A couple of month ago I started a series to show you the beautiful Astra Museum situated in Sibiu, Romania, which is an open air ethnographic museum, full of wonderful houses, establishments and machines from the past.

Situated in the natural reservation of Dumbrava Sibiului, on the road to Rasinari village and to Paltinis ski resort, 8 kilometers away from the city centre, the Open Air Museum spreads across a 96 ha area of which an area of 40 ha is covered by the permanent exhibition which is the argest open air ethnographic exhibition in Europe.
Inaugurated in 1963 under the name of the Museum of Folk Technics, the museum currently has over 400 monuments of folk architecture and technique as well as an impressive collection of ethnographic heritage objects. The collection of mills, the wooden churches, and the traditional homesteads are very popular and very much appreciated.

This place is fascinating, it's a way to travel back in time, to see how people were living 100, 200, maybe 300 years ago in different parts of the country, it's basically a must see if you are in the area.

Let's start with this house and household. The house is not so big, but it has a second building which could have been a home or just a workshop. Back in those days people were living in very small houses with a workshop next to the house and a barn or a stable next to the house. This house however has a big cellar under the house which served as storage room.

Another house made or wood, the walls are covered with pise and the roof is covered with straw. The problem was these houses were highly flammable and since the heating and cooking was made using wood, house burning was very frequent. The straw roof was extremely risky, one spark was enough to lit the whole house. Here they had a furnace in the yard but I guess that was only used during spring, summer and autumn. There must be one inside as well, in the kitchen, which must have served for bread baking and also heating the house. Isolation was non-existent at that time, wood and pise is not exactly ideal for insulation.

This is the memorial house of Cornel Irimie, a Romanian researcher, ethnographer, folklorist and the creator of the Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization "ASTRA" in Sibiu.

Typical Romanian house, you can still find many of this type at the countryside. This particular house is not as old as the others, and it's used as office space by the museum.

A typical countryside household, the entrance of the house, a house made of pise and wood. As you can see the stairs are made or stone.

The side of the house with two little windows. When I see houses like this with so tiny windows I'm always thinking about how lucky we are to have electricity, tap water and all the other things we can't live without. Imagine how hard life must have been during those days. These people were using candles or petroleum lamps to illuminate that tiny little room, kids were doing their homework at the kitchen table at night, after they finished the work around the house. The day ended for them pretty soon for them, after sunset there was nothing much they could have done.

The cellar or the basement under the house, which was used to store everything they gathered during the year: grains, wine, fruits, vegetables etc.

A storage space made of wood and pise, served for parking the chariots and as you can see, a dog house. Dogs at the countryside are a must, as they are guarding the household. Tools like scythe, rake were store on the wall.

This is a photo of the yard, two chariots are parked next to the fence. Back in those days everything was handmade and mostly made of wood because wood was available. That was the basic building material.

If you've missed the previous parts, you can check them out here:
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 1
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 2
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 3
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 4
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 5
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 6
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 7
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 8
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 9
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 10
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 11.
Let's Go Back In Time - Part 12

Check out out SeasonChallenge hosted by my dear friend @roxy-cat!

Check out my #SevenDaysOutside Challenge!

These are the days and the categories:
#WindowMonday – Windows
#DoorTuesday – Doors
#RustArtWednesday – Rust
#GateThursday – Gates
#StatueFriday – Statues
#BrickSaturday – Bricks (bricks only, no pavement elements or cobblestones please)
#StreetlampSunday – Street Lamps

Make sure you write a description of the photo you are posting. Share as much details as you can, like where that statue is placed (in a park, at a museum), what it represents etc. Make it enjoyable.

Use the #sevendaysoutside tag along with the daily tag and tag me, @erikah!

Goes without saying that you can only use your own photos. No paintings, no drawings, no digital art please! There is no prize here, this is just for fun.

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