Beșalma

Beșalma is a Gagauz village south of Comrat, and the museum there was founded in 1966 by Dmitri Kara Çoban, a writer and film-maker who set out to record his people's material culture before it disappeared: household objects, dress, tools, carpets and photographs, along with his own paintings and films. It remains the principal collection on the Gagauz anywhere, run by his family. The village itself is one of the larger Gagauz settlements and the surrounding country is vineyard and open farmland, worked much as it has been for generations.

History

Gagauz settlers founded the village in 1791, and the church of Saint George was built in 1810 and rebuilt in 1880 (Wikipedia, Beșalma).

What's there

• The Kara Çoban collection - household objects, dress and tools gathered from the 1960s.
• The carpets - the woven work of the Gagauz households.
• The founder's films - the documentary material Kara Çoban shot himself.
• The family management - the museum still run by his descendants.

When to go

April to October is the pleasant season. The museum keeps irregular hours and calling ahead helps. Winter is cold.

What to expect

Hours are irregular and the museum is sometimes closed without notice. Labelling is in Russian and Gagauz. The village has no other facilities.

Nearby

Comrat is north, and Cahul is west.