"Papal Design" turns 35: the Bitola sign-maker who once set off on a European tour in a tiny Fićo

On 18 October 1991, the story of "Papal Design" began in Bitola. Thirty-five years later, founder Velčo Petrovski - Papal marked the anniversary right where he works, on Kaj Zvončarite street, surrounded by friends, clients and collaborators.

The firm has left its mark on Bitola and beyond through adverts, posters, shop windows and neon signs. "The hardest years for me were the first five and the last five. The beginnings demanded courage, faith and a fight just to survive, and the years we are living through now bring their own challenges, worries and responsibilities," Petrovski said at the celebration.

The first five years need no explanation: the nineties, the transition, everything from scratch. Why the last five were just as hard, he did not say. Do small craftsmen have it any easier today than in the nineties - or have the problems simply changed their names?

People in Bitola know Papal beyond the workshop, too: as the adventurer who in 1972 drove off on a European tour in his Fićo, the tiny Yugoslav Zastava that half the Balkans learned to drive in, and as a performer of humorous Bitola town songs, among them "Čkembe Čorba" and "Točače". He saved his biggest thanks of the evening for his wife: "This anniversary is hers too."

Thirty-five years of work from a single Bitola street - that is a number that deserves more than a congratulations card.