7th BSEC Month of Culture
1-30 November 2023
Gabrovo - Republic of Bulgaria
Gabrovo is included in UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Crafts and Folk Art (2017)!
Situated in central northern Bulgaria, Gabrovo was one of the country’s largest craft centers in the 19th century. The lack of arable land led to the rapid development of craft production and trade, especially woodcarving and wool weaving.
The Regional Ethnographic Open-Air Museum ‘’Etar’’, founded in the 1960s, features the vitality and diversity of Gabrovo’s craft culture, and focuses not only on protecting the practices, but also on improving the status and living conditions of artisans.
The International Fair of Traditional Crafts at Etar Museum is undoubtedly the largest event dedicated to crafts in the region. Artisans from all over the country and abroad exhibit their work and share their knowledge of traditional techniques. The fair also includes a master competition and an international scientific conference on current global trends in crafts and folk art.
Gabrovo also hosts a large-scale carnival, bringing an audience of 30,000 to the city. This festival is popular for featuring traditional Balkan songs, folklore choreography and a rich display of Gabrovo’s humour and folk culture.
Bonus Trivia!
Did you know that in Gabrovo there is the Museum of Humor and Satire? This cultural institution arose on the basis of the town’s folk humor and its carnival tradition, with the idea of serving the creators and connoisseurs of humorous art and covering a wide range of manifestations of the comic on a global scale.
As a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, and in compliance with the common objective towards which the Network works -making creativity a lever for urban development and conceiving new solutions to tackle common challenges-, Gabrovo envisages promoting its local cultural specificities, implementing creativity-based educational workshops, facilitating opportunities for artists and professionals in the cultural sector, as well as creating an interactive audio-visual database to promote intangible cultural heritage by capturing the movements of craftsmen using 3D motion techniques.
Sources: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/gabrovo, https://humorhouse.bg/
Photographs taken from: https://fair.etar.bg/en
#ICBSS #MoC2023 #CultureBSEC #Bulgaria #Gabrovo
