Pottery festival took place in the skansen (PHOTOS)

On Saturday, October 19, Uzhgorod skansen became a pilgrimage destination for potters from Ukraine (Transcarpathia, Lviv region, Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava): a pottery festival was held here. The event created a special atmosphere in the Transcarpathian Museum of Architecture and Rural Life.

Potters were working among the huts for the visitors, and anyone could try their hand at pottery. It cost 50 UAH.         

We went to the old museum tavern, where one of the rooms was turned into the "Pottery Workshop", as indicated by the corresponding inscription. There is a large wooden table there, shelves with products, a pottery kiln, wheel, etc. It was opened last year during the first pottery festival. This was made possible thanks to the museum project "History of Transcarpathian Ceramics", which was supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Fund. The workshop is permanent, and students of the School of Pottery organized by skansen have classes there (there have already been two sessions). The young master from Irshava Maria Polyanko teaches children.      

We met there the famous family of Uzhgorod ceramists Vyacheslav Vinkovsky and Miroslava Rosul, who live by their craft. It turns out that there is no such thing as Transcarpathian ceramics. "There are many nationalities and, accordingly, many types of folk decorative ceramics in the region. We have Hutsul, Boyko, Lemko, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, even echoes of Italian ceramics from the 15th century. And they all have their own stylistic features. Therefore, the concept of Transcarpathian ceramics does not exist,” – Mr. Vinkovsky says.

There was also a thematic fair. Visitors from Ivano-Frankivsk Vitaliy and Oksana Gladkovsky brought milk pottery.  

Vynogradiv ceramist Olga Gal brought decorated clay bells, Easter eggs. Antonina Durda from the village of Pryborzhavske, who is a student of a famous potter, Honored Master of Folk Art of Ukraine, Mykhailo Halas from the village of Vilkhivka, also brought her products. The head of the Transcarpathian organization of the National Union of Folk Art Masters of Ukraine, Lyudmila Hubal, presented her cloth dolls, although she also makes them from clay.

The holiday was flavored with songs and performances from the Honored Academic Transcarpathian Choir. Visitors were also singing with them. And the air smelled delicious too, because the Transcarpathian food was also presented there.