Pencil industry in Bulgaria starts from Burgas
From the bookstore to the factory with the enterprise and honest work of the Velchevi family
Burgas should be proud that it was the place where in the distant 1925 for the first time in the country and on the Balkans a pencil factory named Deveko was opened, fruit of the initiative of Dimitar Velchev and his sons. Its production was recognised by the international market and competed with traditional manufacturers, such as Germany and the Czech Republic.
From the bookstore to the factory
Dimitar Velchev was one of the first booksellers in Burgas. His shop was located on 18 Alexandrovska Street in a beautiful two storey house, designed by Ricardo Toscani. Real wealth and variety of goods could be found there – from pencils and paints to pianos and furniture, books, magazines, toys, swings, sports items, jewellery, stationery and school supplies. Here was also an ophthalmic device operated by a specialist who measured the dioptre and offered glasses with different types of lenses. Goods were at affordable prices.
Dimitar Velchev had links with German suppliers of optics and stationery and this gave rise to the desire his three sons, after completing the School of Commerce, to continue their education in Germany. Velcho graduated in Nurnberg with an economics degree, Petar - mechanical engineering in Hanover, and Ivan - optics in Jena, where he specialised in the Zeiss factories. While studying in Germany the three brothers watched its rapid industrialisation. This raised the idea to do something in Burgas as well. During a vacation the sons shared with his father their plans to open a pencil factory. Dimitar Velchev was 54 years old then, but his flair for commerce prompted this to be a perspective undertaking and he gave his blessing. All his saved money and the bookstore's working capital went for the realisation of the idea.
In the Statistics Department began a fundamental research on the number of schools and students in Bulgaria, the literacy level of the population. Everything was connected to a lot of excitement, work, sleepless nights and resources. They started making plans, calculations, looking for land for construction. They found the place on the outskirts of the city, opposite to the oldest cemeteries in Burgas (where is now the New Post Office, and next to it part of the buildings that once belonged to the factory are preserved). They bought 3800 acres, and that was how in 1924, aiming to open a pencil factory, the bookseller Dimitar Velchev and the trader Valko Valkov established a general partnership Dimitar Velchev and Co. , which later was re-register as a joint stock company. Same year the groundbreaking was made.
In 1925 Deveko, the first pencil factory in Bulgaria and on the Balkans, equipped with 22 machines and an engine with 20 hp started operating. It was the beginning and black and indelible pencils of the new Bulgarian brand entered the market. Production gradually grew and in 1928 innovations were made: a graphite baking oven and a new wood dryer for the pencil's wood casing were built, also a new more powerful motor delivering 65 hp was purchased. Started the production of fountain pens. At the end of 1928 the enterprise had 32 employees , and the three brothers were working as a team. The oldest one Velcho Velchev was an economic director. Petar Velchev was taking care of the production process and maintenance of the machines, and he was constantly introducing new rationalizations of his own. Ivan Velchev was responsible for the trade and distribution. Later on the chemical engineer Kosta Mateev, husband of their sister Lilia, joined the company.
With each passing year the factory increased and diversified its production, profit was invested in purchasing new modern machines. In the 30s Deveko dared to enter the global market by participating in the International Fair in Tel Aviv. To be competitive in the international markets the producers from Burgas needed quality wood. Lime and poplar as starting materials did not meet the requirements. For that reason, Petar went to San Francisco - America and signed a long term contract for the supply of expensive and high quality cedar wood. In the following years he started the manufacture of all kinds of pencils, the product range expanded: drawing pencils in 12 colors, crayons, black and colour leads,brushes, modelling clay, watercolours, all kinds of chalk, red wax, adhesives, core holders, sharpeners, tacks... In 1937 the factory became Purveyor to the Royal Household and was awarded a gold medal personally by HM King Boris III. As a manufacturer they received large orders from London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Havana, Johannesburg. Deveko production was exported also to Turkey, Egypt, Syria. Expectedly Dimitar Velchev was acknowledged as an industrialist of European scale. In 1937 the king awarded him with the Knight's Cross of the St. Alexander Order.
In 1938 they supplied modern machines for production of typewriter ribbons and several types of coloured carbon paper. In 1941, despite the war, the owners built a new, modern building and purchased new equipment and machinery. The factory already employed 150 workers, and it was served by a chief accountant, cashier, steward, distributor of finished goods and a chief master. The sons were working along with the others, but they had no rest or working hours. Seeing the hard work of his children the old Dimitar Velchev retired from the management of the factory with the words: "From today I will only be an observer and adviser. I will sometimes visit the factory, will enjoy the fruits of mine and my children's labour. With the great successes we have achieved, I will forget the concerns, troubles and restrictions in each and every aspect".
The factory owners cared for their workers. In autumn they gave to everyone 2 tonnes of wood waste for fuel, for Christmas they gave 13th and 14th salary. Each year, orphanages and schools received as a gift paints and pencils. Certain amounts were donated to municipalities and churches in Burgas.
In 1943 the brothers entered into a contract with the Turkish government and began the construction of a pencil factory branch in Istanbul. With the advancing of the Second World War and the subsequent events in 1944 this undertaking did not succeed. Gradually, things changed. In 1947 Deveko factory was nationalised and later renamed to Hemus.
Petar Velchev
Interesting is the fate of the second son of Dimitar Velchev - Petar, who is inextricably linked to the prosperity of the Deveko factory. Born on February 2, 1902 in Burgas, he was technically inclined since his childhood. As a schoolboy he secretly built an engine in one of the port hangars. Once his father followed him and discovered his passion for engines. He graduated from the High School of Commerce, and later in the Hannover he studied mechanical engineering. During the winter break at the end of 1928 and the beginning of 1929 he witnessed the freezing of the sea. He saw the tragic situation of the population in Nesebar. Town was cut off from the land and icebound. For months people were left without food, water, medicine and firewood supplies. Children and the elderly people suffered mostly. The young Velchev turned to his friends and fellow students from Sweden with a request to contact representatives of the Red Cross o provide humanitarian aid for the destitute population . For two months he worked as an interpreter for the Swedish representatives. Because of the charity campaign which he organised, a special envoy of the Swedish King Gustav VI arrived in Burgas and awarded him a medal for the successfully completed campaign. People from Nesebar do not forget a good deed and in 2008 Petar Velchev was awarded a posthumously Honorary Citizenship of Nesebar.
After graduating engineering with excellence, he began work in the newly established Deveko factory. In 1929 his good friend Panayot Georgiev (a shipping agent in Burgas) introduced him to his cousin Anna Stefanova Popova, daughter of a prominent physician- obstetrician from Varna. Her father Dr. Stefan Popov had graduated with a gold medal medicine in Montpellier - France. He was the first physician in Varna who had acquired this speciality. He published several scientific works about the healing powers of the seawater, iodine vapours and seaweeds. Anna was a graduate of the French College in Ruse. In 1930 Anna and Petar got married and settled in Burgas. They had two daughters, Stefka - Mutsa (1936) and Maria (1940). Petar Velchev was not only a hardworking man to the extent of a workaholic, but he was also raised with the Christian values: to be merciful and to help people. He never refused money to people in need. Extremely energetic man, he worked in the factory from dawn till late at night. His workday lasted 12-14 hours. He often travelled abroad to settle new contracts or purchase raw materials and machinery. In some of his travels to Germany he was accompanied by his wife Anna. For his business trips around the country Petar Velchev bought a Studebaker car. His only entertainment was to gather at home with friends. For 40 years he lived with his family on 24 Vazrazhdane Street in a rented house owned by the merchant Boyan Baev. All his money he invested in the fabric. He was known for his honesty and uprightness. To pay in time the salaries of his workers he took from his wife's jewellery, gift from her father, two golden coins - pendolira (Turkish golden lira weighing about 40 grams, 22 carats ) and exchanged them at the bank.
Petko Chorbadzhiev and Petar Velchev were one of the initiators for the rescue of Burgas Jews in March 1943. Avram Assa was the chairman of the Jewish community in Burgas and he got in possession of a telegram ordering the beginning of the Jews' deportation . Assa activated all the contacts he had with people from the government to hold up the government's intentions. He also referred to friends in Burgas. Here immediately gathered Petko Rosen - a lawyer, former member of the parliament and a writer, Petar Velchev, Rosen Chorbadzhiev, Panayot Georgiev - a shipping agent, Menyu Vladkov - industrialist, Zheni Pateva and Dr. Teodosi Bolgurov to decide what to do. Same evening the lawyer Rosen Chorbadzhiev and Petar Velchev leave urgently to meet Tsar Boris ІІІ in Sofia. They delivered declaration signed by prominent citizens. A few days later, under the pressure from other public organisations as well, an order was received in the country, cancelling the deportation of Jews.
Petar Velchev experienced on his own back the destructive Bulgarian fate.For just one day during the nationalisation in December 17, 1947 he lost everything. Representatives of the new Fatherland Front government met him at the factory and informed him that it had become a state property and he must voluntarily hand over the keys of the treasury, warehouses and premises . Velchev was left with his money in his wallet. The new factory owners needed specialists and left him to work in the factory on a salary. A former employee became the director of the fabric. Petar Velchev continued to work as before - selflessly. He made several rationalisations that got patented and were implemented in production in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Yugoslavia. In the first place the name of a responsible party comrade was mentioned, but everyone knew who the real innovator was.
Until 1950 Petar Velchev worked as a technical manager. Then he was fired and started to look for a way to make a living. To be able to support his family and being an enterprising man he started making watch glasses in the yard of his father's house. Later he was employed as a painting worker at the Montazhen Rayon Bourgas.Together with his wife Anna they painted with compressor the high voltage iron poles from Vaya Lake to Sunny Beach - hard and exhausting work. In 1963 at the invitation of his cousin Vladimir Velchev he left to America against a guarantee deposited with the State by his relatives. Petar Velchev met his former business partners who used to supply cedar wood for the Deveko factory. He wanted to know what had happened to the last ship, that never reached Bulgaria in the troubled 1944. There was no trace of the money he had paid for that load. Five months he resided in America. The temptation to stay in the other world was great, but he returned. From there he brought grinding machine, injectors, compressors and decided to make aworkshop for vehicle paint coating. Entrepreneurial spirit cannot stay idle. He opened a workshop in the Izgrev housing complex where he started to repaint and repair vehicles under the brand names of Moskvich, Reno and Volvo. From what he had seen in America he invented a road centreline painting machine, until then it was done manually. After three heart attacks Petar Velchev died in 1969.
The author expresses her gratitude to Stefka Velchevа-Konstantinova, granddaughter of Dimitar Velchev daughter of Petar Velchev, who has preserved the memory of them and has kept documents and photos.
Author: Sonia Kehlibareva
Source: Factor newspaper
Brothers Velchevi were well known booksellers and printers
In the beginning of the last century in Burgas there were over 13 bookstores gathered on the main streets Alexandrovska, Bogoridi, Ferdinandova and around St. St. Cyril and Methodius School. No one bothered anyone, there were customers for each of them. Well known bookstores were those owned by Dimitar Sarankin, Ivan Kovachev - also known for his unique postcards and views from Burgas, Polon Dimitrov, who along with the school supplies was selling gramophone records, Stefan Nikolov, Ilia Tsekov - representative of all publishing houses in the country, foreign literature and magasines, Radi Georgiev, Kotse Nizamov, Slavi Maslarov, Ivan Hrusanov, Kosta Ekzarhov ...
But our story this time will be about the four brothers Velchevi.
Velchevi family was a big one, like a broad-leaved oak with its two centuries deep roots dug into the time. They spread from the Elena Balkan, settled in Zheravna and finally came to the sea. Who would have guessed then, that one of the first booksellers and printers, who shall remain in the cultural history of the seaside towns of Varna and Burgas, will come from this particular Balkan family.
Velchevi family
The history of the family began with Velcho St. Velchev from Velkovtsi village, Elena town region. In 1835 he took part in the Velchova Zavera[1]. After the treason committed by Yordan Kisyov, а wealthy man from Elena town, a great part of the participants in the organisation were arrested. The organisers were severely tortured and after extraordinary judicial proceedings sentenced to death by hanging. Velcho saved himself by escaping to Wallachia. The next year he was forced to leave Elena region forever. He found refuge in the village of Katunishte under the protection of the rebel Kara Tanas. There he got married to a relative of the voivode. A few years later he moved to Zheravna. His firstborn son was named Atanas and he had three sons Valyo, Hristo and Stefan. Valyo was engaged in manufacturing of homespun, he was a tailor, and had clothing stores in Zheravna and Karasu - Dobrudzha. He married Gana Stoyanova and they had nine children: boys - Vasil (died a bachelor), Atanas, Hristodor (1865 ), Dimitar (1872 ), Nikolai (1897 ), Stefan and girls - Zheina, Sofia, Todora (1860 ). Valyo wanted his children to get an education and profession. So he sent to Varna the four of them Atanas, Dimitar, Hristodor, Dimitar, and later on Nikolai. Eldest brother Atanas, settled permanently in the seaside capital and in 1880 opened the first bookstore - Atanas V. Velchev publishing house. He dealt also with photography. Collectors know the series postcards with views of Varna with the Velchev's bookstore logo . He left to the local citizens of Varna unique photos of the city, from the Sea Garden and Evksinograd palace. Seven are the books known to be issued by his publishing house. He married, and in 1891 his son George Velchev was born, who later studied painting in Paris with Professor Аманд Жан и Бонар. Artist of an European dimension, one of the greatest Bulgarian marine artists. His birth house in Varna is now turned into a museum named after Georgi Velchev, where his paintings are exhibited. Atanas Velchev had his own individual role and importance for the formation of Varna as a centre of literature.
Destiny of the other three brothers form Velchevi family was inseparably associated with printing, publishing and book trade in Burgas.
Hristodor Velchev
The rapid economic and commercial development of the seaside town in the late 19th century attracted Hristodor. Arriving in Burgas he decided to settle here and in 1897 he opened a printing house named Hr. V. Velchev, which in 1900 was renamed to Brothers Velchevi Printing House. He asked his younger brother Dimitar to come from Varna and become his collaborator. The rapid development of Burgas gave great prospects to the brothers to develop and implement their ideas.
Hristodor bought two-storey house on 3 Graf Ignatiev Street and opened a bookstore. He decided to have a wife and started to fancy a girl named Ana. Her family arrived in 1893 from Constantinople, saving themselves from the persecutions of the Ottomans. Their age difference was 16 years and despite the unwillingness of her parents, the two of them got married in 1896. From their marriage five children were born, three sons and two daughters: Vasil (1900 ), Ganka (1902 ), Tsvetana (1906 ), Petar (1908 ) and Kliment (1916 ). Tsvetana is the only one of their children who made her own family and had three daughters, Alexandra ( 1925 ), Ana (1927 ) and Snezhana (1931 ). Hristodor died at the age of 45 in 1933 from ulcer. He was buried in Sofia.
Dimitar Velchev
Dimitar graduated with honours from the Male High School in Varna and received the right to be a teacher. He worked as a teacher one year in Varna region, but arrived to his brother in Burgas. He began to learn the printing craft while improving his written and spoken Greek and Turkish languages. He wrote fluently in three languages. During the Greco-Turkish War in 1897, triggered by the Greeks on the island of Crete, and aimed at their secession from the Ottoman Empire, having at hand the printing house of his brother, with the assistance of a Greek teacher, he printed flyers, telegrams with news and events from the battlefield. He edited the texts in Greek language of printed advertisements and translations ordered by merchants. He started to edit and print the Burgas Courier weekly newspaper, but not for long. He did not have contributors, and at that time 80% of the population in Burgas used speak and write in Greek language.
In an article printed in the monthly illustrated magazine Science, religion, industry and household, issue 1 from 1897, he described the arrival of the Armenian refugees in Burgas and their tragic fate after the massacres by the Turks. He became a contributor and distributor of the Sofia Evening Mail, to which he was sending short materials and news from the seaside city. He took the representation and distribution of other newspapers in Sofia.
At the journalist association founding congress in Sofia, Dimitar Velchev was invited and elected a member of its board.
It was Dimitar Velchev who gave some of the most accurate and comprehensive information about Burgas in the late 19th century, a description of the Bonalov garden, of the streets and the population. His manuscript was used by George pop Ayanov for the work named the Past of Burgas. In a series of articles in the newspaper People's lighthouse from 1947 till 1950 the author published excerpts from his book, prepared for printing, but not issued due to financial reasons. In 1897 group of Burgas citizens on the initiative of Dimitar Velchev – bookseller, Nikolai Velchev - printer, Damian Vladikov and other 30 Burgas citizens found an educational-cultural society called Activity, and with personal funds they rented a shop on the St. St. Cyril and Methodius Street and they set a goal to create a library, reading room, theatre workshop and evening courses for acquisition of commercial knowledge by bank and customs officers.
In 1889 Dimitar Velchev married Stefanka originating from the town of Ajtos, and coming from a wealthy family (sister of the bookseller Dimitar P. Sarankin). In 1900 purchased from Dimitros Haralambus, a large representative house on 18 Aleksandrovska Street, designed by Ricardo Toscani (later declared a cultural monument and demolished during the construction of a hotel Bulgaria in 1975 ). On the first floor he opened a bookstore with a wide variety of products from pencils and paints, to pianos and furniture, books, magazines, toys, swings, sports items, jewellery, stationery and school supplies. There was also an ophthalmic device operated by a specialist who measured the dioptres and offered glasses with different kinds of lenses. He participated in the Balkan War and the World War I, serving as a commander of an echelon with the Balkan division, and was awarded a Medal of Bravery. During this time his wife took care for the trade and the children. After the war he set out to expand the trade by connecting companies from Europe and especially from Germany.
Orders from catalogues for Western goods were placed in the store. There for the first time shoes from the reputable companies Salamander and Bata were sold. Goods were at affordable prices. Dimitar's trade was very prestigious and he was among the most prominent traders in Burgas for the time. Dimitar Velchev has connections with German suppliers of optics and stationery and this gave rise to a desire his three sons, after completing the High School of Commerce, to continue their education in Germany. Velcho (1901) graduated economics in Nuremberg, Peter (1902) - mechanical engineering in Hannover and Ivan (1903 ) - optics in Jena, where he specialised in the Zeiss factories. Later in 1917 his only daughter Lilia was born. She graduated from the French college in Ruse and married Kosta Mateev - chemical engineer.
In 1924 the bookseller Dimitar Velchev and the merchant Valko Valkov create a general partnership Dimitar Velchev and Co. in order to open a pencils producing factory. They do this fully aware that in order to succeed they have to withstand competition from the factories already established in the Czech Republic and Germany. In 1925 the factory started work. This was the first Bulgarian pencil factory and also the first one on the Balkans, named Devko, equipped with 22 machines and an engine of 20 hp.
Dimitar Velchev died on November 20, 1957 at the age of 85 years. He was buried in Burgas.
Nikolai Velchev
The youngest brother Nikolai studied printing with his brother Atanas in Varna. In 1892 he came to Burgas. One of the founders of the Evangelical Church 10 Democracy Street in the seaside city. During a trip to Samokov an evangelical pastor introduced him to Lyuba Nikolova Hadzhi Ivanova (1884), an American college graduate. After a short correspondence they got engaged in 1901 and the next year in 1902 they got married. They had five children: Vasilka (1903) , Boris (1906 ), Atanas, Violetka (1914 ) - died from diphtheria when she was three years old and Hristo (1920). At the beginning they lived in a house on King Boyan street. In 1906 Nikolai Velchev builded on 23 Brothers Miladinovi Street (today Apostol Karamitev Street) two storey house and on the ground floor he accommodated the printing office Н. V. Velchev. Later he built additional premises in the yard, specially designed for the modern flatbed printing machines imported from Vienna and called Amerikanki.
The inventory, which consisted of regales, frames and letters was produced in Germany and Austria. They printed Posters, bottle labels, paper bags for the city traders, packaging for sea salt from Burgas produced by Glarus company, groceries packaging. Also books from Burgas authors were printed there. Paper supplies came from a manufacturer in Belovo. Nikolai opend the Pelican Bookstore on 14 Vesela Street (today Bulgaria Hotel stands there). They sold goods imported from Hanover, Germany. Supplier of the Mont Blanc and Pelican pens.
Founding the company Н. V. Velchev Limited Partnership Burgas - Sofia, Nikolai unfolded his activity in Sofia. He like his brother Dimitar was a prominent public figure, co-founder of the Bulgarian Black Sea Popular Bank and the Probuda Community Centre, he travelled to villages as a preacher of the evangelical church and gave lectures.
14 people worked in his print shop in 1943, 5 of them were Jews: Esther Levy, Henrietta Isaac, Lisa Deans, Rose Friedman, Albert Mis - accountant.
That same year Nikolai Velchev opened office in Dedeagach, today's Alexandroupolis - Western Thrace, he opened a branch of the Trade House Commerce Import printing house. The end of the war put an end to this branch as well.
Nikolai died in 1968 at age of 94.
Nikolai's children had a different fate. His daughter Vasilka married Emil Haltakov. His son Atanas specialized polygraphy in Leipzig. After 1944 he became a travelling salesman dealing with new books. In 1969 died in a car crash near Belovo. Boris was energetic and gifted, he opened his own printing house in Sofia. After 1944 left without livelihood he began working on construction sites, mounting kitchen cabinets in the new apartments. Hristo studied engineering in Milan, but the war forced him to return to Burgas. Later he graduated a distance learning programme in economics and worked as an accountant in the Rosen Mine.
In 1947 the printing house was nationalised and continued to be used by the new rulers,renamed to George Kirkov printing house. After lengthy litigations the land plot was returned to the owners and today there is a residential block.
The author expresses her gratitude to the grandchildren of the brothers Velchevi: Stefka Velchevа-Konstantinova, Krastina Proykova-Velchevа, Nikolai Haltakov and Ana Maslarova, who shared memories и provided photos from their family albums.
Author: Sonia Kehlibareva
Source: Factor newspaper