Pinsel, Matthias Poleiowski, Dionysus Stanetti, paintings by Federico Barocci, Guido Reni, Francesco Trevisani, Michaela Scotti. A significant part of the museum’s collection consists of works of folk art, in particular, artworks by masters of the Hutsul, Pokuttia, Boikivshchyna, and Opillya regions.
Fortress gallery «Bastion»
The Bastion Fortress Gallery has long been a favourite place for many residents of Ivano-Frankivsk to relax and enjoy shopping. Visitors from other cities and even countries often come here. The gallery opened in 2012, and its project was developed by famous architects. In their work, they emphasised the great historical significance of the unique monument that is part of the gallery, namely the remains of the ancient city fortress. The Bastion Fortress Gallery has shops selling handmade souvenirs, clothing and accessories, as well as handicrafts and handmade toys and souvenirs. You can also see a variety of tourist attractions that are of interest to both residents and visitors of Ivano-Frankivsk.
Stanislaviv’s coat of arms
The gallery’s guests are eager to take pictures against the wall with the ancient city coat of arms, and presentations and creative meetings are often held here. However, not everyone knows how old its history is. In 1663, Polish King Jan Kazimierz issued a privilege confirming the granting of Magdeburg rights to Stanislaviv and allowing the use of the city coat of arms. This coat of arms has changed many times, when it comes to certain details of its image. However, its original appearance was exactly like this: a fortress gate with three towers can be seen on a red field. The silver cross of Pyliav is placed on a blue background inside the gate, and the whole composition is located on a green hill.
We can see the image of the city coat of arms on the ancient city seals. It is believed that the oldest seal of the city of Stanislaviv dates back to 1670. It had a Latin inscription: “Sigillum civitatas Stanislavoviensi” (seal of the city of Stanislaviv). In the seventeenth century, such seals were used to approve various documents in the city magistrate.
A model of the city hall
Since 2014, the Bastion Fortress Gallery has been displaying a model of the second city hall, built in 1695. It was cruciform in plan, had nine floors and a tower with a dome. On the fifth floor level, there was a clock with four dials, and on the second and third floors, the magistrate and court held meetings. The ground floor was rented to merchants who opened shops there. The basement was used as a prison, where criminals and opryshky were kept. The town hall was badly damaged during the Marmalade fire of 1868, and only a burnt skeleton remained. The model was made by sculptors Dmytro and Taras Pylyponiuk from the Bohorodchany district and became the first in the Miniature City project initiated by Oleh Zaritskyi.
Outlines of the Stanislaviv Fortress
On the square of the Bastion Fortress Gallery, coloured paving stones outline the outlines of the city fortress dating back to the 1680s. The first version of the Stanislaviv Fortress was hexagonal and embodied the idea of a star city. This system was developed by the Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi and was considered the most progressive in fortification at the time. The principles of this system were used in his project by the “father” of the Stanislaviv Fortress, architect François Corassini. By order of Andriy Potocki, the fortress was rebuilt in 1679-1682, with the construction of a magnate’s residence, which was protected by two new bastions. The construction of the castle and the development of the fortress was carried out by another architect, the Frenchman Charles Benoit. The illuminated outlines of the city fortress can also be seen at the stand located inside the gallery.
Windows overlooking the casemates
Visiting the Milk&Pink cafe, gallery guests have the opportunity not only to drink delicious coffee and enjoy a delicious dessert, but also to see the remains of the fortress casemates.
These brick shelters were located inside the fortress along the inner walls and were used as storage for ammunition and various supplies. They were covered with a thick layer of earth from above. It is interesting that back then, bricks were made by hand, smoothed on top with fingers, which is why they were called “palchatka”. On the top of such bricks, there are always several fingerprints or furrows. The craftsman would fill the wooden mould with clay, then run his fingers over the top and clean off all the excess. Different traces were left each time, so it is impossible to come across two identical bricks from the same time.
Revealing the authentic masonry
On both sides of the entrance from Huzara Street, we can see two “windows” in the brick facing the walls. The architects call them “openings of authentic masonry”. They are intended to let everyone know what the ancient masonry looked like. The walls of the fortress were built of white, roughly hewn limestone. The history of building from this stone goes back more than a millennium, for example, the Egyptian pyramids were built from limestone blocks. A significant part of medieval castles in Europe also consisted of limestone, as it was easy to extract and process. Even back then, this building material was considered to be good for health, as it “breathes”, and therefore buildings are free from mould and excessive humidity. It is believed that the stone walls of the fortress were first bricked in the 1690s.
Cannonball
To the right of the entrance to the gallery from Huzara Street, there is another interesting exhibit – an ancient cannonball. It was found and presented to the gallery by local historian Ivan Bondarev. The cannonball is mounted on a metal bracket, and underneath it is a plate with the symbols “MDCLXXVI”, i.e. “1676” in Roman numerals. There is an assumption that this small souvenir dates back to the “first baptism” of the Stanislaviv Fortress in 1676, when it was besieged by Turkish troops led by Ibrahim Pasha, nicknamed Shaitan. A Turkish army of thousands spent several weeks near Stanislaviv, but failed to capture the city. The disappointed Turks moved north, burning Halych on their way. Interestingly, the weight of a cannonball was used to determine the calibre of a cannon in those days. The weight was calculated in pounds, and the Polish pound was 405 grams. Guns of 12 and 8 pounds were considered large calibre, but smaller ones were also used – three or even one and a half pounds.
Forged sculptures
In 2003, Ivano-Frankivsk hosted the first Festival of Blacksmiths, which was held on the occasion of the City Day. It was then that the tradition of “creating a masterpiece” was born – a collective effort by all the festival participants. Back then, local blacksmiths made four legs for the table, and the guests made the nails that held the table top together. The result was called the Blacksmith’s Friendship Table. Now this table can be seen in the Bastion Fortress Gallery. In general, there are many works by artistic blacksmiths on display here, including the sculptures Flamingo, Camera, Flowers, Weathervane, and others.
Art exhibitions
The Bastion Fortress Gallery also hosts art exhibitions by artists from Ivano-Frankivsk and all over Ukraine. These exhibitions are very diverse, and their main goal is to evoke a reaction in the viewer and not leave him or her indifferent. In different periods, exhibitions of classical painting and unusual artworks, such as steampunk paintings, have been held here.
Rohatyn Historical and Local Lore Museum "Opillya"
The museum’s exposition covers the past of Rohatyn district in a historical and chronological sequence.
The first exhibition hall presents the most ancient history of the region, from the Paleolithic period to the developed Middle Ages, starting with primitive tools and their reconstructions. Visitors can see fragments of Lipytska culture ceramics, a collection of fibulae, crosses, rings and buckles from the Early Iron Age and Kyivan Rus. The hall ends with information about the original location of Rohatyn and graphic hypothetical reconstructions of lost defences.
The next room begins with a description of Rohatyn as an ancient city.
The world knows Rohatyn for its legendary native, Roksolana. The next part of the hall is dedicated to this figure and her activities, where a reconstructive reproduction of women’s Turkish traditional clothing brought from the Republic of Turkey and portrait images of her are exhibited.
The same hall also features a collection of bullets from the 17th and 18th centuries, coins from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and an akçe of Suleiman the Magnificent. The exposition hall ends with information about sacred buildings of the 16th-18th centuries that have been fully or partially preserved.
The materials in the third exhibition hall represent traditional Opillya clothing, embroidery (towels, spyglasses, sewing, etc.), and household items typical of Rohatyn Opillya.
The fourth exhibition hall reveals the history of the Rohatyn region in the first half of the twentieth century and is divided into several main themes. Visitors can get acquainted with photographs and documents on the history of the Prosvita Society, the Union of Ukrainian Women, the Village Master, the Renaissance Society, and Plast. A separate showcase is dedicated to the activities of the Rohatyn Volodymyr the Great Gymnasium.
The First World War in the Rohatyn region is known for a whole galaxy of active participants in the riflemen’s movement. A valuable exhibit is the photo album of Ivan Verbyanyi, a teacher at the Rohatyn Gymnasium named after Volodymyr the Great, organiser and leader of Plast, a member of the Renaissance Society (1920s-1930s).
Thanks to the cooperation between the researchers of the Opillia Museum and the Shevchenko Scientific Society in America, copies of photographs from the Rohatyn Region fund, which cover the activities of public societies in our area in the interwar period, as well as materials from the Stepan Ripetskyi fund – the last works of Mykola Uhryn-Bezhrishnyi in exile – were transferred from New York for display in the museum.
The next thematic block (World War II) is represented by original official documentation of the Ukrainian District Administration in Rohatyn. Particular attention should be paid to the part of the exhibition dedicated to the underground armed struggle of the local population and the stay of the leaders of the insurgency (Vasyl Ivakhiv, Roman Shukhevych, Dmytro Karpenko, Oleksiy Demsky, and others) on the territory of Rohatyn district at different times.
In the fifth exhibition hall there are the following exhibitions:
1. A private collection of postcards (Rohatyn in the first half of the twentieth century) and office documents donated to the Opillya Museum by Piotr Lewicki (Kraków, Poland).
2. A collection of drawings and personal documents by architect Roman Hrytsai (donated to the museum by Mykhailo Vorobets).
3. Documents from the Ottoman archives on the stay of the 15th Corps of the Turkish Army in Rohatyn during the First World War (1916-1917), donated to the museum by the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Ukraine.
4. A reconstructive reproduction of the uniform of a Turkish army officer of the period.
The hall ends with a brief overview of the history of the Jewish community in the Rohatyn region (Jewish household items, religious attributes, and a 2-hour film from the life of this community in Rohatyn in 1932 are presented).
The museum’s exhibition hall regularly hosts art and thematic exhibitions.
The museum also has an Opillya Pottery. In the pottery, museum visitors have the opportunity to try their hand at an ancient and somewhat forgotten craft.
Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, UNESCO
The oldest surviving wooden church in Ukraine, a monument of folk architecture and monumental art of national importance. The Church of the Holy Spirit in Rohatyn was probably built in the first half of the seventeenth century, although it is still officially dated to 1598 – this date was found in the interior of the church on the northern wall of the central log house (nave) and read by the church’s pastor, Fr Ippolit Dzerovych, in the late nineteenth century. The church was home to one of the first church brotherhoods in Ukraine, which funded the creation of a unique Renaissance-Baroque iconostasis dating back to 1650 and one of the three oldest surviving iconostases in Ukraine. In the XIX century, a bell tower was added to the Babynets.