Read and comment on this story from Rel Davis and Edith Sloan who went to Bulgaria in June 2001 to begin a two-year term as Peace Corps volunteers. They met a number of people who made handicrafts, and bought samples to send back as gifts to friends and family in the States. When people in the States wanted to know how they could buy more items, the volunteers decided to create a website to sell crafts on the Internet. Visit the site at:
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ANCIENT THRACE MEETS THE INTERNET!
On the fertile plains of ancient Thrace, according to legend, Spartacus mastered his martial skills and Orpheus played so beautifully that all Nature held her breath when his fingers caressed the strings of his lute.
The modern plains, still as fertile as they were four thousand years ago, make up most of the southern half of the small nation of Bulgaria. They are no longer martial, being a peaceful oasis in the troubled Balkans, but Orpheus' ancient music can still be heard in villages throughout the land.
Fed by the Tundja and Maritza rivers, the Thracian lowlands are bordered on the north by the ancient Balkan range, on the east by the Black Sea and on the west by the rolling hills of the Rhodopes. To the south, they fade into Aegean Thrace and part of modern Turkey.
Nestled in these lowlands, just south of the Balkan mountains, is the sleepy agricultural community of Straldja, where donkey carts far outnumber autos and huge flocks of sheep parade down the main street twice each day on their way to and from pasture.
Despite adversity -- for like most of Bulgaria, Straldja is in the grip of an economic depression of appalling magnitude and longevity -- the town is the scene of a modern miracle, where the very old and the very new are coming together to create something completely different -- a virtual shop on the Internet, the first of its kind in Bulgaria, to sell crafts made in ancient styles.
The town of Straldja is famous -- in the Balkans at least -- for three things.
First, its locally produced wine and rakiya (grape brandy) are ranked among the finest in all Bulgaria.
Second, its red clay goes into the famous "Straldja ceramic," the flat and barrel tiles that adorn the roofs of homes throughout the region.
And third, the traditions of ancient Thrace are very much alive in Straldja, in ritual, in music and in the handicrafts produced locally in the ancient style.
Every March, for example, large bands of "koukeri" (mummers) dance through the streets of town to welcome the spring . . . Every Christmas, youths in traditional garb (called "koledari") dance around the town to celebrate winter's end . . . On December 31, young girls called "souverkari" bring magic wands into every home for a new year's blessing . . . And on February 14, the modern incarnation of Thracian Dionysius (under the guise of Trifon Sarazan) goes out into the vineyards to bless the vines while everyone in town gets an opportunity to sample all the wines and rakiyas produced that season.
For hundreds of years, Bulgaria has been isolated from much of Europe and from the Americas. A half millenium of Turkish occupation bound it to the east, as did a half century behind the Iron Curtain. For the last decade, as the country has struggled to make up for 600 years of isolation, it has been gripped in a recession on the magnitude of America's Great Depression.
Nearly one in five Bulgarian workers is unemployed. Millions of retirees struggle to survive on pensions as low as $22 a month. And even the lucky worker with a job probably makes only around $150 a month.
For these reasons, the many traditions of Thracian Bulgaria are largely unknown to people in the West, as are the wonderful handicrafts of the area.
Many Bulgarians make ends meet by working at home producing traditional crafts - including practical items such as unique clothing and household tools, and decorative arts in the ages-old patterns of ancient Thrace.
The new Bulgarian crafts website - the brainchild of an American couple serving in Bulgaria with the Peace Corps - will for the first time allow people in the States to examine and purchase some of these unique crafts on the Internet.
The site is located at: http://www.craftcenter.org and is operated by a grass-roots organization funded by the United Nations Development Program.
Rel Davis and Edith Sloan went to Bulgaria in June 2001 to begin a two-year term as Peace Corps volunteers. They met a number of people who made handicrafts, and bought samples to send back as gifts to friends and family in the States. When people in the States wanted to know how they could buy more items, the volunteers decided to create a website to sell crafts on the Internet.
The idea was presented to a local non-profit organization which agreed to operate the website. The office, called the Business Information Center - Straldja, a part of the JOBS (Job Opportunities through Business Support) program, constructed the current website with the support of the two Peace Corps volunteers.
Crafts available in the fledgling virtual crafts store include hand-sewn cloth dolls in traditional forms and costume, wonderful hand-carved wooden flutes of ancient design, wall hangings of natural materials of houses and churches like those in Bulgaria, and hand-painted silk scarves in the flowing forms favored by the Slavic peoples.
All products are made from natural materials and all artisans are unemployed, retired or living on marginal incomes -- and they include housewives and farmers.
Eventually, crafts from all over Bulgaria -- not just from the Straldja area -- will be offered on the site. Credit cards are accepted, of course, and all sales are guaranteed, with free replacement of any items lost or damaged in shipping.
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