Shevchenko Grove, Open-air museum in Lviv, Ukraine
Shevchenko Grove is an open-air museum in Lviv with 124 architectural monuments spread across hilly land, arranged as 54 traditional farmsteads from western Ukrainian regions. The buildings, courtyards, and paths allow visitors to walk through authentic rural settlements as they actually existed.
The museum started in 1966 as a folk architecture department and opened to visitors in 1972, beginning with the exhibition of St. Nicholas Church. It grew by rescuing and relocating farmsteads from western Ukrainian villages threatened by demolition or abandonment.
The six ethnographic zones here display daily life across different western Ukrainian communities, from kitchen tools to hand-woven fabrics and folk artwork. Visitors see how people actually lived and worked in Boyko, Lemko, and Hutsul homes, revealing distinct ways of life across regions.
The grounds are open to visitors daily, and comfortable shoes are recommended since paths cross hilly terrain and exploring takes time. Interior tours of some farmhouses are available on specific days and may require separate arrangements.
The collection holds about 20,000 everyday objects and folk art pieces, including a farmhouse from 1749 that reveals how people lived centuries ago. These items make it one of the largest collections of traditional rural architecture and material culture in the region.
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