(1 Dec 2018) LEADIN:
A small family business in a mountainous Czech Republic village is the last place where traditional Christmas decorations from blown glass beads are still made.
Less than two dozen glass workers keep alive the tradition, dating to the middle of the 19th century in the village of Ponikla.
STORYLINE:
They're the product of the region's once thriving glass industry - blown glass beads used as Christmas decorations.
Now, less than two dozen glass workers and a few staffers keep alive the tradition.
"Even though it is (a) really tough job and you don't have any free time, I'm glad that we have managed to maintain the craft and also we are doing something that brings joy to people," says Marek Kulhavy, the director of Rautis in Ponikla, a small village in northern Czech Republic.
Originally, the blown glass beads were mostly used to decorate folk costumes in Germany, Austria and elsewhere.
But after a Japanese competitor copied the production in the early 20th century and flooded global markets, local bead makers had to find a new use for them. Christmas decorations became a successful choice.
The bead decorations from the Rautis company are today exported to a number of European countries, Russia and the United States.
"When you have your Christmas decorations from your parents or when the kids make them in kindergarten, and you hang them on the Christmas tree, they carry the stories and become a family chronicle," says Kulhavy.
"And that's how our decorations fit in, because they already carry a story of their making."
The Czech Republic has nominated the tradition for inscription on the UNESCO's List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
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