If someone is interested in architectural monuments and ethnography of the XVII-XX centuries, the open-air museum of wooden architecture will provide visitors with the opportunity to get acquainted with the original culture of the peoples of the Baikal region, make a small and interesting journey into the past.
Museum Location
The museum was founded in 1969 near the village of Listvyanka, Irkutsk region. 67 hectares were allocated for its territory. On this square, in historical and cultural zones dedicated to certain stages of the life of Siberians, architectural monuments and folk art of the XVIII-XX centuries are collected. There are more than 20 thousand copies.
The museum retrospectively shows the exposition of four historical and cultural zones of the peoples of the Baikal region: Russian, Buryat, Evenk and Tofalar. Little is known about the Tofalar people, besides the fact that they are the indigenous inhabitants of the Baikal region, as are the Buryats and Evenks. There is information about their life in the museum. On the large map that tourists see when entering the territory of the architectural and ethnographic museum, a diagram of its expositions is given, there are signs and signs everywhere so that those visitors who independently examine the museum are not lost. The cost of entering the territory for adults is 150 rubles, for children - 50.
History of creation
In 1960, the construction of the Ust-Ilimsk hydroelectric station began. Many historical monuments could fall into the flood zone of the reservoir. It was at this time that the decision was made to create a museum, moving the exhibits of the proposed museum to another place on the Taltsinsky tract of the Irkutsk region, which also has its own interesting history. So, until the XVIII century there was a convent. By the end of the 18th century, glass sands were discovered in these places and glass and porcelain factories were built, and the formation of settlements began around them. So the village of Taltsy arose.
The constructed hydroelectric power station was ready for start-up, so the plants are transported to another place. Before flooding, a rural cemetery was also relocated. Part of the graves in the neighboring village of Bolshaya Rechka, the rest were reburied in a mass grave in the museum. A museum of wooden architecture "Taltsy" is being created in the unspoiled area. For several years unique exhibits have been brought into it from all over the Irkutsk Region - huts, log houses, towers, churches, a stockade. Everything made of wood was dismantled, and on the site of the museum was assembled and restored. The first visitors to the museum got into it in 1980.
Many years after the opening of the museum, in 2014, another rural cemetery was discovered on the cliff of the Irkutsk reservoir. The coast was washed away, and graves were opened. Museum staff suggested that residents of the flooded village of Taltsy buried their ancestors here. Their remains were also transferred to the cemetery area in the museum.
Russian historical and cultural zone
The exhibits of the Russian zone are represented by monuments of wooden architecture of the late XVII - early XX centuries, collected in the Irkutsk region.
"Volost Village" - the central exposition of the museum. These are several wooden estates, a parish school, a forge, a pottery workshop and a watchtower. You can walk not only through the territory of the museum and its streets, but also go into houses, where, depending on the structure itself, displays of everyday life and utensils are presented. In the houses, museum employees greet guests in folk costumes. They talk about the life and work of that time, which is presented in the exposition of the building.
In the Taltsy Museum visitors can see looms, folk costumes, icons that are placed in the red corners of the huts, look at dishes, coins, books and even children's toys of those distant times. Whoever came to the open-air museum, everyone likes the opportunity to plunge into history, feel like a piece of that time, touch household items with your hands and even participate in folk art workshops organized by local craftsmen.
On the territory of the museum you can see a cascade of water mills built in the middle of the XIX century. They were taken to the museum in 1974 from the village of Vladimirovka in the Bratsk region. These mills were the most productive in those days. Their construction was carried out from the moment the region was settled by Russian peasants, from about the 17th century.
Defensive and cult architecture
Il'imsky prison, dated 1647. This is a unique structure of defense architecture. The watch towers rise in a slender row of a stockade. According to historical facts, the Spasskaya prison tower was originally located in the village of Ilimsk. Cossacks founded the winter hut on this river, which became the center of the voivodship at the beginning of the 17th century. At one time, the Russian revolutionary Radishchev served his sentence here.
The Cossacks of the Ilimsk prison provided the expeditions of Bereng and Dezhnev with food. Time passes, and the Illyme Voivodeship loses its former significance. As a monument of those years, there remains a wooden Spasskaya tower and a chapel hanging over the gate. In the tower, visitors can see a miniature wooden model of the prison. Here is a single-domed church of the Kazan Mother of God made entirely of wood.
Parish School
The school building was delivered from the village of Keul. From the story of an employee of the Taltsy Museum, visitors will learn many interesting things about how teaching was conducted in schools and what subjects the children studied. In Siberian schools there was one class in which children of any nationality, girls and boys, studied for two years. The school year began on September 15, and ended on May 1. They taught children such subjects as God's Law, mathematics, Russian, botany and zoology, literature, geography, and history. The children studied crafts and needlework. This is what was necessary in life.
Museum employees provide the opportunity on certain days in this school to conduct classes with current students under the programs of bygone years. They are very interested in feeling like children from the past, learning from books that their great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers might have used at one time.
Tofalar camps
Here, at the Taltsy Museum, exhibits talk about Evenki and Tofalar camps. The complex of Evenki burials is presented.
In one of the ethnographic zones of the museum there is a summer Tofalar camp. It is a conical pole vague plague where the tofalars lived. In the winter, such plagues were covered with dressed skins, and in the summer they were covered with boiled bark.
In winter, this nation lived in river valleys in camps from two to five plagues, and in summer they migrated to the mountains, and camps could contain up to ten plagues. The basis of life was gathering, hunting, fishing, reindeer husbandry. Tofalars are related to Tuvans in their origin and language. This small nation currently lives mainly in the Nizhneudinsky
district of the Irkutsk region.
Evenki camps
Evenki - residents of Siberia and the Far East - have always led a nomadic lifestyle, engaged in reindeer husbandry and fishing. Their traditional home is the plague. The Taltsy museum exhibits the outbuildings of the Evenks - lobazy and tumble dryers. Lobazy kept supplies. Typically, these buildings were surrounded by hedges so that deer could not enter the territory with residential and farm buildings. Since the Evenks, according to their religious views, are shamanists, for a long time they carried out their burial in hollowed out decks. Such decks with the body of a deceased were installed on chopped and cut trees. Later burials were made already in the ground, but the graves were surrounded by a deaf log house.
Life of Buryat families
In the exposition "Yurt of a young Buryat family" you can get acquainted with the life and life features of the Buryats - the indigenous population of the Baikal region. The Buryat yurt-year-old is based on the principle of a log house, but it is windowless and has a central room in the middle. The hearth heats the yurt; food is prepared on it.
The yurt is divided into two parts: male and female. Each of them has its own utensils belonging to the woman in the female part, and to the man in the male part of the yurt. There are two exits from the yurt. From the male part you can get to the workshop, from the female part - to the stable.
Visitors to the Museum of Wooden Architecture excursions share their impressions. They note that, being in this unique museum, you are imbued with the spirit of antiquity, and the feeling that houses and churches are real, and many centuries ago, people like us and lived in services in them, does not leave.