Published: 23 June, 2008, 06:52
Edited: 23 June, 2008, 06:52
More than 200 handmade straw dolls are attracting tourists in the small Latvian town of Sabile. The lifesize models form a real community, with a doctor, a policemen and even a movie star.
All of them are residents of a garden in the middle of the town. They were created by Dayna Kucere, a mother of four and grandmother of fourteen.
Every doll has its own personality, with some of them even resembling their creator. Making up the face is one of the complicated parts of creating a doll and sometimes the grandchildren help out.
Dayna is a frequent customer at local second-hand shops as the dolls often need something new to wear. Some of the dolls change their outfits weekly. But apart from this, the members of the little community are not very demanding. They seem to be happy with their old broken sewing machines, gramophones or bicycles.
At first she made a couple of them for a local festival and then they started to live their own lives and changed hers as well.