Kashubian Ethnographic Park in Wdzydze Kiszewskie

The museum in Wdzydze Kiszewskie dates back to 1906, its founders Teodora and Izydor Gulgowscy established the first open-air museum in Poland.

They arranged it in the eighteenth century – in an eightieth-century peasant’s cottage which they bought from a local host –Michał Hinc. There they gathered housewares and farming equipmenttypical for that time and valuable collection of gold embroidered bonnets, glass paintings and ceramics.

The scientific activities and social passions of the Museum founders also led to the development of local handicrafts and discovered the beauty of the Kashubian folk artsuch as intricate braids and local multi-coloured embroidery.

Currently, after more than a century, the Museum covers the area of 22 ha situated on the shores of Gołuń Lake surrounded by facilities built inthe style of local architecture. Cottages, manor houses, a school, a smithy, windmills, church, outbuildings and workshops – 45 objects from Kashubia and Kociewie testify to the richness and diversity of rural building dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Faithfully restored interior with authentic furnishings, temporarily operated farming and industrial equipment give the place a unique atmosphere, heightened by the picturesque location and values of the surrounding nature.