Orava Ethnographic Park in Zubrzyca Górna: Culture? Naturally!
A glimpse on the permanent exhibition at the Museum - Orava Ethnographic Park. See selected elements of the exhibition. We invite you to the open-air museum, to travel in time - to the world of our ancestors!
By The Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
by Leszek Janiszewski
Museum from a bird's eye viewThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Walking tour of the museum in Zubrzyca Górna
Take a short walk with us through the museum, through the ancient Orava village hidden among the trees and babbling brooks. Through the simple beauty of the wooden buildings and green meadows you will understand how life used to be, you will get to know the past to better understand the present! Let's go!
Black Inn from Podwilk (18th Century)The Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
The Black Inn
Welcome to our humble (though sometimes high) thresholds. The Black Inn - today neither black, nor is it an inn. For over 250 years, it has been serving the people. Transferred to the museum, it was for years a tourist hostel - today, invariably charming, a ticket office, shop, and meeting place.
Dziubek's Cottage from Jabłonka (19th Century)The Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Dziubek's cottage
It used to belong to rich landlords, and it also housed the first post office in Upper Orava. Today, the set tables reflect the appearance of a former village wedding. In front of the cottage in spring you can see ‘moja’ - check out more about it on our YT channel.
The Oravian ApiaryThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Orava apiary
Let's not be indifferent! Although bees nowadays avoid our log hives, they were once very happy to inhabit such hives. Bee keeping - apiary and beekeeping were the domain of people with some knowledge of nature. In return, they could bolster their health (and budget) with honey and wax.
Log hive - detail
While bees are probably indifferent to this - humans are not. In their own way, the beautifully decorated entrance holes add to the beauty of our hives (hollowed out of a log, i.e. a piece of trunk), and the cut crosses were once intended to ensure the safety of the hive's inhabitants and a peaceful night's sleep for the apiarists.
The Moniak ManorThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
The Moniak Family Manor
Outwardly a stately cottage, inside it conceals more than 420 years of Moniak family history. A village seat which, over time, became a habitat of the nobility - a manor house from which future intellectuals, lawyers, judges, and Hungarian administration employees set out into the world.
Between the rich peasant and the poor nobleman. An astonishing combination of peasant cottage and petty nobleman's habitat under one roof. This dichotomy reflects the lifestyle of the Orava Moniak family - quite wealthy, but constantly working hard to maintain their estate.
Weaving machinery in Paś-Filipek's cottageThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Loom, snowaddle, falfalf in Paś-Filipek's cottage
Nowadays, hardly anyone knows what all these pieces of equipment were used for. Once, the linen woven by the Orava people was famous and valued far beyond the borders of the world they knew....
Oil mill - wedge and ram press
The pestles and oil press used especially during Advent - they were responsible for the sound carried around the village, a sound that said, behold, oil is being made from flax seeds, a gift of nature with an exceptionally rich use....
Dziurczak's cottage - the interior of this inconspicuous building hides equipment associated with the oldest pharmacy in the region: ‘Under the Saviour’. Its first owner, Eugeniusz Stercula, cared not only for the health of the local community. Thanks to his passion for photography, beautiful, and interesting portraits of former Orava inhabitants have remained for posterity.
Fire Station form Harkabuz - weathercockThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Fire station
Although it now serves an economic function in the museum, the fire station with its turret and weathervane draws attention from afar. Here, we bid a temporary farewell to the oldest part of the museum and set off on a journey through the former Orava village in its natural layout...
View of the Museum - church and vicarageThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
View of the church complex
The church and presbytery, chapels and outbuildings, once the focus of the local community's spiritual life, now enchant with their architectural charm.
Parsonage
The Parsonage always impresses us with its proportions! Once the seat of the Podilcz parish priest and parish chancellery, today it is the office of the museum, a venue for temporary exhibitions and special meetings. For more details see here - and enjoy!
Shepherd's hut
The snow-covered huts give us an idea of what life was once like for shepherds. Far from human settlements, filled with hard work but also full of magical procedures....
Educational buldingsThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Educational facilities
Behind the shepherd's huts, over the bridge, among the trees and fields, we can see a variety of buildings: from some we hear the deafening sound of flax being worked, from others - singing, and above all the chimney smoke rises. These are our educational facilities. Regional education is now an integral part of the museum's everyday life.
The Anna Pawlak's cottageThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Anna Pawlak's cottage
Probably it used to be larger - so where did the remaining part go? Long before it found its way to the museum, the extra room had been demolished, perhaps to share the inheritance? Today, inside you can see the shoemaker's workshop, one of the many side jobs that helped to shore up the winter budget.
Miraja Cottage
Unassuming, tucked away in the furthest corner of the museum from the entrance, stands Miraj's cottage. And inside... For some, prehistory, for others, a spell of memories - the 1970s and 1980s in the countryside.
Czarniak homestead
A large and seemingly uninteresting lump gains size when.... when you pass it. If you turn around, you will see that the only farmhouse in the museum, which is of the closed type and has a side gate, projects its charming face towards the south, with a large porch and decorated window boxes.
School - classroomThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
School - classroom
An inconspicuous building, smaller than many cottages, and inside.... yes, that's the school. This is what schooling was like in the countryside some 100-120 years ago.
School - teacher's living quaterThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
School - teacher's home
In the school building, a teacher lived in one of the rooms. It was his kitchen, bedroom, and living room at the same time. Here, by the light of a paraffin lamp, he would often write letters to his loved ones from the end of the world...
Pawlak's homestead
Right in front of the school there is an oblong building. If you approach it, you will see that there is a carpenter's workshop and a shingle workshop, i.e. a backyard workshop where shingles were produced - planks which, if well made, covered roofs for many years.
Mangle - interiorThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Mangle
In the dark interior, a horse once revolved under the toothed wheels. It was thanks to his muscles and a system of gears that the elongated stone-filled tub moved back and forth on the rollers on which the canvas was wound. This made it not only prettier, but also more durable.
Dye house - interiorThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Dyehouse
Before it went into the mangle, however, it was often first dyed. Although the process itself was well known, dyers often had their own secret recipes that allowed them to give the fabric a beautiful and long-lasting colour.
Dyeing and linen
Orava women used to make skirts out of the beautifully dyed, patterned fabric, but it also found its way onto the carts of linen traders, who set off on months-long marches carrying linen south, returning with wine and full panniers. Orava stood for canvas!
When autumn meets winterThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
A hike through the four seasons!
Our museum is not only about historic architecture. Meadows, flowers, fields, trees, babbling brooks - they will all make you relax in the midst of nature. Our museum is beautiful in every robe and at every time, sometimes it can't decide for itself....
Małysa homestead
It is undoubtedly one of the most photogenic buildings. The interior illustrates the changes that occurred in both culture and construction between the 19th and 20th centuries. There will be no shortage of linguistic breakneck ...
Foggy morning in the museumThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Foggy morning at the museum
Early autumn mornings add even more magic to our museum. Here, in front of the Misice cottage, it has a special significance. It was not the homestead that came to the open-air museum, but it came to her. The poet wrote about the last inhabitant:
"she will die free
...
God's word
and man's word does not reach
to her"
Our Lady of the Snows churchThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Church of Our Lady of the Snows
As at the beginning of the walk through the ancient village, we pass the church. On hot days, you can feel the pleasant coolness from it. On rainy days, you can always hide for a while in the vestibule and admire the baroque altar. There is also time here to reflect on faith and its role in the former village.
Path between two parts of the museumThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
At the crossroads
A road leads between the two parts of the museum, and with it a tourist trail, which will take us to the Krowiarki Pass - the most convenient starting point for those wishing to conquer the queen of Beskids - Babia Góra. We, however, turn into a small gate and plunge back into the world of our ancestors.
That's what gets us going!
By muscle power, by water power, by the power of human hands. The former village was almost self-sufficient. Thanks to the skilful use of the elements, the mills, sawmills, and mills provided for the basic needs of the inhabitants. See for yourself!
ForgeThe Orava Ethnographic Park Museum
Smithy
It was here, under the watchful eye of the blacksmith, that disputes took place which, in time, could have a quite real impact on village life - just like the blacksmith himself. After all, he took care not only of the fittings and tools, but also of the dentition of the inhabitants.
Loretto belfry
The keel and the oil press used especially during Advent - they were responsible for the sound carried around the village, the sound which told us that the flax seeds were being used to produce oil, a gift of nature with an exceptionally rich use... They used to stand in sensitive places, and had their own keepers who rang the bell when there was danger. They were also used to chase away storm spirits. Today, full of contradictions, they are a symbol of folk piety.
By Leszek Janiszewski
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