Davorin
I was born and live in Croatia. I have been engaged in pipe making for fifteen years and enjoying pipe smoking immensely for the last thirty five years. A few years ago I got to know my present companion, Darko, top master carpenter, who for some time now has been collecting and processing semi-petrified oak wood (abonos, bog-aok, Mooreiche, morta).
As a result of our collaboration, pipes started to come to life made of this material too. As expected, like any hobby pipe maker, my first attempts in pipe making were in briar, mostly from the Adriatic coast, followed by olive pipes, and now, as a peak, in morta (in pipe smoker's world morta is a common term for this type of material). As a principle, I do not sell pipes, but rather I enjoy in presenting them as a gift to my friends. Country where I live has natural resources for all materials of which pipes are made nowadays (briar, olive-wood), while in history it was one of the largest manufacturers of clay pipes. So in Croatia top briar, olive-wood, and various sorts (colors) of morta, such as “golden“, “copper“ , and black can be found. Currently I am preparing “red“ and “blue“ morta, as its very rare kind.
Unfortunately, these days the tradition of pipe smoking in the whole world has been reduced to a smaller number of enthusiasts, a few of whom regularly meet in our Society and Club in Zagreb. I am also president of Association of Pipesmokers „Lula“ (Pipe). And just to mention, in my “real“ life I am a manager in a foreign company's branch in Croatia.
My pieces are signed by the letter “D“ impressed with a hot stamp in the shank. The letter is stylized from the old Slavic Glagolitic script. Glagolitic script is an oldest Slavic alphabet created in the mid 9th century, which remained in use in Croatia until the 19th century. The tradition holds that the script was invented by St Cyril (by the real name of Constantin), a Byzantine monk from Solun (in Greek - Thessaloniki). My wish was to create a symbolic connection between old material (morta) and the oldest script of the Slavic people.
Davorin
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