Villa Verka is named after our mother, Verka Dimcheva, who brought us as children to her birthplace, Gorna Bela Rechka, right here in the house of Maria and Boris, her mother-in-law and uncle.
The ancestral house of our mother, our grandmother Vanka and our grandfather Dimcho from the Denov family is long gone. Grandma Vanka came from another family – the Goranovs. It was the Goranovs’ house, owned by Grandma’s brother Boris and his wife Maria, that is today’s Villa Verka. This is the hospitable house of our childhood memories, the house of our family summer vacations.
In 2003 the house hosted the first international storytelling workshop and in the following years the creators and participants of the GOATMILK Festival of Memories as well many workshops, theater performances, yoga retreats, readings and concerts. Since 2006 it has been our property and our home.
Dad took care of the garden with absolute dedication until his death in 2017. Galya is now the owner of the house and garden.
Over the years the house has inspired us to do many things, changed our understanding of roots, food, home, nature, community.
Our Logo
Authors Galina Ivanova, Stephan Maria Glöckner
We chose the name Villa Verka for several reasons. Verka is the name of our mom, who is from one of the biggest families in the village – the Denovi family. It was she who brought and showed us Gorna Bela Rechka as children and passed on her love and care for the place and the people here.
In our imaginations the word Villa brings the feeling of a warm and cosy place. A place for rest and creativity.
Villa Verka is a place for creativity, rest and meetings – both online, where we decided to collect ideas, thoughts, sketches and images born since 2003a, and in person – the house opens its doors in the summer of 2024.
Creating our logo was a process where we communicated with each other and involved a graphic designer who didn’t know the house but who we trusted – Stephan Maria Glöckner, who Diana had already worked with. He accepted the task with great joy.
We had no hesitation that the house and the logo had to be connected. In the process, the idea of using the basic cross stitch of embroidery, which our mother and all the women of our family we know used and still use, came up. We want to convey the feeling of handwork, precision, lightness, transparency – qualities that we follow in our work and convey through the atmosphere of the house.
