Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

More than once, I have seen people coming and touching doors, windows, pots and fencings at this museum of the old soul, moved by a nostalgia that only they know, then smiling and saying out loud ‘I’ve grown up here. This is my grandfather’s home.’

And to see that the childhood memories’ sack is bottomless, I lingered for a moment on a note in the museum’s guestbook by someone from Fundu Moldovei, Suceava County, who has written, ‘Today I had the opportunity to attend an emotional moment occasioned by the consecration of a blacksmith’s workshop acquired by the Village Museum from a relative of ours from the beautiful Bucovina, Fundu Moldovei. This way we could admire the richness of the museum and the people taking care of its management. The scenery is great, and the exhibits are displayed in a completely natural, appropriate and well organised framework. We thank everyone who deal with and put their soul in preserving traditional customs. Our highest consideration, Family Grigorean Dumitru. We are living now in Bucharest, but I was born in Fundu Moldovei, Suceava County.’

The Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, which in 2013 celebrated its 50th anniversary, is the largest open-air museum in Romania and the second largest in Europe. It covers 96 hectares, of which the exhibition itself covers 42 hectares and it is enriched every year with at least four to five monuments.

Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Located in the Dumbrava Sibiului Natural Park, the museum has a lake and more than ten kilometres of trails. It is not only just an open-air ethnographic exhibition, but it also offers complete tourist packages. Visitors can enjoy a wide range of traditional dishes in the rustic ambience of Carciuma din Batrani, the pub of good old’ years, the Tulghes Inn and the Vestem Inn, with the latter also providing accommodations. A double room, breakfast included, costs RON 120 here.

The tourist infrastructure of the ASTRA Museum was expanded in 2007 with the two-star Diana Hostel, which can accommodate 70 guests. In 2013, about 1,500 people came and in January-July 2014 it welcomed 710 tourists. One overnight at the Diana Hostel costs between RON 30 and 50 per person.

The Conference Room, with all the necessary technical equipment, can seat 120 people, and it can be rented on request.

For the most pleasant free time spending, the museum offers the possibility of travelling by boat on the lake, by carriage or by sleigh. In 2011, the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation was listed in the Michelin Green Guide with the highest distinction: three stars.

Photo credit: (c) ISABELA PAULESCU/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The number of visitors to the open-air museum grew exponentially from year to year, from about 120,000 people a year in 2007 to 188,495 in 2012 and 220,130 in 2013. Nearly 30 per cent of them are foreign tourists, according to Eliza Penciu of the museum’s Marketing Department.

The events that attracted the largest number of visitors in the past years were the Night of Museums — 14,500 visitors; the National Festival of Folk Traditions and the Craftsmen’s Fair—8,850 visitors; the Traditional Artistic Crafts Olympiad — 4,837 visitors.

The Sibiu museum has rich cultural offerings throughout the year.

The events that attract the highest number of visitors to the open-air museum are those included in the ‘Living Human Treasures’ programme: the Traditional Artistic Crafts Olympiad (at its 19th edition in 2014), the National Festival of Folk Traditions and the Craftsmen’s Fair (12th edition), the Trade Fair of Romanian Folk Craftspeople (which turns 31 in 2014) and the National Festival of Traditions and Customs. Other important events of the Astra are the Nice. Ceramic. Useful. International Trade Fair, the Universal Day of the Folk Blouse, the Infant Day and the trade fair of brands.

Photo credit: (c) ROMULUS BRUMA/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

At the Astra Museum, volunteers join curators and supervisors. The museum carries out volunteer programmes that offer young people the opportunity to develop useful social and professional skills. In April 29, 2013 — May 12, 2013, a project called ‘Education for volunteering in the cultural sector’ was conducted, financed by AFCN, as part of the VOLAM volunteerism platform initiated by DALA Foundation and the and the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, in partnership with UNION REMPART of France, a federation of NGOs with expertise in the refurbishment, preservation and promotion of international heritage.

In July 2014, the Astra Museum welcomed three groups of volunteers from Romanian and foreign universities that conducted conservation and refurbishment works on monuments and heritage objects of the Astra Museum as well as activities to promote the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation.

Summer vacation is highly spirited. Visitors are submerged in the atmosphere of traditional villages, while being presented a new approach to the capitalisation on the museum’s assets through cultural events of the past decades, particularly the Living Human Treasures programme. Trade fairs and workshops by craftspeople, folklore shows, gastronomic events at the Country Trade Fair make up a quasi-permanent summer programme offering Romanian and foreign tourists alike the opportunity to discover the Romanian traditions.

In fact, the Astra Museum feels like a miniature Romania, the Romania of the countryside. The long-term development strategy of the Astra Museum includes the reconstruction of the specific cultural landscape around monuments by preserving and cultivating traditional fruit trees and traditional vegetable varieties, cereals, technical crops and flowers. Another development direction is represented by attracting new audiences, getting closer to the community, in order to extend the possibility of creative leisure. In this regard, workshops were held for the auditing and improvement of tourist products and services, the development of tourist business plans and of a feasibility study for the establishment of a Centre for Regional Resources and Activities at the open-air museum in Dumbrava Sibiului.

Photo credit: (c) AGERPRES ARCHIVE

In order to preserve unaltered the paradise of the Romanian countryside, the museum has been concerned with attracting investment, especially foreign one. The Astra National Museum Compound has accessed external non-repayable funds under two major projects funded by the financial mechanism of the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein).

The first of these projects focused on creating a modern centre for the conservation and refurbishment of cultural heritage assets. In early September 2009, construction works started on the Astra Heritage Centre, at the third entry gate to the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, that covers 1,878 square metres of multi-purpose space, including storage areas for the museum’s collections, conservation and refurbishment laboratories, a training centre for Romania’s conservators and curators (CePCoR). The total budget provided for the project amounted to 2,916,238 euros. Astra, with direct support from the Sibiu County Council, contributed 15.58 per cent toward the project. The project was completed in 2011.

In recognition of the results of implementing a previous project, when Astra demonstrated administrative and professional skills in reaching all the proposed cultural and investment indicators and using up 99.9 per cent of the available funds, the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation was named a potential beneficiary for a new round of fund allocations for the priority sector ‘European Cultural Heritage Conservation.’ The designation was made under an agreement between the European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) and the Romanian Government on the implementation of the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, published in the Official Journal of April 23, 2012.

Photo credit: (c) ROMULUS BRUMA/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

By April 2016, an Open Heritage project is carried out at Astra to increase public access to the multi-ethnic heritage values of the Astra Museum, set at 3,500,054 million euros.

The project envisages a complex cultural program, including a partnership with MiST — Museum of South Trondelag of Trondheim, Norway, designed to strengthen bilateral relations through joint research into the cultural history of ethnic minorities, reconstruction, preservation and refurbishment of representative monuments at the open-air museum, to develop and promote an exhibition circuit called the Road of Ethnic Minorities and to improve physical accessibility by the construction of a new building at the open-air museum (to host the Museum of Transylvanian Civilisation that currently has no location, and a modern access facility, both included in the Multicultural Museum Pavilion — PaMM).

‘The Astra Museum has witnessed a growing influx of visitors over the last years, with a turning point in the year when Sibiu was a European Capital of Culture, when the number of visitors doubled from the previous year. Since 2008, the open-air museum has constantly had 200,000 visitors, being the most visited facility of the institution. The Astra Museum became a landmark for everybody, because of its numerous national and international projects carried out and its constant involvement in the efforts to promote traditional values locally and regionally,’ Astra Museum Director Ciprian Stefan tells Agerpres.

According to him, the museum in Padurea Dumbrava Sibiului prides itself on the most extensive collection of mills in Europe, over 30 mills, some almost two centuries old and, most importantly, still operational.

Photo credit: (c) ISABELA PAULESCU/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Beyond figures, fresh air, traditions, homes saved from the Romanian countryside, which is losing increasingly more of its charm, you cannot but wonder what miracle occurred in the summer of 2009 in the heart of a family from Fundul Moldovei that came to the heart of Transylvania, in Sibiu. Because that must have been a wondrous joy that filled their hearts for they wrote in the guestbook on Pentecost: ‘On this holy day of Pentecost, we were honoured to join the wonderful people who staged the blessing of the ironsmith’s worship from Fundu Moldovei that belonged to Ioan Burduhas, who died on January 26, 2005. We were pleasantly impressed with the way in which the workshop was restored and we hope that it will be still in such wonderful state many years from now on. Thank you to everyone who had the initiative to purchase for this wonderful museum, a place where we will come with pleasure whenever we have the opportunity.’ AGERPRES