Ulan Ude Ethnographic museum
The ethnographic museum is a 15 minutes bus ride out of Ulan Ude. You can walk through the areas, under the trees, or in a large grassy field, and discover the types of architecture people constructed to live in, through the centuries, at scale one. For example there is an Evenk camp. Evenks were nomad people traveling through Siberia with deers and sledges. They settled for a season then moved further. They made tipi tents with branches and bark of trees. You can walk through the camp, look inside the tipis, discover all kind of wooden utensils, tools, water baskets made out of animal skin. It’s very useful to get survival ideas if you plan to go and live wild in Baikal area.
There’s also the tent of a Shaman, with sculptures of animals, different pelts worn on ceremonies. Unfortunately many pelt or wooden objects are exposed in the strong sun and rain and deteriorate.
Another area of the ethnographic museum is consecrated to a later kind of housing: the famous Yurt houses. You can visit a Summer Yurt house. Its’ six walls are made out of tree trunks and covered with mud, it forms a large inside hexagonal space. The roof is covered with grass and there’s a top window to let light in and fire smoke out.
The winter Yurts had the same form, except that the walls were covered with snow, to keep warm. On the shore of Baikal, people still built Yurt camps, mainly to accommodate tourists (Olkhon, Snake Bay). Another part of the museum is consecrated to more modern times housing. You can visit the home of poor or noble villagers from 8th century or 19th century, it’s interesting to see how people lived. The houses are furnished like in old times, in the rooms are all the objects that show how people lived, authentic pieces of embroideries, wooden objects.
Open hours: 8.30-21.30, closed on Mondays, English-language tours ($5).
Entrance - 45 roubles ($1.5), Making photos – 15 roubles, or 70 for good cams To get there: Shuttle N8 for 6 roubles (from Baikal hotel) then 1 km walking.
Location
Etnograficheskiy Muzey
village Upper Berezovka
Ulan-Ude
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