Did you know that the guitars played by world-famous musicians with millions of followers and hobby guitarists all over the world are made in an inconspicuous house under Devín Castle? The passion with which Stanislav Petko Marinov and his daughter Erika dedicate themselves to their customers and what they pass on to them can probably only be compared to the tones of music that flow from their handmade guitars. Precision, quality and years of experience together create works of art. Meet Dowina guitars.
Before Stanislav Marinov founded his first musical instrument distribution company, he was teaching at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. However, music had accompanied him since childhood. "When I was about six years old, my neighbor called me to the admissions office for a folk art school, where she didn't want to go alone. She started playing the piano, we didn't have any at home, so I picked up the violin. But I didn't like it at first. The boys went to play football, and I just had to practice," Stanislav Marinov recalls of his first contact with music. "In the third grade, I started playing in a children's orchestra under the direction of composer Július Kowalski, where I also tried playing the guitar and bass, and it absorbed me."
Even in the music world, there are a few magical, famous trees that are in high demand.
"We want to accommodate our customers as much as possible. They are very creative and we look forward to new challenges and to the fact that they are satisfied with the guitar afterwards. We have one customer who has guitars made after deities, we have already made a forest god and a sun god. In England, a tribute to deceased dogs is a big hit, which we have made on three guitars in the last few months alone. We usually put images of dogs on the headstock of the guitar, or we engrave their names there. We also had a customer who wanted to place the ashes of his deceased father in the guitar, but I refused this order, we are not ready for this yet. His idea was that we would engrave a raven there, which would have a luminous eye and there would be ash in that eye," recalls Erika, who also exchanges emails and phone calls with some customers for several months. "We create special guitars for special people. Communication and the relationships we have with our customers are very important to us."
He continued playing the guitar with his own band, even during his military service with the Jánošík folklore ensemble. As he himself says, he was mediocre at playing, which is why he did not want to pursue it professionally. However, musical instruments fascinated him, and after he made whistles and a fujara himself, he decided to take a closer look at violin making. "I knew nothing about it, but I got hold of papers on how Stradivari made violins and I tried. The instrument failed, the wood was not very good. That's when I understood that without understanding the material, I would not build a quality instrument." Stanislav began to work with wood and explore its acoustic properties. Today, he has a feel for it, he taps it, bends it, feels it... He knows what it will sound like at the first knock.
From distribution to production
After the division of Czechoslovakia, he took advantage of a gap in the market and began distributing musical instruments from famous brands such as Fender and Martin to Slovakia. After some time, he left the company to younger colleagues and returned to his dream - the production of musical instruments. "But for production you need people, technologies that I did not have. So I started production in China. I chose high-quality material, sent it there, and I myself traveled to China, where I learned more about guitar production. However, after I left, the products came to Slovakia poorly painted, imperfect. We ended up with this type of cooperation on all-solid guitars and I had a crazy idea to move production to Slovakia. By complete coincidence, I came across a building in Devínská Nová Ves, which we rebuilt according to our needs and we have been here for 12 years." Today, the current workshop no longer meets the needs of production, so Stanislav plans to build a new one with his daughter Erika Maťo Marinová, who took over the management of the company and personnel matters from her father. Despite the fact that Erika graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Comenius University, majoring in biomedical physics, she does a great job as one of the few women in the guitar business. She feels about music just like her parents and siblings.
Wood is the most important
"None of our guitars are the same. Even though they may look the same, they are made of the same type of wood, the same model, but each one has its own thickness, exactly according to what the wood requires. We adapt to the wood, not the other way around, the wood will not adapt to you," explains Stanislav, who still travels to find wood and personally selects it. About a million pieces have passed through his hands, of which only a few% are good, suitable for musical instruments. The top board is the most important for sound, then the neck and the back board. Even 5-6 types of wood are combined in one guitar.
"Brazilian Rio, as we call it, is one of them. Today, its harvesting is already banned, and the value of what was cut down before the ban is rising. This material has a beautiful, solid, ringing sound, and if it is stored well, it gets better every year. We managed to get just one piece, and it has already been sold," says Erika. "I personally love Madagascar rosewood. I have a guitar where the bottom plate is made of this wood and when you play it, it can vibrate completely. It literally has a therapeutic effect on me." There is also great interest in Moonspruce wood from Switzerland, which is harvested only in winter, from November to March, during the vegetative dormancy period, when the moon is new, because that is when it has the least water in it. "It sounds mystical, but there must be something to it. The wood plays very well," explain the Marin family.
We also use our local woods, mountain maple is very rare, but it must have a special 3D structure. We call it annealed, it is very rare. It grows only in the Carpathians, in Bosnia and in the Alps. We also started using oak from Nitra. Sometimes ash. We would also like to find a nice cherry or walnut, but we have not yet come across such pieces that would also sound nice.
To the whole world
Up to 95% of the guitars made in Dowin go abroad. Stanislav says: "Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, America, Canada, all of Western Europe. We have excellent relationships with distributors in England, Switzerland, France, Germany... We have a large distributor in Poland. We don't have a problem with demand, but rather with capacity." They can handle the production of one guitar in priority mode within 15 days, but they don't recommend it. The wood should work a little, the varnish should dry, and settle. The ideal time is three months. However, custom-made guitars can take up to half a year. There, selection and communication take longer.
