Malye Korely is a museum of wooden architecture and folk art,
offering a fascinating journey through time and space. This is a portal
that takes you to the atmosphere of the epic North, where a fairy tale
awaits at every step - tall log huts and solemnly graceful temples,
colorful northern views, famous staircases of passages, hot Ivan tea to
the melodious ringing of bells, a lyrical song over the Dvina expanse or
a colorful round dance wide holiday.
Malye Korely is located on
the high bank of the Northern Dvina just half an hour from Arkhangelsk.
This is one of the largest landscape expositions in Russia. Founded in
1964, the museum is a member of the Association of European Open Air
Museums and is included in the State Code of Especially Valuable
Cultural Heritage Objects of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.
The most striking examples of traditional northern architecture,
representing the “wooden civilization” of the entire vast Arkhangelsk
region, are collected in Malyye Korela. On the picturesque hills among
the spruce forest there are "villages" of the Kargopol-Onega, Dvina,
Pinega and Mezen sectors with huts, barns, wells and fences. Here you
can see the gigantic mechanism of a windmill-tent, huge house-yards of
wealthy Kargopol peasants or Pomors, the interior of the Dvina tavern,
the Kholmogory forge, the fisherman's house and the hut of a
hunter-hunter. The expositions in the interiors of the estates tell
about the skill of northern carpenters, about how they caught fish, grew
bread, how they ran the household, celebrated weddings, and even what
our ancestors rode.
Malye Korely is the most popular place for
festive festivities. Maslenitsa and Easter, New Year, Christmas, Bread
Festival, Horse Festival, Haymaking and Bell Ringing Day always attract
the widest audience. Adults and children participate in festive rituals,
sing to the accordion, swing on a swing and compete in folk amusements.
Here you can spin in a colorful round dance, walk on stilts, ride a
horse or “ice carousel” on a frozen pond.
Malye Korely is not
just an open-air museum. This is the wonderful world of the northern
village, in which you want to return many times. According to the
reviews of the guests of Malyye Korel, tourists who visited the museum
once, definitely want to come back again - to take a leisurely walk in
this territory at a completely different time of the year, each time
making new discoveries for themselves.
In addition to the
landscape exposition in the village of Malye Karely, the museum also
includes a unique temple ensemble in the village of Nenoksa, an ancient
tent temple on the Lyavlya River, the estate of M. T. Kunitsyna and the
commercial collection house (Marfin House) on the street-museum of
Chumbarov-Luchinsky in Arkhangelsk.
The architectural and
landscape exposition of Malye Korely works WITHOUT DAYS OFF. For a
detailed schedule of all museum houses, see the link.
The shop of
folk crafts is open in the house of A.F. Pukhov (Kargopol-Onega sector
of the museum) every day, except Monday and Tuesday, from 10:00 to
16:30.
The museum got its name from the name of the village of Small Karely, with the letter a in the word Karely replaced by about. This was done for historical correspondence with the Pomeranian dialects, which were formed on the basis of Old Novgorod, which were characterized by okanye, which is reflected in the Novgorod annals and birch bark, where the names with the root "korel" were written through "o": the city of Korela, Korelskaya land , corelin, etc.
Founded in 1964, opened to visitors on June 1, 1973. Since 1983 the museum has been a member of the Association of European Open Air Museums. Since 1996, the Museum "Malye Korely" has been included in the State Code of Particularly Valuable Objects of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.
The museum's exposition includes about 100 civil, public and church
buildings, the earliest of which date back to the 16th century (the bell
tower from the village of Kuliga Drakovanov) and the 17th century (the
Church of the Ascension from the village of Kushereka and St. George's
Church from the village of Vershina). Among the exhibits are peasant and
merchant huts, barns, wells, hedges, windmills, a bathhouse, etc.
Buildings to be moved to the museum territory were rolled out on logs,
and then reassembled on the territory of Malye Korel.
The
exposition of the museum is divided into sectors: “Kargopol-Onega”,
“Dvinskoy”, “Mezensky” and “Pinezhsky”. Currently, the "Pomorsky" and
"Vazhsky" sectors are being created. However, some of the buildings are
very dilapidated and are awaiting restoration, and therefore are closed
to the public.
Since 2002, after the rite of consecration of the Makaryevskaya chapel, brought to the museum from the village of Fedorovskaya in the Plesetsk region in 1972, a tradition has been established annually on the day of St. Macarius (August 7) to hold a holiday of bell ringing. The Makaryevskaya chapel is interesting for the presence of a belfry, where the master of bell music Ivan Danilov (1952-1998) learned to ring.