400 exhibits from around the world
The unique Museum of Horseshoes has opened in Lviv
This museum is likely the only one of its kind in Europe, according to Lviv Gzhytsky National University of Veterinary Medicine. It was created from a unique collection gathered in the 1930s and the 1940s by Professor Kazimierz Sczudlowski and his blacksmith father. Head of the sub-department of orthopedics. Professor Sczudlowski, who also served as rector of Lviv Veterinary Academy in 1936-39, used the collection to illustrate the lessons he taught to his students, future veterinarians, before donating it to the school in the late 1930s.
The university’s employees told us that all this wealth, demonstrating the high skill of old-time smiths, was “piled together like it was so much trash” on the secret orders of the first Soviet rector of the institute in 1945, following the end of World War II. As a result, some exhibits have disappeared, but most of them have been preserved by Associate Professors Lev Zaiats and Volodymyr Saievych, thereby saving these valuable specimens of blacksmithing art for our generation.
Head of the Veterinary Institute’s sub-department of surgery Professor Yevhen Malishevsky proposed to create a museum of horseshoes in 1975. Subsequently, the sub-department got a room to be used for orthopedic class, where the holdings were then put on display.
The collection includes 400 exhibits from around the world now. Even though none of them can be said to be really ancient compared to horseshoes preserved abroad, some are real masterpieces of blacksmithing art. Most were produced by local blacksmiths, because the Veterinary School in Lviv included a farriers’ school since 1881 [the institution was then officially known as the Imperial and Royal Veterinary and Farriers’ School and the Clinical Hospital for Animals in Lviv. – Ed.].
The museum’s stands display about 300 horseshoes, including large ones for draft horses, light ones for riding horses, and oxenshoes... People are interested most in special horseshoes that made it possible to use for work animals with chronic diseases or congenital defects of hooves, tendons or joints. Other exhibits are special horseshoes for work in the mountains, on the loose and rocky soils, in winter and summer, as well as silent horseshoes for work in cities at night and morning.
The museum also holds items of blacksmithing heritage of past centuries, represented by horseshoes found during archeological excavations and probably belonging to the 17th century.
The Museum of Horseshoes’ address is 61 Kostia Levytskoho Street. The opening was dedicated to the 230th anniversary of veterinary education and research in the city.
