site.btaPlein Air Wood Carving Event Marks Forest Week in Pamporovo, Raises Funds for Sick Children

Sculptures made of wood decorated the mountain resort of Pamporovo on Saturday as part of The Tree in Art plein air carving event. It was held on the occasion of Forest Week (April 1-6), and the revenues from the sculptures' sale will go to the Children with Oncohematological Diseases Association, said the South Central State Enterprise in Smolyan.

The wood works were made with chainsaws. The participants have various professions.

Dr Svetozar Marangozov, a vascular surgeon, made a boar out of a tree trunk. He has been practicing carving art for nearly 12 years as a hobby, replacing the scalpel with a chainsaw in his spare time.  "A person is doomed to get the modern disease burnout if he does not change the comfort environment he has. That is why it is imperative to do something different, it is even better when it charges him," Dr. Marangozov told BTA.

Another master of carving works from the Rhodope Mountains, Velin Chaushev, also participated in the charity event. He has made hundreds of sculptures from wood, some of them arranged in an open-air exhibition in the village of Startsevo.  According to Chaushev, the most complicated part of creating carving works is to find large enough trees. Carving involves huge logs, making sourcing more difficult than creating the wooden sculptures, Chaushev explained.