Interesting places

SKANSEN MUSEUM

For 46 years, Marian Kowalski has collected and painstakingly restored some 3,000 exhibits, which are presented in several rooms called Chambers. They contain antique furniture, clocks, trunks, folk costumes, prams, dolls, irons, paraffin lamps, weapons, military machines, fire-fighting equipment, household appliances and others. "Uncle" Marian knows the stories of the objects housed here and enjoys telling their history over a slice of country bread with country lard.

The museum is constantly developing, acquiring new exhibits and expanding. There is also a section of the museum called the Bread House - the collection was started by an antique stone mortar dating back to the Lusatian culture period and approx. 2,000 years old, which was the inspiration for Mr Kowalski to build the Bread House, which houses, among other things, the Kitchen Chamber. It is furnished with everything the housewives used, i.e. cutlery, plates, pans, tin and stone pots, riddles and pre-war Belgian cuisine.

The Kowalskis treat their guests to bread baked in an old bread oven and a kitchen speciality - Kurpie-style "żurek". Adjacent to the Bread House is the old Forge, where the blacksmith forges iron during presentations. In the Craftsmen's Chamber, there is a collection of equipment used in the countryside and for agricultural work: agricultural machinery, old harrows, scythes, ploughs, chaff cutters, grain cleaners, an antique steering wheel, 100-year-old sledges, carts, chaises, flax processing machines, old cart wheels and other items. In the Harnessing Chamber you can see everything related to horse riding and harnessing. On the fireplace, Marian Kowalski presents his sculptures. The Museum's newest possession is an antique electric carousel, which was saved from destruction by Mr Marian. It has been painstakingly restored and roofed over.

MUSEUM OFFER:

The hosts are happy to provide access to the museum and to help organise any special events of a folk-cultural nature for companies and individuals. The museum has a conference room for 50 people with a wall projector.

*Excursions for organised groups - school and private (sightseeing, campfire, field kitchen, recreation - approx. 6 hours)
*EVENTION EVENTS (two halls - approx. 80 seats; fireplace + covered benches and tables - approx. 40 seats).
*performances by the folk group "Marciny".

FOLK BAND "Marciny".

The band "Marciny" has been playing and singing in Marcinowo since 1978. Most of the band members live in Marcinów. In their songs one can find motifs of the folklore of the Lublin, Kielce or Kurpie regions. Most of the songs were musically prepared by Marian Kowalski, the band's founder. In 2002, at the festival in Przysucha near Opoczno, the band received the prestigious Kolberg Oscar award for lifetime achievement. In May 2004, the band went on tour in Lithuania. In 2005 Marian Kowalski was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland by President Aleksander Kwaśniewski.

founding father of the museum - Marian Kowalski

Marian Kowalski was born in 1938 in Warsaw. The fate of war threw him and his family into the Kurpie countryside, where as a young boy he came into contact with life, work and rural culture. After 1945, he settled in Marcinowo. He found old equipment on the farms: furniture, crockery, tools. With time, repatriates, re-emigrants and settlers began to melt into a homogeneous Lower Silesian population. Seeing the progressing changes, the rapid improvements in technology and civilisation bringing about the inevitable disappearance of traditional equipment and objects, he wanted to save the vanishing relics of folk art and culture. He kept them for himself and the rising generations. So he used all his spare time to search for unwanted objects-witnesses of a bygone era. The result is a collection illustrating the folk culture of the Lower Silesian population and the folk cultures of various immigrant groups. In January this year. The museum was registered and its regulations agreed with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.