I take a
stand somewhere between the two points. I suggest
that the various people of the Caucasus wove
distinctive patterns and structures prior to the
Russian colonization of the Caucasus but that as
Czarist control solidified they sought to
stimulate carpet exports to pay for their
occupation so that after the 1860s we see an
increase in the commercialization of the
Caucasian rugs and a decrease in the cultural
relevance.
In the 1820s the Czarist Russians divided
Trans-Caucasia. into the Russian provinces of
Baku, Derbent, Sheki, Karabagh, Shirvan, Talysh,
and Kuba. Riad: Caucasus.
Two Cord Selvage in a Shirvan Rug
As soon as I saw this fragment it made me think
of my dear friend and teacher (the late) Uncle
Jimmy Keshishian. I took the Oriental Rug section
of the appraisal Science course at George
Washington University from Uncle Jimmy and I
still draw back on what he taught me. When you
see this selvage think Shirvan. Uncle jimmy's
brother Harold Keshishian has a saying that i
like, "If you want to know what sort of car
it is, read the hubcaps." In other words
look for the easy to spot identifying clues.
The Russians divided the region in the manner
that was easiest for them to administrate and it
did not necessarily follow an ethnographic
approach in the division.
The Czarist Russians began to solidify their hold
as early as 1805 - 1820 but they did not truly
control the region for many years. With the
capture of the great rebel religious leader
Shamyl in 1859 and the end of the rebellion in
1864 did Czarist control truly solidify regional
control. In 1865 to eliminate risk of future
rebellion the Russians forced 1,2 million
Caucasians to move to Turkey.
At one point I suspected that
areas such as Nagorno-Karabahk which were
historically Moslem were depopulated and then
repopulated with Armenians. As Christians the
Armenians had an easier time with the Christian
Russians. Lately I have come to realize that in
the Caucasus' control focused on people rather
than strict geographic boundaries. So with the
Church and nobility to control the Armenians and
Moslem rulers and Governors over the Moslem it
was possible for two people to share some measure
of independent rule in the same area in the same
time. This tends to run counter to the European
practice.
To confuse the matter even more I suggest that
many of the best rugs attributed to 4th quarter
19th century are actually 1st or even second
quarter 20th century. A constant problem is that
Rug Collecting is more about money and ego then
it is a science. My hope is that by opening my
notes, thoughts, and theories I may help to
stimulate others to take this subject further
than I can.
Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1998
[for personal use only] Trouble Is Looming for a
Centuries-Old Trade
Caucasus: Regional stability, mass production and
modern life are ruining business for merchants of
hand-woven carpets.
By VANORA BENNETT, Times Staff Writer
DERBENT, Russia -Under the fortress walls,
the merchants of this honey-colored stone city at
the crossroads of three empires are doing what
their ancestors have done for 800 years: laying
out hand-woven carpets for sale.
During centuries of conflict under Persian,
Turkish and Russian empires, rug salesmen here
traditionally have done lucrative business by
buying family carpets from refugees on the run
from warfare across the Caucasus Mountains and
along the shores of the Caspian Sea. No more.
Something disastrous has started to happen to the
region's hand-made carpet trade in the last two
years: Peace keeps breaking out. "Look at it
now," says woebegone trader Magomed
Magomedov, forlornly gesturing around. Just a
dozen carpets are pinned up outside the north
side of the long defensive wall that Derbent's
onetime Persian masters built in the 6th century.
Half a dozen men, all as small and hunched in
their flapping black clothes as Magomedov, all
with the same mournful expression, are waiting
for buyers. "There's almost nothing left of
our trade," Magomedov says. "Modern
life is killing off the hand-made carpet
business."
The region's carpet-making legacy from the great
carpet cultures of Persia and Turkey was
institutionalized under Soviet rule. Factories
mass-produced carpets with approximately
traditional designs, although village women went
on weaving their own--and also continued the
practice, frowned on by Communist Party bosses,
of giving dowries of carpets at marriage.
The huge Derbent market spread across town every
weekend. But the bonanza years for carpet dealers
were right after the Soviet Union collapsed. The
lands around Russia's southern border, a
tinderbox of Christian and Muslim ethnic groups
with long memories for old feuds, went up in
flames.
In the five years after the 1991 Soviet collapse,
there were conflicts between Armenians and
Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Abkhazian
separatists, and Russians and Chechen
separatists. In the early 1990s, more than a
million people fled shattered villages and towns,
taking with them only their bedding and carpets.
With no money and no homes, the dispossessed were
desperate to sell even such treasured symbols of
stability and collective history as the carpets
to buy food.
But now stability is returning to the region. The
wars have stopped or been suspended. The refugees
have sold their rugs, and many have found new
homes and jobs; so have many of the traders from
those days. The only carpets being made by hand
and sold in Derbent are those of women here in
the multiethnic republic of Dagestan.
But this domestic weaving was never intended as a
money-making business and is done more for
private, family purposes. Magomedov's wife, Asli,
is one of the weavers. She has just dismantled
the huge loom that stood all winter in front of
the family television set. She, her 22-year-old
daughter, Zulekha, and her two 20-year-old
daughters-in-law, Gyulhara and Vilayad, worked
for six months on the huge blue-and-red oblong
carpet that now lies on the floor.
She's planning to start weaving again in the
fall. Some of the Magomedovs' carpets are dowry
offerings from the family's two new
daughters-in-law. A betrothed woman's family
still must provide at least one big carpet, a
flat-weave rug, a runner and half a dozen
cushions. Her mother and sisters can help her
weave them, but the designs should be her own.
Traditional Caucasus carpets differ in design
from region to region, village to village. They
include both Persian motifs--intricate floral
patterns--and wilder, brighter, coarser
Turkish-influenced designs, with jagged
flame-like shapes.
But some of the modern carpets, cushions, runners
and wall hangings that decorate houses here have
designs that draw as much from Western pop
culture as Eastern tradition. Snoopys and Snow
Whites crop up, along with compositions of
pink-faced children and baskets of puppies.
Asli, who was laid off from her job at the
near-bankrupt Soviet-era carpet factory a few
years ago, loves weaving. She collects
templates--patterns of tiny crosses on squared
paper--just as some Western women collect
knitting patterns. She studies them in her free
moments, contemplating her next adventure in
quiet creativity.
But, she complains, her work doesn't bring in
much money. The most she can expect her husband
to get for this winter's rug, measuring 6 feet by
10 feet, is $600.
"Four of us worked on it for six
months," she laments. "And that means
we only earned $25 a month each. A
pittance."
The worst blow of all to the trade is the
flippancy with which post-Soviet Dagestanis have
begun to treat their traditions. Although it's
still considered crucial to transfer carpets from
family to family at marriage, her husband says,
it's no longer a matter of pride to give the most
beautiful and costly weaving possible.
And Russia's opening of its borders means that
there's new competition in the rug business from
an unexpected quarter: the West.
Inside Derbent's city walls, just yards from the
deserted handmade carpet market, an altogether
more flourishing trade is now going on in cheap
Belgian or Belarussian carpets made with
synthetic fibers.
These crackling, brownish rugs, with large swirly
patterns, stand rolled up against walls, or are
displayed on clotheslines or cars. Surly traders
with none of the traditional carpet salesman's
patter say they buy them from four or five big
warehouses in Moscow and bring them down to the
south for sale.
They cost only one-fifth as much as hand-woven
rugs. "So what do people do before a
wedding?" Magomedov asks with a mixture of
indignation and resignation. "They know
they've got to give carpets. But they couldn't
care less what kind. So they get the cheapest
possible Belgian thing and palm it off on their
new family.
For people like that, respect for tradition is
becoming no more than a formality."
1750-1813 Khanate period. Azerbaijan is
divided and rule by khans in different regions of
the country. There were following khanates:
Yerevan,Karabagh, Nakhichevan, Ganja, Shemakha,
Sheki, Baku, Guba, Derbent, Salian sultanate,
Javad khanate, Talysh. In the southern
Azerbaijan: Tebriz, Urmiye, Ardebil Khoi,
Karadagh, Serab, Maraga and Maku khanates. The
Karabagh khanate also inluded Varand, Khachen,
Gulistan, Dizak and Jeraberd melikdoms, the
remnants of Albanian nobility". Chronology
of Azerbaijan History and neighboring regions
(Zaur Rzakhanov)
Saliani Prayer Rug
Southeast Caucasus, last quarter 19th century,
hooked diamond medallion flanked by two palmettes
and numerous small octagons in midnight and navy
blue, ivory, gold, aubergine, and blue-green on
the red field, ivory "wine glass"
border, (small rewoven areas and other small
repairs, end fraying), 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in.
Estimate $2,500-3,500
Lori or Lori Pambak is a
mountainous region of Armenia that borders upon
Georgia. It has a population of 400,000 and is
97% Armenian. Lori - the third biggest region in
Armenia.
The Lezgi live in Northern
Caucasus and in Russia. They are prominent
weavers as are the Quba a sub-group of the Lezgi.
I never realized how many Lezgi
were in Azerbaijan until a known terrorist
slipped me a video tape of Armenian soldiers
stripping the bodies of the Azeri soldiers that
they had killed in an ambush. A significant
percentage of the Azeri soldiers carried identity
papers identifying them as ethnically Lezgian.
This of course indicated a significant Lezgi
population in Azerbaijan.
"The Lezghians were also
good carpet makers. Sumakhi—rugs
without pile, which have a smooth upper side and
a shaggy underside, were made in the Kusary
district. The Lezghians copied traditional
Azerbaijan decorative subjects—either plants
or geometrical motifs—when making their
carpets.19"
Shusha was an ancient village in
Karabakh that gained in importance when Panah
Ali-khan Javanshir built a nearby fortress. From
there he established himself as a Khan of an
independent Khanate. Shusha was able to beat back
the Persians in 1795 (VAR: SHUSHA -- City of Shusha,
Karabakh region of Azerbaijan) but not many
years later (1805) the Khanate fell to the
Czarist Russians. http://scf.usc.edu/~baguirov/azeri.htm
The Talish live along the Caspian
coast south of the Viliazh-Chai River". The
Talish are Shia Muslim. Ethnologue: Azerbaijan - Talish.
The Talish are on both sides of the Azerbaijan
Iran border. The Talish were a major Kizilbash
tribal confederation.
"Talyshe. This
ethnic group abodes in southeast Azerbaijan,
specifically in the Lenkoran, Astara and, in
part, in the Masally and Lerik districts.
According to the 1989 census, there were more
than 21,000 Talyshe in Azerbaijan.
In the past, the Talyshe living in the valleys
were mainly rice growers and the highlanders were
herdsmen. The Talyshe have become deeply
integrated with the Azerbaijani ethnic group. The
traditions and everyday lives of the Talyshe
differ little from those of the Azerbaijanis.
Many of the Talyshe are bilingual, speaking both
Talyshe and Azerbaijani. But although Azerbaijani
is widespread,"
