The National Museum of Decorated Eggs, a public forum monument of national importance, located in Ciocănești (101 km away from Suceava), opened to the public in 2007.
The museum’s collections, which feature decorated eggs from all ethnographic regions of Romania, were organized starting from the 1,800 pieces that belonged to the teacher Novac Norbert Ioan, a native of the place. The eggs in this collection (the oldest dates from 1902) depict the popular motifs sewn on popular vests, shirts or homespun skirts worn in southern Bukovina.
The core collection was added the 1,650 pieces from the collection of the phthisiologist Anton Setnic and the exhibits from the National Festival of Decorated Eggs, which takes place in Ciocănești annually, starting with 2007. Due to hosting this festival and the Trout Festival, the commune won in 2014 the title of “Romania’s Cultural Village”.
The most common symbols rendered on decorated eggs are the vertical and the horizontal lines (representing life and death, respectively), the wheat spike (wealth), the straight line (destiny), the sawtooth line (good and evil), the spiral (time).
An additional element of attraction is given by a workshop-school of egg decorating, in which visitors can learn the secrets of this art.
