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Uzbek rugs, Uzbek carpets

Uzbek Rugs, Uzbek Carpets

The Uzbek tribes are not confined to Uzbekistan; they are to be found all over central Asia especially Turkmenistan and northern Afghanistan. They produce a wide variety of piled rugs and flatweaves.

The Uzbeks refer to three main types of carpet: gulyam (short pile), julkhirs (long pile), and palas. The characteristic feature of carpets with short pile is their red-brown tint, lit up by a harmony of light-coloured details of the principal medallions, which are frequently of geometrical form.

Palas fabrics are diverse in Uzbekistan. These include: kokhma - a fabric, plain striped in various colours; terma and gadjari - a fabric woven in pattern with different methods of "criss-cross overlap" technique and ornamented with rows of small geometrical vegetal and zoomorphic motifs; and arabi - a cloth, which is woven in the so-called clearance method. All kinds of palas fabrics are sometimes supplemented with the superposed design method. This complex and arduous method, which resembles embroidery, is called beshkashta.

Up to the turn of the 20th century weaving carpets was exclusively the domestic craft of women living in rural areas. Although the demand for carpets was stable and high among the urban population, they were not made in towns and cities. This demand was met by importing carpets from neighbouring regions of Asia. In Soviet times workshops were set up, where carpets were woven, however weaving carpets by hand at home still remains a popular occupation among the inhabitants of Uzbekistan.