Lublin Village Open-Air Museum

Practical info

What to expect

The Lublin Village Museum, known in Polish as Muzeum Wsi Lubelskiej, spreads across some 23 hectares in the valley of the Czechówka stream on the northern edge of Lublin, the largest city of eastern Poland, and is one of the biggest open-air museums in the country. The grounds are divided into seven sectors, each standing for a different landscape and ethnographic zone of the Lublin region: the Lublin Upland, Roztocze, Powiśle, Podlasie, the Bug river borderland, plus a manor sector and a small-town sector. The first building brought here was a windmill from Zygmuntów; it is now joined by a historic Greek Catholic wooden church from Tarnoszyn and an eighteenth-century manor house from Żyrzyn, furnished for a family of middling landed gentry.

The most unusual part is the town sector, built between 2010 and 2013 as a model of a provincial Central European market town of the 1930s. Around the square you can walk into a barber shop, an ironmonger, a post office, a tobacconist, a beer hall, the mayor’s house and the workshops of a wheelwright, a shoemaker and a bootmaker. A Roman Catholic church complex from Matczyn with a presbytery from Żeszczynka stands nearby, and several interiors are devoted to the Jewish culture of the region: a Jewish kitchen in the house of Moszek Klajner from Uchanie, the flats of a shopkeeper and a pedlar in a cottage from Głodno, and a village shop.

Interiors are arranged around the stories of named families and trades rather than as rows of labelled objects, and the permanent display is supplemented by temporary exhibitions, historical re-enactments and events that follow the old farming and ritual calendar. On summer Tuesdays, between 11.30 and 15.30, craftsmen give demonstrations of traditional rural skills. The Powiśle, Podlasie and Bug river sectors can be walked through but their buildings are not open inside.

Tips

Hours are strongly seasonal. From May to September the museum opens daily 9.00 to 19.00; in April and October daily until 17.00; from January to March and from November to December it opens Tuesday to Sunday until 15.00. Last admission is one hour before closing. A standard ticket costs 30 PLN and a reduced one 20 PLN, with a 60 PLN family ticket for holders of the Polish large-family card; children under seven enter free. The museum announces free-entry days in its news section, but on those days the building interiors are shut for conservation work, so they are a poor choice for a first visit.

Organised groups may only visit with a guide. A tour lasts about an hour and a half, costs from 150 PLN in Polish or from 200 PLN in English, and must be booked by telephone at least seven days ahead. The historic buildings have high thresholds and no ramps, so the site is hard going for wheelchair users, though an adapted toilet with a lift stands in the Głusk town hall. Deaf visitors can use Polish Sign Language films about 58 of the buildings, reached through QR codes on the labels.

Getting there

The museum is at al. Warszawska 96 in the Czechów district, on the main road out of Lublin towards Warsaw and a short ride from the city centre. City buses 18, 20, 30 and 37 stop right outside, at three stops named Skansen 1 (towards Sławinkowska), Skansen 2 (towards the centre) and Skansen 3 (towards Jastków). There is a municipal car park at the entrance: free and unguarded, with no marked disabled bays.

Nearby museums

All three natural companions are in Lublin itself. The regional collections in their urban setting are held by the National Museum at Lublin Castle, the manor theme of the Żyrzyn house continues at the Wincenty Pol Manor House, and the Museum of the History of the City of Lublin gives the urban counterpart to the open-air market town.