Villa Verka is named after our mother, Verka Dimcheva, who first brought us as children to her birthplace, Gorna Bela Rechka, to the home of Maria and Boris—her aunt and uncle.
The ancestral home of our mother, our grandmother Vanka and our grandfather Dimcho of the Denov family no longer exists. Our grandmother Vanka was born into the Goranov family. It was the Goranovs’ house, owned by her brother Boris and his wife Maria, that has become today’s Villa Verka. This is the welcoming house of our childhood memories, the place where we spent our family summers.
In 2003, the house hosted the first international storytelling workshop. In the years that followed, it welcomed the artists, organisers and participants of the GOATMILK Festival of Memories, as well as numerous workshops, theatre performances, yoga retreats, readings and concerts.
Since 2006, Villa Verka has been our home.
Our father cared for the garden with extraordinary devotion until his death in 2017. Today, Galya is the caretaker of the house and garden, continuing that work with her own vision and love.
Over the years, this place has inspired us in countless ways. It has transformed our understanding of roots, home, food, nature and community—and continues to shape who we are.
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.
