A tinker's craft

I have been looking for a present for my cousin's 25th wedding anniversary. It had to be small enough and tough enough to survive going in hand luggage. And this is what I found. It combines a ceramic base with a hand-woven wire rim attached by holes drilled in the rim of the base. Isn't it beautiful!

The dish is a good example of a domestic handicraft, which traditionally was hawked around the villages by Slovak tinkers. Legend has it that after the tinkers had presented the Empress Marie Theresa with a cradle made of wire so brilliantly that it would rock forever with one push, the grateful empress granted the tinkers the right to travel all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Much of their trade would have been in repairing pots or wrapping them  in wire nets to stop breakages. Mousetraps, birdcages, whisks, coat hooks, strainers, and other household goods were also offered. All the craftsmen needed in their packs were rolls of soft flexible wire, a hammer, pincers, and a stitching awl. The wire was bent cold and so no bellows or anvil were needed.

The days of the itinerant tinkers are over. But in Slovakia and the Czech Republic some craftsmen are keeping the tinkers' craft alive, adapting it to modern markets and I was lucky enough to meet one yesterday at a stall on Ceske Budejovice's main square.

Golden Czech Hands

"Zlaté české ruce" (Czech golden hands) is a phrase you will hear in the Czech Republic. It refers to the national belief that the Czechs are great craftsmen and engineers. Whilst it is true that the Czechs do indeed have some very fine craftsmen, it is also true that many old skills are in decline.

More annoyingly it is often applied by Czech men to themselves regardless of skill level. As this is linked to the national identity a non-Czech needs to tread with care when challenging it. Under the Communist era a high level of DIY self help was required - if you wanted something, often the only way to get it was to make it with whatever materials you could get your hands on. This led to some fine examples of ingenuity and inventiveness, but it also led to some wonderful examples of Heath Robinson construction.

I came across a good example of this on the northern shores of Lake Lipno. Look closely at these fishing punts and you will see that some zlaté české ruce have nailed plastic garden chairs to the boats to create more comfortable seating. Another boat owner further along the shore had even used a swivelling office chair to afford 360 degree fishing.

Celebrations of the Five-Petalled Rose - Markets

In the first courtyard of Cesky Krumlov Castle throughout the Celebrations of the Five-petalled Rose you would have found a wonderful market offering the very best of local crafts. These included a wide range of pottery, jewelry, clothing, wickerwork, toys and woodwork.

I went twice to the market on Saturday and on Sunday. In the first case I went to get a present for a niece with an 18th birthday, but there was so much that I liked and was very reasonably priced that I went back the day after and bought several Christmas presents. Yes I know, I confess I am one of those annoying people who buy Christmas presents whenever I see them. Though I am not as bad as my Granny who bought her presents in the January sales! I won't describe the presents here, as I know this blog is read by people who will be receiving them.


Also on sale in the market were a variety of foodstuffs - cheese, herbs, wine, mead (medovina), jam, nougat. I bought a large bottle of medovina for half the price in the shops.

For a blog on last year's festival visit our sister blog "Krumlov Expats"

Latest on the Central Heating

I hope those of you who read my blog regularly will know that I hate those whinging ex-pat blogs that are too frequent. They make you want to ask, "If you dislike the country and its people so much why did you move here?" I also dislike those ex-pat blogs, which seem to think it necessary to justify their move by attacking their motherland. So it is with caution and regret that I have decided to blog about the painful experience I have had with dealing with Czech contractors, but I think it is only fair on anyone else who is starting out on the path of restoring a house here.

Following on my post on the central heating a month or so ago, my electrician eventually turned up. He managed to botch together a solution to the hot water problem (he needed to bring a new switch so for a while the existing switch had to be held together with a piece of paper). In so doing he broke the seal that electricity supplier had put on the electric meter setting. Of course he says all the problems are electricity supplier's fault, but because he broke the seal we can't prove it! As for the central heating, well he couldn't help me there, I had to get the central heating company in. As the electrician had been the project manager for all the first stage of work – including the central heating – this should have surprised me, but after three years here it didn't.

The date arranged for the visit of the central heating engineer came and went, another no-show. Then on the Wednesday, miracle of miracles, both the heating engineer and electrician turned up together. It turns out that the central heating is to the wrong spec and could never heat the house in these conditions. Add to that the clock in the electric box is faulty, with the result that such heating as there is isn't charging properly. It has taken three years of complaining about the heating and sky-high bills to get this far, but at least (I hope) the problems have been identified and we might just have agreed the steps towards getting them fixed, perhaps not completely but enough.

So what have I learnt (the hard way) about employing Czech builders?
1 Well for starters they will tell you what they think you want to hear (see my post on When Yes Means No) rather than the truth.
2 If you don't ask for something, the Czech craftsmen won't do it for you and they won't suggest it either. No matter that they are the experts, you are still meant to know. No matter too that it is a task so obvious one would think it unnecessary to ask, it won't to get done – eg if you ask them to fit a sink, ensure they also fit a waste pipe!
3 Czech tradesmen never seem to finish anything properly, and certainly don't do the necessary checks when they finish (see my August post about the dryrot in the kitchen).
4 Get everything in writing.
5 Even when you employ someone as a project manager – don't assume they will take responsibility if things go wrong.
6 Ensure that the builders include the cost of cleaning up after the job otherwise you will be left with piles of rubble.
7 Get a Brit to do it (only joking, well maybe not).

Have I just been unlucky and am making unfair generalisations? Conversations with other ex-pats and indeed with Czechs confirm that I am not alone in my experience. Is it just another example of the Czech attitude to work that I spoke about it in a previous post? Probably and if so there's no hope for us. Not that I am for one moment suggesting that one does not have bad experiences in England, just that they seem almost the norm here. Ah well, I just have to remind myself how much I love the house and the countryside around it.