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The Old Village museum gives us a glimpse of the family life of the Dinaric people who are, according to the anthropologist and geographer Jovan Cvijić, a "proud, emotional, conceited and irrationally righteous people". They lived in Montenegro, Herzegovina, Dalmatia and in Serbia – among the colonized people in Vojvodina and in the west of the country. They were organized and grouped in family communities with strictly defined rules of behaviour. Not only did every member have his or her own rights and obligations, set out by tradition and hierarchy, but these rules dictated the overall lifestyles in and the constructions of the various buildings, each with its own purpose.
Two village households were completely restored in the Old Village, which were typical of the Dinaric culture in the 19th and first half of the 20th century in western Serbia. The walls of the houses are made of logs and the high, four-sided slanting roofs are covered with shingle. The houses were erected on sunny slopes, in order to be protected from the wind.
At the highest spot, in the main and biggest house, one will find the only fire in the family community. There, beside the hearth, the joint life of the large family was lived, while in the room by the furnace the eldest members of the family and newborns slept. The biggest house has two doors: one on the eastern side through which joyous events entered – such as those marking weddings, Family Patron Saint Day or the birth of a child, and the other door on the western side, through which sad news entered and the dead were carried away. Under the biggest house is a cellar, and on the roof is an opening called kapić and badža through which the smoke from the hearth and furnace exited.
Around the house are outbuildings called vajats where the newlyweds slept. The number of outbuildings corresponded to the number of sons. In the stone cellars are drink pantries and working spaces complete with tools. The dairy outbuilding is the nearest one to the biggest house and the closest to the vajats; it is a smaller building made of wood where dairy products were produced and preserved. Since everything in that building had to be especially clean, members of the household – except the planinka, the dairymaid – were not allowed to enter. A bit further on stands the bakery where a great quantity of bread was baked, sometimes over a period of several days, to avoid lighting the fire daily.
The farm and barns are fenced in with rods: they served as places for drying and preserving wheat. The stable is made of wood and covered with straw and wooden planks. There is also a machine for drying plums, a cottage with a brandy still and a beehive. Among the nearby buildings one can find various handicraft workshops: such as a coppersmith’s, a blacksmith’s and a pottery. Not far from the household, separated by a pine tree fence, are the summer cattle stalls and kulača – a bed on a sled where shepherds would sleep while taking care of the nearby grazing cattle. When night falls, the daily silence turns into a ghostly stillness for people used to town life. The village is dark, but the light coming from the electric lanterns lit throughout the village remind you that you are not far away from civilization.
| The outdoor museum is located at the slope of the church of St. Peter and Paul, built in 1764, which makes it a first class cultural heritage site – of especial relevance for the Republic of Serbia. The museum became a member of the European Union of Outdoor Museums in 1990. Between the two little rivers of Katušnica and Prištenica are 47 unique buildings with inns built expressly for guests and tourists, a village hall and an old village tavern that serves traditional regional cuisine. The museum’s programmes are devoted to the preservation and study of spiritual heritage as well as traditional vocations and handicrafts. |
| Sirogojno can be reached by train or by bus: first to the town of Užice or Mt. Zlatibor, then from Užice to Sirogojno by local bus (30km), or from Mt. Zlatibor (24km) through tourist agencies. | | 
