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My name is Ivan, Ivan Delaš. I make the Zelovo clay pipes or Croatian clay pipes.
I like doing that as it makes it possible for me to join ethno elements and nature. Zelovo is a mountain village, and I especially like making pipes, and I do that outside, and especially in spring as you can see.
The production of pipes in Zelovo started 250 years ago, at the end of the 18th century, we don't know for sure who exactly started it,
and what we know it's that there were three families, Jukiæ, Delaš and Domazet, who came here as early as the 17th century from some parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It's very interesting to find that the pipe of Zelovo has several motifs of the Northern Italian style.
It's no wonder, though, as in the 17th century the Cetinska Krajina Region was the place of conflict between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire
so there are several types of pipes as well as several types of pipe forms, but of all those, I like most this one, the pipe called Delašica.
There is one more story about the Zelovo pipes and the Zelovo pipe factory, indeed, when it was found out during the Second World War that there was a pipe factory in Zelovo,
Germans thought there was a cache of weapons so their planes were flying over the area looking for the factory.
Well of course, how could they find it when it's miniature to the point that a man can barely enter it, as you could see it on your own.
There are several types of the kamiš (a pipe stem), and they include the joint-like and double joint-like ones, the long and the short ones, and various other forms which can be found in nature.
The kamiš has traditionally been made of mahaleb cherry, but it can also be made of maple and hazel.