Ukrainian Towel Museum

The Ukrainian Towel Museum was opened in 1995 in an architectural monument of national importance, the Church of the Three Hierarchs built in 1651 and brought from the village of Pyshchyky in Skvyra district, Kyiv Oblast.
The Ukrainian towel is the history of our people. It accompanied a Ukrainian throughout life. It is a symbol of hospitality and sacrifice. Its ornaments contain ancient magical signs, images of the tree of life, the protective goddess, and symbols of the earth, water and heavenly bodies.
The reserve’s collection of towels numbers about 4,000 items. The museum’s exhibition presents 367 towels from various regions of Ukraine (the Kyiv region, Poltava region, Polissia, Cherkasy region, Chernihiv region).
The pride of the museum is the homespun towels of Pereiaslav from the 19th century, which occupy a special page in the history of Ukrainian folk art.
On display are homespun Polissia towels of the 19th-20th centuries with a characteristic horizontal arrangement of the pattern; Krolevets factory-made towels of the 19th-20th centuries with protective symbols such as double-headed eagles, three-candle trikirion candlesticks, churches and bell towers; woven towels from the Pereiaslav zemstvo workshop of the early 20th century; block-printed towels from the Pereiaslav region of the 1930s-1950s; and modern woven towels from the artistic goods factories of Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi and Bohuslav of the 1950s-1980s (including works by the folk masters Z. Honcharuk, I. Nechyporenko and N. Skopets).