Probably the cutest museum in the world
July 6, 2011
Visiting the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. It sounds a bit like the thing someone only would consider on a rainsoaked Sunday afternoon, provided all laundry is done, there is no Tour de France on tv and the political analysis section in the weekend newspaper is completely digested.
But as Lonely Planet lists it among the five highlights of Romania’s capital city (with the legendary words This museum is so good you may want to hug it) and even a friend who knows my apathy for dusty Cultural Institutions highly recommended me a visit to the Museum, I decided to put the newspaper aside and to leave the Tour de France for the evening news.
And yes, it is without any doubt the cutest museum I have ever seen. Homemade catalogues of cardboard and personally coloured xerox copies, handwritten descriptions on the white walls (first a draft in black pencil, overdrawn with slightly thicker red pencil), a village classroom – ‘Saturdays only’ if my knowledge of the Romanian language doesn’t betray me – and hundreds of traditional tools, costumes and religious parafernalia. Even the shop doesn’t escape the sweetness: fairy tale books printed on handmade paper and 40 year old yellowish postcards make up the majority of the relics on sale.
The international Agricultural History Museum scene has a new supporter.
