A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road (7 page)

‘How many brothers have you got?’ I asked, as yet another appeared.

‘Can you guess how many people live in our house?’ was Zafar’s playful reply. ‘There are 24 of us!’

He numbered off each married son and corresponding wife and children. Each married brother had a separate room where he
and his wife and children would sleep. The younger brothers and sisters all bundled into one large room at night, sleeping on corpuches which were then stacked up on top of a chest during the day.

‘So what do you do if you and your wife want to, you know …’ I asked, not sure if this was too personal a subject. Zafar grinned, explaining that they just learned to stay up well after the children
were asleep and be quiet about it.

As we ate, Zafar’s rotund father joined us and was soon back-slapping me as he poured out shots of vodka. One presumption of mine had been that people in Muslim Uzbekistan wouldn’t drink. These, however, were post-Soviet Muslims; three men could happily dispatch two bottles of vodka and still go to work the next day. I hate vodka but felt obliged to at
least down the 50 grams that Zafar’s father had cajoled me into drinking. But before that, Zafar asked me to make a toast, his father roaring approval and adding more vodka to my drinking bowl.

After more plov and toasts (I toasted with tea, after Zafar told his father that I had an allergy to vodka) Zafar offered to show me their workshop. I was presented with plastic slippers and a torch
as we went out into the garden, detouring for a toilet-stop where I banged my head hard on the lintel to the pit latrine.

The workshop was simple and some of the apprentices were still there, working late into the evening. Zafar’s eldest brother was the
usta
or master who oversaw the workshop and was responsible for the main carpentry. The second brother drew out the arabesque designs needed
for each item, and the apprentices and younger brothers did the actual carving. They started on cutting-boards, which were easiest, and worked up to ornate boxes, Koran-stands and larger items of furniture. The patterns were transferred from paper to wood by making hundreds of pin-pricks along the contours and then pouring black powder through the holes onto the wood.

The brothers demonstrated
how different tools created different effects and offered to let me try. I declined, anxious not to destroy anything, but wanting to learn more, keen to explore other products that they could also sell to tourists. Had they considered collapsible coffee-tables that tourists could take home with them? Or carved plate mats, napkin rings, bookends, framed mirrors?

Zafar watched politely as
I scrawled down a design for interlocking coffee-table legs while enthusing about the possibility of carved wooden chess-sets. Helping artisans develop their products for a tourist market, and acting as a bridge between the two cultures, seemed a perfect blend of creativity and business – and a lot more appealing than spending my days writing up a guidebook. I left my table design with Zafar, suggesting
that he might like to experiment with it.

I asked him about the collapsible coffee-table the next time we met up, and he smiled awkwardly. I realised that there was no incentive to experiment with something new that might not sell when he already conducted a brisk trade in chopping boards and boxes. Instead I offered to sell some of his stuff in Tashkent next time I was there, as I knew
lots of foreigners who would appreciate his work.

An English lady in Tashkent bought several boxes and a cutting board and enquired whether Zafar produced anything else. Well, I explained, he was considering a range of collapsible carved coffee-tables, and was she interested in being his first customer? Back in Khiva, I handed Zafar his money and the few items I hadn’t sold, and told him
that there was an order for a coffee-table and drew out what it should look like. I’d discussed a price with Liz, the English lady, and it was a lot more than Zafar made on boxes and book-stands. Soon the coffee-table was completed and orders came in for more, as Liz’s friends all wanted one. Next came ornate shelves with pegs, mirrors and telephone-stands. Zafar’s brothers were kept busy and now
had a lucrative sideline for the winter months when few tourists visited Khiva.

Lukas noted my new ‘hobby’, which he approved of as long as it didn’t interfere with writing the guidebook. We had originally hoped to finish the book within six months, but it seemed to expand continually as we discovered more information that could be included.

* * *

My language improved, with plenty
of practice answering the same stock questions, whether in a shared taxi, at the barbers or in the bazaar. Where was I from? How old was I? How much did I earn? What was I doing in Khiva? Where was my wife? Why wasn’t I married? At this point, if the questioner was young and male, there was more probing. Was I circumcised? Did I prefer Manchester United or Newcastle? Did I like Uzbek ‘bad girls’,
and which was my favourite brothel? Inevitably all questions returned to the subject of money. How much was a teacher paid in England? What was the price of a loaf of bread, a kilo of meat, a car? Was life better there or here?

At first I answered this last question as diplomatically as possible, explaining that some things were better in England, such as higher wages and less corruption,
while other things were better in Uzbekistan, such as the importance of family and hospitality. Later, tired of an oppressive government and unremitting propaganda, I simply explained that life was much better in England as no one had to pay a bribe for a job, or worry about arrest for what they believed. This naturally led to questions regarding the best way to get into the UK and what work opportunities
there were for Uzbeks.

* * *

I became friends with Rustam and Mukkadas, the pastor of the Urgench church and his wife. At this stage they were still happy to let foreign Christians worship with them, although later on, as the government became more anti-religious, they requested that we stop attending their meetings for fear of reprisals. I visited them in their tiny little house with
Catriona and we would enjoy language practice, hospitality and friendship.

We learnt about the challenges they faced from all sides, as Uzbek Christians. Their friends and relatives ostracised them for abandoning Islam, while Russian Christians couldn’t understand why they wanted to read the Bible and conduct liturgy in Uzbek. On top of this the government continually harassed them, accusing
them not only of abandoning Islam but also, paradoxically, of being Islamic militants.

I visited the Korean church in Urgench one Sunday, which met in a run-down shack with marker-penned stained-glass windows and a rickety old piano. Koreans with names like Boris or Svetlana arrived in jeans and mini-skirts and the whole service was in Russian. I enjoyed it, despite understanding nothing,
but could see why Uzbeks wanted something that fitted more with their own culture.

The Koreans of Central Asia had been deported en masse from eastern Siberia and North Korea in the 1940s by Stalin. They arrived with nothing but gradually worked themselves out of poverty, adopting Russian language and culture to the extent that the current generation spoke no more than a few words of Korean.
They had retained their cuisine, though, and every bazaar had a section where Koreans sold spicy
kimchi
salads and dog fat – a popular medicine for flu.

Life became difficult for all religious communities, including the Koreans, when bomb blasts in February 1999 were blamed on wahabis or Islamists, resulting in a government purge and a crackdown on mosques around the country. No one was
sure if these attacks were genuinely the work of fundamentalists or whether they were staged by the secret police to justify a wave of crackdowns.

Rustam and Mukkadas were patient with our halting Uzbek and gracious about our linguistical blunders, of which there were many. Perhaps the most colourful was when Catriona attempted to describe what church was like in Scotland and how men and
women weren’t separated but all sat together, singing and sometimes clapping. Rustam looked horrified and it took us a while to establish that Catriona had mistakenly used the word for toilet instead of church.

My problem was with similar-sounding words, and I often asked for chopped-up train to sprinkle over my chips, or made enquiries about the onion going to Tashkent at the train station.
I also caused a few raised eyebrows at checkpoints as I offered to show policemen my potato – a mere vowel away from ‘document’.

It was through Rustam and Mukkadas that I met Bakhtior, who became one of my closest friends. Short, dark and muscular, Bakhtior was a wrestler. He had an Afghan grandfather, which accounted for his colouring, and a murky past, having run a gang in his home town
that specialised in roadside hold-ups. He was well known by the police in his town but had then become a Christian through a university friend. He left his life of crime and was promptly arrested as a suspected Islamic fundamentalist. He told the authorities that he had, in fact, become a Christian, which seemed a good enough reason to continue harassing him.

* * *

I began to feel
at home in Khiva, and particularly at home living with Koranbeg and his family. I’d acquired a kilim for the floor in my room and had taken down the garish curtains. The myriad of potential houses for rent, once promised by Koranbeg, had failed to materialise and instead he and the family encouraged me to stay on. However, I found a house for rent in the walled city and decided to visit it. It was
simple but liveable, but as I wandered through the empty rooms, I realised suddenly how much I’d appreciated living with a local family, and how lonely I’d feel if I moved out.

I sat down with Koranbeg later that day and broached the subject of my future accommodation. He urged me to stay with them, to which I agreed as long as I could pay rent. So far, he had refused all payment, saying
that I was a guest and that it was an honour to host me. I told him that it would bring me much shame if I was not to contribute towards the family expenses as he had taken me in as part of his family. Mollified, he reluctantly agreed to this proposal.

My home by the harem was now permanent, and I was feeling a lot more settled. The next challenge was to survive my first summer in the scorching
desert heat.

3

The madrassah

The people of Khiva, as all the Soviet people, take an active part in socialist up-building, indulge in socialist emulation aimed at fulfilling and over-fulfilling state plans, at raising labour efficiency and quality … Its true masters – the working class – begin their working day to the beat of the Kremlin chimes.

—N. Gatchunaev,
Khiva Soviet Guidebook
, 1981

‘It’s a dry heat, a dry heat.’

I kept repeating this mantra, but as the thermometer crept above 40°C and continued, I accepted that dry or humid, the weather was unbearably hot. We had no air-conditioning in the office so I would douse my T-shirt in water and put it on wet, the table-fan by the computer on full blast.

The walled city was even worse – the huge mud-brick
walls retaining the heat – and my bedroom was impossible to sleep in. I dragged my mattress up to the roof, joining the boys under the stars and enjoying the occasional night breeze. Getting up early felt unnatural but this was the only time when I had any energy. The summer days were long and the sun set around eight at night. I would return from the office, the slanted rays turning the Ichan Kala
walls bronze. Girls spattered water from buckets around their house to settle the dust and take the edge off the heat. Grannies sat in the shade of a tree gossiping, and as the evening wore on, families dragged their televisions outside ready for the evening meal.

Despite the heat, Zulhamar was mortified that I showered with cold water and was convinced of my imminent sickness. I assured
her that English people were immune to the evils of cold water, and sure enough I remained alive and well. Cold water, breezes or ice-cream were all perilous and the sources of colds and other ailments. Koranbeg’s mother would bundle up in cardigans drinking hot cups of tea to protect her health, while I simmered in just a T-shirt. Soon, showers, both hot and cold, ceased as we experienced a drought.

Koranbeg had a water pump outside but one of the neighbours broke it, so I bought a plastic canister and located the well closest to our house. There were gasps from neighbourhood girls that a man should attempt to draw water and they were quick to offer their services. I waved away their offers and they watched in amusement as the bucket clattered against the sides of the well, emerging
quarter-full. Ears reddening, I tried to master the art, eventually tottering off with a full canister which I placed on my balcony. It warmed up during the day, and that evening – the high walls of my balcony screening me from prying eyes – I enjoyed a warm outdoor shower.

* * *

Life took on a steady rhythm. I spent the evenings with my Uzbek family or visiting friends, at weekends
hanging out at the souvenir stalls with Zafar and the other sellers. We would try to guess the nationalities of tourist groups, and I was privy to any disparaging remarks about them in Uzbek. I discovered that Zafar had never visited the Friday mosque a mere 50 metres away. Worse, there were even two carved wooden pillars inside made by his brothers during the building’s restoration which he had
never bothered to go and see.

At the end of September, Catriona made a cake to celebrate our first year in Uzbekistan, and soon after that Lukas and Jeanette left suddenly due to ill health. I continued to work on the guidebook but was more drawn to my sideline in wood-carving. I was also interested in kilims – hand-woven flat-weave floor coverings, popular in the villages where people couldn’t
afford factory-made carpets. If the quality, size and designs could be improved, I was convinced there was a market for them.

That Christmas I returned to the UK and took a kilim with me, hoping to find someone interested in ordering more. In true Central Asian style, a friend of my cousin knew someone and we met up and discussed a partnership. He was importing dried fruit from Uzbekistan
and was happy for us to add some kilims to his containers of apricots and sun-dried tomatoes.

The kilim designs of Khorezm were too busy for a UK market, so, back in Khiva, I drew up some simpler designs in fewer colours and took them to Miriam,
who ran a kilim workshop in a nearby village. Despite muttering at the difficulty and ugliness of each design, Miriam soon had her looms in action
with pleasing results. I paid her a premium rate, on time, and insisted on good quality. The kilims arrived successfully in the UK and sold well, and we decided to double our order for the following year.

During the second year of exporting kilims (this was by now my third year in Khiva), I visited Miriam’s workshop to see how our order was progressing, and she assured me that she had her
women working on them fourteen hours a day. This reality, along with the dingy lighting, didn’t fit with the ‘fair trade’ ideals I had rather naively held. If I wanted to provide better working conditions I would need to establish my own workshop, although this seemed highly unlikely at the time.

Meanwhile, Andrea, our German physiotherapist, had established a successful community-based
rehabilitation project which had attracted the attention of UNESCO. They asked her to speak at a conference about inclusive education and afterwards she chatted with Barry Lane, the Uzbekistan director of UNESCO. One casual mention of the kilim project and his eyes lit up. They wanted to set up a school for natural dye-making and carpet-weaving in Khiva but hadn’t found anyone to implement the project.
Would I be interested, he wanted to know, and when could he come up to Khiva and meet me?

Barry called me and explained more about the proposed school of carpet-weaving. A similar workshop had just been set up in Bukhara, about 250 miles away, and an American carpet specialist was providing training. The Mayor of Khiva had already agreed to provide a madrassah for our use and UNESCO had
funding for start-up costs. My dream project had effortlessly fallen into my lap, and I assured Barry that I was looking forward to working with him.

Barry visited the following week with Komiljan, his Uzbek translator and assistant. Barry was in his fifties with a neatly clipped white beard and equally clipped speech. It was clear from the start that he was accustomed to giving orders and
having them carried out without question. Our main task was to decide which madrassah would make the best workshop.

‘The Mayor offered me any madrassah I want,’ Barry explained, ‘but I don’t want other people chucked out, so we’ll just be looking at ones that aren’t in use right now.’

The Mayor of Khiva, it transpired, owed Barry a few favours and agreed to provide us a madrassah rent-free
on the condition that we pay for its renovation. We had an hour or so before the Mayor’s arrival and I offered to show Barry some of the modern carpet workshops dotted around Khiva. He blanched at the proposal, well aware of the poor quality, lurid colours and synthetic fibres being used. The whole concept of hand-made carpets had not sat well with Soviet ideology, as the labour-intensive
process required someone poor enough to produce them and someone rich enough to buy them. Instead, the bulk of carpets were made in factories, and most Khivans still preferred a standardised factory carpet over a hand-made kilim for their floors.

The Mayor arrived – sober and obviously keen to impress. We were ushered to the door with promises of wonderful madrassahs, whichever one we might
fancy. The first madrassah on show was the Kutluq Mohammed Inaq madrassah, and I had noticed during my guidebook research the significant cracks in the turrets on either side, and the odd angles at which they jutted out. I was sure the Mayor hoped Barry would choose this madrassah and save the local government a small fortune in restoration. The brickwork on this one was beautiful, and as one
of the larger madrassahs it contained two storeys of student cells. We passed between the carved wooden gates into a corridor with doors to the right and left and archways leading to the main courtyard. An enormous old woman with a rolling gait and a perpetual grimace was there nominally to collect tickets, swathed angrily in headscarves, skirts and vast baggy pants. She had not been informed of our
visit.

Barry investigated the room to our right, pushing open the small, carved wooden door, and quickly retreated, retching, at the stench. The Mayor, alarmed, peered into the gloom where curled dollops littered the floor of what had become a makeshift toilet. I stared at the old woman I knew to be the perpetrator, having once interrupted her mid-squat.

‘My God! This is a madrassah
and they let old grannies shit all over it!’ Barry muttered. Komiljan did not translate.

Handkerchief to his mouth, Barry led us inside. It was a magnificent room with an enormously high ceiling that had once been a winter mosque for the students living here. The plaster was crumbling and extensive building work was needed, but this didn’t detract from its overall grandeur.

‘This would
make a good show room, wouldn’t it?’ I ventured. ‘We could hang all the carpets up on the walls and install some spotlights.’

‘We’d have to get rid of this appalling stench first,’ Barry observed from behind his handkerchief.

The opposite room was slightly smaller and smelt a good deal better, and we warmed to the place. Out in the courtyard we poked our heads down some stairs leading
to a cool, spacious cistern, and then looked into some of the empty cells around the courtyard.

‘They’re not that big, but I think we could probably fit at least two looms into each one,’ said Barry. ‘Let’s have a look at the corner cells – they’re generally a lot larger.’

He went over to a corner cell and opened the door part-way – enough to see a dirty mattress on which a girl hid
her face as a naked young man attempted to wrest the door shut.

‘Good God!’ Barry was visibly shaken. ‘That old witch has turned this place into a brothel! This is a madrassah, for God’s sake! A historic site, a holy site, and she shits all over it and rents out rooms by the hour!’

Komiljan, keen to avoid a scene with the Mayor who was pottering in one of the other cells, blissfully
unaware, hurried us out to view our next site.

We turned past the Islom Hoja minaret towards the Pakhlavan Mahmud mausoleum – Khiva’s holiest site. Pakhlavan Mahmud, known by Khivans as Palvan Pir, the Strongman Saint, was buried here. He was a curious combination of poet, hat-maker and wrestler, said to be the strongest man in Central Asia. Today he was the patron saint of barren women,
who would come from afar and weep at his tomb, cupping their hands in prayer and making offerings of diamond-shaped fried dough called
borsok
.

The Mayor stopped outside the mausoleum and presented us with the madrassah opposite it. This was the oldest madrassah in Khiva and had been built by slaves including a remnant from the first unsuccessful army of invading Russians. Today, the Shir
Gazi Khan madrassah was famous among Khivans not for its history but for its bottled conjoined twins. The madrassah had been converted into a museum of medical studies during Soviet times, although it was the freak-show value that attracted the punters. All that was left of this display was a glass container in which the pickled twins lay, joined at the hip. The rest of the museum was now incongruously
devoted to the republic of Karakalpakstan, leaving just the courtyard empty and free for us to use. Giving it no more than a cursory glance, Barry felt it would be unsuitable to share a workspace with an existing museum. What we really needed was a whole building to ourselves.

The Mayor led us away from the Pakhlavan mausoleum, up some stairs and past a few small wood-carving workshops and
an orchard. We stopped outside a simple madrassah portal studded in green Zoroastrian butterfly tiles. This was the perfect location for a workshop, as all the tourist groups walked along this street and we wouldn’t have to lure the guides away from their established routes. One of the Mayor’s entourage unlocked the madrassah door for us and led us inside. This courtyard was small compared with
the others, but I liked the size. I tried to imagine it without the flotsam of rubbish strewn all over the place, picking my way between dusty broken bottles and boxes, wondering why a battered motorbike side-car had been left there. Ten cells radiated from the courtyard and we peered into each one. Most of them had thick wooden beams supporting a sleeping niche above. Barry was concerned that this
might pose a problem for the looms.

‘If we’re going to have the looms purpose-made, I can make sure that they’re not too tall for these cells,’ I offered.

In one corner was a small cell that I thought would make an ideal office; and in another, a spacious room that had obviously been the winter mosque. Flanking it were two dim little rooms that would provide useful storage space. A
larger room to the left of the entrance way was nearest the gas pipes, making it an obvious choice as the dyers’ workshop. In the centre of the courtyard was a drain, but there was no well.

‘You’ll have to arrange for a water pump to be drilled in the courtyard,’ Barry declared. ‘We’ll also need electricity and electric sockets in each room. I want there to be adequate light for the weavers,
and we’ll need the gas pipe so that we can heat the rooms.’

We both knew, without anything said, that we had found our workshop.

Outside, I stood back to take in the madrassah. It was dwarfed by the huge green bricked dome of the Pakhlavan Mahmud mausoleum and the towering minaret of Islom Hoja behind it. The madrassah – our madrassah now – was named after Jacob Bai Hoja (whoever he
was) and built in 1873, the year Khiva was successfully invaded by the Tsar.

It was perfect.