The folk museum "Nicolae Popa" Târpeşti

Nicolae Popa (1919-2010) was a folk craftsman and poet, recognized for his efforts to build a small folk museum in the yard of his house in Târpești (Neamț), recognized today throughout the world for his unique creations.

His collections, open to the public since 1977 include: archaeological objects, numismatics, ethnography, religious objects, icons, naïve painting, but also creations of Neculai and Elena Popa: masks, costumes for winter performances, wood and stone carvings.

 "Since my youth, I have liked the traditions and customs of my ancestors. That's why I made the museum. I realized that only by preserving tradition can we prove that we existed as a people. I regret that young people are ashamed of our traditional costume. A more beautiful folk costume than in Romania does not exist anywhere in the world. Young people have begun to embrace what comes from abroad. Instead, foreigners appreciate what we have here more than we do", said the craftsman Neculai Popa.

The unique exhibits can be viewed in the 12 rooms allocated the museum and in the beautiful courtyard with sculptures of the Popa family.

The first museum - it functioned from 1964 to 1977 in the old service building of the village teacher, which N. Popa repaired it and remodeled it to be able to house his collection of objects

The House of Masks - This building was built by Vasile and Elena Popa in the second part of the 19th century and is composed of four rooms: entrance hall, centrally located, two rooms located on one side and the other of the hallway and a fourth room (which served as a warehouse, later enlarged), located in the back of the building. Currently, the building houses most of Neculai and Elena Popa's creations (masks and costumes for Christmas and New Year performances, naive wood and stone sculptures, made over the years) and a collection of vests embroidered with traditional decorative motifs, from the Neamț area .
 

House of collections - With the entry of the Târpeşti museum into the tourist circuit, at the beginning of the seventies, Neculai Popa realized that there was a need for the construction of a building dedicated to the collections of this museum, especially since the number of collected objects had greatly increased . And because it was a new construction, he thought that it should be placed in the courtyard of his home, the place where he carried out his creative activity and where he had already begun to think about the creation of a complex of sculptures for the exterior (the gate and the courtyard with sculptures). The collection house was started in 1974, and three years later, in 1977, it will be opened to the public. The building houses most of the collections of the Popa Museum: > archaeology, > numismatics, > ethnography, > religious objects, > naive painting.

Sculpture courtyard - The museum courtyard has been decorated since the beginning of the 70s with the wood and stone creations of Neculai Popa, works whose dimensions vary between 1 and 2.5 m. Access to this ensemble of sculptures is through a monumental gate, carved in oak wood, a kind of "family tree", which includes about 23 human figures.