A Turkoman Carpet Maker hard work on a Tekke carpet in the early 1920's

Famous throughout the world, Turkoman carpets first caught the attention of Europe when Marco Polo commented on their beauty and style. Turkoman tribes would trade carpets at the various wells and caravanserais which dotted the Silk Road, or take them, with consignments of slaves to the bazaars of Khiva and Bukhara. European travellers soon erroneously began referring to them as Bukharan Carpets due to their profusion in the bazaars of Bukhara and carried tales of their spleandour back with them. Vambery, the Hungarian traveller, stayed with a Turkoman tribe, disguised as a Dervish. He was able to observe the carpet making process in action.

"Beside the beautifully pure colouring and the solidity of the texture, what most surprises us is how these simple nomad women preserve so well the symmetry of the outline of figures, and even betray often a better taste than many manufacturers in Europe.
One carpet gives work always for a number of girls and young women. An old woman places herself at their head as directress. She first traces, with points, the pattern of the figures in the sand. Glancing at this she, she gives out the number of the different threads required to produce the desired figures."
Arminius Vambry - Travels in Central Asia - 1864

Traditional spinning methods

Although the knotting and dyes were fairly similar, each Turkoman tribe had their own traditional patterns which would predominate in carpets from that tribe. Still, individual carpet weavers would often draw on styles from othertribes and the result would be the central patterns from one tribal style and border patterns from another.

A Yomut wool and silk mix carpet

Nature was a common source of inspiration for patterns, with flowers, suns, storms, plants and comb trees all being popular themes. Wool from the Korakul (black flower) and Sarajin sheep were mainly used in carpet making, although some Bashir and Yomut carpets would use a mixture of silk and wool. Various hues of red were the dominant colours, and were obtained from the root of the Ruyan plant which was particularly grown in the Khorezm Oasis. Walnuts were used for brown, onions for cream, and pomegranate skins for yellow.
The best known designs came from the Tekke tribe, with rows of distincitve geometrical flowers. Within the flowers are three cruciform shapes. Some maintain that these are a frontal view of three riders on horseback whilst others say that they represent the three corsses at Christ's crucifixion and date back to Nestorian Christian carpet designs.

The three cruciform shapes

Yomuts living by the Caspian Sea incorporated symbols of ships made up of anchors into their carpets and often used the spiked leaves of the comb tree in their patterns. Whilst in the port settlement Krasnavodsk, anchors and also storm motifs dominated the designs.

A Yomut design incorporating anchor motifs and a comb flower border

Carpet makers were always women, and carpet weaving was an integral part of domesticnomadic life. Bright, durable carpets were needed to cover the yurt floor; for the creation of hanging storage bags for clothes, bowls and other household items, a yurt door hanging to keep out drafts, and camel decorations in preparation of an approaching wedding. Husbands and other male relatives would expect the finest saddle bags for their horses, to store vital provisions for their raiding parties and to hold the loot on their return. Vambery noted that the Turkoman would invariably clothe his horse far more lavishly than he would clothe himself. The more religious amongst them would also require a mat on which to kneel while praying the namaz.

As a result, a profusion of knotted products were produced by the hard working Turkoman women. Carpets could take months of hard labour to complete and invlolved extraordinary detail. Their value was partly measured by the number knots, with most carpets varying between 120 thousand to 340 thousand knots per square metre. A good carpet would also change colour depending on what angle it was looked at.

The number of knots determines the quality

During the 1920's, handwoven carpets became a symbol of prolateriat, and particularly female, oppression, and risked being stamped out in favour of vast carpet producing factories. However, in a move of sly political correctness, weavers created the first ever carpet portrait, and its subject? Lenin.
"The name of Lenin gives me power to come forward against the old feudal society where a woman was a thing for sale and purchase," declared one early portrait carpet maker. "In this rug I wished to express love for the leader."

Soon handwoven carpets were in demand as a representation of how traditional cultures could utilse their skills for the Soviet People. Marx and Castro are amongst those who've been given the 'red carpet treatment'; such carpets being hung on walls and certainly not for treading on.
Today portrait carpets are still popular, particularly of dead relatives, and can be seen on the walls in many a Khiva home. Khiva is now the only place in Khorezm which specialises in these carpets. Turkoman designs are also still being made today, although years of Soviet rule have led to a decline in quality of both the workship and the dyes used. Today's carpets do not have the fine knots and details which won the Turkoman carpets their fame. However, there are moves to re-introduce natural dyed and hand knotted carpets, including a successful Silk Carpet enterprise in Samarkand.