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Museum of Romanian Peasant


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The Museum of Romanian Peasant is the winner of the European Museum of the Year Award for year 1996. A short visit to the museum will convince you that the award is well deserved. The collection includes 18000 pieces of pottery and 20000 examples of national dress from all over the country, as well as carpets, icons, furniture, photographs and films documenting the customs of rural life. But what makes it special is the way the collection is arranged; the museum looks more like an art gallery than a museum. The display information is hand written on pieces of paper or illustrated by freehand sketches. In one of the galleries you can see a wooden church and in another a wooden peasant house. They also have some beautiful "troite" (crosses placed at crossroads or at the edge of a village).

The museum building has an interesting story as well. The museum was founded in 1905 under the name of Ethnographical and National Art Museum. In 1906 Carol I laid the foundation for the present building; the construction was stopped in 1916 and restarted in 1932. It was completed only in 1935, 29 years after it was started. The red-brick building is an illustration of the neo-Romanian style ispired from the traditional architecture. In 1953, the communists "liberated" the building and sent the collection away to another location. The building was turned into a museum dedicated to the history of the Communist Party. In 1990 the museum returned to its old location. Address: Kiseleff 3
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