Boyko Museum in Myczków

The Municipal Museum of the Spiritual and Material Culture of the Boykos (Gminne Muzeum Kultury Duchowej i Materialnej Bojków) is in the village of Myczków on the San river, between the dams of Lake Solina and the Myczkowce reservoir. It is a small but heartfelt museum devoted to the Boykos – Ukrainian highlanders who lived in the Bieszczady for more than five centuries and whose story here was broken off in the mid-20th century.

The museum was founded by the Solina municipality (council resolution of 2012), and its collection grew out of objects gathered since the 1970s by the local teacher and regional historian Stanisław Drozd. In 2023 the museum celebrated ten years of activity, and the Regional Culture Centre in Myczków, which now houses the new exhibition, five years. It is run by the Solina Municipal Centre for Culture, Sport and Tourism.

The exhibition explains how the Bieszczady were settled: in the 15th and 16th centuries Vlach shepherds came here from the southern Carpathians and gradually merged with the Ruthenian population; from the 19th century their descendants became known as Boykos, although they called themselves "Verkhovyntsi" or "Hyrniaky" (highlanders). The Boykos lived modestly from farming and herding, and their spiritual life centred on the church. After the Second World War most local Ukrainians were resettled to Soviet Ukraine in 1944–1946, and the rest were deported in 1947 during Operation Vistula; the empty villages were mostly burnt, leaving only names, cemeteries and wild orchards.

What to see

• Folk costumes – everyday clothes of home-woven linen and hemp cloth, and festive ones decorated with cross-stitch embroidery; the most valuable part of the collection.
• Sacred objects – liturgical vessels from former churches, tabernacles, fragments of iconostases, crosses, and a collection of oleographs.
• Farming and crafts – agricultural tools, household items, furniture, dishes and textiles from the late 19th to the mid-20th century.
• Archive – manuscripts, documents, photographs and tape-recorded memories of former inhabitants, plus a few family mementoes of the owners of local manor houses.

The museum holds temporary exhibitions (in 2026, for example, one about Ignacy Łukasiewicz and the history of kerosene light, together with the Subcarpathian Museum in Krosno), family workshops, school classes and a quest game for visitors. In the village centre two places of worship stand side by side – a former Greek Catholic church and a Roman Catholic church, both funded by the owner of Myczków, Jan Nepomucen Zatorski: a living example of how Ruthenians and Poles lived as neighbours before the war.

Practical information

Myczków lies a few kilometres from Polańczyk and Solina, by the road from Lesko to Lake Solina, so the museum combines easily with a day by the water. Driving is simplest; in summer buses run from Lesko and Sanok to Solina and Polańczyk. The museum is open all year from Tuesday to Saturday and a standard ticket costs 20 zł (details in the "At a glance" box); the Polish and English audio guide is included. Allow about an hour. Groups must book in advance. For families it is a calm alternative to the beach on a rainy day, and children under 7 go in free.

Nearby: trails and peaks

Our Krysowa – Zagórz route runs right through the village – a long walk across the western Bieszczady that is easy to split into stages with a night by the lake. 3.5 km away is Lake Solina and the Solina Dam, Poland's largest reservoir, and on the way to Sanok it is worth stopping at the Lesko Synagogue and Jewish Cemetery.

Official website: muzeumbojkow.pl

Photos: Ciacho5, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Gminne Muzeum Kultury Duchowej i Materialnej Bojków w Myczkowie, official website.