The good soul of sagaan in Siberia
In his first life as a music teacher, Aleksej only found his calling as a birch bark specialist and networker after the turmoil following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the late 1990s, he discovered the richness of the taiga around his home town. He quickly established himself as an expert in birch bark and delved deeper and deeper into the secrets of this natural material and the ancient knowledge of its processing.
The small town of Asino is something like the centre of birch bark craftsmanship in Russia: this is where the craft was rediscovered in the 1970s, where most of the factories are still located today, half the town works with the golden leather fabric and almost everyone has something to do with birch in some way.
In our search for new partners, we came to Tomsk and travelled from there by bus to Asino. A good 100 kilometres and just under three hours later, we were standing in a provincial Siberian town with a huge concrete square in front of the regional administration, where the decorated limousines of newlyweds were usually parked on Saturdays.
We had a look around Asino and discovered a small local museum with lots of unique birch bark artefacts. And we came across Aleksej Michajlowitsch, a proven expert on birch bark. We knew immediately that this was our man: he fulfils all our wishes reliably and conscientiously and knows more about birch bark, its qualities and properties than almost anyone else. Aleksej also always knows who to ask and which contact you need to get to your destination. He knows almost the entire town of Asino, which has become something like our second mainstay.
Whenever we need patterns for New products, Bark for our customers or special tools for our courses - Aleksej helps us!