Guest exhibition ”Craftsmanship Heritage: 15 Stories from the Etar Museum” opened

On Saturday, May 10, 2025, the visiting exhibition Craftsmanship Heritage: 15 Stories from the Etar Museum opened at the "Old Village" Museum in Kumrovec. The exhibition seeks to stimulate contemporary interest in craftsmanship. It invites modern audiences not only to appreciate and use handmade products, but also to acquire and master the skills needed to practice a craft - and eventually turn it into a profession. It showcases 15 crafts and home occupations from the Bulgarian National Revival and the years immediately following.

For more than six decades, the Etar Museum has worked tirelessly to preserve Bulgarian crafts, some of which are in serious danger of extinction. Craftsmanship Heritage: 15 Stories from the Etar Museum represents a significant continuation and expansion of that mission — taking the story of Bulgarian traditional crafts beyond the museum walls to the wider world, to inspire new audiences with an urgent message of preservation, transmission and continuity.

Master Ivo Stoyanov, a prominent Bulgarian turner who began working on a lathe for making wooden flasks at the Regional Ethnographic Open-Air Museum "Etar" Gabrovo in 2000, presented his traditional skills. In addition to the presentation of Bulgarian traditional crafts, museum visitors could also see demonstrations of crafts from the Krapina-Zagorje County, which have been presented at the "Old Village" Museum in Kumrovec since the 1990s.

The opening of the exhibition began with the song Dobro mi došel, prijatelj (Welcome, my friend)  performed by the Zipka Ethno Association. Museum director Anita Paun Gadža welcomed everyone present, and the cooperation between the two open-air museums, which has lasted for more than 20 years, was presented by exhibition curator Tihana Kušenić.

Rosita Bineva, head of the Department of Traditional Crafts at the Etar Museum and one of the co-authors of the exhibition, which was realized with the financial support of the Bulgarian National Fund for Culture, told more about the exhibition and the project. She highlighted the multimedia elements of the exhibition - monitors and tablets display videos related to individual crafts. Visitors are also offered a virtual reality experience called Wood Turning, What Could It Be? Loom, Come and See! In addition, a special children's module allows young visitors to learn through games how traditional objects are made.

At the opening of the exhibition, the Vice President of the Chamber of Crafts of the County of KZŽ, Dragutin Ulama, addressed the audience, who in his speech highlighted the Chamber's dedicated commitment to preserving traditional crafts and skills that have shaped the cultural identity of this region for centuries. Ulama stressed that such exhibitions and initiatives are key to raising awareness about the importance of preserving cultural heritage. At the end of his speech, Dragutin Ulama solemnly declared the exhibition open.