Style. Carpets are for men…

The carpet is a unique item of the interior. This is a meek pet. A winged lion. It can take one away on its wings. It can show its fangs and tear the weak interior to pieces by riveting all the attention to itself. It changes everything. Space, aura, mood. It changes everyone. Try walking on an antique carpet. You will not be able to do it. It demands genuflection. You stroke its nap - the fur of this strange animal. You admire its image. You feel its responding warmth, responding vibration. You fall through the grate of the ornament, pass through it. This is a whole world of the ancient. The world of lost truths and cosmic knowledge. What is in those spirals and crosses? For us these are shapes, primitive geometry. For the ancient people - this was the sun, the spirits of peace and force. They worshipped them, searched for protection from these signs. Surrounded themselves by them. Then, somewhere this suddenly stopped. Why?

Carpets are truly eternal. A hundred, two hundred years is not much for a carpet. Its colors just dull slightly, acquiring a noble color spectrum with time. The basis becomes more elastic, the nap - softer and thinner. The carpet becomes alive and warm. It absorbs the smells of fragrances, particles of dust storms. For me, the scent of the carpet is the odour of the East. Tart, dusty-wormwood.

Carpet weaving was born right at the heart of the East, in Persia. When? There are mere assumptions. The most antique sample was found in the Altai (Russia). Pazirikskiy Kurgan, 1949. The Kurgan which was ransacked earlier was covered in water that turned into ice. The valuables which reached our time got preserved in it. The mausoleum of the rich warrior. He took with him everything that surrounded him in this world to the other world. Saddles, weapons, clothes, horse, concubine, wife. And the carpet. Dated V century BC. Wool. A symmetrical double knot. Now it is called "Turkish". 3600 knots on a square decimeter. It is quite a high density even for modern carpets. A stylized image of lotuses. Horsemen, griffins, deer. A classical, symmetrical composition, bordures, medallions. Yellow, bright-blue, red. One wants to write: "A classic". Yes, everything is as old as the world.

Carpets were always luxury items. What is this caused by? By the labor-intensiveness of production. A large carpet is made in years and by an entire co-operative of craftsmen, usually a family. Wool of sheep, goats, camels, llamas is used. Or silk. Silk, in the course of its entire history, remains an expensive cloth - unique and matchless. The silk carpet is one of the most expensive. To possess an antique silk carpet means to have a fortune. The technology of manufacturing carpets has not changed since it appeared. The stucture of the lathe changed insignificantly. The vertical came to replace the horizontal. Not everywhere though. However the process of coloring the cloth and its components reached our time remaining unchanged. Here, of course, the matter does not concern the beginning of production of carpets in an industrial, mechanized method in the middle of the 19^th century. Also, one should not recall the artificial, synthetic carpets here. For all the assuring statements, the artificial carpet cannot give even one hundredth of warmth and coziness of the wool or silk carpet.

The beginning of creation of a carpet starts with the search of sheep which possess high-quality wool. Not every type of sheep gives the wool suitable for carpet weaving. Various experts give diverse valuations of yarn. Some think that the best wool is from the Australian merino sheep, others - the Turkmen karakul breed, the rest think that the wool of the Angora goat is the best. After the shearing, a long preparation process of the raw stuff itself follows: washing, drying, combing out, bleaching, spinning and coloring. And each stage of this technology is important for the final result. The thread of the yarn should be thin, firm, should not untwine and crisp. Otherwise, the colors of the carpet's nap will not "play". The color of a good wool, particularly silk, carpet should vary depending on the orientation of the carpet to the source of light. This proves high quality of the yarn and color.

Natural dyestuffs are used for coloring , phytogenic in the main part. Indigofera tinctoria - indigo, the yellow sap of which is squeezed from leaves and, being oxidized in the air turns bright-blue. The noble oak gives black, tea gives dark-brown color. Yellow crocuses and pomegranates give bright-yellow colors. Henna - orange. Dyes get grinded by hand in mortars and often involve up to 20 components including metal salts - for fixing and durability of dyes on the wool. After this, the yarn is dried in the sun to achieve full completion of the oxidizing process and to fix the pigments in the structure of wool. The yarn should not stain the hands or run in water. Otherwise the pattern on the carpet will "fray" simply from the changing in humidity in the rooms.

The technique of tying knots is simple. It is invariable for a few thousand years already. The craftsman ties a knot and cuts off the thread with a special turned-in knife. The Indians have it in a falcate shape, the Persians - shape of an angle, and in the Caucasus this instrument has a wide blade with a cut at the edge. Thus, knot after knot, the pattern is created, fantastic flowers, medallions and cosmos appear.

Which carpets are better? No one can answer this question. Every region endows the carpets with its dyes and patters. Each nation and tribe introduces its perception of the world in the design. Time dictates its symbols and signs. Shirvan, Kashgar, Lahore, Kashmir, Peshawar. The poetics of names, oriental mysteries, colorful carpets. This does not let you go. The Englishmen say about carpet fanatics: "Carpet disease". I think this is the magic of the East.

Recently I encountered a quite interesting article in one of the "glossy" magazines of Moscow. The author awarded the palm of supremacy in the quality and design of carpets to… America. Not to the carpets of the Northern American Indians, but to the modern American carpets with modern American designs! Truly, ignorance, as well as bad taste has no limits…

Only strong people can surround themselves with strong things. Things which knew the world before our existence. The thing which will exist in the world after us. And carpets are among these things.