A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road

by Christopher Aslan Alexander

  Calling for me to join him, I rushed in to see CNN footage with Russian dubbing. The headlines read: ‘America under attack!’, with a shot of a plane hurtling into a skyscraper and bursting into a fireball. The scene cut to the newsroom in Moscow where an ice-queen presenter who rarely had a hair out of place had just dropped her earpiece and was looking flustered.

  I asked Koranbeg what was going on and he explained that no one knew for sure but that a large building for trade in New York had been hit by two planes. At first they thought it was an accident, but after the second plane crash it was clear that this had been planned. People were jumping off the buildings and many were trapped inside by the blaze. Just then, with a loud yelp from the Russian commentary, we watched as the buildings disintegrated, spewing huge clouds of dust everywhere. We both sat stunned, wondering if a third world war had just been unleashed.

  More reports came in about other planes: one had hit the Pentagon and another was thought to have been aimed at the White House. I asked Koranbeg to check the other channels in case there was more news. The other Russian channel was showing a film and the two Uzbek channels were showing nothing but cotton harvest propaganda. It was harvest-time and Uzbekistan’s largest export was being hand-picked by happy workers, who briefly stopped to assure journalists that this year was a bumper crop and that they were sure to fulfil their quota. Serious-looking factory bosses stood in front of large machines vomiting what looked like stuffing onto huge mountains of raw cotton.

  I’d become inured to state devotion to the cotton plant. ‘Cotton-picker’ was the name of the main metro station in Tashkent, the national emblem was emblazoned with cotton, and all over the capital a three-bolled cotton head appeared on the sides of buildings, on walls and even on most teapots and drinking bowls. Still, the dramatic events unfolding in New York might have seemed worthy of briefly interrupting the cotton news. Instead the event was ignored by the Uzbek media, until a week or so later it became clear that Islamic fundamentalists based in Afghanistan had been responsible. At this point, the Uzbek government realised the propaganda value of 9/11.

  After heavy criticism by Western human rights groups for the arrest, torture or killing of suspected radical Muslims, the government could now claim that they were simply doing their bit for the ‘war on terror’. Footage of happy cotton workers was replaced with endless replays of the planes smashing into the Twin Towers, followed by sermons expounding the evils of radical Islam and the need for its eradication.

  Further good news for the government came later that year as America invaded Afghanistan. While the moderate opposition groups in Uzbekistan had been largely exiled, imprisoned or assassinated, the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan had conducted a violent guerrilla campaign to overthrow the Karimov regime. Their main training centres were in northern Afghanistan and they were thought to receive funding from Al Qaeda, making them targets for an American army seeking revenge.

  A flurry of anxious emails from home arrived, enquiring when I’d be leaving Uzbekistan. This seemed an odd suggestion, as not a lot had changed in Khiva. However, most people in the UK watched footage of angry crowds of flag-burning, effigy-stamping, bearded fanatics chanting outside the homes of Westerners in places like Pakistan and assumed it must be the same for me. In reality, most Muslims in Uzbekistan had far fewer rights and freedoms than in the UK, and anyone remotely radical had either been arrested or had disappeared to northern Afghanistan. Young men were detained for merely sporting a beard, such was the persecution of anyone suspected of radical intentions. Anyway, most people in Khiva were far more interested in what was happening in the Brazilian soap opera than the war raging just a border away.

  Hysterical American parents of Peace Corps volunteers demanded an immediate evacuation of their children from Uzbekistan, with little regard for any actual danger. The Peace Corps capitulated, despite protests from most of the volunteers that this was an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction. Each volunteer was given 24 hours to get to Tashkent. They could take one small item of hand-luggage with them – their other bags being sent on later. Andrea and I helped a heartbroken Peace Corps couple wind down their affairs. They loved Khiva and didn’t want to leave. Soon we were once more the only foreigners in Khiva.

  The Taliban were defeated and the rebuilding of Afghanistan began. It was at this point, in March 2002, that the ripple hit our workshop: Jim, our trainer, decided to pursue far more lucrative UNESCO contracts in Afghanistan. Barry was livid but powerless, and unsure whether anyone else could take Jim’s place. This left a big question mark over who would train us. Barry was looking into alternatives but wasn’t feeling too positive.

  I made regular visits to the madrassah, overseeing its restoration and pretending I knew what I was doing. I’d commissioned Zafar the wood-carver to build four wooden looms and another wood-carving friend, Erkin, to work on drying racks, storage shelves and a skein-winder. Zulhamar, my Uzbek mum, helpfully located a mammoth double loom that stood idle in a nearby factory. Once repainted it took pride of place in the winter mosque room, which was the only place large enough for it.

  My biggest headache was locating copper cauldrons needed for the natural dyeing. The coppersmiths at the bazaar would beam at my request and rummage through their piles of dismembered samovars, teapots and water-pipes. I obtained a battered old cauldron that needed patching, and a magnificent piece with inscriptions around the rim and large handle-rings. It took a trip to coppersmiths near the Chorsu bazaar in Tashkent to locate two more, as well as madder root and oak gall – both needed for making red.

  The list of items still needed wasn’t getting any shorter, and I decided to employ Madrim two months before our training began, to locate industrial thermometers, a magnifying-glass, weights, scales and more. We needed several large earthenware pots for fermentation dyeing, which proved problematic as most potters weren’t used to making anything quite so large. The buying of silk, heaters and walnut husks had been left to the workshop in Bukhara, as they were also making their own purchases of these, and we arranged to come down and pick them up.

  * * *

  The trip there, tightly wedged in a crowded van driven as if the road contained no pot-holes, was relatively uneventful. We stopped in a tiny oasis made up of a few trees, a vegetable patch and a small tea-house. This one was home to an aggressive colony of ducks who quacked incongruously in the middle of the desert. They gathered expectantly around our plastic table on the veranda and were soon wolfing down pieces of bread and taking cannibalistic delight at the scraps of fried egg I threw their way.

  Further on we drove through the petrol oasis. I wasn’t sure of its real name, but at this fork in the road there were some scraggy trees and some cobbled-together dwellings. Young boys in ragged clothes hawked petrol freshly smuggled from Turkmenistan. Petrol-filled Fanta bottles balanced on bricks beside the road – like offerings to the god of urine samples – indicated that petrol was for sale.

  The journey to Bukhara always felt long and tiring, and my first thought on arrival was to head for the homom. There was one for men and a separate one for women in another part of Bukhara’s old city which I’d seen once from the outside a year earlier when my sisters had visited Uzbekistan. Both were keen for a good scrub, but I had been shooed away near the door, leaving them to fend for themselves. Sheona was self-conscious about entering the homom naked, and had opted for a towel, but this – she told me afterwards – was whisked away by a sturdy matron who ushered her, squealing, into the washing area. Well scrubbed, Helen was first to receive a massage. She described it as a painful series of pinches from a large, middle-aged woman who placed the sole of Helen’s foot squarely between her drooping bosoms and began pummelling her legs. Helen watched, dismayed, as the tan she had surreptitiously acquired on my secluded balcony sloughed off.

  The men’s homom, on the other hand, was familiar territory. We stripped off and opened the heavy
wooden door, blasted by thick, humid air. Inside the dimly lit chamber, men sat on stone slabs shaving, steaming or dousing themselves with pans of water. Old bearded men gossiped on the marble slabs, their leathered faces abruptly whitening where their turban tan-line began. Young men scrubbed each other’s backs while a flabby middle-aged Bukharan was contorted into some surprising positions on a central slab by a masseuse, the scent of balm hanging heavily in the steamy air. There was a cooler chamber for general chatter, and next to this an antechamber where men shaved their armpits and pubic hair in a timeless alternative to deodorant. Some men were naked, others wore a wrap-around sheet of cotton. There was no fashion, no indicator of what century we might be in, just hot stone slabs, the murmur of conversation, the sound of sluicing water and bowls of spiced tea.

  Emerging a few hours later refreshed and invigorated, we made for the Bukhara carpet workshop. I knew the area fairly well and had been told that the Eshani Pir madrassah was past the synagogue in the warren of alleyways that make up the old town. We wandered down an alley between a surprisingly well-stocked Soviet-style grocers and an internet café for tourists, then past the synagogue. Glancing through the large gates, I noticed a few old men sitting around inside. Until a few years ago there had been a thriving Jewish community in Bukhara that had existed there for centuries. Although as non-Muslims they were heavily taxed and forbidden to ride horses, wear belts or marry non-Jews, they had flourished. Now the lure of Tel Aviv and New York proved too great and the only Jews left were the elderly, living comfortably on remittances sent back by children and grandchildren. There were also the challa – Jews and their descendants who had converted to Islam and were rejected by the Jewish community yet never truly accepted by the Muslims.

  We were welcomed by Fatoulah, the chief dyer of the workshop, a short, plump, wide-hipped man in his late forties with an ingratiating manner. He was keen to make a good first impression, as Barry had decided that our only option in Jim’s absence was for two of his Bukharan progeny to come to Khiva and train us. One trainer would be Fatoulah, the other Ulugbeg, a cocky young Tajik with a bulbous nose who was to provide the weaving tuition.

  We were given a tour of the workshop and examined some of the photos of miniatures that Jim had provided, intricate carpet designs visible in each picture. Fatoulah had purchased the items on our list and had saved bribe money at the silk factory by ordering for both workshops simultaneously. He’d also found a large brass pestle and mortar which we would need for pounding the dyes. We made arrangements for the training sessions, which would take place over six weeks, and set off back to Khiva.

  There were at least three police checkpoints on the desert road, and I’d learnt how to negotiate them. I’d written an official letter on Operation Mercy stationery, explaining our purpose of travel and stamped and signed by my director. If this didn’t dissuade a bribe-hungry policeman, then my first course of action was to feign linguistic incompetence.

  ‘Problem,’ an officer would declare, pointing at my passport gravely.

  ‘Problem? No problem,’ I would reply, smiling innocently. ‘Everything good. Thank you, now I going.’

  The officer would size me up, weighing the time it would take to inform me of my supposed offence – assuming that I understood the rules of bribery and knew that I should be the one to offer a ‘gift’ (prevented from leaving until I had done so). This was usually considered too much like hard work. My passport was tossed back through the window and we could continue.

  This was a far better course of action than getting lippy – which had once cost me a complete search of all my belongings, emptied onto a table in the roadside booth. I had only avoided a strip-search by abject apology and calls for international friendship and understanding. Policemen wanting to put me in my place would often reprimand me for wearing a seatbelt.

  This was a reckless danger for, if we crashed, how would I easily free myself?

  Whether it was checkpoints, metro stops or even the bazaar, the important thing when accosted by police was to avoid their booths, where the mitigating influence of a crowd was absent. I’d once been caught urinating beside a rubbish-tip in the Osh bazaar in southern Kyrgyzstan. The police, ignoring the local urinators who always used this spot, considered me a prime opportunity and were keen to take me to their booth and extract as much money as possible.

  I protested loudly, expressing my shock that, as a guest, no one had told me where the toilets were, and what were guests in this country supposed to do when they needed to ‘rest’? Was this the hospitality I should expect, to resort to urinating in dirty places and then to be fined for it? A crowd formed, and with the nation’s hospitality called into question, I was escorted to the public toilets – not much better than the rubbish-tip – and allowed to go.

  * * *

  Back in Khiva, Madrim oversaw the final stages of madrassah restoration while I set about identifying apprentices. I had given a lot of thought to the subject of employment, wanting to get it right. We would make dyeing a job for the men, as it required heavy lifting and we wanted to give men employment as well as women. More challenging was how to create a workshop that ran on ethical principles. I knew that Uzbek businesses survived only by greasing the right palms. So much money was lost in bribes that employees were often not paid on time, if at all. I wanted our workshop to be seen as a school or a charity, and I wanted to find apprentices seen by the community as needy.

  I met the official responsible for government pensions and explained that I wanted to identify widows, orphans and disabled people who would be capable of learning carpet-weaving and dyeing. I was given a long list which he then went through, crossing off the names immediately of those he considered incompetent, dishonest or too remote. This whittled it down considerably. There were no phone numbers – most of them didn’t have phones – so I would have to track them down.

  The first house I visited was home to a girl paralysed from the waist down. She was, apparently, already a carpet-weaver. Her father welcomed me in and we sat down on dirty corpuches as I ate the obligatory mouthful of bread. Bread was sacred: never thrown away, dropped or placed patterned-side down. It was also a symbol of friendship and always broken, never cut, and offered to all guests irrespective of how long they visited for. Even if I called at the door of a neighbour to let them know that someone had called them on our phone, they would appear with a round of bread and expect me to break off a chunk before running to take their call. This particular bread was crawling with flies and far from appetising and the home looked poor and barely held together.

  With a brittle smile I explained the purpose of my visit; but instead of enthusiasm, the girl’s father seemed unhappy to allow his disabled daughter to work. Who would bring her to and from work? Who would take her to the toilet? Who would be willing to sit in the same room as her?

  At this point another daughter, bringing tea, spoke out.

  ‘Father, I could take my sister to work each day. Perhaps there is also work for me. You know that I can weave well.’ She looked up, smiled quickly and hurried back to the kitchen.

  Her father paused for a moment and then made up his mind.

  ‘Just take my first daughter. She’s strong and healthy and it will be good for her to leave the house.’

  Her name was Umida, which means hope. It was only months later that I heard her story from one of the other weavers. She’d been married but her father-in-law kept trying to rape her. No one else in her husband’s household was willing to help her, so she had run away. As a divorced woman her only chance of remarrying was with another divorcee. Employment at the workshop gave her status and kept accusations of sponging off her family at bay.

  Next on my list was a disabled boy called Davlatnaza. He lived in the walled city, not far from the madrassah, in what I’d initially assumed was a shed for animals. The crumbling old house was dingy and dirty. His mother and
father were overjoyed that I might consider giving work to their disabled son. After all, he had recently married and should have more to offer his wife than a disability pension. His young wife silently emerged at this point, wearing a headscarf as required of all married women, and served us tea from a cracked old teapot. She was Russian and had just left the orphanage. Men with disabilities were unlikely to find wives, but orphanage girls – assumed not to be virgins – were available for anyone. I asked her if she too would like to join her husband in working for us. She nodded, unable to speak in the presence of her mother-in-law, and scuttled away.

  Sanajan was a widow in her late thirties with three children to care for, having lost her husband in a car accident years ago. She was already a weaver and would be happy to join us. Another house visit within the walled city yielded a young deaf boy who signed up for work as a dyer. His sister, Nazokat, was already a weaver and also signed up. In the old neighbourhood beside the Grandfather Gate, I eventually located Toychi. A dilapidated but beautiful iwan with a cracked wooden pillar led to a small hovel. Here, a formidable matriarch clutched me to her bosom at the news that I might give her poor son work; his father had died less than a year ago. Toychi, dark, playful and impudent, simply sat and smirked until chastened by a withering look from his mother.

  My list of workers grew. Needing more skilled women, I decided to hunt down some portrait carpet-weavers. There were sisters, I was told, who lived next to the pool outside the Grandfather Gate: they wove portrait-rugs. I could ask anyone, and they would provide me with directions.

  I approached a basic little house with music drifting from a room with three looms inside, and was welcomed by a thin, cheerful and slightly cross-eyed girl in her early twenties who grinned and introduced herself as Zamireh. She was very happy that day, she explained, as her mother would be arriving back from Russia. Zamireh ran a small carpet-making business and was responsible for her five sisters and a brother while her mother was away. She hadn’t seen her mother in almost a year. As one of the few remaining employment options, trading was becoming increasingly popular. The men – like Zamireh’s father – would go to Russia as manual labourers, and the women would trade.