Zaslavl. The Museum of the Belarusian malyavanka.

This kind of art belongs to the so-called naive art. This is the direction of primitivism. Malyavanka is a large (up to two meters) painting - carpet, painted by self-taught artists on canvases or burlap with oil or glue paints. Previously, in villages they were hung on the walls of houses for decoration, but malyavanki sometimes served as a talisman. They painted babies on bedspreads, oilcloths and even on sheets. They were given as gifts for celebrations and weddings. Gradually, this type of art has exhausted itself due to the development of factory production of carpets.

The paintings were usually painted on a black or dark brown background, and the subjects were very different: flowers, animals, birds, people, mythical characters, landscapes. Various artists from Belarus worked in this direction, for example, Nikanor Zosik, Fedor Sukhovilo, Gennady Kuzovkov and others. But in the Malyavanka Museum in Zaslavl, the exposition focuses mainly on the works of two masters: Yazep Drozdovich and Alyona Kish.

The Museum also features works by unknown authors, because carpets were often painted by self-taught artists. There are works done here at the beginning of the 20th century. The museum staff still continues to collect the malyavanka. They travel to villages, communicate with locals. There are carpets on unpainted linen, decorated with tiny, tiny crumbs of glass from Christmas tree toys. 

The idea of creating the Belarusian Malyavanka museum belongs to a former employee of the Zaslavsky Museum-Reserve Yuri Malash, who has done a lot to replenish the museum's collection of malyavanka carpets.

The museum itself is located in a building with a long history: In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was an outbuilding of the manor of the Pshezdetsky Gentry, later the artillery and weapons workshops of the NKVD troops, a school, and a Children's Art house.

The Malyavanka Museum looks very stylish: plain walls, pleasant fonts of signage. Exhibits for the museum have been collected for decades in different parts of the country.

There are almost 300 babies in the museum's collections. 

The space in the museum itself is not very large, it has two halls - light and dark.  One is where the permanent exhibition is located, and the second is a replacement one, which is updated every six months. 

The permanent exhibition features the only collection of painted carpets by the artist Alyona Kish. So far, three of her babies have been exhibited. The museum's collection houses the largest collection of baby dolls in the country - the works of Yazep Drozdovich. As for the plots, they are traditional with obligatory unusual colors around.

The Malyavanka Museum is a very unique and necessary museum for Belarus. It contains a huge number of works by various artists, which have finally become available for review by many Belarusians who are interested in this type of art. You can look at malyavanki for a long time. They fascinate with their mystery, beauty and historical value.