BISHKEK, April 25, 2008 – When one imagines the vast steppes of Central Asia Felt, yurts and felt carpets come quickly to mind.

It is from sheets of plain white felt that yurts are built, and it is with colorfully patterned felt that they are decorated inside. The result is a warm and cheerful shelter that served Central Asia’s nomads well for thousands of years.

So, it can be a little disappointing for felt enthusiasts to arrive in modern Bishkek and hardly find a yurt, or even a felt, in sight.

In Kyrgyzstan’s capital city -- population about one million -- yurts today are only set up in the garden of someone’s home when a family member dies. The lady of the house faces the tent wall and the mourners come to sit behind her and sing a dirge. She finally turns to face them when they come to touch her shoulders and comfort her.

Even in the marketplaces it is hard to find felt. The carpets for sale are machine-made ones of the kind available anywhere in the world.

Janyl Chytyrbaeva, a Kyrgyz journalist, explains why. “Everyone wants a house like you see on TV,” she says. The machine-made carpets are given as gifts at weddings and funerals and most people’s apartments and houses are covered with them.

Does this mean that felt has disappeared from Kyrgyz life? No. But like so many traditional handicrafts elsewhere, it is endangered and its only protectors are poor people and artists.

Chytyrbaeva, who is herself a great admirer of felt, says the only place to find it in use in Bishkek is where the poorest migrants from the countryside have settled on the outskirts of the city. There, they cover the floors with plain felt mats or with patterned Shyrdaks (Shirdaks, Shurdoks), which are carpets made by sewing together felt of different colors.

Both kinds of felt carpet make warm flooring in a country where the winters are bitterly cold. For additional warmth, laborers’ families will also put sheepskins here and there on top of the felt. Sometimes, the sheepskins are themselves made as kind of shyrdaks by stitching together variously dyed pieces.

Still, if these furnishings seem humble, the ancient felt-working tradition of Kyrgyzstan itself is rich. Skilled felt-makers can produce pieces of effortless sophistication and great art just as readily as ordinary villagers make plain felt floor mats.

Highly complicated Shyrdaks are created by cutting the same design into several sheets of brightly colored felt and then switching and refitting the pieces together like jig-saw puzzles.

The flowing and harmonious patterns, filled with symbolism, complement the unstructured texture of the felt. With additional techniques, including appliqué, more detailed designs become possible.

Kyrgyz felts are gradually gaining a place in the Western market, yet they still remain little known compared to the other great textiles of Central Asia: the red pile rugs of Turkmenistan or the Suzanni embroideries of Uzbekistan.

A handful of rug importers are scouring the Kyrgyz countryside for artisans but many more Western businesses seem content with just importing Kyrgyz-made felt slippers and hats or, more recently, stuffed toy animals.

That seems modest for a nomadic culture that in many ways was unique. The Kyrgyz, who live in a mountainous country, migrated up and down their slopes with the seasons while most of their steppe neighbors wandered widely across the plains.

Today, they can date their presence in the mountains to thousands of years ago and have many traditions all their own. That includes the design of the national flag. It is the only one in the world that has at its center a stylized representation of the roof of a traditional yurt.

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Related Links

FeltRugs Company, Britain
http://www.feltrugs.co.uk/

Shirdak Silkroad Textile Company, Netherlands
http://www.shirdak.nl/

Kyrgyzstyle Company, Kyrgyzstan
http://www.kyrgyzstyle.kg/production/shirdaks/index.htm

Photos of Kyrgyzstan: Jonathan Barth
http://www.barthphoto.com/Kyrgyzstan.htm

YouTube: How Nomads Make Felt (Mongolia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0uojUHYdA

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