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November 19, 2011

Nevena Factory in Leskovac

This post about Serbian Design is about a cosmetic factory that produces my favorite baby products, I use them daily when I bath and change my baby-girl, and every day I'm delighted with the beautiful designed bottles and jars, so that I tried to discover more about these products.(picture from danas.rs)

The factory is in Leskovac, the city that was called the Serbian Manchester (in 19th Leskovac was a prosperous textile-city with 13 factories).
The concrete factory building with the fancy "retro"-style logo looks really cool.
The products have a beautiful design, and what is good, the firm never decided to change it!!
 
The firm was established in 1953 and as a state firm produced cosmetics, toiletries, and household cleaning products.
The light blue Kosili products for instance were found in most of the Jugoslavian bathrooms.
I love to use them and I stock up with Kosili products every time I'm in Serbia.
They were sold also in Switzerland in the past (manufactured by Doetsch Grether AG) but not anymore….I wonder why...

 
 
The logo is really stylish and fortunately it hasn't been changed radically…just adapted. I like the idea of the letters N, E, V and A made in the same way but just turned around.(logo pictures from serbianlogo.com)

                           
In 2001 Serbia's Privatisation Agency started to sell 70% of the equity owned by Nevena's employees to a strategic investor and then in 2003 it was sold at a public auction. The Dyes and Varnishes Unit of the company was sold to a Serbian private company from Backa Palanka.

But the cosmetic unit was bought from Bulgarian tycoon Hristo Atanasov Kovacki, one of the richest people in the Balkans and a friend of Sreten Jocic (Joca Amsterdam, member of the Serbian Organized Crime), thanks to poor control by Serbia's Privatisation Agency.

Instead of bringing Nevena Company to former glory, workers need to go on strikes to get paid and one's more Leskovac is about to loose one more working factory.
Mr. Kovacki is known to have ruined as many as 15 Serbian firms until now…about 8000 working places lost..I guess that Serbia's Privatisation Agency must feel really proud for that.

                            

To see the building:
HEMIJSKA INDUSTRIJA NEVENA AD LESKOVAC
 Đorđa Stamenkovića bb
16000 Leskovac 

The factory has no webpage and the email address is a gmail account...

1 comment:

  1. promena na logotipu jeste mala ali ne i beznacajna. dok svi teze organic i vintage utisku oni odose u mehaniku... da je privatizacija uspela, pa da se ulozilo u costum face...ovo nije usamljeni primer da je postojala svest o tome... grehota de smo danas.

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