Crafts

Miren Kras is strongly connected with nature. As a green destination, we strive to respect the environment and its resources. Not only on plates, where local ingredients often find place, important crafts have historically developed in contact with pristine nature. Wood for whips, leather for shoes or stone for wells; every product is undersigned by serene nature.

Stonecutting
There is quite a lot of stone on karst ground. Through its soft limestone heart, as it is called, water has trickled for more than a millennium, creating the magical underground world. Above ground, man handles stone. Quarries or “jave” gave work to many local people, who used various tools to build wells, window frames, stairs and other items. Stonecutting is the largest part of karst cultural heritage. 

Whip production
Whip production or in dialect "škarabacarstvo” is a type of craft that only few individuals still know how to carry out. This traditional type of work flourished before the First World War, when five workshops employed 50 people. Whips were made from nettle tree wood that only grows in this part of Karst. After the Second World War, tractors substituted horse-driven carts, but many locals even now put every effort in keeping the memory of this tradition.

Brickwork
Clay is one of the natural materials, with which man has made strong contact on this land. It is the carrying pillar of brickwork craft that was quite common until 1992, when the fire in the last brickyard went out. Clay that was mixed with feet by people, was used to build bricks and roof tiles to protected the houses from bad weather. Nowadays, the memory of brickwork heritage in Miren Kras is preserved at traditional brickwork festival.

Shoemaking
The craft history of Miren Kras was characterised by leather and shoemaking tradition. The story of shoemaking has been written since the 19th century, when the first shoemaking cooperative was founded. After the Second World War, industrialisation also made its way to Slovenia. Pavel Petejan, who has posthumously been declared as an honourable member of Miren Municipality, turned his shoemaking cooperative into Ciciban-Petejan company, which still successfully continues the story of shoemaking. He was also one of the founders of the leather and shoemaking museum that exhibits items that date back to 1900.