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Mamayeva Sloboda Museum of Folk Architecture and Life (Kiev)

2 Mikhaila Dontsa Street, Kiev, Metro station: "Shulyavskaya".

Map

In the mid-17th century, the French cartographic and engineer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan said: "Ukraine is the land of the Cossacks." This is why it was decided to create the Mamayeva Sloboda Museum of Folk Architecture and Life (the Museum, for short); the Museum is a reconstructed thematic arboretum, a model of the 17th and 18th century Cossack settlements and a corner of the Ukrainian nature, architecture and everyday life. It is situated on the area of 9.2 ha (22.7 acres), at a distance of 7 kilometres (4.5 miles) from Kreshchatik Street, on the historical land where the Lybid River starts.

The Museum was conceived in the early 1990s. It is interesting to note that the land allocation for the Museum was registered under number 000001, which means that it was the first Kiev state-owned plot that was transferred to private ownership after Ukraine had become independent.

In 1993, a memorial cross was erected at the future construction site, though the construction works started much later due to various reasons. For 10 years, the Museum was under construction; finally, on 9th July 2009, the Museum opened its doors to its first visitors.

Over 300 hundred years ago, this land belonged to the Golden-Domed Monastery of St. Michael. In the middle of a grove, above the head of the Lybid River, there stood a farm of the monastery, with a bee yard and an artificial pond.

Several centuries have passed, and now the hills around the head of the Lybid River are covered with sprawling picturesque groves, which reconstructs the unique landscape typical of the Dnieper Valley.

In the centre of the valley, amidst "curly" cherry orchards, there stands Mamayeva Sloboda, the Cossack settlement. In the centre of the architectural ensemble, which consists of as much as 98 objects, there is the Church of the Intercession, a wooden, three-tier church featuring a bell tower; this church is modelled on the churches that used to stand in the Zaporozhian Sech during the times of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the hetman (head) of the Zaporozhian Host.

At a short distance from the church, on a hill amidst an improvised wheat field, there stands a mill, which symbolises the peaceful, peasant Ukraine. Further, over two lakes covered with reeds and lilies, a bee yard and a watermill well as several estates are situated: those of a churchwarden, dzhury (beginner Cossacks), a starshina (Cossack officer), a smith, a potter, a fortune teller and an tavern of a Jewish trader. The estates are composed of buildings of various purposes: storerooms, barns, stables, cellars, cattle barns, threshing floors, etc. This traditional Ukrainian landscape is complemented by a market square, council and a Cossack fortress.

In the Museum, all the exhibits were constructed from scratch, but each naturally preserved the identity of its epoch. The purpose of the Museum is not only to show architecture and everyday life, but to revive and popularise original folk traditions, customs, rituals, half-forgotten work skills and crafts.

In the Museum, each well provides drinkable water; each smithy is occupied by a working smith and each pottery — by a working potter. By the way, visitors may purchase products of the masters right there, in the market square.

And in order to popularise the Ukrainian culture, the Museum has invented its own way to attract visitors: those wearing a Ukrainian vyshyvanka (embroidered shirt) are admitted at half a price.

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