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The museum is open from Monday to Sunday, from 09:00 to 17:30
Hristo Botev Square 2
The museum is open from Monday to Sunday, from 09:00 to 17:30
Hristo Botev Square 2

In museum house “Ivan Zambin”

The Exhibitions in the "Ivan Zambin" Museum

Goldsmith's Trade Exhibition

 The presence of ore deposits and auriferous sand in the rivers of Vratsa mountain are factors that proved favorable to the origin and the development of this art craft that turned into real art.  The exquisite art works of Vratsa goldsmiths’ school literally flooded the whole country and were exported to the international market.  The goldsmith’s trade flourished mostly in the 19th c..  The goldsmith’s works, accomplished with the use of white thin filigree technique, are primarily ornaments and church paraphernalia.  The exhibition shows an entirely equipped goldsmith’s workshop with a working table, a full set of goldsmith’s tools, moulds, and dyes.

           The most typical among the gold works are the so called earrings “arpalii” with a varying number of beads, granules, and rosettes, collections of belts of cast or forged plates or individual “herring-bone” pieces, buckles – also cast or forged, exquisite hairpins, tabs, brooches and “tepelatsi” (decorative head ornaments.)

           The great diversity of goldsmith’s works includes also bronze divits (ink-pots), powder-holders, squib pouches, church items: crosses, float lights, gold and silver plating for books and icons, cups.  The ornaments that can be seen on guns and pistol butts, with the gold and silver inlaid work on their metal parts, as well as those on yatagans, knives, daggers and swords, which were also made by the goldsmiths from Vratsa.

            In 1907, at the London exhibition of the Balkan countries the goldsmith from Vratsa Dimiter Berberski participated with one of his collections and he was awarded a gold medal.

           The goldsmith’s tradition was kept up until the first quarter of the 20th c., when it started to decline, influenced by the competition of the factory-made goldsmith works.

 

The “Traditional and contemporary silkworm breeding, production of silk and silk fabrics” Exhibition

        The silkworm breeding tradition in Vratsa region is very old, just as it is in the whole country.  However, the opening of the Experimental Sericulture Station in Vratsa in 1893 gave a strong impetus to the sericulture development in Vratsa region.  During the spring season, especially in the villages, there was hardly a family that did not breed silkworms as a way of supplementing its income, and obtaining home-made silk and silk fabrics.  From a typically home occupation, the silk production and the weaving of silk fabrics evolved into an art craft.

         The first part of the exhibition shows the old, primitive way of silkworm breeding, an original and already rare loom for silk spinning of the so called “Vratsa type”, a domestic horizontal weaving loom and cocoons spun over a bush.  On display also are the diploma and the golden medal of Mariya Pishtikova from Vratsa, which have been extremely well preserved.  Mariya Pishtikova was one of the twenty-three female participants awarded in the world exhibition in Saint Louis, the State of Louisiana, USA in 1904 for her collection of home-spun silk fabrics.

          The second part of the exhibition presents materials, which show the contemporary way of silkworm breeding and the scientific achievements in the field of silkworm breeding – new hybrids of silkworms and sorts of mulberry trees.

         The continuity in the silk fabrics production is demonstrated in the collection of fabrics produced in “Yordan Lyutibrodski” factory in Vratsa.

 

“Traditional vine-growing and wine-production” Exhibition

         The exhibition is arranged in the cellar of the “Ivan Zambin” Museum.  Vine-growing and wine-production were known in Vratsa region as early as the hoary antiquity.  The climatic conditions are particularly favorable, especially in the semi-Balkan areas.  In Podvesleshki region as early as the years of the Ottoman rule the so called “Vratsa states” were established – these are special, semi-closed, self-sufficient farms mainly producing grapes and wine.

         Vine-growing had a major share in the occupation of the population in Vratsa, and trading in wines was quite a lucrative occupation both for the individual owners and the wholesalers.  One third of the production was marketed outside Vratsa district.  The proximity of the Danube river also favored the international trade relations.  The wines from Vratsa were famous throughout the country as well as far beyond its boundaries.  In 1893 and 1894 in Montpelier (France) and in Sadovo, experts made sampling of Vratsa wines, which in terms of quality, flavour, and bouquet, proved to be in no way inferior to the ones from Rein.  At the first Plovdiv Trade Fair in 1892 the wine-producers from Vratsa were awarded silver and bronze medals for their produce, and Stefan Kraskiyov received the highest award, an honorary diploma.  He had won awards at all domestic and international trade fairs in which he had participated – an honorary diploma from the trade fairs in Plovdiv, Anvers, Bordeaux, Chicago, Cairo, the Great Prize in Brussels and a golden medal in Cairo and Paris.

         The highlights of the exhibition are the wooden hollowed groove for grapes transportation, the 5000 l transportation casks, the wine labels and the diploma of Stefan Kraskiyov.