What to do and see in Polva County, Polva County: The Best Specialty Museums

In the Suvahavva wool fabric-museum the visitors can see machinery that was used for producing wool and woollen products (cotton wool, thread, yarn) and how yarn is made of wool.

Polva Peasant Museum is a unique open air museum in Southern Estonia. The visitors can learn about the school, local community government and life in farm of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The typical arrangement of the buildings in the community centre was formed at the end of the 19th century. The territory of the museum is 5 ha and the visitors can take a look at a court, a school and a community house with outbuildings, a smith farm and a Dutch windmill. The exhibition also includes agricultural machinery and vehicles.

The newest part of the museum is the Machinery Hall, opened in July 2019, with the exhibition The Rule of Machines – a fascinating interactive exhibition on car mechanics and traffic physics, safe driving, and building safe roads. Outdoor exhibition Road Time is a road going through time and space where you can see old and new vehicles. Visitors can also explore Eastern Europe’s largest collection of road construction machines. For children, we have a wide selection of two-wheeled and electric cars in the traffic city. At the Varbuse Post Station, you can learn about the development of roads and modes of travel and there is a children’s museum on the first floor of the house

The Seto Farm Museum enables the visitors to learn about the farm architecture, old tools and rich collection of handicraft items dating from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The exposition comprises a half-enclosed yard, a dwelling, storehouses for clothes, grain and food, a bam with a hay shed, a workshop, other sheds, a smoke sauna, a pottery, a smithy, a barn and kiln house and a tea house. The majority of the buildings are original and originate from Nothern Setumaa. The museum also organises temporary special exhibitions. Visitors can participate in various events, such as winter holidays, Seto lace days, Folk tales’ nights and celebrations of folk calendar holidays.

Eesti Maasteemuuseumi näituseala hõlmab kolme osa. Uusim, „Masinahall - masinate valitsemine" on interaktiivne väljapanek auto mehaanikast ja liiklusfüüsikast, ohutust liiklemisest ja turvaliste teede ehitamisest. Väliekspositsioon "Teeaeg" on ajas ja ruumis lahtirullunud tee, mille igal käänakul avaneb murranguline ajalooetapp ning kus esitletakse ka Ida-Euroopa suurimat tee-ehitusmasinate kogu. Lapsi rõõmustavad liikluslinna elektriautod ja erinevad kaherattalised. Postijaama peahoones räägitakse hobuajastu teede ja liikumisviiside arengust ning teisel korrusel asub lastemuuseum.

Saatse Seto Museum was opened in the former schoolhouse on 1 July 1974. The renovated museum is small and cosy and it displays the most extensive collection of historical objects in Setomaa. It also includes a large wooden figure of Peko, the god of fertility, created by local artist Renaldo Veeber. The museum possesses a beautiful park spreading over several hectares with a study trail, only a few hundred metres from Russia.

The exhibition at the Rapina Local Lore and Gardening Museum gives an overview of the manor and the parish of Rapina, the history of the town, the gardening school and practices and also one of the oldest paper factories in Estonia. It includes also old tools and commodities.

The Museum of Tuglas is the childhood home of Friedebert Tuglas, born on 2 March 1886. Tuglas became a well-known writer for his novel Vaike Illimar (Little Illimar) written in 1932. The story of the little Illimar is at the same time the story of a manor in Estonia. Places related to Friedebert Tuglas and the Little Illimar are displayed on a large map, which is also exhibited in the museum. Spatial exposition provides background information for the guests who visit the places related to the novel and learn about the everyday life of the manor house.