Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha Museum-Reserve

The Urals


The village of Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha, about 150km northeast of Yekaterinburg and 12km north of Alapaevsk, is home to an excellent open-air Architecture Museum of traditional Siberian log buildings, featuring displays of period furniture and domestic articles. Five buses a day go to Alapaevsk (R297, three hours) from Yekaterinburg (Yuzhny Avtovokzal). A taxi can take you to the museum.

Excursions of the museum are in Russian only, but you can wander around the grounds without a guide. While in town, visit the stone cathedral, which houses a good collection of regional folk art. This impressive ensemble of art and architecture was gathered from around the Ural Mountains and recompiled by the single-handed efforts of Ivan Samoylov, an enthusiastic local historian.