Carpathians, tourist, Yaremche, souvenir market — this is approximately the associative series that appears in the minds of those who have already had a vacation or are just planning a trip to Western Ukraine, to the kingdom of mountains and various entertainments. Indeed, Yaremche is the undisputed tourist capital of the region. The town has everything to please the most demanding guest — from mineral water springs to the opportunity to go rafting on the Prut or trekking to the nearest Gorgon peaks, from three waterfalls to the famous kolibs, where guests are treated to banosh, stuffed cabbage, Hutsul mushroom borscht, real brynza and young wine.
In those places where there are a lot of tourists, there are a lot of museums. Or vice versa. It is as difficult to establish the superiority in this connection as in the eternal chicken and egg question. But the fact remains that Yaremche has several museums dedicated to ecology, ethnography and prominent Ukrainians, such as Metropolitan Andrei Sheptitsky. One of the most interesting collections of local treasures is the Ukrainian Antiquities Museum.
Incidentally, this particular Ukrainian Antiquities is housed in a most unharmonious, semi-soviet structure. The building, where the exposition is located, is covered with horrible wagon. And this is in a town that is surrounded by fir and spruce forests. The huge double-sloped roof, which does not match the exposition of the slopes of the surrounding mountains, makes the house look like a barn. There are iron bars on the windows, and from the vent of one of them protrudes a shaft with a drooping national flag. The point in the creation of the ugliest house in Yaremche was a cheeky inscription, more suitable for a shop with «Ukrainian souvenirs».
With such a fantastically ugly exterior, the middle of the museum resembles a palace or a temple. The temple of culture of the peoples inhabiting the Carpathian valleys in the XIX and early XX centuries or «Donkey Skin» in Yaremchean. On the clean whitewashed walls are hung old photographs, icons and paintings — the obligatory Shevchenko, Carpathian landscapes and still lifes with flowers and fruits. In one of the halls instead of paintings there are painted plates, the way Hutsuls and Boyks used to decorate their homes in the olden days.
In another hall of the «Museum of Antiquity» there are collected the tools of labor of the Goryons: spinning wheels, machines for making lezhniki, i.e. wool blankets, pitchforks and horns. In the next room guests will be shown carved chests of poor and rich brides, as well as festive and everyday outfits of Hutsuls and their ladies. There are embroidered shirts and skirts decorated with flowers, warm sheepskin coats, bags, beads and colorful leather boots. No less interesting is the section devoted to local musical instruments and tableware — everyday and festive, clay, wooden and glassware imported from Austria-Hungary.
The list of Yaremche’s attractions could go on endlessly. But one of them resonates with the «Museum of Antiquities». Having come here on vacation, no tourist will pass by the local souvenir market, a peculiar parable of the whole Carpathian region. Here, too, there are plates, shrouds, embroideries and wool blankets, leather and wood products, only on a scale that is many times larger than the exposition of the «Museum of Antiquities». Many of those who have vacations in the Carpathians specially visit Yaremche to make sure that it is really as good, bright and authentic as they say it is.