The village museum of Csernáton was named after its founder, HASZMANN Pál in 1999. Apart from the DAMOKOS Gyula mansion, the museum also occupies the park and the yard belonging to the premises. In the years between 1950 and 1970 the mansion was totally neglected, and reached a deplorable condition. In order to save the building from total destruction, the officials of that time decided to open a museum, a cultural centre in it.
The mansion was built during the 17th–19th centuries, and its exterior was finished in neoclassical style in 1831.
The building with several rooms and the area of more than two hectares surrounding it proved to be ideal for a village museum. The institution was opened to the public on 25 February 1973.
HASZMANN Pál (1902–1977) and his wife CSEH Ida (1909–2003) donated their private collection to the museum. Their dream of opening a museum could not have come true without the help of a large number of sponsors and enthusiastic people. The work started by them was passed on to their family. The museum is a branch of the Székely National Museum in Sfântu Gheorghe.
The character of an open-air ethnographic museum is given by the szekler houses and gates, the water mill and other buildings typical of szekler folk architecture, all moved to the garden Of The "Haszmann Pál" museum. szekler houses are built of wood, with gabled roofs, covered with shingles.
The presentation of the region's beekeeping past is in itself a valuable collection and an interesting attraction of the open-air museum.
The vestiges of the built heritage, the carved wooden funeral pillars, crosses and tombstones, reflect the original image of the Szekler cemeteries in the region. The permanent exhibition presents the cultural history of the area and the commune. The life and activity of prominent personalities from Cernat also constitute a significant and instructive part of the collection. In the courtyard of the museum are exhibited the busts of BOD Péter and VÉGH Antal, famous sons of Cernat.
One of the most valuable collections of the open-air ethnographic museum is the exhibition of old agricultural machinery and tools, intended to present the past and the material and spiritual vestiges of the traditional household. The collection includes steam engines, threshers, tractors, power tools, tillers, as well as many unique, vintage farm implements.
The vaulted cellar of the DAMOKOS mansion, which dates back to the late Middle Ages, hosts the exhibition of cast iron craftwork, the “stove museum”. Apart from stoves, the exhibition presents iron ornaments, articles for personal use and different objects manufactured with delicate taste for religious purposes. The oldest items were manufactured in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the bulk of the collection dates back to the 19th century, the heyday of Transylvanian castiron handicrafts.
The exhibition of technical history is a valuable collection of antique radios. The oldest radio sets are those with crystal detectors and earphones. Among the multitude of radio receivers, one can also see different devices for recording and reproducing sound, gramophones, pathéphones, antique telephones dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. More than eighty percent of the items are still operational, so visitors can also listen to their sounds.
Apart from the museum, the mansion hosts the Folk High school of Csernáton, which is open from April to October, and welcomes young people interested in traditional handicrafts such as wood carving, furniture painting, felting, spinning and weaving, carpentry, joinery, wheelwrighting, forging, as well as building and carving Szekler gates.
