Pyrohiv (Pirogovo) Open-Air Folk Museum

Today our team went down to Pirogovo, an Open-Air Folk Museum which depicts the historical cultural life in Ukraine.  It was amazing!  It wasn't on my To Do list partly because it requires a couple of train rides and a bus or trolley ride from the metro (all in Ukrainian) and partly because I had so many places in town, around the City Center, that I wanted to see that I didn't think I'd have time to fit it in.  As I mentioned we were warned not to go downtown (where all the sites are) because of scheduled protests, so we all trekked down to Pirogovo.  Did I say it was amazing?

Somehow, I don't think the protests would have made headline news in the States, so here's a link - http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/18/us-ukraine-protest-scuffle-idUSBRE94H08K20130518?feedType=RSS&virtualBrandChannel=11563

And, here's a link to where we went today just in case you want to know more...http://ua-traveling.com/en/article/pirogovo.

Darren on our team (remember he's the one who cut up my dinner) wanted to go to Pirogovo so he arranged today's trip.  It also coincided with an invitation to Cheryl (Colorado) and Kailash (our Indian photographer) from their Client, Oleksii Tkachenko, Director of the Institute, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine to go to the same place.  So off we all went and instead of hosting just Cheryl and Kailash, Oleksii was gracious to host us all.  He was very kind to answer all our questions (he's in the middle in the picture between Cheryl and Kailash) and arranged for us to hear one of his favorite Ukranian songs by a group of musicians who, he explained, sing professionally for the Music Institute (team, correct me if I have this wrong). 

They played for us while we ate what seemed like an entire buffet of food, all for $12 / person.   I tried to include the video I took of them but it took the page too long to load.  I will ask the guys on the team on how to shrink it and try to re-load it. 

We must have walked for what seemed like 3 miles but when I got back to the hotel and looked at the map Oleksii had given us, I saw that we barely covered a third of the what the museum has to offer.  As a bonus, it was Museum Day in Kyiv so entry to Pirogovo was free.  As I mentioned above, this is an open-air museum that depicts what life was like in different Ukranian regions from several centuries ago.  I have a ton of pictures and can't post them all, so at the "Lessons Learned" event at my place sometime in July / August, those of you in / near Austin will need to come over so I can show you more.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Beehives (called bee houses), and a man making a reed fence, it will take him about two weeks to make a section.


 


A Ukranian house with a church behind it and the inside of a house (not the one pictured), but a house would be one large room that had the kitchen (on the left in this picture), a living room, dining room, and sleeping area all in one.






Some of the buildings are actual buildings that have been moved to Pirogovo and some are re-creations, but there is an effort to use actual buildings.  The one to the left is a church, still being utilized for prayer, and it was built in 1784.  It is a humble church and I am discovering in the Christian Orthodox faith, that patrons stand for service.






Windmills are very everywhere in Pirogovo, some are water windmills, some are grain windmills, and the house on the right is depicting the oldest style of Ukrainian house.







Finally, Darren and I dwarfing a door, ducking was needed a lot today, and a barn which I understand was probably a community barn and not a personal barn.