|Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization "ASTRA" | "ASTRA" Museum of Transylvanian Civilization |
|"Franz Binder" Non-European Ethnographical Museum|"Emil Sigerus" Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania Saxons |

       
Open: 1 May - 15 October
Daily: 10 - 18, Except Mondays
Area: about 200 acres (100 acres in the Ethnographic Open Air Museum)
Network of paths: 10 Km
Patrimony: 115 monuments (300 buildings)
over 16,000 objects
BRIEF HISTORY:
    Built up between 1963 and 1989, as the most elaborate scientific-documentary and technical collection and archives (pictures,photos, films) dealing with pre-industrial folk technology in Romania. It offers a brilliant demonstration of life and material continuity in this part of europe.
    The thematic outline of the museum - traditional folk civilization - is illustrated by:
Traditional occupations
     fishing
     bees keeping, bees waxing and candle making
     animal breeding and grazing
     fruit and wine growing
Traditional folk industries:
     oil pressing
     miller's trade
Techniques and means of communication and transport
Traditional Handicrafts:
     wood processing
     mineral and metal processing
     pottery art
Textile home industry and hydraulic industry for textile processing
Social and public edifices
Traditional buildings
Folk art (interior decoration of the houses).
In 1990 a new thematic section was added: civil public monuments (a church, a school, an inn and a pub, a dance shed, a skittles alley).
The addition of the name "Astra" in 1993 reflected the extension and continuity in all directions of the first historic and ethnographic museum of the Transylvanian Romanians, founded in 1905 and closed in 1950 for "ideological" reasons.
 SHOWS AND EVENTS:
     Films and slide projection;
     Special exhibitions;
     Folk performances on the stage beside the lake;
     Host of the European Poetry Festival (every two years);
     Handicrafts fairs (each year, for adults on 15th August and for children on 1st of June);
     Host of The Modern Wooden Monumental Sculpture Symposium (open      August-September every year);
     Research seminars;
     National and international symposia;
     Holiday camps for pupils attending the fine art's colleges;
     Religious services on Sunday, Holidays, at weddings and other ceremonies;
     Sailing boats on the lake;
     Driving in a carriage or tram-car around the museum;
     Traditional meal at the inn inside the museum.

Departments:
Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization "ASTRA"
- Open-air Museum -
Address: 2400 Sibiu, Calea Rasinari
Phone: 069/242419

"ASTRA" Museum of Transylvanian Civilization
Address: 2400 Sibiu, Piata Mica, nr. 11
Phone: 069/218195

"Franz Binder" Non-European Ethnographical Museum
Address: 2400 Sibiu, Piata Mica, nr. 11
Phone: 069/218195


"Emil Sigerus" Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania Saxons
Address: 2400 Sibiu, Piata Mica nr. 12
Phone: 069 218195

Fax: 069/218060
E-mail: astra@zappmobile.ro