Christmas in the toy village Seiffen
- en roUTE
- Jan 4
- 2 min read
Joy of discovery and a legendary mountain church
Along the "Silver Road", the village of Seiffen rises at a higher altitude in the tip of the Czech border. The Advent route through the Ore Mountains calls for a stop in the village of toymakers with its famous mountain church.
Once characterised by tin mining, the region reoriented itself towards wood. Hobby became profession, miners' families became toy makers.
Typical of the region is the rare profession of a wood turner, which can only be found here - a special form of plate and spindle turning. He creates beautiful figures from a turning piece of wood. The wooden ring, with its turned recesses in the cross-section, provides the desired figure, as in the little factory of the Werner family.
The workshops and manufactories produce masterful products all year round. But at Christmas time, customers are particularly interested. This is when the toy figures and Christmas creations are presented in a prestigious light. The village centre fills up from Glashüttenstrasse to Nussknackerstrasse (streets). People from all over the world marvel at and buy smoking men, nutcrackers, candle arches, pyramids and all kinds of wooden beauties.
The Christmas market stretches through streets and alleyways in all its Ore Mountain splendour. Literally at every corner there is a moment of joyful discovery. While the small mountain parade marks the start of Advent, the large mountain parade crowns the Seiffen Christmas.
The snow clouds are clearing, night falls and Seiffen presents its idyllic scenery. In the middle of it all rests the famous mountain church with its unique appearance, which is somewhat reminiscent of Dresden's Frauenkirche. It is not uncommon for the mountain church to find a worthy purpose as a small place of worship in the candle arches.
A little excursus:
Even in GDR times, the skills of local craftsmen were utilised. Nationalised, one of the Erzgebirge locations of the largest state-owned company for wooden toys, VEB Vero, was established in Seiffen, where production was carried out on a piecework basis and - as was usual at the time - mostly for foreign countries and foreign currency. In times of shortages, the rare art objects were used by employees as barter goods (also known as ‘Bückware’) to trade for other hard-to-find products or materials.
Information:
Location:
Centre of Seiffen
Duration:
Entire Advent season
Visit:
Very popular and especially crowded on Advent weekends
Knowledge:
The Silver Route in Germany runs along the main country road from Zwickau to Dresden with all its places, sights and experiences related to silver mining.
Web:
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