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TOKARNIA |
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7km south from Checiny is the outstanding museum of folk
architecture, or skansen (April-Oct Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; Nov-March Mon-Fri
9am-2pm; 6zl) at TOKARNIA . The open-air museum is visible from the road,
up on the hillside, though signposting is almost nonexistent: if you're
travelling by bus (from Kielce, take buses heading for Jedrzejów via
Checiny) ask the driver for the skansen and you'll be dropped close by.
In summer a basic café operates in the house at the entrance to the area.
The main idea of a skansen is to provide a showcase for rural
architecture and customs, in many cases all but disappeared now, and on
this score the Tokarnia site succeeds admirably. Established in the
1970s, and still adding to its collection of buildings, the skansen is
one of the largest and best in the country. Well laid out, with all the
buildings grouped according to surrounding regions of Malopolska, this
museum provides an enjoyable survey of local architectural traditions.
Helpfully, there's a brief guide in each building in English, French and
German outlining its traditional use, and, if your Polish is up to it, a
devoted contingent of women from local villages there to fill you in on
all the details. They're justly proud of their particular building, and
in customary rural fashion, in no hurry to see you move on, so be
prepared to spend at least a couple of minutes paying each structure the
required respect.
The thatched and shingle-roofed buildings assembled here encompass the
full range of rural life, with an emphasis on traditional farmsteads,
from relatively prosperous setups - the more religious pictures on
display the wealthier the family - to the dwellings of the poorest
subsistence farmers. Great care and attention has been paid to
re-creating the interiors as they would have been in the early part of
the century and beyond, with many of the houses containing an amazing
array of old wooden farm implements, kitchen utensils and tools used in
traditional crafts such as ostlery, shingling, brewing, woodcarving,
herbal medicinal preparations and candle-making. Additionally, there are
a number of other buildings such as a wonderful old windmill, a pharmacy
and a fine mid-nineteenth-century dwór of the kind inhabited by
relatively well-off szchlachta families from Chopin's generation and
beyond up until World War II. The contrast between its size and opulence
and the other ruder dwellings on display is striking, reflecting the
grinding poverty and endemic inequalities of rural Polish society that
were a major factor in the successive waves of emigration to the New
World from the latter part of the last century on into the 1930s.
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