site.btaThe Living Tradition of the Handmade Christmas Ornaments

The Living Tradition of  the Handmade Christmas Ornaments


Plovdiv, Southern Bulgaria, December 24 (Ekaterina Terzieva of
BTA) - Do you remember the delicate blown-glass bells, snowmen
and stars from the Christmas trees from the old days? If you
have not kept one as a childhood souvenir, you will find it hard
 to obtain one nowadays because the tradition of making
Christmas baubles is locked in the hands of just a handful of
craftsmen. 

One of them is Ivan Stanev, an artisan from the southern city of
 Plovdiv.

Over 30 years ago he got a job with a local cooperative for
disabled people - he has a leg prosthesis, and became one of
some 100 employees who made a living blowing, colouring and
decorating glass baubles. It took him 10 years to master the
craft  and the magnesium glass enchanted him and became his
dream, passion and life.

The start of democratic changes in Bulgaria brought a big change
 to his life. The cooperative was disbanded and he had to find
other ways to make a living. He was a taxi driver for a while
and then had a small retail businesses before he decided to go
back to the handmade baubles. He set up a small studio on the
balcony of his Plovdiv apartment, wrote a business plan and
earned 1,000 leva funding from the local Employment Agency. The
money was only enough for a patent, a cash register and a small
amount of glass.

Ivan's family spent long years making their living with the
handmade baubles they produced in the tiny balcony studio. A big
 change came last year when he opened a studio in a beautiful
period house in Plovdiv's Old Town. The Town Hall allowed him to
 use the property on a 10-year lease. In the new studio, he
continues to use the traditional technology which is more than
two-centuries old.

A small workshop, housed in the former collective farm in
Dobrich's (Northeast Bulgaria) Riltsi neighbourhood, has been
engaged in the same business for over 50 years. The workshop is
among the few remaining ones in Bulgaria which work with this
technology. Its owner, Georgi Keranov, opened it in 1991 and has
 been making Christmas decorations with his employees ever
since. Georgi and a few other retirees are decorating and
painting the decorations by hand and continue believing that
they will be able to compete against the kitsch that has flooded
 the market.

The handmade glass factory in Beloslav (Northeast Bulgaria) is
located on the shores of the Beloslav Lake, where the first
glass factory in Bulgaria opened in 1893. Today, this type of
glassmaking has become a boutique craft and the factory has
assumed the role of an industrial tourism destination.

Will young Bulgarians manage to become masters of this old
craft? It is hard and slow to learn and takes years to master,
says Ivan Stanev. A dozen women and one boy have already trained
 with him at the workshop, however, they gave up after a few
months. Despite this, Ivan believes that the technology for
handmade glass will not be forgotten in history. This year, he
says, many shoppers prefer to buy handmade Christmas
decorations.