Russów Open-Air Museum

The open-air museum in Russów consists of six wooden buildings from the Kalisz countryside, set in the 4-hectare park around Maria Dąbrowska's manor house. The most valuable is the "sołek" – a granary from the second half of the 18th century that belonged to the Witczak family, whom the writer knew well and portrayed in her story "The Royal Coral Beads". The display was built between 1988 and 1998 and is run by the Regional Museum of the Kalisz Land.

History: Dąbrowska's village in timber

The ethnographic park was created to complement the literary museum in the manor house. The museum wanted to show the rural world Dąbrowska knew from childhood and described in "Nights and Days" and in the stories "Folk from Over There". The buildings were moved from villages around Kalisz; the exception is the "sołek", which comes from Russów itself. The last building, the manor granary, arrived in the park in 1998.

What to see

Three buildings together form a late-19th-century peasant farmstead:

• A farmhouse from Takomyśle from about 1870 – a narrow-fronted cottage.
• A double-bay barn from Godziesze Wielkie from the second half of the 19th century.
• A cowshed from Skrzatki from the end of the 19th century.

Next to them stand three more historic buildings:

• The "sołek" – a granary from a yeoman's farmstead in Russów, second half of the 18th century, the oldest building in the museum.
• A labourer's cottage from Dobrzec from the early 19th century, moved here in 1993.
• A manor granary from Kuźnica Grabowska dated 1800, a reminder of the manorial farm economy.

Curiosities

The manor house surrounded by these buildings never belonged to the Szumski family – the writer's father was the estate manager here. After the war the house fell into decay and the park became overgrown; its landscape character was only restored from the late 1980s, alongside the building of the open-air museum. So the farmstead is not an invented "village" but a set of buildings from the area that show the world Dąbrowska wrote about.

Tripto tips

• Address: Russów 49, Żelazków municipality, about 20 minutes by bus from Kalisz bus station; the stop on national road 25 is about 550 m from the museum, and there is a car park in front of the park gate.
• The park and open-air museum are open during the manor museum's hours: Tue–Fri 10:00–15:30, weekends 10:00–17:00 (May–October) or 10:00–15:30 (November–April); closed Mondays (as of October 2026).
• Wheelchair users can enter the cottages via a mobile platform – book in advance by phone (+48 62 769 12 65).
• Combine the open-air museum with the manor house and allow 1.5–2 hours in total.