Hanoi is also Home to a number of museums: History of Military Museum, Ho Chi Minh Museum, Revolution Museum, Vietnam Fine-Arts Museum, Vietnam History Museum, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, Vietnam Women's Museum
President Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum
Location: In Ba Dinh Square, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: The construction of the Mausoleum started in September 1973, on the foundations of the old rostrum in Ba Dinh Square where president Ho Chi Minh used to chair national meetings. Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum was completed nearly two years later on August 29, 1975.
Engraved on the front of the Mausoleum is Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh, meaning "President Ho Chi Minh". Uncle Ho's dead body dressed in faded khaki clothes and plain rubber shoes was put in a glass coffin.
The Mausoleum is the everlasting rest house of the greatest leader of Vietnam.
President Ho Chi Minh's Residence
Location: In Ba Dinh District, Hanoi
Characteristic: Located in a large garden at the back of the Presidential Palace is a nice road covered with pebbles and bordered with mango trees that lead to a stilt house, Uncle Ho's residence and office from May 1958 until his death. The perfume of jasmine flowers and roses is omnipresent.
At the back is a garden of fruit trees, where the luxuriant milk fruit tree donated to Uncle Ho by his southern compatriots in 1954 stands between two lines of Hai Hung orange trees. Other valuable trees belonging to more than 30 species supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Forestry, and several provinces represent the wide variety of trees growing in Vietnam. There are also trees imported from foreign countries, such as Ngan Hoa trees, miniature rose bushes, areca trees from the Caribbean, Buddhist bamboo trees, etc. Dozens of varieties of beautifully hang from the trees which blossom all year round.
Many people know the story of how Uncle Ho came to live in a small stilt-house rather than a grand palace. But it is worth retelling. Ho Chi Minh was never one for large houses and comfortable living. He was just 21 when, in 1911, he set out to travel "the five continents and the four oceans" to seek ways of saving his country. For 30 years he lived a nomadic life, changing addresses constantly. When he came back to Vietnam in 1941, he led the revolution against colonial rule and read the country’s historic Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi on September 2, 1945. Not long afterwards, the French attempted to reassert control of their former dominion, and Ho Chi Minh and his generals were forced into the north-western mountains. During the resistance war of 1946-54, Uncle Ho reverted to his nomadic ways, for the only means of avoiding detection and capture was to live life constantly on the run. He moved from one hide-out to another several times a month, and only lived in stilt-houses. When the war was won in 1954, the Party, Government and Ho Chi Minh came back to Hanoi. But Uncle Ho eschewed the trappings of authority. A true egalitarian, he chose to live a simple life: he wore brown cotton garments and rubber sandals made from car tyros, and lived in a worker’s cottage out the back of the Presidential Palace. In 1958, Uncle Ho revisited the former resistance base in the north-west and saw some of the stilt-houses where he had spent the war years. When he got back to Hanoi, he said he wanted a similar stilt-house built on the grounds of the Presidential Palace itself. The Party commissioned an architect from the Department for Army Barracks to design the house, but told him to submit his plans to Uncle Ho for comment before work began. The initial design had three rooms, including a toilet. But Uncle Ho wanted the house to remain faithful to the real thing. "The stilt-house must have only one or two rooms, small rooms at that, and definitely no toilet," he said. The architect amended the designs, and the stilt-house that Ho Chi Minh moved into on May 17, 1958, had two rooms of just 10sq.m each. He lived and worked there for the remaining 11 years of his life.
Today, the stilt-house and its furnishings have been preserved must as they were in the 1960s. In the area under the house, Ho Chi Minh would receive visitors and meet members of the Political Bureau. In the centre of the floor is a long table, with wooden and bamboo chairs around it. Uncle Ho used a rattan armchair in the left-hand corner to sit and read, or rest. In another corner are three telephones that he used to talk to the Political Bureau, the Operations Department and others, and a steel helmet that he wore during the years of the American War.
In the right-hand corner, he kept an aquarium with goldfish to amuse visiting children. The two rooms of the stilt-house are sparsely furnished. One, the bedroom, contains only a bed and wardrobe. The other, the study, houses a table, chair and bookshelf. His appliances were just the bare necessities: a palm-leaf fan, a brown paper fan, a bamboo mosquito catcher, a little thermos-flask, a bottle of water, a radio-set given by Vietnamese nationals in Thailand, and a small electric fan – a gift from the Communist Party of Japan. A little brass bell used to hang on the door. In the stilt-house, Uncle Ho received top cadres, children and his close friends. He spent most of his time writing letters, revolutionary articles encouraging "good people, good deeds," and documents of great historical value on important political tasks such as his 1966 Call against US Imperialism, for National Salvation. Plants and trees were grown in the area around the stilt-house, as Uncle Ho was a poet with a great love for nature and pet animals. The garden is bordered with hibiscus, and the gate of climbing plants is typical of rural Vietnam. The front garden is decorated with little bushes of fragrant jasmines and eglantines, while at the rear is a stand of star-fruit trees from the country’s south. Spring sends the garden into a colourful riot of mangoes, white blossoms, and orchids. Uncle Ho regularly practiced martial arts and taichi with the guards in the garden, also the place where he once conducted people singing the famous song Unity, like a real orchestra conductor. In front of the stilt-house is his fish-pond, teeming with fish that he fed with great care. He only had to clap his hands and they came in shoals for food. The house clearly reveals his humility, his erudition and his love of simplicity and nature.
As late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong once wrote: "It is not merely a landscape, but a way of life; it speaks of a priceless joy that the current civilisation seems deprived of, with its polluted mega-cities and cluttered high-rise apartments.
Today, visitors flock to the stilt-house to remember what kind of a man Uncle Ho was, and to celebrate his memory - a man of sophisticated intellect yet simple pleasures, of revolutionary ideas yet of peaceful disposition.
History of Military Museum
Location: Military History Museum is located at No. 28A Dien Bien Phu Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: It was formerly the French expeditionary barracks and covers 10,000 m² divided into 30 showrooms. It was founded on December 22nd, 1958.
The content of the museum covers 6 periods:
-The history of the Vietnamese nation and the birth of the Vietnam People’s Army.
-The Vietnamese struggle against French colonialism.
-The Vietnamese struggle against American imperialists
-The Vietnam People’s Army on the path to a regular modern army.
-The People and the Army are oneness - they will be invincible.
- Piece of weaponry displayed in the museum courtyard (airplanes, tanks, heavy artilleries, rockets, mortars, bombs, etc.
The Military History Museum is the concentrated embodiment of the spirit of the Vietnamese people “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.
Ho Chi Minh Museum
Location: Ho Chi Minh Museum is located at 3 Ngoc Ha Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi; near Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum.
Characteristic: The museum is a four-story building covering a total area of 100ha and designed in the shape of a lotus flower as a symbol of President Ho's noble character
This museum was completed on 9 May 1990 for the 100th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's birthday.
The main showroom displays 117,274 documents, articles, pictures and exhibits illustrating the historical events that took place during President Ho Chi Minh's life, as well as important events that occurred in the rest of the world since the end of the 19th
The museum contains other rooms such as a library, a large hall, meeting rooms and research rooms.
Since its opening, the museum has welcomed millions of domestic and foreign visitors. It is open from 8 am to 11 am and 1.30pm to 4.30 pm daily except Monday and Friday. Photography is forbidden. Cameras and bags must be left at the reception.
Revolution Museum
Location: Revolution Museum is situated at 216 Tran Quang Khai Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: It established in August 1959, It has been designed into 29 showrooms, containing more than thousands of historical exhibit
The museum introduces Vietnam-the land and the people from the middle 20th century up to now. The exhibition is divided into:
- National liberation movements of the Vietnamese from 1858 to 1945 (from the 1st to the 9th showroom).
- 30 years of struggle against the invaders and protecting the National independence and unifying the country from 1945 to 1975 (from the 10th to the 24th showroom).
- Developing the economy from 1976 up to now. The collections of Vietnam Economy from 1975 to 2000 are displayed in the room No. 26, No. 27. - The present collections of the Vietnamese people and of the people in the world offered President Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam Communist Party (room No. 28 and No. 29). Especially, the Revolution Museum has a store with thousand of precious objects and documents of the Vietnamese revolution from 1858 up to now.
Vietnam Fine-Arts - Museum
Location: Vietnam Fine-Arts Museumis located at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: Vietnam Fine-Arts Museum is a lively historical treasure depicting the origins and evolution of Vietnamese fine arts.
In June 1966, house No. 66 on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in Ba Dinh District was transformed into the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum. Two-storey building displays the art works.
The exhibition system is divided into 5 parts:
- Fine arts of Prehistory: Consist of the objects from the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
- Ancient fine arts from the 11th to the 19th centuries: Consists of the objects of Ly, Tran, Le, Mac, Tay Son, and Nguyen Dynasties.
- Fine arts in the 20th century: Contemplate times fine arts (1925-1945) and modern fine arts (1945 up to now).
- Folk painting.
- Traditional pottery and ceramics
It is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 8 to 11.30am and 1.30 to 4.30pm.
Vietnam History Museum
Location: Vietnam History Museum is located at No. 1 Trang Tien Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi; behind the Hanoi Opera House.
Characteristic: Vietnam History Museum was founded in September 1958 and it contains a great deal of valuable objects, which reflect all the periods of Vietnamese history.
The museum is a beautiful architectural work. It provides an area of 2,000m2 for exhibition. On the ground floor are theme rooms:
Prehistory, Vietnam from the Time of National Building to the Tran Dynasty. The second floor features Vietnam from the Ho Dynasty to the Nguyen Dynasty and contains a section on Cham Culture. Nearly 7,000 objects and documents depict vividly the long process of development of the Vietnamese community, its undaunted and heroic struggle for thousand years, from its early history up to the August Revolution in 1945. The system of computers installed on the second floor is intended for visitors to search for information effectively. The exhibits provide systematic, scientific and reliable information for those who want to understand and research on the history of Vietnam. The museum is a tourist attraction for people inside and outside Vietnam.
Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
Location: Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is located on Nguyen Van Huyen Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: It contains more than 10,000 objects, 15,000 black and white photos and hundreds of video tapes and cassettes which depict all aspects of life, activities, customs, and habits of the 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam
The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology opened at the end of 1997. Since then, it has attracted the attention of visitors as well as ethnographers and researchers from all over the world.
The museum has successfully recreated the daily life together with the religious rituals and the symbolic festivals of each ethnic group in Vietnam. Visitors have the opportunity to admire costumes, embroidery as well as outside stilt houses and habitats from the different groups.
All displayed objects mingle and supplement one another to create a colourful and diversified picture of Vietnamese culture. An open-air exhibition in the museum's spacious and peaceful ground features ethnic houses from all over Vietnam.
The displayed object area is divided into 9 parts:
- Introduction.
- Introduction of Viet (Kinh).
- Introduction of Muong, Tho, Chut ethnic groups.
- The ethnic groups belong to the Tay, Thai, and Kadai groups.
The outdoor exhibition area is only large enough for the most popular architectural styles to be presented. Already presented are the E De long house, the Tay stilt house, the Dao house half on stilts and half on earth, the H' Mong house whose roof is made of pomu wood, the Viet house with tile roof, the Gia Rai tomb, the Ba Na communal house, the Cham traditional houae, the Ha Nhi house made with earth-beaten walls.
There are future plans to present the Co Tu tomb and the surrounding completion of the Viet house. Between the houses, there are trees indigenous to the area of each house, zigzagging paths and a meandering stream crossed by small bridges. The outdoor museum is being realised step by step.
Vietnam Women’s Museum
Location: Vietnam Women’s Museum is located in the centre of Hanoi on Ly Thuong Kiet St, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi.
Characteristic: The Vietnam Women’s Museum covers a 4,500m² area planted with beautiful trees. It was open on the 20th October 1995 on the 65th anniversary of the Vietnamese Women’s Association’s establishment.
Documents and objects are displayed and carefully preserved and maintained in this place, expressing the role of women in the process of the development of the Vietnamese nation. The museum is also a place for cultural exchange for Vietnamese and international women with the goal of creating “equality, development, and peace”. The exhibits are displayed on an area of 1,200m² on two-storey building; the museum organized around five main themes:
- Vietnamese women in Vietnamese community.
- The involvement of Vietnamese women in the fight for national independence and national construction.
- The Vietnamese Women’s Association and its struggle to liberate women.
- The culture of Vietnamese women expresses through traditional handicraft products.
-Women costumes of the 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups.
The museum is open daily except Monday, from 8 am to 4 pm.