Balgarianovinite.com Ivan Stanev from Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria), the only master of blown glass in the National Crafts Chamber, demonstrates how glass Christmas ornaments are made at the Etar Regional Ethnographic Open Air Museum. The delicate decorations are coming to Etar for the first time.
The Christmas spirit at the museum can be felt everywhere – in the workshops, in the market, in the shouts of the carolers, in the generosity of the craftspersons who welcome them with gifts, in the smell of freshly baked bread, in the whiteness of the strings of popcorn, in the new Museum Centre where a Christmas tree decorated with thirty-year-old glass ornaments shines. Next to the Christmas tree is the creator of the fragile elegance, Ivan Stanev. On December 26 and 27, he shows visitors how glass can be transformed into a bell, a ball, or even a small mouse in a matter of seconds.
Visitors describe the demonstration as magic. Everything that does starts with a simple glass tube made of soft sodium glass. “We heat this glass on a gas burner,” says Stanev, without taking his eyes off his work table. “At 800 degrees, the glass begins to soften, and when it softens, we pull out small pieces from the tube, which are called single or double spikes. I use them to make these beautiful Christmas ornaments. Actually, only the ball is made from a single spike, which is closed on one side. All other shapes are made from double spikes,” explains the craftsman.
Stanev’s fingers keep turning the small tube as he stretches it into a straight line. “I practiced for eight hours a day for six months to get a perfectly straight line,” he says. “We only have one try. This is not clay that we can knead again; we have 10 seconds to shape a piece. We twist and pull at the same time to distribute it evenly. The glass we work with is 1.5 millimetres thick. When we blow (this glass has a coefficient of expansion three times that of air), a tube that is 20 mm in diameter becomes six cm in diameter, so the wall of our mold is much less than a millimeter thick,” Stanev describes the process.
For 48 years, he has been watching the blue flame of the burner and knows it perfectly. Glass is a poor conductor of heat. It only softens where it is heated, and that is where it can be shaped. That is why he is so focused all the time, assessing when and where to move the glass tube to different parts of the flame.
Stanev is not a hereditary craftsman. Quite by chance, he ended up in a cooperative for people with disabilities, where he spent 12 years learning the basics of working with glass. The skill that today allows him to make the glass bell he is giving to the BTA correspondent in two minutes, took him 12 years of his life to acquire.
To the right of his workbench is another table with various brushes and paints. There, visitors can sit down and decorate the glass form created by Stanev. The craftsman is happy to share that, thanks to an initiative by Plovdiv Municipality, he also has students.
Bulgarian Craftsman Shares How Glass Christmas Ornaments Are Made 2025 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2025-12-26 18:42:00 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
