In April 2008, Joanne Howdle, Museum Manager was lucky enough to participate on a second Innovations in Cultural Heritage Interpretation (ICHI) exchange programme to Bulgaria. ICHI exchange programmes provide opportunities for participants to learn new skills and exchange information by looking at how interpretation is used and managed in other countries in Europe. The ICHI exchange programme is funded by the European Union’s Leonardo da Vinci programme. The ICHI Bulgaria exchange took place from 20th – 26th April 2008 and was organised by Arch Network, who are based in Comrie, Scotland, and the Stara Planina Regional Tourist Association, who are based in Gabravo, Bulgaria. The main focus of the exchange for Joanne was the study of Bulgaria’s vernacular buildings and they way in, which they are interpreted.
Vernacular buildings are vulnerable in the face of social and economic change and very important parts of our built heritage have already been lost through demolition and have been replaced by new modern structures. Vernacular buildings are in danger worldwide – even in most European countries – since they are neither recorded nor listed. This implies that vernacular buildings like those seen at Auchindrain are not considered worth protecting, conserving or considered important enough to be part of the protected national heritage of a country. In Bulgaria the protection and conservation of vernacular buildings was considered to be the responsibility of open-air Museums.
Architectural-Ethnographic Museum, Etara
Located 8 km south of Gabrovo, the Architectural-Ethnographic Museum, Etara (Архитектурно-етнографски комплекс „Етър) was Bulgaria’s first open-air Museum and was set up when Bulgaria was becoming industrialised in order to preserve vernacular buildings and the traditional crafts and skills associated with the Gabrovo region. The Museum was established on 7th September 1964 as a result of the efforts of Lazar Ivanov Donkov (1908-1976) a self-educated artist who persuaded the local municipality to invest money and give land for the development of the Museum, he went on to become the first director of the Museum. Foreseeing the disappearance of the old craft traditions and the vernacular buildings Donkov wanted to use the Museum as a place where craftsmen could actually work and produce traditional craft items from the period known as the Bulgarian National Revival (Българско национално възраждане). This was a period of socio-economic development and national integration among Bulgarian people who at the time were under Ottoman rule. It lasted from the 18th Century until the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 as a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878).
The Museum has a Collection of 35,000 objects and is home to fifty relocated and reconstructed buildings. The aim of the Museum is to illustrate the architecture, lifestyle and the economic past of Gabrovo region during the Bulgarian National Revival. The buildings on the Museum site are laid into three categories:
1) Water-powered machinery
2) The Craftsmen’s Street – containing 15 different types of buildings
3) Public Buildings – including St. Spiridon’s Church, a clock tower, a tavern, bridges, fountains and grave stones
The Museum Curators explained that the Museum is unable to develop its Collection of buildings further as there is no space on the current site to enable it to do so.
The Balkan Plank House
The building that I found to be of most interest was the Balkan Plank House. Much like the tenant farmers’ longhouses found within the Township at Auchindrain that were multi-functional and housed both the farmer, his family, his animals and food stuff for humans and animals so the Balkan Plank House at Etara was constructed so that the ground floor of the house contained a zimnik where the families cattle were housed along with food supplies. The first floor of the Balkan Plank House is now the Museum’s operational café known as the Tavern.
The first floor of the Balkan Plank House was where the families living accommodation was. This floor had a wooden veranda running around the outside of the building from which could be accessed the large living space where the women worked in front of a large open fireplace much like the kitchens of the township houses at Auchindrain. This room was known as the kashti. Next to the kashti is the room where the children slept which was known as the soba.
Much like the tenant farmers’ longhouses at Auchindrain this house would have been furnished with furniture that was made from materials found close to the house and constructed by its inhabitants usually low wooden tables and three-legged wooden stools.
The Weaver’s Workshop In The Twin-House
The Twin-House from the Village of Lesitcharka contains the workshop of a craftsman who makes items such as bags and rugs from goat hair. Visitors can watch the craftsman go through the whole process of spinning and weaving the goat hair.
The craftsmen employed at Etara to work in the buildings and demonstrate traditional skills and crafts to visitors are selected by means of a tender process. If selected to work at the Museum the craftsmen lease the buildings from the Museum for a period of three years. The craftsmen are free to employ their own staff and train apprentices. Each year the craftsmen must make objects for inclusion in the Museum Collection of a style chosen by the Museum curators. As part of the contract with the Museum the craftsmen are also obliged to take part in a three-day festival showcasing traditional crafts, which is held, at the Museum every year. This arrangement means that along with keeping traditional skills and crafts alive and providing demonstrations for the benefit of visitors that the Museum is also raising money for its activities through leasing its buildings. The Museum at Etara also leases its buildings to a bakery, a sweet shop, a tavern and a coffee shop, all of which do a roaring trade and add to the atmosphere of the Museum. The Museum also operates its own hotel.
Construction Techniques
The construction techniques employed in the construction of the vernacular buildings found at Etara were of great interest as their design and construction is very different to that employed in Scotland. Much like Auchindrain all of the buildings at Etara were built of drystone construction, some of them were entirely or partially rendered with a wash made out of lime and/or clay. The buildings were constructed in several phases with a wooden frame running above the first layer of stone, which was 1 metre high. Above the wooden frame was another layer of stone and surmounted by a slate roof, which was laid in a pattern resembling fish scales and which, was supported by a wooden frame. The wooden frame was to stop the building from falling down as a result of an earthquake. Intermingled with the hard stone was tuffa, which was placed at the gables of the building as a decorative feature.
Special Events & Lifelong Learning
Throughout the year the Museum runs a programme of temporary exhibitions and a programme of special events that bring to life the folk customs and traditions of the Gabrovo area for visitors. The Museum curators are assisted in this work and with school visits by a number of guides and an education officer. The education officer runs a number of dedicated schools programmes including a scarecrow-making workshop linked to the Gabrovo Festival of Humour. Visitors to the site can also book workshops with the craftsmen to learn the traditional skills and crafts interpreted by the Museum.
The Museum curators explained that they were currently working on developing programmes for schools and special events associated with the agricultural history of the region. They also explained that they were working on the construction of a dedicated outdoor theatre space that could be used in the summer months to put on special performances to interpret the folk customs of the region for visitors to the Museum.
Funding
The Museum curators explained that as a regional Museum that they received revenue support from Gabrovo Municipality to pay staff salaries and maintain the Museum buildings and site. The curators explained that they used the earned income generated from the sales of admission tickets, shops sales, the lease of the buildings in the Craftsmens’ Street and the revenue from the Tavern and the Hotel to undertake Museum development projects. The Museum curators explained that the Museum received over 190,000 visitors per year of which only 30,000 were non-Bulgarian visitors with German tourists accounting for 80% of foreign visitors to the Museum.
Whilst I felt that Etara was one of the best open-air Museums that I had ever visited and was fascinated watching the craftsmen working in the Museum, I was very sad that the buildings on the site were secondary to the purpose of the Museum and that there was very little interpretation relating to their construction and history. It seems a shame that the techniques used to contructed the buildings weren’t being interpreted or preserved for the public through a programme of demonstrations as were the craft skills, I felt that this was potentially a missed opportunity because the skills and traditions associated with the construction of vernacular buildings will also be lost if they are not preserved and interpreted.
