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This article by Laura Jocic has been drawn from an audio CD of an interview with the Project’s founder, Chris Alexander in 2003 made by Chris Wood from Australians Studying Abroad.

A Soviet drive in the 1970s to restore the old city centre resulted in the removal of most of the inhabitants and turned it into a ‘town preserve’, devoid of the hustle and bustle of daily life. Projects like the Khiva Carpet Development Project, housed in an old madrasa, or theological college, are bringing life back into the city centre.

The Carpet Development Project, supported by UNESCO, was established to provide training and employment for local people and is now a fair trade company. Its founder, Chris Alexander, works for the Swedish NGO, Operation Mercy, as project manager for a tourism management project in Khiva. He also became involved in developing craft programs that benefit of the local population and emphasises the importance of having these types of projects managed locally, rather than out of a central location, such as Tashkent. 

In setting up the project, an old madrasa was renovated, looms constructed and five weavers and one master weaver were employed. The project is run as a communal effort and headed by a committee, which includes the weavers. It only sells carpets made at the workshop, selling direct to the buyer and effectively cutting out the middleman. 

The distinctive aspect of the Khiva Carpet Development Project is that the designs are based on carpets depicted in Persian miniatures and paintings by European artists such as Lorenzo Lotto and Hans Holbein. The carpets that appeared in 15^th & 16^th century Western art originated from centres in Anatolia, such as Ushak and Bergama and were exported to Europe as luxury and exotic items for the wealthy, or presented as diplomatic gifts by visiting ambassadors and dignitaries. Their distinctive patterns of geometric medallions and repeating motifs, often with borders of abstracted kufic script, have thus become known as “Holbein” or “Lotto” carpets.

In contrast to the Anatolian carpets, those depicted in Persian miniatures are characterised by the free-flowing arabesque and central medallion designs mastered by Persian court weavers during the golden age of Persian carpet making in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. In addition, the project is also drawing inspiration from its local environment, translating designs from the magnificent carved wooden doors and tiles which decorate the buildings of the old city of Khiva.

The carpets are hand woven from silk dyed with natural dyes. The project has found it difficult to procure the ingredients for natural dyes, which have been imported from neighbouring Afghanistan. Chris Alexander describes a rather comical but also nerve wracking situation where he was questioned at the Uzbek – Afghan border about a rather suspicious looking white powdered dye he was carrying. However, on pronouncing he was a ‘man of honour’ he was allowed to pass with his cargo.

Before it can be woven, Chris Alexander describes how the silk needs to be de-gummed with ash from the wood of a local tree, saksaul, which grows in the desert. This strips the sericin from the silk, which is then washed in a soap solution and dyed. The silk is hung out to dry for three days and rewashed and dried again. Finally, it is beaten against a wall to get rid of any ‘excess’ silk.

The process of carpet making starts with the translation of designs to graph paper for the weavers to work from. The looms are prepared and sweets sometimes scattered in the hope that the work may progress ‘sweetly’. When the weaving process has been completed, the carpet is cut off the loom, an act the weavers call ‘circumcision’.  At this stage the carpet appears dirty, hard and ‘woolly’ and is washed with cream of tartar to bring out the shine and then with shampoo and conditioner. Finally it is clipped to give a uniform finish to the pile.

As the Khiva Carpet Development Project grows, Chris Alexander is looking to revive designs from Timurid era images of Central Asia which have not been woven for some 500 years. He would also like to develop an embroidery workshop for the production of suzani, the wall hangings and dowry cloths of Uzbekistan noted for their vibrancy of design and intricate needlework. These projects revive and extend the textile arts of a region famed for its textile heritage and which is still very much alive today.