The Magic of Hands and Metal. Fyodor Ivanovich Kovyrkin
Today is an unusual edition of the AVEGA project. Today's guest is a man of what is, unfortunately, a rare profession: a blacksmith. No, he doesn't walk around bare-chested, wearing an apron creatively stained with thick smears of soot, glistening with sweat and rippling muscles in the forge light.
No, he works with a mechanical hammer, using all the modern tools brought by technological progress, but he also doesn't shy away from working the old-fashioned way. But what would it be without his resourcefulness and creative approach, when magic is created in his hands—magic in its primal sense, when labor is inseparable from the spark of creativity and thought? He blends diverse styles; his creations include glass, metal, and clay.
It seems like it's only 20 minutes long, yet his entire life fits in there. How compressed it is, the dross of pathos beaten away, and the admixture of moralizing removed...only the pure man he truly is—Fyodor Ivanovich Kovyrkin. But more important are his words, which conceal a wealth of experience, failures, losses, disappointments, life's tricks, joys and happiness, his skills. And you can only fully appreciate this by visiting his workshop and seeing him at work. How his tools respond, how he tells stories while working, how he lives his work. And that's worth a lot.
Appreciate that there are still people on this earth for whom it turns, or rather, those who make it turn...
Fedor Ivanovich Kovyrkin, Samara, blacksmith
The "Avega" project, or rather a small part of it, is an interview, a conversation, a monologue, if you will, with masters of their craft and interesting people who share their emotions, energy, and life itself, giving us the opportunity to learn to enjoy it, or at least to reflect on the need to LIVE HERE AND NOW.