National Museum of Folk Architecture and Folkways of Ukraine (Національний музей народної архітектури та побуту України; Natsional'nyi muzei narodnoї arkhitektury ta pobutu Ukraїny). A museum of folk architecture and folkways organized as an architectural and landscape complex representing all historical and ethnographic regions of Ukraine. It was formally established in 1969 as Kyiv Museum of Folk Architecture and Folkways. It is situated on the southern outskirts of Kyiv, in the former village of Pyrohiv, on the lands that had previously belonged to the Kyivan Cave Monastery (hence its informal name, the Pyrohiv museum). Upon its completion it was the largest museum of folk architecture and folkways in the USSR and one of the largest such museums in the world.

Its actual construction began in 1971 on a 150-ha site in a forest and park zone of the Pyrohiv district near the Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the Ukrainian SSR (today National Expocenter of Ukraine Complex). By the summer of 1976 the first part had been opened to visitors. By 1985 the museum included 250 buildings and about 50,000 artifacts, such as folk costumes, woven fabrics products, folk implements, ceramics, and wood products and wood carvings, and over 700 folk musical instruments. On 21 July 2008 the museum was granted the national museum status by President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko, and it assumed its present name.

Today the open-air museum has on display close to 300 examples of Ukrainian folk architecture dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century; these include houses, storehouses, stables, wells, and other structures of a traditional Ukrainian village. The oldest edifice is a chimneyless house from the village of Samary, Volhynia oblast (1587). The museum site is divided into six zones that correspond to various ethnographic regions of Ukraine at the beginning of the 20th century: the Middle-Dnipro River region, the Poltava region and Slobidska Ukraine, Polisia, Podilia, the Carpathian Mountains region, and southern Ukraine. In each zone a typical village was reconstructed. For example, the Middle Dnipro village is laid out along a main street with a central square; the Polisian village is scattered unevenly around a main road; and the Carpathian Mountains village is composed as a set of unconnected farmsteads. The vast majority of buildings are original structures restored in the museum. Churches have been placed as dominant buildings in almost every zone. Some rare old wooden churches have been moved here: Saint Michael’s Church (built in 1612, rebuilt in 1751) from Dorohynka, Kyiv region; Saint Paraskeve’s Church built in 1742 from Zarubyntsi, Cherkasy region; Church of the Resurrection from Kysorychi, Volhynia (1789); Saint Nicholas’ Church from the village of Zelene in Podilia (1817); and Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God from Ploske, Transcarpathia (1792). Liturgies and other church services are now being held in three of these churches. A group of wooden windmills is assembled in a separate area. Aside from six ethnographic zones and the windmills area, the museum includes an exhibit titled the ‘Ukrainian Village of the Middle of the Twentieth Century.’ Opened in 1979, this exhibit was initially devoted to the socialist village with its collective farms and state farms, but it was later reorganized into a contemporary village complex.

The museum’s collections also include approximately 100,000 diverse artefacts, including folk costumes, textiles, furniture, tools, ceramics, and the products made by traditional folk craftsmen, including coopers, carpenters, joiners, and blacksmiths. The museum also exhibits folk paintings, ornaments and decorative art, folk musical instruments, children’s toys, and more. Since 1978 seasonal ethnographic fairs have taken place on the museum’s grounds; they bring together folk artisans—blacksmiths, weavers, carvers, and potters—from all over Ukraine. Celebrating traditional folk holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, the Kupalo festival, and the feast days of Saint Andrew and Saint Nicholas, has become an established tradition at the museum. Each such event features an array of traditional folks customs and rites.

The museum has a research department specializing in the study of intangible cultural heritage, as well as the arts and crafts restoration workshop. It has published collections of scholarly articles, guides to its collections, and catalogues of its exhibits. The museum’s website contains more than a dozen online exhibits, including the one dedicated to the museum’s 55th anniversary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hudchenko, Zoia. Muzeї narodnoї arkhitektury Ukraїny (Kyiv 1981)
Orel, Lidiia. Ukraїna na skhylakh Dnipra: Natsional'nyi muzei narodnoї arkhitektury ta pobutu Ukraїny (Kyiv 2021)
The museums’s official website is https://www.pyrohiv.com/

Serhiy Bilenky

[This article was written in 2026.]