The ASTRA Museum Complex in Sibiu, central Romania, had over 360,000 visitors last year, 60,000 of whom watched at least one movie screened at the ASTRA Film festival, according to a press release cited by local news agency Agerpres.

The number of visitors to the Sibiu museum complex was slightly higher than the National Village Museum's in Bucharest, which had  some 346,000 visitors in 2014, according to Paula Popoiu, the museum’s general manager. The Bucharest Museum hopes to attract some 400,000 visitors this year.

In Sibiu, “364,848 people contributed as visitors, spectators or participants at ASTRA Museum’s initiatives last year,” reads the museum’s statement. The most visited museum within the ASTRA National Museum Complex in Sibiu was the outdoor museum located in Dumbrava Forest, which covers 96 hectares. This is considered to be the largest open-air museum in Romania.

The ASTRA National Museum Complex is one of the most important ethno-museum institutions in Romania. It is the successor of the ASTRA Museum that has existed in the city since 1905. Reorganized under the current structure after 1990, the ASTRA National Museum Complex in Sibiu gathers four ethnographic museums and a department of anthropological documentary film.

The most important museum unit is the open-air ASTRA Museum Of Traditional Folk Civilization, located in the natural reservation of Dumbrava Sibiului. The complex also includes the `Franz Binder` Museum of Universal Ethnography, the `ASTRA` Museum of Transylvanian Civilization and the `EMIL SIGERUS` Museum of Ethnography and Saxon Folk Art. It also hosts the ASTRA Film Studio, the `Cornel Irimie` Information and Documentation Centre in Ethnology, the Folk Art Galleries and an educational department.

Read more about the ASTRA National Museum Complex here.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: ASTRA Museum on Facebook)