A Small Shopkeeper

Ahmet is one of the two shopkeepers in copper sheet plastering business in Bursa. His father, Hüseyin Yavaş, learned to make a copper boiler with a hammer from an Armenian master in Elazig in 1924.

After doing his military service in Bursa in 1950, the father settled there and started working in the metal sheet plastering business. His son Ahmet took his first step into the profession by being his father's apprentice in 1963. After his father's death in 1997, he owned the business. He has been practicing this profession for 56 years.

Ahmet opens the shop every morning at 06:30 and enters his workshop with his right step, following his father's advice. After drinking a cup of tea, he wears his work clothes and starts working.

Like every other shopkeeper, Ahmet is trying to make a living by his handicraft and body power; he states that he has difficulty in maintaining the business due to the economic crises he has experienced many times throughout his life.