Torum Maa open-air Ethnographic Museum

Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Khanty-Mansiysk, Sobyanin street, 1
Phones: +7 (3467) 32-20-58
Web site: https://torummaa.ru/

The Torum Maa Open Air Museum is located in a wonderful, preserved area on one of the seven holy hills, in the Samarovsky Churas Nature Park. The museum authentically reconstructs the households of indigenous peoples of the North. The open air complex invites you to visit winter camps of the Mansi, or to see genuine traditional residential and household facilities of the Khanty dating to the early-mid-10th century. You can learn more about hunting culture of the Khanty and Mansi on a special hiking trail.

The museum also offers a 15th-17th century smithy, reconstructed using materials fr om archaeological excavations of Emder city, wh ere you can learn more about blacksmith crafts of the Ob river Ugric people. In addition to houses and household facilities of northern peoples, the Torum Saa Museum displays their idols, protectors of this land.

The museum hosts traditional holidays of the Ob river Ugric people, which brings together representatives of all the ancient peoples of the Yugra. The most popular and anticipated among the holidays are: Tylasch pori (the Rite of Offering to the Moon), which takes place in February or March when the moon is waxing; Crow Day, which symbolizes the beginning of spring and is celebrated in April; the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which is celebrated globally on August 9,; and the main holiday for the museum staff and visitors — the anniversary of the Torum Maa Museum on October 30.

The ethnographic open-air museum "Torum Maa" was founded in 1987, the founders are representatives of the national intelligentsia from among the Khanty and Mansi, who needed to present the culture of the Ob Ugrians in the district capital on one of the seven sacred hills, not far from the confluence of the mighty rivers Ob and Irtysh.

The name "Torum Maa" is translated from the Mansi language as "Sacred Land". Museum "Torum Maa" presents a reliable reconstruction of the life of the Ob Ugrians:

• "Summer camp of the Khanty of the Agan river" (summer house, household and hunting sheds, smokehouse shed, bread oven, fireplace);

• "Winter settlement of northern Mansi" (winter house, farm and hunting storage, farm buildings for livestock);

• the current "Sanctuary of the Ob Ugrians";

• hunting trail, which is a trap of pressing type for large and small animals, upland game, wind barriers. The atmosphere of being in a real camp is created by genuine objects of the material and spiritual culture of the Khanty and Mansi peoples. Today, the museum fund is more than three thousand items.

"Torum Maa" in translation from the Mansi language - "Land of Torum" or "Sacred land".