The Open-Air Ethnographic Museum in Szentendre

The Skanzen in Szentendre, which has been recognised with numerous awards over the years, displays the rural heritage of the past broken down by village-like building groups, or divided into so-called regions: here you can view authentic objects and original buildings that have been relocated (both reconstructed versions and authentic copies) to get an in-depth understanding of the folk architecture, way of life and culture of past centuries. You can roam the following regions to examine their peasant gates and porches and related community, religious and farm buildings:

• Upper-Tisza Region
• Market town of the Great Hungarian Plain
• Little Hungarian Plain
• Western-Transdanubia
• Bakony, Balaton Uplands
• Southern-Transdanubia
• Upland market town
• North-Hungarian village
• Transylvania (this is a work in progress, expected to open in 2022.)

As part of the permanent exhibition, as well as the regions you can also see several thematic exhibitions, which provide exciting additional information built around their own central theme. The current choice on offer is as follows:

• Farewell from the peasantry
• In the drifting of history – Population exchange in Southern Transdanubia in the 1940s
• Just a ‘bit of work’ – Villagers on ‘Malenkiy robot’ at the end of World War II
• Carts and wagons

The Skanzen in Szentendre also caters to visitors with temporary exhibitions. If you’re interested to learn what other exhibitions are available right now, visit the Skanzen official website here.

The museum staff has always worked to make the Skanzen a place to enjoy. As a result of this hard work, today the Open-Air Ethnographic Museum provides several ‘extra’ services.

In order to get a truly realistic picture of Hungarian village life centuries ago, we need more than the sight of static buildings and objects – it is also important to get to know the everyday life of living people. Thus, craftsmen work in the courtyards, peaceful lambs graze in the grass, the fragrance of herbs spreads from the kitchen, and, among other things, you can learn about the preservation practices of the time. Each of the active sites of the Skanzen are pretty exciting and many of them transmit knowledge that is useful to this day.

Don't let the fact that you’re with children deter you from visiting the Skanzen. The exhibition has ample attractions for the little ones: the so-called children's points of interest are designed to make the visit intriguing for them with various crafts activities, storytelling and puppet theatre.

We have a few interesting details for number-aficionados: the museum founded in 1967 is located on a nature conservation area of nearly 60 hectares. Its collection consists of almost 400 buildings, in addition to 80,000 objects, 9,300 general items and 6,329 data items of historical value, as well as boasting 118,000 photos and 21,117 slides. Simply amazing!