Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses AN ERASMUS+ YOUTH MOBILITY ORGANIZED BY THE YOUTH ASSOCIATION FROM TRANSYLVANIA st
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BETWEEN THE 21 AND THE 31 OF MAY 2015 IN RUGANESTI, ROMANIA
Introduces
The Crafts Booklet
Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Introduction Between the 21-31of May 2015, the Youth Association from Transylvania organized an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange in Romania, in the Transylvanian hillside village of Ruganesti. The exchange called Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses had 6 partners, with 6 participants each. The exchange was directed at youth who were interested in the traditional crafts of other countries, who wanted to experience rural people's daily lives, habits and crafts and who came from rural areas. The aim was to prepare the youth in starting businesses in the fields of rural development traditional sustainability and local planning. The participants were active for 9 days in and around Ruganesti gaining insight into crafts and learning, practicing a lot of them. These crafts and trades were wood carving, basketry, straw hat making, furniture painting, wool planking, herbs gathering, traditional pork meat preparation, bread baking and horseshoe making.
After trying out each crafts we talked with the craftsmen and women and offered them marketing, product development suggestions and entrepreneurial ideas. Beside the craft activities, each country taught us traditional games and we played those. We also visited Bezid lake and Criseni, where the Straw Hat Museum was. On the last day we organized an event where some craftsmen we worked with, the participants and the local community were present. The craftsmen and the participants showed their trades and products to the adults and the participants played traditional games with the youth. After experiencing the crafts, participants wrote draft articles about the crafts and our experiences. This booklet gathers these articles and presents the crafts we met in the Youth Exchange with the aim of disseminating our knowledge and promoting traditional crafts in general, especially those in Ruganesti village.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Basketry Basketry is the oldest and most diverse plant based craft around the world. Basketry is a well known in Romania, especially in Ruganesti where it is one of the main crafts of the Roma community. There are 8 families already who use it since 1970. The material is salix, it is a bush. Basketry; weaving or basket making is the process of weaving pliable materials together into a basket or other similar form. They can do whatever you ask for it, people who do that are professionals with many skills. People and artist who weave baskets are called basket makers or weavers. The production skills depend on people perception of the environment. It can be done from different types of material, depending on the plant distribution. The need for local production has seriously been reduced on the new opening markets. Support for traditional knowledge systems has largely disappeared. People who do basketry can buy salix or they can cooperate with the locals who plant it. When they decide to buy they usually do it from Poland. After they cut wild salix, basket makers start a process of boiling cut willow in bundles and then pealing its crust. Cutters wait in water to get maximum length and they are spread to dry out completely before being used.
Each stick of willow does need to be wet, because otherwise during the process of making it is going to break. For baskets, they start making the base in a circle. This is only a bottom which is the hardest thing. After that they include each stick between the sticks in the base in order to start knitting in symmetrical way.
You take one stick and use it as a cross between the longest sticks in the base, in zigzag order. You continue with it until the end of taken stick. Maybe there will be need of wetting it, because its getting dry very easily. As well you can continue working with just putting in the end of previous one the new one, or finish it. Finish is including the hand holding part. These families are not making a living from it, only part time, when they have orders, but when they are working, the whole family is helping. In our workshop we had a grandfather, a father and 2 daughters teaching us how to do the baskets. It was very interesting not only because of the craft we learned, but also because of the many stories they told us while we were together.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Pork Meat Processing in Ruganesti In Ruganesti people have a very traditional way of processing pork meat: First, people take the pig, and they put it on the floor, and they block it with ropes. The butcher kills pig with long knife by doing an hole in the neck, he does this hole to permit to the blood to go out. After a few minutes, they put many straws on the pork and burn it. Burning the straw is necessary to have better and more compact meat. They to this until all the skin of the pork is well burned and it has no more fur. At the end of every burning they accurately clean the pork removing all fur from the skin. At the cleaning of the pork water, brush and knife is used. When the pork is all clean they can start with the cutting. They put the pork on the back, remove the nails, and cut the paws in two parts and at the end cut all the paws. When this it done, put the pork face down. Before starting with real cutting process is a tradition that the butcher drinks a shot of Palinka (strong snaps) using the big nail of the pig. This is a good luck ritual! The butcher starts to cut from every side of the mouth until the back of the head and does two long cuts at the sides of the pork spine.
At this point the butcher with the help of two persons removes the upper part of the muzzle and the spine (in this process they used hooks to facilitate the lifting). Now that we have opened the pork, they remove the tongue that is still connected with heart and lungs...after that we remove the intestines. Now that the pork is cleaned from the haslets, we can remove the ribs, the two parts near the spine and also front muscle and posterior muscle. The last thing that remains is the skin and the fat. A very great thing to taste is the skin of pork burned by the fire with some salt. ..so good!!! At the end the last thing to do is remove the bones and in some part the skin...and the meat is ready to be cooked!!! We can do sausages, with blood or without blood, fried pieces of fat, and other and very tasty things... in fact all from the pork is used, we don't throw away anything!!!
For us it was a very great experience because in our countries, the process is completely different.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Traditional Furniture Painting We have also tried out traditional furniture painting. In this workshop we all had to show our painting skills, by painting on the wood with traditional Hungarian symbols. We had a mentor, who started painting on wood, when she was very young. She learned it from her aunt. Everyone gathered around a big table and first we got a blank paper and she showed us, how to draw symbols. Symbols were mainly flowers. Women have 7 different symbols. All the symbols were tulips that were divided by age and the status (baby, child, teen, bride, pregnant woman, mother and old woman). This was very simple to draw, because she was so patient and waited everyone to understand. After this we start learning how to draw men symbols. Men have only 3 symbols and they all are different, but they were not divided by age. When we are finished practice to draw the symbols on the paper, then everyone made a tree of life symbol using what we learned.
We got wood that were previously prepared for us. Some of them were painted blue, some brown and some had green. Everyone got to choose, which one they want. We then either copied our drawings from the paper on the wood or we made with free hand. We painted with 3 colors: white, red and green. First was white for the outlines, than red for the flowers and green for the leaves. Once this whole process was explained and shown by our mentor, we made our wood step by step. For finishing we added shading and decoration. Once our paintings were done, we put the products in the sun and let them dry for 1 day. The next day we put natural varnish on the wood, to preserve it. It was good and calming activity. Nice souvenir to take home and remember Ruganesti.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
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Straw Hat Making One day we went to the village of Criseni. It is a village famous in Romania for their Straw Hat Museum and because the whole town is engaged in straw hat making. First, we were greeted by the curator of the museum, who is also a priest. He presented the curiosities of the yard, which has a stone collection and an area with more than 1000 arrows pointing at settlements in the world from where guests have arrived.
Then we were presented the way the base material for straw hats is made in the village. Most of the agriculture land around the village is cultivated for wheat. The straw from the wheat is carefully gathered, dried, cleaned by leaves and then prepared for braiding. Most braids are done 2 ways but this can vary from the hat that is needed. Before braiding the straw is put into water to get soft. All the households make long strings of braiding and then they iron it and send it to the few families which have straw sewing machines and presses. Following these explanations the curator showed us how to do various braids and small decorations such as rings. A few of us tried to do these braids and objects.
Once this small workshop ended, we visited the museum 10 by 10, which was divided into 2 rooms. In one of them there was a collection of straw hats from all over Romania. Here, the curator showed us how hats are worn depending by age and explained us why there are so many types of hats worn in various regions of Romania, and how to recognize people’s origins according to the hats they wear. Some special hats like the wedding hat and the anti-sweat hat were also shown. Then we went to the other room which showed the process and the history of hat making in the village. This room documented the process with images and it had many machines such a sewing machines and presses using various technologies such as steam, hydraulics and electricity. The most interesting object in this room was the World Record Hat. While these rooms were shown to all the groups of 1010 youths, we could check out the yard, buy straw hats
and other objects in the small souvenir shop or take pictures under the World Record Hat or other types of hats in display.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Traditional Bread Baking The tradition of bread baking is passing from generation to generation. This work is very hard and we had the possibility to try it. The whole process took a long time, around two hours to mix the paste and two more hours to bake it until the crust is burn. Then we took out still hot loaves from 200째C oven and we started to flip off the black crust and to eliminate the last imperfections we slicked the surface so that bread is ready to be sold.
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The family who are dedicated to this craft are making bread twice a week and they are using traditional method until these days. The heat is produced by wood and the paste is inserted into the oven with long breadboard when there is no more fire. The habitants of the village of Ruganesti are buying the final product for 5 Lei. The family is able to produce 50 loaves at once. The fresh bread is very delicious and the crust is crunchy the taste is unique and very in the village popular. The recipe of making bread can be changed by adding different types of flour f.e. white or cereal and also inserting potatoes, onions or whole grains... Bread is the base of diet and is eaten daily with different types of food all over the world. It could be a symbol of healthy life because it contains a wide spectrum of nutrients. For the people of this region it is an irreplaceable part of life.
Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Traditional Wool Planking The exchange gave us a chance to learn a bit about the traditional craft of wool planking or felting. We met a nice married couple who does that and is living a lifestyle of their own and it is the only source of income they have. They learned how to do it 22 years ago in Hungary, where they were inspired by two people who travel a lot all around the world and who they still meet once a year. They can make all things one can imagine, all made out of wool. They make bags, balls, decorations, accessories, shoes, and if they don't have it already, you can order it. Everything they do is made by hand, so they don't use any machinery. Because it is very interesting what they do, we held a workshop led by them during our project. In that workshop we made very colorful balls and flowers made out of wool. We only used water, soap, wool and a lot of help from the couple. We divided into two groups, one of which, led by the woman, made the flowers and the second, led by the man, made the balls.
The people who were making the balls had to first cover ping-pong balls with thin layers of wool, then soak it in the warm water and then soaped it again and again. After this they had to squeeze the ball, so the water would go out and it would become firm. This procedure had to be done for an hour. Then they put it in the sun to dry. For the flowers they had to cover ping-pong ball with a thick layer of colorful wool and then soaked it and soaped it and repeated that several times. Then they chose another color and did the same. Next, they cut the little ball open, made the petals and took away the plastic ball and turned the flower inside out. Then they soaked it and soaped again and then dry it and rub it in the cloth. In the end, they made a star with the similar procedure. The couple is very active, open to new suggestions and participates in different projects. They made a traditional Mongolian tent called jurta with children, within a project, so they are a living part of the community. It was one of the best workshops the participants of the project had, and it was a very inspiring experience.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Cow Milking We went to a cow farm near the lake with everybody from this youth project. The farm was located about 30 minutes away from Ruganesti. We were walking for 30 minutes and when we arrived to the farm, first we saw 5 dogs and 4 puppies. We have been told that the dogs take care of the protection of the farm.
We continued up the hill to reach the cows. The cows had an outlined way where they can move around and eat. The way was outlined by white electric strings to keep the cows in the designated area. The farmers brought us some chairs and buckets for the milk and they have showed us the milking process. We have first tried to milk a cow that but it was not working so we tried a different one. It is important to say that the cows are normally milked late in the evening so this was unusual for them. Also, they are not used to a large crowd such as today so the presence of so many people was very different for them. Even thought the milking seemed like it is easy, most of the people who tried it were surprised. Simone and Cosimo, the Italian boys were the best of the youth group.
The farmers managed to milk a lot of milk from the cow but the youth exchange participants were not so successful. We were taking turns at milking the cows and after about 30 minutes we continued back down to the farm where we could ask the farmers some questions. We have learned that they have 34 cows at this farm, but in total they have 74 cows. The rest of the cows were at a different location. To sum up, it was a great experience and everybody has learned a lot. Most of the participants enjoyed the experience because they have never taken part in anything like this before.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Gathering Herbs On one of the rainy cold mornings of the exchange we went to visit a kind lady who's hobby is herb picking and making all kinds of products out of them. She wasn't a stranger to all of us because she was the mother of the bread baking family and some of us visited her in free time already. In the same house she has a storage place, where she saves all the herbs she picks from the meadows and the fruits she grows in her own garden and dries them. Out of different combinations of herbs and fruits she makes tea, jam, palinka, syrup and many more things that are full of vitamins. These products are meant to prevent disease, not to cure it.
The herb lady sells her products locally but also presents her craft on different festivals in many countries, f.e. France. The price of her homemade jams and teas is usually between 5 – 20 lei.
In her mixtures she uses herbs such as thyme, mint, melissa, apples, roses, rhubarb, forest strawberries, wild garlic, etc. All of these are grown locally in the nature surrounding Ruganesti.
After we saw her house and the storage room, the herb lady took us to the field across the road where she gave us instructions on how to recognize different kinds of plants we were picking that day. Then we were divided into small groups which were given a basket where we put the herbs we collected. We had a great time, we were singing while picking the flowers and we were taking pictures of everything we found. Then we climbed on the top of a small hill and by crossing the forest we arrived back to the house of the herb lady. After we came to the kitchen in the house, the lady made us fresh thyme tea. Even though the tea smelled and tasted a little like mushrooms, we enjoyed it because we were cold and our clothes were wet. The lady explained to us that this specific herb is helping when someone catches a cold or if he has problems with digestion. All around us were wooden sculptures collected by the husband of the lady. Some of the objects were found directly in nature, others were created by burning wood. After finishing the delicious tea, we bought some of the products and we headed back home.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
Wood carving One day we were presented with the wood carving craft. It's a traditional craft which has been around for many centuries and it was presented to us by a local wood carver. First we were introduced to Sekler wood totems and Sekler gates. The totem is a wooden sculpture in average 2 meters high and it represents the life of a person after his/her death. The totems have different symbols carved on them and the woodcarver explained some of their meanings. Second very popular wooden object in the region is the Sekler gate. It is a 5 by 6 meters wooden gate which is located in front of the house. Next he explained us the symbols. The symbols are very similar to the ones we used in the furniture painting workshop. The basic ones are tulips, which represent women and the 8 leaf flower that represent men. The things that are different in the wood carving are the lines that connect these symbols. In the Sekler gates the lines are made very long and fluent like life itself. So with the basic information in our heads, we started trying out the craft by drawing some lines and symbols on two wooden plates. We drew some tulips and some leaves. The craftsman showed us each tool and how to use them.
The most usual one was the V shaped cutting tool. The way the wood is carved on a wooden plate is that the cutting tool is held in one hand, at 15-30째 in the direction of the line, facing away from the body and it is then repeatedly hit by a wooden hammer. This hitting makes the cutting tool cut away the wood in smooth lines. This is done in he same way with totems, but first the beams that are used to make them are sculpted with saws and hatchets so that the basic shapes and symbols are roughly defined. Different wood is used for different types of objects. Once all this was explained and shown, all the participants gave it a try and carved all the symbols that were drawn. We finished the workshop by smoothening the surface of the wooden plates. We finished with asking some questions. We found out that process of making totems takes 1 month, large Sekler gates lasts for 2 months and the price is around 500 euros for totems and 2000 euros for large gates, depending on the buyers possibilities and the complexity of the objects.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
The Blacksmith’s Craft A blacksmith is a person whose job is styling iron. Generally the metal is heated until it becomes incandescent and then it is smelted to the forging process. One of the tasks of a blacksmith is to make and put horseshoes, which have U shape and are made with heated iron, and are shaped to the hoofs of horses. The blacksmith that we have visited is working in making horseshoes (that is the process that they showed us) but also making all kind of things for gardening and household needs that can be required from the villagers. Due to the new materials and machines that are used nowadays, less people is having horses and this family is working less and lees as blacksmith. This is a really hard job where the workers are around really high temperatures, they have to be very strong and be very coordinated to not hurt each other.
Each horse shoe cost around 11 euros, so to put new horseshoe to a horse 44 euros are needed. Every three months it is necessary to remove the shoes to cut the hoof or nail of the horse, but the horseshoe may last between one to two years. During the process of making horseshoe three blacksmith are working; each one in a different function. One leads the process of heating the iron while the other two handle shaping of the metal into a horseshoe by hammering. At the time of putting the horseshoe on, first the hoof has to be clean, then the excess hoof is cut. After, the hot horseshoe is used as template to see how much spare hoof needs to be left. Then they use nails to fix the horseshoe to the hoof. Watching the process, it was clear that the nails do not hurt the horse because they are never in contact with flesh, only with the nail. Subsequently, they cut off the overhanging edge of the hoof. Finally the horseshoes hoof is painted with an oil to tighten them and make them stronger. Two kinds of horseshoes are made depending on the seasons. Regularly the horseshoes are flat, with small heels in the front of the U and at the 2 edge but for wintertime, they have 2 longer, pointy heels at the edges, so that the horse does not slide on the ice. The whole process was very interesting to observe.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
The church As a part of our project we visited the beautiful church of Ruganesti village. We were kindly greeted by a priest who presented us this holy place. It was built in the 12th century for the Catholics, but it was modified to be Protestant and a gothic part was added. In the interior we can find a fresco of the three kings presenting themselves to baby Jesus. An interesting fact is that windows are only on the east side and the light that shines through them illuminates the different parts of the fresco at different parts of the day. In the interior we can find one of the only original organs that survived World War 2. They were made by a world renowned organ maker in the 19th century. There is a legend about a green monk who is buried under the church and some of the stones are becoming green because of a curse placed upon him. The church is surrounded by a green garden with a traditional Hungarian totem and a defensive wall. If you are interested in visiting this place the priest will open it for you and give you a nice tour.
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Traditional Crafts + Modern Businesses
The Crafts Booklet
The participant of the youth exchange and the writers of this booklet were: Estonia Merili Mägi Maris Mägi Pait Pettai Margo Raju Merle Tanilsoo Helena Väljan
Slovakia Zuzana Belasova Klara Galuskova Eva Kuranova Michaela Polakova David Takacs Jan Tetak
Italy Virginia Bandini Cosimo Carboncini Nicola Iacopini Damiano Maionchi Simone Rossi Giulia Rubattu
Slovenia Barbara Gašparič Tadej Gašparič Martina Keršič Uroš Medvešek Janja Razpotnik Maruša Zmrzlak
Romania Attila Fazakas Ferenc Gáspár István Hegyi Barna László Robert Csaba Orbán Timea Szász
Spain Saray Carvajal Berrocal Lucía Domínguez Postigo Rocío Meléndez Rojo Rosa Mª Criado Porras Eloy Rosales Francisco Ávila Postigo
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The project is founded by the European Union.
The content of this booklet does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in the booklet lies entirely with the authors.