Walking and Talking in Zburazh
We walk around the village with Eva Wendland
as our guide. At the end of this walk, we visit people who make textiles, including a woman named Sveta Husakova. Sveta wants to introduce us to her neighbour Baba Lida, who makes textiles and designs most of them herself. In the Baba’s living room, Sveta made a wall-drawing on the fireplace walls. Yes, they want to make more designs together in the future, they tell me.
Света Гусакова - Sveta Husakova:
“I have been living in the village permanently since 2019. I work as a textile designer remotely and do home renovations. I communicate mainly with my nearest neighbours in the village. The village is divided into two halves, they are separated by a road to the village of Medno.
Shops, a school, a post office and a clinic are concentrated in the centre, and on my side of the village there is only a farm and a former sauna (banya), which was bought by the blacksmiths to turn into a forge.
My choice of house was, of course, connected with the place where it is located. It is important for me that there are a lot of forests and lakes around, and the distance to the borders of neighbouring countries is also important, in order to make it easier to travel abroad and travel even by bicycle.
Professionally, the village has its own craftsmen and textile traditions. Ethnographers periodically come here to collect items of traditional culture, including textiles. I also already have my own small collection of textiles donated by locals, inherited from their ancestors.
My nearest plans are to complete repairs in the house, to equip a workshop space for working with different materials, to create a place to meet friends, and to make my house convenient to hold small cultural events. In general, to create the conditions for creative and cultural exchange, and maybe even international.”