All in the family—the candle makers
Generations of giving light.
For three generations the Kalogirou family has taken to heart the famous saying, it is “better to light a candle than to curse darkness”
In 1927 Mrs. Kyriaki started making beeswax candles from her home in Paphos. She passed on her skill to daughter Athanasia, who passed it on to her son Argyris.
Today, the hard-working Kalogirou family is still solidly committed to keeping alive creative ingenuity and craftsmanship even in this fast-paced, high-tech world.
Argyris, his wife Elena, and his mother Athanasia, may now reside in a world which worships cutting-edge innovation but here, at their factory in Agia Marinouda, visitors can still experience a sense of old-world charm combined with a commercial family business.
When Athanasia was a child, candles weren’t used as they are today, just to create a special atmosphere and evoke a mood. They were essential purchases at a time when few homes had full electricity. She started helping her father and mother at the tender age of six, making the beeswax candles for local churches.
Now, the indomitable Athanasia still does the same job in almost the same fashion. Her fingers may be a little less nimble, but she can still crank out a pile of perfectly formed handmade candles with a speed and skill that puts to shame anyone else’s efforts.
This is all very well and picturesque, but it doesn’t run a profitable business. How has the Kalogirou family been able to hold onto this craft and still make a decent living, while so many other local craftsmen and women have gone to the wall because of cheap imports flooding the country?
“We have all had to adapt and learn how to be flexible,” says Argyris. “We do have a real problem here in Cyprus which doesn’t happen in Greece, for example. Over there the local craftsman is respected and looked after. Here the government doesn’t respect our heritage”
For the family the big problem is that retailers seem to prefer buying foreign imports. “It doesn’t seem to matter if the things are badly made. They have in their heads that all foreign things are better, when in fact they are not, and that sort of thinking puts many of us out of business. The really sad thing is my candles are cheaper and much better made than most of the imported ones. How we change this thinking I don’t know. We just have to keep working to make the very best candles, and hope something will happen that can protect us and give us some advantage over the imported goods.”
The Kaligorou business does have one advantage over the foreign imports. Customers can come and visit the premises, see the family at work and get their candles custom made, choosing specific shapes and perfumes. “We work a lot with weddings too, and that’s helped us. Here, we can colour co-ordinate table settings with our candles, make candles for the church or home in any size and shape,” says Argyris. “I also try to learn about new ideas and designs so customers get a good selection at a good price.”
Walk into the Kalogirou showroom set within the factory and the various scents are almost overwhelming: vanilla, lavender, and cinnamon are just a few of the aromas. The sizes and shapes are equally varied. Round and square columned candles are positioned next to some stunning pyramid-shaped ones. Lemon-scented candles, the size of a healthy nine-year-old, stand next to small, delicate table tapers and a selection of cool Japanese-style etched black candles.
It’s all a far cry from when Athanasia’ s parents worked solely with slim beeswax tapers, making them by the light of their own candles and using only buckets and tins and heat generated from a wood-fuelled fire. Even then, as Argyris points out, their candles were the best. “Candles are much more than wax and a piece of string,” he says. “Quality candles have to burn properly and that means there has to be a balance between the wax formula, perfume and dye, the candle diameter and the height and time it will take to burn.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Athanasia has the smoothest of hands for such an elderly lady. Is this a result of working for so many years with beeswax and its healing, soothing properties? “I have had my hands in wax all these years, so, yes, it must be that. I also make all the wax images people order for helping those with illnesses or problems,” says Athanasia.
She then digs around in a cupboard and brings out images made entirely from beeswax. There’s a sculpted baby, along with representations of heads, arms, legs, and eyes, which she has expertly moulded from warm beeswax into the required shape.
These votives or offerings are taken by the faithful to church and they will be lit by those wishing to get pregnant, have a child cured of an illness or a body part healed.
Wax images such as these have been used in Cyprus for centuries, and Athanasia’s quirky handmade human ‘wax works’ are really wonderful examples of a true primitive artist at work. However, Athanasia with her quiet modesty would never ever claim to be a wax artist, and, sadly, when she is no longer able to make these figures yet another skill will be lost to our traditional culture.
And what, I ask Argyris, does the future hold for the business? “I have two boys and a girl, all still at school. Two of them, I know, would like to carry on the business. People will always want to have candles.”
But he does have other worries. He wants to keep employing local people to go out into the fields to collect the beeswax, which is the material the honey bees use to build their honeycombs and is produced from the glands of the worker bees. “My worry is, will there still be plenty of blossom for the bees to make their honeycombs, and will there still be enough bees so my children can keep making candles?”
We can only hope so. The Kalogirou family business is one that deserves to survive a fourth generation.
Kaligirou Candles
Agia Marinouda Industrial Estate
( Yeriskipou)
Paphos .
Tel 99 624951 9953 9951
Fax 26 960350
