Klavdievskaya factory is one of not many that produced Christmas-tree decorations in Soviet period. The factory was founded in 1949 in Klavdievo, near Kiev and first was specialized on laboratory glass products. In 50’s it started to profile in producing Christmas-tree decorations. Almost all of the production is exported (about 96%) to Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Great Britain, USA and etc. and only 4% stays in Ukraine. Let’s see how the process of making Christmas-tree decoration looks like.

The first phase of decoration production is a ball or other decoration glass-blowing from the tube with the height of 1.5 m.

First the tube is heated up till 1.5 thousand degrees and then is pulled out into the thin long tubes. Then the decoration is blown out. Delicacy of this job for glass-blower is to take as much air into the lungs as it’s necessary for the decoration of the certain diameter. For one shift the master can make up to 200 Christmas-tree decorations.The second stage is silvering. Silver oxide, ammonia and distilled water in a certain proportion are injected into the decoration.

Christmas-tree decoration with this mixture is put into hot water, the reaction happens and silver is vaporized fortifying on inner walls. Decoration is shaken up several times after that so silver could run evenly. After that the rest of water is poured out. The third phase is painting. Silver-plated decorations are wiped and dipped into paint. Painted decorations go to the oven and get dry under the lamps.

The fourth phase is artistic design. Artists draw the certain picture on the decoration. To have the sparkling design first the glue is put on the ball and afterwards it is sprinkled with the sparkles. Every artist can draw all over from 50 to 100 of Christmas-tree decorations a day. The fifth phase is end-cutting. It is done with the diamond circle.

All is left is just to put well-known caps with eyes…and its ready to pack! And at the end here are some examples from the whole variety of the Christmas-tree decorations, produced at this factory.

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