Random thoughts at the end of the year...

This post does not have much content as I am still coping with my mother’s passing. I immerse myself in my work to keep my mind occupied; “7 to 7” is my often used phrase when I am asked about my schedule at work. This has detrimental effect, as I have noticed, on my other responsibilities, to say nothing of the effect on my health, and ironically on my memory—chunks of time are simply gone, I forget fast and...

To remedy the situation, I turn to writing; not that I purport to be any good at it, but when vocal therapy isn't an option for me, writing seems to work. That and music of course.

I am listening to Caruso performed by the late Pavarotti. Six years have passed by since he died, but it feels as if it happened so recently. The song I am listening to now is one of the few that reaches into my soul and plucks a nerve that causes me to shed tears...manly tears of course. As I write this post, perhaps last one for this year, the music keeps playing over and over in the background. It reminds me about the swiftness of the passage of time; how we stand dumbfounded at the realization that we didn't do what we wanted to do or didn't say what we wanted to say, back then when we had the chance. Now it's all too late and we are only left with memories.

I don't remember who instilled love of opera in me, but I think it happened when I came to this country sixteen years ago. Finding myself in nostalgia at some point, I began listening to "opera" of my grandfather's generation, the ever hated shashmaqom. Oh yes, as kids we used to despise taking afternoon naps because that meant inadvertently listening to an old lady singing about her own lost love through the loudspeakers of radio. The soul of shashmaqom is as old as the sands of time, even if the genre itself dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. Next to love songs, performers of shashmaqom sing about friendship, as there is a blurry line between friends and lovers. One of my favorite songs is adaptation of poem of Mirzo Tursunzoda; the rhythm of the words feels so natural to the genre.

То тавонӣ дӯстонро гум макун,              (Toe tavoni doustonro goom makun) 

Дӯстони меҳрубонро гум макун.            (Doustoni mehrubonro goom makun)

Дар ҷаҳон бе дӯст будан мушкил аст, (Dar jahon be doust budan mushkil ast)

Мушкилосонкункасонро гум макун.       (Mooshkilosonkoonkasonro goom makun)

Try best, of friends you have, to lose them not

The friends who are kind to you, lose them not

In this world it is hard to go by without friends

Those who ease your hardships, lose them not

I never fully learned to speak the language of my ancestors, and I am afraid my ambitions to catch up with my contemporaries are all in vain now. Today, I have lived more in this foreign country I now call home than in a country I was born. This is why I have never seen in Tajik language such a heavy word as mooshkilosonkoonkasonro. Perhaps, there are many such complex words, but I know them not. The word can be broken down into: mooshkil (hardship), oson (easy, to ease), koon (to do), kas (person), on (suffix denoting action, like English “er” in teacher), and ro (suffix denotaing plural form). I am certain I made translational inexactitudes, but that is beside the point. Exact meaning of the word mooshkilosonkoonkasonro is evident to any speaker of the Tajik language; one does not need to break it apart in order to grasp its exact message. Another thing I am certain about is that such individuals, as the word describes, are actually rare in our lives.

I have never had many friends. Those who can be trusted with your life’s secrets, its pains and joys, are few indeed. More difficult than making friends is the experience of losing them. Such instances shatter one’s well-being, in some cases permanently. Tears, instant form of free therapy, are not substitute for super glue.

Tajik language has many words for a friend, some of which are synonymous with lover: doost, oshno, rafiq, yor, jura, hamsafar, anis, urtoq, and many others. Some of these words came from different languages such as Arabic or Turkic languages. Beauty of Tajik language is in its ability to adapt to constant change; it takes only the best of what others have to offer, leaving aside negative aspects of foreign culture. Whereas others see differences between the language and its speakers, I see similarities. For me, it is not important who spoke the word first, ancestors of the Tajik people or those from whom they adopted a word. What matters for me is our ability to connect to others using something as common as a single word. The world is already full of negativity, there is too much hatred and disdain, why add to it? 

Recent events at the Independence Square of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, have been less than friendly, to say the least. Every news report one reads (or watches) is filled with such rhetoric as “heroes of Maidan this...” or “liberators at Maidan that...” Ukrainian maidan is synonymous to the Tajik maidon, both mean large public gathering space in the center of settlement (village, town, city). I won’t go into the history of this word (nor into the politics of Ukraine); suffice it to say, I find it amazing that both Tajiks and Ukrainians have at least one word in common between their languages. Instead, I want to use this opportunity to present readers of this blog with a short list of words, which always fascinated me by a mere commonality throughout so many languages. Let's start with the supposedly first word we utter when we are brought into this world: mother.

English is a Germanic language, thus “mother” comes from Mutter. Interestingly, the way Germans pronounce the word (moo-tAr) is not too different from the way Tajiks do: modar. You don’t have to be an expert to see the similarity with other languages: madre (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian), μητέρα (mitera, Greek), мать (mat’, Russian), мати (maty, Ukrainian), ਮਾਤਾ (mata, Punjabi), मां (mam, Hindi), etc.

Next to “mama” we have our “dada”. Tajik падар (padar) is English “father” or German Vater (fa-tEr), Spanish/Italian padre, Greek πατέρας (pateras), Ukrainian батько (bat’ko), Belorussian бацька (bats’ka), Hindi पिता (pita), and so on.    

Perhaps, that’s not enough to fascinate your minds, and it does not really stop there, not for me at least. Tajik word for “daughter” is духтар, which is pronounced dookh-tar. This is not far from German Tochter.  If you look closely, you can see the similarity with Armenian դուստր (dustr), Greek θυγατέρα (thygatera), Indonesian putri, Finish tytär, Czech dcera, or Ukrainian (dochka).

If for a moment you think I speak all these languages, well...I won’t stop you from doing that. I have learned about the importance of linguistics in the study of history early on. Next to my fascination of nomadic cultures of the Eurasian Steppe, my favorite past time is learning about the Indo-European language family. I only speak three languages and only one of them fluently, but to illustrate my point about linguistic connections of words “mother”, “father” and “daughter”, I had to use Google-translator. It’s a very useful tool. As an exercise, look up the word “brother”; in Tajik this word is pronounced ba-ro-dar (бародар).

The word “brother” connotes unity in any language, but it is not the only word to have such a meaning. English word "band" refers to "a strip of cloth used to tie things together". This is identical to Tajik банд (band), from which the verb бастан (bastan, "to tie") derives. Another meaning of the word refers to "a group of people who stand together" either to play music or make trouble, or make trouble by playing music. Incidentally, English verb "to stand" means "to occupy a place," that is to stand your ground, or settle. Thus, the suffix "-istan" in Tajikistan, refers to "the land occupied by Tajiks”; perhaps a misnomer, as the country also includes Uzbeks, and at least during the Soviet era included Armenians, Germans, Koreans, and many other ethnic groups. In fact, English "to stand" comes from the same root as Tajik истодан (istodan).

Whereas it is not too hard to see the similarity between "to stand" and istodan, there are words in English and Tajik languages which come from the same root and yet look very different, and pronounced differently. One of my favorites is the word for "cleaning substance" that is to say, soap, which in Tajik is собун (so-boon). It is hard to see similarity between soap and soboon, especially when you consider that English word comes from German Seife. What I have learned through my curios adventures into the world of linguistics is that we speak in consonants, not in vowels. Meaning, if you want to find the similarity, look for consonants, and in this case "soap" and "Seife" have the same first letter; the next best clue is "p" and "f" which are actually phonetic cousins (I'm sure there's technical word for it). There are letters in every language which are "interchangeable" during speech; consider English "hamburger" and Russian гамбургер (gum-bur-ger). Or for the case of "f" and "p" consider unit of measurement фунт (foont, Russian) vs pound (English), or even the difference between Persian and Farsi. I think I am making it sound more complicated than I mean it to be. Here is how soap pronounced in other languages:

Arabic: صابون (saboon)

Armenian: սապոն (sapon)

Bulgarian: сапун (sapoon)

Catalan: sabó

Dutch: zeep (noun) zepen (verb)

French: savon

Greek: σαπούνι (sapouni)

Hindi: साबुन (sabuna)

Italian: sapone

Japanese: ソープ (sopu)

Korean: 비누 (binu)

Latvian: ziepes

Mongolian: саван (savan)

Portuguese: sabão

Romanian: săpun

Spanish: jabón

Turkish: sabun

Urdu: صابن (sabun)

Vietnamese: xà phòng

Welsh: sebon

  

What is clear to me is that the substance, as well as the word, are universal. But soap is not the only word of its kind. Grass is the most widespread plant on our planet, and the one type of grass that is widely used by us is sugarcane. More properly, we use the product of sugarcane, which is sugar...duh! Like soap, sugar is universally known, although some parts of the civilized world could use less of the former and more of the latter. The word is шакар (shakar) in Tajik language, and we can already see phonetic cousins with the English sugar: sh/s and k/g. Here is another list:

Arabic: سكر (sukar)

Armenian: շաքար (shak'ar)

Azerbaijani: şəkər

Basque: azukre

Bulgarian: захар (zukhar)

Belorussian: цукар (tsoo-kar)

Catalan: sucre

Czech: cukr

Danish: sukker

Dutch: suiker

Estonian: suhkur

French: sucre

Finnish: sokeri

German: Zucker

Greek: ζάχαρη (zachari)

Hebrew: סוּכָּר (soo-kar)

Hindi: शक़्क़र (shaqqara)

Irish: siúcra

Italian: zucchero

Japanese: シュガー (shuga)

Lithuanian: cukrus

Latvian: cukurs

Mongolian: элсэн чихэр (elsen chikher)

Norwegian: sukker

Polish: cukier

Portuguese: açúcar

Romanian: zahăr

Spanish: azúcar

Turkish: şeker

Ukrainian: цукор (tsoo-kor)

Sometimes the connections are not obvious, so in order to see them, you have to remember two simple rules: (1) we speak in consonants and (2) each consonant letter has a phonetic cousin. I consider the following letters as phonetic cousins: p/b, p/f, f/v, m/n, g/k, s/sh, sh/ch, s/z and others. To explain how I apply the two rules, here is an illustration. You may say how is Mongolian "elsen chikher" and Tajik "shakar" are connected, and in order to see the connection you have to break each word into syllables. 

Mongolian word "elsen" means sand, in this case, "white sand". So, our connection is on the second word: chikher. Take away all the vowels, you have ch-kh-r. Do the same to the Tajik word, and you get sh-k-r. Or remove the vowels from the Ukrainian word and you have ts-k-r. More than half of the remaining consonants should leave enough clues for making a connection. I don't know, perhaps this is not convincing, but in my mind, it works very well.

These are my random thoughts that keep my mind busy in time of stress, or distress. I often don't know how to end things I start, as the case is with this post. Perhaps a good song will do it better. It is time to prepare for the New Year, and say good-bye to the old one. Don't forget where you came from, but don't dwell on your past, especially if it brings you much pain. Perhaps it is easier said than done, but I do feel much better after spending my time writing this post; no matter how random its content.

Happy New Year!

Untitled...

I don't know how to begin this post. All I can think of in this late hour is how my family never talked about the pains it suffered. I remember my grandmother once talk about my grandfather, how he would show his affection in public; when in a company friends and strangers, my grandfather supposedly did not shy away from kissing my grandmother. But when it came to the display of sorrow, my grandfather hid it all well. It all makes sense now as I think about my mother. Many of her friends who came to pay their respect told me how she always said, "Everything is alright" and never talk about her illness. To this day, there are still few individuals I work with who do not know that my mother passed away less than two weeks ago.

A good friend told me how when she lost someone close to her, she "had to recognize that people are monstrously uncomfortable in the face of someone else's loss". I could not have said it any better. Her words made me realize how, consciously or subconsciously, I suppress the subjects of pain and suffering during conversations, leaving them to some poorly rhymed poetry on some depressing night. While writing words of condolence, another friend wrote me, "I would encourage you to talk about your mom as this is part of the healing process."

Pour me a cup of tea (or pint of guinness) and I will tell you my favorite stories about Genghis Khan. But ask me  to talk about my inner feelings, I will stutter and be at loss of words. I find myself staring into an empty space, thinking about what I could have done differently. Losing once mother makes you think about your life: mistakes you made, bad choice of words or tone of voice, the stubbornness. Only after she died do I realize how unconditional her love was.

One of the things  my mother said to us, to my brother and I when we fought, is how there were only two of us in the world; we were the only once who could help each other. She did everything to keep us together, even when we strived to go our separate ways. In the end, it was my brother who helped me in the immediate hours of my mother's passing; my younger brother was the stronger of the two of us.

An incident from my childhood comes to my mind as I write this post. Back in Summer of 1995, when the war was ravaging the countryside and cities were under curfew, I used to open my shop in my neighborhood. We used to live on a street behind the teahouse "Saodat" the one that still stands in front of "Tojikmatlubot" in Dushanbe. There, every evening at 5 o'clock (or 17:00 by local standards), I would open the gates of our house and wheel out the table of my wares: gum and candy for kids, cigarettes and beer for adults. By middle of the summer, we were running a restaurant; my mother was the cook, my brother the shopkeeper (and first financier), and I was always running like a headless chicken, yelling with teary eyes that were calmed only at the end of the night when my fingers counted the stack of rubles and few dollar bills.

Once a car stopped by my shop and a bodyguard of some local big shot came out and walked to my table. He took out a single cigarette from the pack and as he was about to go back I asked him for money. In my country, you can often buy cigarettes one at a time, instead of the whole pack of twenty; if a pack is 10 rubles, you can sell it for 20 one cigarette at a time but at a slower pace. Anyway, this tough guy did not want to pay for a cigarette, and me, a stupid 13 year old got into a fight with him about it. I didn't really fight, I just stubbornly insisted that he pay. He in his turn pushed me aside, and why not, there was a war going on. But while I was arguing, someone called my mother who was at our neighbor's few houses away. As she came out of the door, she saw me being pushed by this tall square in a suit, and she bolted to my defense. She shamed him for being so cheap and picking on me, for this she was hit with a butt of a gun on her head. My mother fell on the ground, blood everywhere, cries, anger...the end of this story is irrelevant at this time. What matters is what my mother did afterward.

She brought us to America. That incident was the last straw. So she packed and left, leaving her own mother and siblings, her friends, or whatever left of them as many perished in war, and brought two of her sons to the safety of this country, to New York City. Last time she worked was in late 2011. Until then, since the first day of our arrival in Summer of 1997, she worked hard to support us; even when we were able to stand on our own, when we were all "grown up" and had jobs and families of our own, she still worked. There was not a single day that she did not think of us. My mother never talked about her pains, neither to her friends, nor to us. Of course we were always there, but she denied the fact that she was ill and progressively getting worse, and always kept optimistic appearance. Many of her friends were shocked to find out that she was diagnosed with cancer eight years ago; many of my own friends who met my mother never thought she was ill. 

My mother was born on March 10, 1958 in Dushanbe. She was first daughter, but third child of five. Her father's name was Ziyojon and her mother's name is Sayora. She had two sons, and two grandchildren. Her name was Gulnar, which translates as "pomegranate's flower"--a symbol of life.

She died on October 22, 2013 in her sleep at home. Next day, she was laid to rest in Green-Wood Cemetery. Everything was very sudden, even though we expected this day to come. No matter how much you know, you can never be prepared for such a day.

I do not know what else to write. I just want to thank everyone for showing their support. For your kind words, for your moral and financial support; for doing so much, more than I expected. There are people who came to pay their respects even though they only met my mother once; and then there were those for whom my mother's passing was our first occasion to meet. Thank you for being there for me. 

Lessons of History, or the unlikely trio of teachers...

Introduction page from Yan's Chingizkhan

September rolled in and I am back in school. I was tired long before I stepped into class on my first day. I am taking the only class I can afford, Introduction to History-a course necessary for every student of the discipline. By next week, I will have to answer such questions as "is history science or art?" or my most dreaded one "what is historiography?". But until then, there's another question raised on the first day of class that I yearn to answer for myself: why do we study history?

When I enrolled in Brooklyn College in 1999, I bought a notebook in which I wrote "cool" quotations as I found them. The first entry in this ordinary book with  a black cover was inspired by my high school principle, who spoke during our graduation ceremony. As he congratulated us on our accomplishments, he finished his speech with, "Do what you love and love what you do."

My first semester did not end well, as I had to drop a class and barely passed another. It was hard on so many levels, not least because it was only two years since my arrival to this country and I was trying to study pre-med courses. My original major was biology, which changed to philosophy (ha!), and then to philosophy and law (double ha!). Language barrier aside, I realized that picking a major in my early undergraduate years was not a good idea. There were many interesting subjects, one more fun than the other.

By 2003, I had quit school again. I already knew I wasn't going to be a doctor, or lawyer; those subjects were too hard, or maybe I just lost interest in them. I was not yet interested in history, but it seems already at the time I had written something in my notebook foreshadowing my current discipline. It was from a textbook that I found on a street:

What can be said in response to justify the study of history? Insofar as people are ignorant of their past, they are also ignorant of much of their present, for the one grows directly out of the other. If we ignore or forget the experience of those who lived before us, we are like an amnesia victim, constantly puzzled by what should be familiar, surprised by what should be predictable. Not only do we not know what we should know, but we cannot perceive our true possibilities, because we have nothing to measure them against. The non-historical mind does not know what it is missing-and contrary to the old saying, that can definitely hurt you. ~Philip J. Adler

After my wedding in Dushanbe, I flew back to New York. The flight was a long one, almost 12 hours, and what kept me entertained was a book that I found in my uncle's library. It was the first book of V. G. Yan's trilogy, titled Chingizkhan.

It wasn't the first time I heard of the name Chingizkhan, but compared to what I knew about him from a video game, it was  a discovery that changed my life. It's a novel based on historic events, so interesting that I couldn't put it down. On its cover, the Mongolian conqueror was depicted with his cat-like eyes gazed into space which his galloping horsemen conquered in such a swift move that eight hundred years later would inspire the German blitzkrieg.

The author began with a greeting as befits those writers from the east in pre-Mongolian era: If it fell upon a person to witness unforeseen events such as: eruption of a fire-breathing mountain which destroyed flourishing settlements, or uprising of oppressed people against an all powerful ruler, or invasion of one's homeland by unknown and unbridled people - all of these the witness ought to put to paper.

As if addressed specifically to students of history, it was another sign that I only realized years later. After I finished reading Yan's book, I borrowed James Chambers' Devil's Horseman from college's library. It was written by a historian using contemporary sources, but I felt as if I was reading Yan's novel all over again with the exception of the dervish who served as the main character in the novel who was absent in Chambers' account. In essence, my lesson was that Genghis Khan, as he is known in the western sources, was not liked in his time or today, and it seems the only lessons to be taken from his life were those related to his military prowess. When a document relating the origins of the Mongolian conquer, later titled "The Secret History of the Mongols" by western scholars, was found in 19th Century it renewed interest not only among the historians who studied the man but also in the military circles of European powers. The genius which lead to creation of the largest empire in the human history became the source of inspiration for frantic generals of European countries waged to up the ante in a period between the two world wars.

If you ask anyone who has ever had a drink with me, they will tell you I have a special affinity to the Mongolian conqueror. This blog post would not be enough to explain in detail why that is the case, but I have learned that every historical figure, no matter how despised by his contemporaries or generations to come, ultimately has something positive to teach us (Hitler excepted as he brought nothing positive to this world). I have been reading on Genghis Khan ever since my discovery of Yan's book and I've learned that most of the negative cloud about him stems from another historical figure, known in the west as Tamerlane. My personal lessons and admiration for Genghis Khan are due to his perseverance and ability to adopt to his ever changing environment while remaining true to his origins. He wasn't a saint and certainly had blood on his hands, but what he achieved in life and the effect of those achievements in world history cannot simply be dismissed.....


~*~*~*~


I began writing the above last Friday and wanted to finish it by Monday in commemoration of Masoud's death. The last two paragraphs I wrote this morning between 5am and 6am, only after mere 5 hours of sleep. Initially, I wanted to write about what I learned from three historic figures, namely Genghis Khan, Rumi, and Ahmad Shah Masoud, but it seems I have neither the time nor the energy to complete my thoughts in the same way I intended.

Instead of erasing all the above, I left it intact, so I can one day come back to it and finish what I started.  But to quickly summarize my intention, I wanted to relay how those three individuals affected me and how that answer helps in understanding why I study history.

Genghis Khan taught me to persevere in the harshest moments of life.
Rumi taught me to tolerate, though I am yet to master that, those who are different from me and my beliefs.
Masoud taught me to be kind even to my "enemies".

The lives of these three individuals intertwined if you know where to look.

Today, twenty two years after my country gained its independence and twelve years since 9/11, I will do well to remember the three lessons I learned from my mentors.

I don't know if this makes sense, but Yan said it best in his introduction: a man who witnesses events and does not share them is like a stingy man who covers his jewels even as death pays him a visit.

I study history because it is fun, but also, and perhaps mainly, because it is necessary to remember what happened. Who are we without our memories?

I'm losing my train of thought....

Memories at Equilibrium

August 20, 2013 marked a twenty two year anniversary since the events of the summer day that lead to the demise of the Soviet Union. I remember that day well. Of course, at the time, I did not know that I was living through the beginning of the end.  In essence, end of many things really: a great empire, a peaceful existence, and for many, end of their lives. On that day I was upset, not because the tanks rolled through the Red Square, but because while at the summer camp on the Bay of Finland, I did not get to see my cartoons after lunch. I turned ten on that day, what did I care about politics? Camp leaders and older kids were glued to the TV. A man was standing on a tank and talking to the crowd of Muscovites.

I think until the New Years everything was fine. The crowd began to gather on one of the two squares of Dushanbe in the beginning of Spring. I did not know what they were doing then, all I remember is images of crowds of people on TV. Whatever it was, actions of people on that square caused a gathering of another group of people on a second square, and then all hell broke loose. The Martyrs and Freedom Fighters stood on opposite sides and for the next five years blood spilled onto the streets of my homeland. The irony here was two fold; first, in the past when killing took place it was between the locals and the foreign invaders (history of Central Asia is rife with invasions), and second,  this was called "a civil war". What an oxymoron!

The demise of my parents' marriage was sealed before the war, but the fighting just speeded the situation. My father's business was taken away from him, it was either that or his life as I understand it now. He left the country soon, and never returned but to visit my grandmother many years later just to leave again. His last visit was in July 2011. He came just on time to see my grandmother die, bury her, and leave again, for by now he had adopted to the winters of Russia and could no longer stand the heat of Tajikistan. Besides his last name, I inherited some traces of my father's asthma. I hold no grudges, how can anyone? Their fighting was between them; I had nothing to do with it all. One of the fondest memories of my childhood is walking into my father's bakery and smelling the sweetness in the air. He would take me to a rolling tower of cupcake trays and say, "Take any you want" (or something like that), and that was when I inherited his sweet tooth.

Life is full of ironies. Peace was signed on June 27 of 1997. On July 19 of that year, I boarded a military plane with my uncle; we flew to Moscow with the main load of our baggage, and my mother, brother and grandmother arrived a day later. Tears that began in Dushanbe continued in Sheremetyevo Airport of Moscow; they never dried, just diminished slightly, and now they flow silently in the hearts of those who leave their loved ones behind. I had to come to America in order to learn about Rumi, who was born over 800 years ago in Vaksh, currently Tajikistan; he wrote about the pain of separation.

Our plane landed in JFK airport, a city within a city, on July 21, 1997. Our first home was in an apartment building at 2911 Brighton 5th Street in Brooklyn, apartment 4S. The building was only few blocks away from the beach, and an equal distance from the school my brother and I attended. Superintended's son went to the same school, so did, many many years ago, Arthur Miller. I would stay up late into the night absorbing words from my yellow Langenscheidt in hopes of increasing my vocabulary; this, as I found out at the graduation in 1999, was a bad way to learn a language.

It was a one bedroom apartment with windows onto the bleak back yard and fire escape stairs; all in brown. In this apartment I wrote the longest letter of my life, twenty pages, by hand, on both sides of the paper, to my friend at the time. I don't know what happened to it, I don't remember ever receiving a reply. I also wrote to my (paternal) grandmother, a shorter letter, and I have it in my possession today; I found it in a box of letters in her room when I went to visit her house in September 2011. My grandmother saved it, along with letters she wrote to me which she never sent; she also wrote letters to my father on my behalf, those too I have in my possession. Our apartment was small, but in a true style of a Tajik family,  a month after our arrival, it welcomed four adults, a cousin with his three friends, within its walls. Seven of us celebrated our first New Year in America.

After I graduated from high school, we moved to the first floor of a private house. Our landlord was a very good man, he was Greek, and his sister with her husband were living on the second floor of the house. The address, 1754 West 12th Street between Quentin Road and Highlawn Avenue is still in my mind, not least because along with our Social Security numbers we had to memorize our residence location in case we got lost, but also for the good memories we had during all the six years we lived there. This two-bedroom apartment with a very large living room welcomed many visitors within its walls. Some stayed for a night, others for few more days, and then there were those who stayed for several months. Most never came back to visit. Once a close friend stayed in this house to give birth to her baby girl; I was the first man to hold the child while her father envied my situation from Tajikistan. Our living room was once a host for forty people on my cousin's wedding. A homemade video from The Godfather was shot in this house in three languages where actors were also sound directors while the camera was still rolling; the tape of this memorable event is now lost, but the memory lingers on.

My first attempt at gardening began in our house on West 12th. I planted basil in a plastic pot, it grew well, so much so that I have a pot of this fragrant herb every year now. My first serious winter was experienced in this neighborhood in February 2003. That year, snowstorm hit the East Coast and our backyard had so much snow that we played by diving into the "pool" from our neighbor's garage roof. When all the snow was cleaned off of the streets, there were snow-walls surrounding the walkways and cars parked nearby.

In the summer of 2003, I went home to get married. I was fortunate enough to have had my wedding before the law limiting number of guests to 150 was put into effect. I can't remember the name of restaurant, but it was on Umar Khayom Street across the music school and only few blocks from my old high school. We walked from the restaurant to our home, all of us: the guests, the musicians, and the newlyweds. At the sight of the crowd, cars stopped and honked, not because we blocked their way but, I would like to think, because it was awhile since the streets saw any such festivity and so late into the night that the drivers were happy for our marriage too. And then I left my bride.

On May 7, 2005, after all the immigration papers were in place, my wife arrived in JFK Airport. A month earlier, we had moved to a new house at 727 Dunne Court between East 7th Street and Coney Island Avenue. This time we were living on second floor of the house with the landlady on the first floor, and she wasn't nice at all. We even gave her a nickname, Mozilla, which sounded like Godzilla; but she didn't instill fear, only annoyance. Overall, I don't have good memories from this house. We couldn't play music too loud, we always received complains from first floor about how loudly we walked, or the most bizarre complain of all, "Why are you showering at 2 o'clock at night? The noise of the running water bothers me at night and I can't sleep." This was an old house, and that was an old landlady.

My wife gave birth to our son while we were living on Dunne Court; here he learned how to walk and talk. Here was the first time when patriotic feelings were born within me and I hang a flag of Tajikistan for the first time since my arrival to the United States. A neighbor from across the street once stopped by and said something along the lines of, "This is a flag of Tajikistan, isn't it? I looked it up online." Her words made me feel proud. But then less pleasing events took place which almost erased all good memories.

July 18th is a birthday of one of my former friends. A day before I left my country in 1997, I was at my friend's home celebrating his birthday. Exactly ten years later, my phone rang in New York; it was the same "friend". He asked for my help; he wanted to leave Tajikistan. The long story short, six months later, in the middle of the night, two agents of Secret Service rang my door on Dunne Court. They were looking for him because after he arrived to NYC, he forgot to let me know that he was coming; then one thing lead to another, he broke few laws. No one went to jail, but I did feel betrayed by stupid actions of my friend. I stopped helping others after that incident. 

~*~*~*~*~

In America, the streets are not paved with gold, but the beaches are strewn with potential cash. The first dollar I made was from collecting empty beer bottles and soda cans. It was right after we arrived in New York in 1997. After I saw people take cans and bottles to a Walbaum's store on Neptune Avenue and exchange them to cash, I began combing the Brighton Beach with my brother for free cash. We brought our beach treasure to the store and put each item through machine: plastic bottles were shredded, glass was crashed, and metal cans were pressed, and after each "transaction" we got a ticket. It was like the arcades and casino had a baby; we would take tickets to a cashier in the store and get cash. Our first treasure hunt produced four crisp dollar bills.

Next summer, I could no longer collect bottles and cans, by then I had some friends who could see me. Being recognized while holding a garbage bag full of cans/bottles? For a teenager that's a no no. But I found a job still close to the beach. My experience running a restaurant in 1995 in Dushanbe brought me to Brighton Beach Boardwalk. One of the places I worked at was the Winter Garden. I got a job as busboy bringing plates of food to hungry beach goers and hauling dirty dishes to the kitchen. It was here when I tried calamari for the first time in my life; it tasted bitter, most likely because it was deep fried in oil which was being used to cook fish, meat, potatoes and everything else that hungry customers wanted deep fried. The job was not hard and I "climbed" the ladder of success in the Russian restaurant by gaining the trust of the owner. One day she called me and said, "Here are the keys, come tomorrow at 8 am and open the place," and I did.

I was on the boardwalk at 7:30 the next day. The only people there were morning runners, the drunks, and treasure hunters. I lifted the metal gates and brought all the tables and chairs out on the boardwalk. Put up the umbrellas and set up each table for early visitors, most of whom were Russians who could not handle their liquor a night before, so they'd walk in with a hangover, mumbling "Piva" (beer). By lunch time a crowd of hungry tourist would flock in devouring everything on the menu, and I would haul the remaining dishware on the table back to the kitchen. Back then, you could still smoke in public places like bars and restaurants, so in addition to sweaty customers I would also be a sponge for secondary smoke. None of this would really be a bad thing if I had gotten paid the right amount, which under the circumstances is hard to give a number. My shift that day ended at 4 am in the morning, that's a total of 20 hours of work. How much I got paid? Exactly 40 dollars, one sum from three different waiters. It was my first time opening the restaurant, and last shift in the Winter Garden.

Few years later, while residing on West 12, I found a job in restaurant "Rossiya" which was on Neptune Avenue right under the F-train. This place boasted 8 pm show, the main star of which was Borya, a tall Russian who was obviously gay. He once called me "solnishko" (little sun) when he walked into kitchen looking for a fork; I was the dishwasher. One of Borya's attires was a single leather thong, which was just enough to cover his front, leaving his hairy butt on a view; and nothing else but a feather crown. None of this would be a problem if he didn't walk around when the kids were in the hallway, but this is more of a reflection of Russian parentage than Borya's character; I never actually interacted with him, but there was kindness in his voice.

My main job in Rossiya was to rinse the food off of dishes and put them into a plastic tray on the conveyor which washed everything in a matter of 5 minutes. The rinsing part involved pressing a spray hose which hang above the stainless steel sink; overall it wasn't a hard job but for the grueling part of standing in a hot and wet environment. My record was five thousand silverware in one night. One day my boss asked me to come at 3 pm. It was only me and a middle aged Azerbaijani guy who worked the shift. When the guests left after their partying, the busboys would clean up and go home. The dishwashers would still be busy, being the last of all the staff to leave the restaurant. We finished at 9 am that day, and somehow I managed to bike home from Neptune Avenue along the McDonald's Avenue all the way home on West 12. I could not sleep, not because it was light outside but because of pain in my right hand. On the way home I was so tired that I could not feel the pain and so I did not notice how swollen my hand was. It was as if I had a boxing mitten on my right hand; it was twice the size of my left hand, from all the squeezing of the rinsing hose between 3 pm and 9 am. That's 18 hour shift, and I got paid $50 the next day.

I worked many different jobs in my sixteen years in America, one more memorable than the next. From waiting tables to washing dishes, from cutting grass in kid's summer camp to washing floors in synagogue; a bricklayer's helper; a caterer at weddings and large events; flower cutter and canopy decorator; I hung Christmas lights on trees in middle of summer and was gardener, mason, plumber and electrician, all in one place; sold shoes in Payless and t-shirts in Big & Tall; delivered furniture and sold tickets to a fake ruffle inside Planet Hollywood; worked for electrical company as fire alarm specialist; build custom bookshelf that looked like a coffin, and much more. When it comes to works I did, no matter how awful the overall experience, I learned a lot from it. Not just the "wisdom of life" part, but actual skills that I can apply today.

There is much I could write about the events of past 16 years, not only bad jobs I had. I don't regret about bad employments. What I wish I could change is the number of people I hurt (but that's another story). I consider Brooklyn my home as this was the only place I lived ever since our arrival to the states. I know much about this borough and not only because I study its history; Brooklyn is a fascinating place. I admit that I don't like Queens and that's probably because I never lived there. Nor do I know anything about Staten Island or the Bronx, except for few bits and pieces here and there. My knowledge of places beyond Brooklyn is based on stereotypical views. I am a naturalized American, but I've never lived beyond my current place of residence. I was in New Jersey few times on a job and twice in Washington, DC for personal reasons that did not last more than a day. For all my skills in various trades, I am no expert on America; not its history, nor its landscape, not the people or the politics. I often generalize, but I am learning to avoid such crimes.

If you asked me about certainties, I know of only one. I was one month short of my sixteenth birthday when I came to America, and after sixteen years I am yet to know who I am. I am certain that I am no longer the same person I was upon my arrival, and I am certain there is much I will go through that will affect my character and my identity. I had a good life in Tajikistan before I left it in 1997, but only after I came to US did I begin to identify myself as Tajik. 

For the first fifteen years of my life in America, I kept yearning to go back. Something deep inside me kept calling me back; "come home," I would hear a voice, "be with the mountains under which you were born." Not until the events of last summer, when the government troops entered into the Badakhshan did I stop hearing the voice. Many "leaders" of my country showed their true colors, such as Beg Zuhurov, the director of communication services of Tajikistan who did not understand the concept of internet. Summer of 2012 was a wake up call for me, after fifteen years I understood that I can no longer return home for permanent residency. I may go to visit my family, but I will no longer be able to live in a society which is run by such unintelligent people, where corruption and so many injustices are rampant. 

I am a student of history, and today I know more about my background then before I came to this country. I know history of my homeland and its people because I have access to information; this is a right often taken granted by those who live in this country. One of the reason I am reluctant to leave New York City is because of the number of libraries this city has; I once found a book in Tajik language in the NYPL on 5th Avenue. This city taught me to learn about myself; you have to in this ocean of humanity, or else you will be lost. I used to criticize the Soviets for what they did to my country, but recently I began to refer to myself as the child of Soviet Union. One reason I am not entirely lost in this great city is because they built us tough; the Soviet education system was at the forefront and people who lived in that old empire were more tolerant than those who came after them. Twenty two years have passed since the end of the Soviet rule. Sixteen years have passed since I left my homeland. I have lived an equal number of years here and there. It is time for a change. I just hope I have the wisdom and patience to make the right decision. 

Weaved Clouds of Central Asia

Writing of this post was inspired by a request from my friend, someone who saw the need in educating, not only the foreign public, but our own youth who is forgetful of our history and cultural heritage. This was meant to be a simple post, but during my research, as I found more and more materials I was immersed in books for hours forgetting that I am merely writing a blog. I made new discoveries for myself, not only about our history, but availability of sources which can always be used at later time (this is in line with my original intention for this blog). It took me three months to write this post from the original date of my friend's request on April 1. First, I had to wait for books to arrive, then those books lead me to others which lead to more delays; then I got sick, and though now I feel better, there are other issues which prevented completion of this post at earlier time. The point here is that I try not to regret what I do no matter how hard it is, as the rewards outweigh everything else. Unlike my previous posts, this one is full of end notes; I had to show my sources, at least because of their number; some of the books are very very cool, some have even been digitized. The last thing I want to say, if you spot a grammatical mistake or historical inaccuracy, I welcome your input. Send me an email by copying the part in question and give your suggestions to genealogy@jahongir.com Also, if for any reason you wish me to remove your images, let me know, and I will do so asap.

Modern abr design on pure silk known as atlas from my own collection

Few weeks ago, as I rushed from work to pick up my son at his school, I saw an American woman standing by the entrance of the subway. She was attractive in her own way, but what caught my attention was not her looks, but rather her dress. The design of the fabric was so familiar that I could not but help myself to take a picture (image 1). This dress reminded me of what a friend asked me few weeks before when she saw dresses and shoes online with similar design patterns. She wrote, “I need information on the history of Adras and Atlas, it is called Ikat in the rest of the world, but living for so many years in Tajikistan I never heard of this word.” And so began my search, the result of which you are currently reading.

The word ikat in the English language ultimately derives from Malay, the language of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. It refers to an ancient technique of applying color to a bundle of yarn which had been wrapped in specific sections so as to prevent the dye from being absorbed by the entire bundle. This produces a unique textile pattern, which although ancient, is becoming easily recognizable today through fashion revival. The Malay word mengikat means "to bind or tie," but the process is universal, with countries such as Japan, Yemen, and others in South Asia and Central America having their own traditions of this method of dyeing. "Through wide usage, the word ikat has become the generic term for these textiles in the West, regardless of their geographic origin."[1] The word ikat refers to the process as well as to its final product. 

The technique also exists in the traditions of the people of Central Asia, specifically those in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Abrband (or abrbandchi) is a person who prepares bundles of yarn for dyeing. The resulting textile pattern, in its simplest form, looks like colorful clouds that have been weaved onto a piece of cloth; hence the name derives from Tajik abr “cloud” and band “to tie”. As Janet Harvey describes it, “Like clouds, the motifs appear to float unbounded, their edges softly blending into the adjacent colours…Seven colours might commonly be achieved with natural dyes, by dyeing in pure colour and then overdyeing, but abr silks with patterns of nine colours were the most valued.”[2] Silk is the best choice of material for capturing clouds, and the final product of dyed silk in Central Asia is known as atlas. Other textiles also exist, such as adras (from silk and cotton) or baghmal (velvet), but the colors on pure silk are so vibrant and vivid that when young Tajik girls and women wear dresses made from atlas, rainbow pays homage to them. Before I continue about the Central Asian ikats, it is helpful to know about the origins of the material which popularized the dyeing technique.

History of Silk

Silk is a byproduct of an insect and a plant, the development of which was discovered by the Chinese at least three millennia ago. The technique of making silk was unwillingly introduced by China to the world; it was a secret which was smuggled out of the country. Several versions of the story of this historic smuggling persist, but my favorite one is about a Chinese princess who was given as bride to a king of Khotan. Supposedly, before departing her home she was told by her future husband’s envoys that the land she was to make her home had no source of silk. And so, the resourceful princes stealthily hid the eggs of silkworm along with seeds of mulberry in her hair and smuggled them out of China (image 2). The eggs and seeds had to be smuggled simply because silk was then a highly prized commodity and thus a lucrative business. Indeed, the Chinese guarded the secret of silk making for many centuries, as this fiber made and unmade great kingdoms, having been used as bargaining chip during many political negotiations.

Image 2. Chinese princess (center) smuggling silkworm and mulberry seeds in her hair. © Trustees of the British Museum

In addition to being used in political negotiations, silk was also exported for sale in large quantities. In fact, silk traversed great lengths along the earliest trade routes of the ancient world reaching as far as Rome from China. In 115 BCE, “Mithridates II of Parthia made an alliance with Wu Ti, the great Han emperor of China [and] for the first time [the two kingdoms were] within direct commercial reach of one another.”[3] The treaty linked existing trading networks of China and its frontiers with those of Central Asia; before there was the Silk Road, there was a Lapis Road which only existed west of Central Asia and as far as Egypt. Connection of the two trade networks may have been triggered by another event twelve years after the treaty of Parthians and Chinese.

In 103 BCE, embassy of Emperor Wu Ti arrived in the kingdom of Ta-yüan (settled) in Ferghana Valley. Wu, concerned about the Hsiung-nu (nomadic) incursions from the north, sent an embassy to the Central Asian kingdom in search of horses, but his request was refused; in fact, the Chinese envoy was ambushed on their way home by the inhabitants of Ta-yüan. Emperor Wu would not allow such humiliation to pass, so “He gathered together a great army, including engineers to divert rivers, and horticulturalists to plant alfalfa for the horses, and sent them through some of the most hostile territory on earth on a three-thousand-mile round trip to Ferghana. A herd of steeds was finally brought back, and so was inaugurated the trail from China to the West which would develop in time into the well-trodden and celebrated trade route known today as the Silk Road.”[4]

The term “silk road” is a misnomer, as there was more than one road through which merchants and their wares traversed. In fact, the Silk Roads were a network of routes which connected many cities throughout the kingdoms located between ancient China, Egypt and Rome. Remarkably, the term “silk road” was coined many centuries after the demise of this network, and by a Austrian scholar no less.[5] Nonetheless, this name fittingly highlights one of the most important items of trade not only in the ancient world, but in middle ages too.

Take for example the year 53 BC in a place, known to the Romans as Carrhae, then already inhabited for over two millennia. It was here that General Crassus, who marched ambitiously against the Parthian empire, was soundly defeated in the famous battle. The cause? “Crassus and his men were deeply impressed by the sight of the brilliantly dyed silk banners of the Parthian cavalry.”[6] Yes, you read that right! the victory of the Parthian horse riders owed partially, if not entirely, to such a seemingly simple thing as a silk banner. As Robert Collins explains:

“For a time the Romans doggedly held their ground. Then just at noon when the sun was high[est], the Parthians staged their coup. As they charged the Romans with their drums sounding, they unfurled their banners. These were of a gleaming, shimmering material such as Roman had never seen before, brilliant in color, embroidered with gold. Shining like fire, the banners spelled power and invincibility. The Romans - exhausted and suffering from wounds and thirst, their "invincible" testudo shattered - broke ranks in terror before this awesome sight and fled.”[7]

This obviously was not the end of the Roman Empire, but it is interesting to see how such a delicate material as silk played such an important role in as brutal a place as a battlefield. Since we are on a topic of wars and silk, let us now examine how another people were awed, and history transformed, by the diversity of Chinese silks. The year was 1215, or as Chinese would have it, the Year of the Pig. The place was Zhongdu, the seat of the Golden Khan of Jurchids, which corresponds to modern Beijing. Genghis Khan dealt a final blow to this northern Chinese kingdom and laid claim to its resources and wares. Thus, the Mongols for the first time saw the riches of their settled neighbors—silk not least of all. According to Jack Weatherford:

“A river of brightly colored silk flowed out of China. It was as though Genghis Khan had rerouted all the different twisting channels of the Silk Route, combined them into one large stream, and redirected it northward to spill out across the Mongol steppes. The caravans of camels and oxcarts carried so much of the precious cloth that the Mongols used silk to wrap their other goods and as packing material. They threw away their rawhide ropes and used twisted cords of silk instead. They bundled robes embroidered with silver and golden thread in the designs of blooming peonies, flying cranes, breaking waves, and mythical beasts, and they packed silk slippers sewn with tiny pearls. The Mongols filled carts with silk rugs, wall hangings, pillows, carried bolts of raw silk, silken threads, and cloth worked into every imaginable type of clothing or decorations and in more colors than the Mongol language could identify.”[8]

Yet the sedentary life of Chinese civilization had an adverse effect on the nomadic Mongols; eventually, they all succumbed to the lavish lifestyle of city dwellers and were seduced, in particular, by silk. The branch of the Mongol empire that ruled in Persia under the title of Ilkhan for almost eighty years after the death of Genghis Khan was known to have taken the use of silk to new, excessive heights:

All through Ilkhanid times the Mongols’ tents were more gorgeous than cities. Silk came into its own. There were silk tents raised on gold-plated and gold-nailed pillars; tents that became throne-rooms and ministries, tents that two hundred men could barely erect in twenty days. Silk lined the wagons of the Mongol princes, and was routinely demanded in tribute. A gold-woven fabric named nasij was especially prized, and skilled weavers were moved into the Mongol heartland from Samarkand and Heart to create it. Genghis Khan himself had marvelled at his silk-clad women, glittering ‘like a red-hot fire’, and Marco Polo described the whole court of Kublai Khan assembling in identical coloured silks, according to the feast-day.[9]

Genghis Khan, whose heirs established the largest contiguous empire in history, was able to achieve what Alexander the Great could not; he built a bridge between East and West. His empire stretched from the shores of the Pacific to the walls of Vienna, through the mountains of Badakhshon and across the Syrian deserts.

For a time, after all the destruction wrought by the Mongol army in pursuit of empire, a peaceful period lasted long enough for the rebuilding process to take place. Economic boom was the most visible feature of this period, as caravans, laden with heavy loads, traveled from one end of the Mongol empire to another without having to worry about bandits and robbers. But all good things come to an end, and the Mongol empire began to disintegrate within a few generations after the death of the legendary Mongol ruler, Genghis Khan. With the expulsion of Mongols from China by year 1368, the Ming dynasty closed its borders for good; this saw the decline of silk exports out of China. In fact, the Silk Road in general began to decline in its importance as European powers discovered littoral trade routes. In Central Asia, silk was still produced, but only for local markets.

The last descendants of Genghis Khan in Central Asia were the Manghits, whose rule ended with the coming of Bolsheviks. The founder of this Uzbek dynasty was Shah Murad, who reestablished silk industry in Zarafshon Valley in 1770s. “From this date forward the provision of sumptuous cloths for the ruling families of the oasis towns gave renumerative [sic] employment to textile craftsworkers. Of all the extravagant adornments commissioned for the Emirs, it was the ikat-dyed silks, and above all the ikat-dyed silk velvets, that became renowned worldwide.”[10] It is here and at this time where our story picks up.

Silk in Central Asia

The capital of the Manghit dynasty was established in the ancient city of Bukhara, which in the medieval times acquired title of Bukhoroi Sharif (Noble Bukhara) due to its importance as cultural and religious center. About the same time as the Manghits established their rule in Central Asia, two other kingdoms found their place to the west and east of Emirate of Bukhara; they were the Khanates of Khiva and Kokand, respectively. By middle of the 1800s, both khanates ceased to exist, having been conquered by the expanding armies of the Tsar of Russia who feared the encroaching power of the English crown. Bukhara was left to fend off on its own, a kingdom between the two empires. It is for this reason, Richard N. Frye notes that “Under the Özbek rulers, Bukhara experienced a revival, but it was local, without influence on Iran or the Arab world.”[11]

Part of this revival included production of silk and the resurgence of the abr design on textiles. Silk was no longer the fabric of elites, as Arminius Vambery noted during his travels of the region in 1860s, "The wretched poverty among the inhabitants of Central Asia is shown in nothing more strongly than in their dress, and the eye is with difficulty accustomed to the simple cotton stuff, or silks of glaring colours, in which every one is clothed, man and woman, young and old.”[12] If you are wondering how the people distinguished the poor from the rich, here is the best description given by Olaf Olufsen who traveled in Central Asia in late 1890s:

As a rule, the fairly well-to-do citizen wears two caftans, one over the other, the officials always, and if the Bokharan wants to make much of a guest he puts on both 4, 5 and 6, according to his means. Thus one day when I visited the Divambegi of Bokhara unannounced, he only wore the common two caftans, but after having exchanged the usual, ever so long salutations, he immediately ordered several fine caftans to be fetched which a servant put on him, while he observed to me: “I put on these, because you, my dear guest, have arrived.” By degrees he had become a real mountain of rustling silk, so that he was hardly able to sit down.[13]

It wasn’t always the fabric that distinguished the social status of a person, but rather how that fabric was worn. Of all silk products, velvet was the only material that was solely worn by the rich and nobility of Central Asia. Olufsen continues:

To be elegant, the caftans must absolutely rustle, like the silk petticoats of Parisian ladies; consequently heavy silk is very much liked for the garments and if the velvet caftans embroidered with gold are worn over the others, there must always be several of silk within.  Those who cannot afford to buy silk, provide caftans of a sort of glazed hemp stuff that also rustles as long as it is new.

            A man of high rank thus equipped with a real store of caftans, the sleeves of which are, by the way, always twice as long as the arms, is, of course, quite unable to do any work of importance; he is bathed in sweat in summer and can only move slowly, but it is indeed, a sign of a low, social degree to walk at a great pace.[14]

Image 3. These two men were Olufsen's bodyguards during his travels in Bukhara, c. 1890s

Production of Silk

Silk in Central Asia is produced in a pillakashkhona, which literally means “workshop where cocoon is pulled” (from Tajik pilla “cocoon” kashidan “to pull” and khona “house”). Cocoon from which silk is made is produced by a caterpillar known as Bombyx mori. The caterpillar feeds on the leaves of mulberry tree and afterwards spins into a white oval ball, which consist of two elements: fibroin and sericin. Fibroin is an insoluble inner layer of cocoon, and sericin is the outer gluey layer which is soluble.[15] In pillakashkhona, the silk production begins with boiling of cocoon in hot water in order to separate the two elements from which it is made. After boiling, the smooth lustrous filament is pulled from cocoon onto a small wheel (charkhi maida) to even out the fiber. Once evened, the silk is wound onto reels which are then sent to abrbandi workshop.

Thus, the process in Pillakashkhona looks like this:

When the reels of silk are brought from the silk producing workshop to the binders, they are installed on a vertical frame. Threads from each reel are pulled and passed through small holes on a square board with up to forty holes onto a large wheel (charkhi kalon). The small wheels used during the pillakashkhona were often operated by young boys, because they did not require too much effort to turn. In the abrbandi workshop, it is the responsibility of charkhtob (literally “the wheel turner” in Tajik) to operate the large wheel as the silk fibers twist thus producing warped yarn. Afterward, the warps are boiled again in hot water to whiten them and then they are laid on a special table before another skillful master begins his work.

And the process of work in the Abrbandi workshop has the following steps:

Although abrband refers to a person who binds the warped silk, there are actually several masters at work in the abrbandi workshop. A nishonzan is “one who puts the marks” (from Tajik nishon “a mark” and zadan “to hit, to beat”) on the bundles of yarn which are given to abrband. Following the charcoal marks of nishonzan, the abrband carefully prepares the warps for the next skillful master, the rangrez, or “dyer” (from Tajik rang “color” and rekhtan “to pour”). Here are several images dating from 1870s showing the process of making silk in Central Asia.

Image 4. Feeding of mulberry leaves to Bombix mori caterpillar

Image 5. From boiling cauldron onto charkhi maida 

Image 6. Winding silk fibers onto reels.

Image 7. Charkhtob at work, warping the silk yarn

The process of work in both pillakashkhona and abrbandi workshop is not any different today compared to the time when the above images were taken.

Image 8. Cocoon is still boiled in large cauldrons. © Tim Stanley

Image 9. Then it is evened on charkhi maida (though now a bit mechanized). © Tim Stanley

Image 10. Silk fiber is still manually wound onto bobbins . © Tim Stanley

Image 11. And then those bobbins are installed unto a frame to be warped on charkhi kalon. © Tim Stanley

Of course there are factories in Central Asia, remnants of the Soviet system, which produce silk and various abr-textiles, but there are also few workshops where old methods of silk production, binding and dyeing are still extant. As the Bolsheviks established themselves in Russia and its peripheries, including Central Asia which at the time was known as Turkestan, they did so in the name of the proletariat. This was the main work force of the Soviet system, which under no circumstances could be associated with the old regimes. Central Asian workshops that produced silk and abr-textiles were established by the nobility, albeit over a century prior to coming of the Soviets, and also because these workshops were based on an ustod-shogird  (teacher-student) system, not unlike the guild systems in Europe and America, they had to be dismantled by the newly established Russian government. But the Russians did not do away with production of silk and abr-textiles altogether; they just turned the workshops into factories and used synthetic instead of natural dyes.

Designs and Colors

Whereas the earliest textile designs looked like colorful clouds, giving us the name abrband for the binder of yarn, there are actually so many different motifs that to name them all as abr-textiles may seem misleading. Perhaps for this reason, speakers of the English language had adopted the Malaysian word ikat as it only means “to bind”. The word ikat, as has been mentioned in the beginning of this post, has become a generic term, but in Central Asia abrband is not only “binder of clouds,” he is also binder of flowers, playing instruments, animals, and even tickles. Here is a short list of various motifs which adorn dresses of Central Asian people.

Tajik/Uzbek terms for motifs	Translation
anor-gul	pomegranate
lola-gul	tulip
shona-gul	comb
doira-gul	tambourine
kutch-karagul	ram's horns
bodom	almond
tumor	amulet
oftoba	water-jugs
choijosh	tea-jug
sanavbar	cypress tree
chayon	scorpion
bargi karam	cabbage leaves
kui karga, sapsa karga, kora karga	variations of crow's plumage
domlozhon	affectionate term for a teacher (of religious studies)
kychyk or qitiq	tickle
	Tree of Life

Tajik word gul means flower, but in textile production the word refers to a motif that adorns the fabric’s design. Each motif is unique to a specific region of Central Asia, and each region has its own sources of color dyes. In Bukhara, master dyers predominantly use yellow and red colors, while the dyers of Samarkand employ green, red and indigo in their work. Until the arrival of Russians by mid 1800s, Central Asian dyers used natural dye stuffs such as plants and insects. Namangan was the largest importer of pomegranate skins for black dyes and Kokand was the best source of royan for red colors. The outskirts of Tashkent were abundant source of cochineal insects and isparak flowers. Indigo, as the name suggests, was always imported from India, and in Central Asia the Jewish merchants held the monopoly on trade of this dye.

Black	anorpust (pomegranate skin), gulikhairi (black mallow)
Green	tukhmak (saphora japonica)
Red	royan (madder), asil-ren (cochineal), kyzyl-bakam (sandalwood)
Yellow	isparak (yellow delphinium), safflower, Senecio
Blue	Indigofera tinctora
yellow-green	pugak (mulberry tree sponge)
reds and yellows	Altai lichens

It is difficult to relay in words the beauty of textile with abr designs, and unfortunately photography was in its infancy at the time when artistic traditions in textile industry were being revived all over Central Asia. Nonetheless, here is a set of black and white photographs dating from 1870s, which capture diverse peoples of Central Asia wearing clothes made of abr-textiles.

Image 12. Mainaoi (Tajik), visible on the right shoulder is sanavbar (cypress tree) motif

Image 13. Oghuloi (Uzbek), visible on her left shoulder is either comb or amulet motif

Image 14. Mullo Borukh (Jewish), the left side of his caftan shows a diamond motif

Image 15. Sipora (Jewish), her top coat has abr  patterns

Image 16. A Kirghiz woman at work

Image 17. Tunukoi (Kirghiz-Kazakh), though poorly visible it looks like her dress has large kychyk motifs

Image 18. Said Muhammad Khudoyorkhon, Khan of Kokand. His khalat is full of tickles

Not all the portraits of individuals convincingly show abr-textile clothing. In such a case, it helps to look at few images of groups of people for contrast.

Image 19. Kirghiz wedding procession; two women on both sides of the image are wearing top coats made of abr-textiles

Image 20. Jewish bachelorette party, almost all the girls are wearing clothes made of abr-textiles

Image 21. A Tajik wedding rite of chimiliq (bridal curtain)

On the last image from above, we can see the groom and bride as they are standing in the center flanked on both sides by women wearing abr-dresses. A chimiliq is the curtain that is folded above the group of people, often hung in the corner of the room where the newlyweds will eventually seal their marriage. The fourth woman from right is holding a mirror, into which only the groom and bride are allowed to look; this mirror is symbol of unity, which is believed to capture the essence of each looker, thus after the newlyweds see each other in this mirror, it is then hidden from everyone's sight. This image is my favorite one because it shows diversity of the abr-textiles.

While we are looking at black and white photos, I thought to show you few images that Ole Olufsen captured with his camera during his travels in Bukhara  in 1890s.

Image 22. Visible on her left side of the coat is a bodom (almond) motif

Image 23. Jewish merchant family in Bukhara. Most of the men are wearing top coats made of bekasab fabric

Bekasab, which is also made in an abrbandi workshop, is a type of stripped fabric made of combination of silk and cotton. Unlike adras or  baghmal, bekasab has a different thickness of warps from which it is made. Men's topcoats (chapon) and floor mats (kurpa) are the most popular use of this material.

name	material	difference
atlas	pure silk	four harness loom
khan-atlas	pure silk	eight harness loom
adras	silk/cotton	warp density, 1600-2400
baghmal	silk/cotton	warp density, 2400-4000
bekasab	silk/cotton	two warp system

Next two images are from a different source, but both their location and dates may correspond to the two images made by Olufsen.

Image 24. Town entertainers wearing dresses made of abr-textiles

Image 25. She reminds me of Bukharan nobility as described by Olufsen

Of course if the images above were in color, the "wow" effect would have been greater. Fortunately, we may just have that opportunity in the work of Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky who captured all the colors of weaved clouds through his lens in early 1900s. Here are only few images, which if our imagination allows, we may use to apply to above black and white (or is it sepia) photographs to understand the beauty of abr-textiles to their fullest extent.

Image 26. An official of Emir of Bukhara

Image 27. A Turkmen bride at the entrance of her home

Image 28. Merchant of fabrics whose stall is stacked with silk, cotton and wool textiles

Preservation of Past

We are fortunate enough that old abr-textiles have been preserved in private collections around the world. There are many museums which have exhibited colorful textiles with various abr patterns to the awe of their visitors. What is especially admirable is that these institutions and private collectors publish books of their holdings which contain pages after pages of colorful images of clothing and household items made with abr-designs; books that are available to the general public.

Pip Rau is a world traveler from England; she has a store in Islington, where she displays a large stock of Central Asian textile, especially those with abr designs. Her private collection was on display in Victoria and Albert Museum of London from November 2007 to March 2008. A book titled Central Asian Ikats was the end product of the museum's exhibit.

Abrbandi: Ikats of Central Asia is a publication of the Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia, which came out of an exhibition called "Silk Ikats of Central Asia". The exhibit run from July to October of 2009.

The Textile Museum is located in Washington DC. On October 16, 2010, an exhibit titled  "Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats" opened its doors to the visitors in the museum. It run for five months and included some of the awe inspiring abr-textiles from Central Asia dating from the 19th Century.

Also, there is Robert Shaw's collection in Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, a permanent exhibit of Henri Moser's collection at the Historical Museum of Bern, collection of Central Asian textiles in the Hermitage Ethnographic Museum of St. Petersburg, and the best of all, private collection of Guido Goldman, which was the main source of Ikat: Silks of Central Asia, one of the books used in writing of this post.

Not the End

A friend who emailed me asking about "the history of Adras and Atlas" had sent me photographs of various textiles from the bazaars of Khujand, an ancient city on Syr Darya. Our people still produce the textiles, and they still use old techniques and traditional motifs, which only adds to the surprise of seeing foreign word such as ikat labeling what is clearly Tajik style materials and designs. The world is no longer a small place; globalization has brought us very close to each other. And yet, in that closeness, we are often ignorant about our past and frequently forget how we got to where we are. 

When Americans shop at Amazon and Macy's for their bedding collections, or for their shoes and purses at Zara and Payless, they do not know that ikat style merchandise they purchase has been influenced by Central Asians. They do not know about Tajiks and Uzbeks not because they are completely ignorant of the outside world, but because Central Asia today is not very different from Emirate of Bukhara in mid 1800s. For once, although the production of silks did not cease to exist, and in fact, the bazaar stalls are full of colorful textiles, it is still a local enterprise. It is easier to disseminate ideas and traditions but not so easy to establish oneself on international markets. Khujandatlas is one of the well known companies in Tajikistan that "specializes in the production of garments from silk," but no one knows them outside of the region. One consolation is that wherever people go, they always bring something familiar to them, a piece of their home, and for Tajiks this means a wall covering in style of suzani, knitted socks like jurabs, and a dress made of atlas or adras textile.

The following photographs are a good way to conclude this post. I hope you learned something and if you have anything to contribute, I welcome your input. Note: I update this post often with photos; you can submit your images by writing me.

Image 29. Oldest known Central Asian ikat textile. Horiyu-ji, Nara, Japan. Asuka Period, 552-644 AD.

Image 30. Ferghana style zigzag (kychyk, tickles) and scorpions motif

Image 31. Chapon with "Pomegranate-flowers suspended from ram's horns, motifs signifying strength and abundance"

Image 32. Part of an adiol (bed cover) shows a bodom (almond) motif

Image 33. Samarkand style male chapon, block designs and colors indicate use of both natural and synthetic dyes

Image 34. An example of shona-gul motif 

Image 35. Central Asians in Moscow, 1931. Courtesy of Special Collections, UC Santa Cruz

My maternal grandmother, Sayora Baqoeva, is sitting behind her friend, whose dress has a modern design, 1949.

The only person in the photo who is wearing abr-textile dress is my great-grandmother, Gulchehra Baqoeva, c. 1950s

The girl in the center is my mother, Gulnor, whose dress matches with her mother's, c. 1960s

My paternal grandmother, Otunoi, during her vacation in 1966

A wedding of my mother's cousin in Dushanbe, c. 1970s.

The graduating class of 1979 of School 34 in Dushanbe.

My parents on their wedding. Father is wearing a bekasab chapon and mother is dressed in atlas, 1980.

My mother is wearing a bit more complex designed atlas, c. 1980s

My maternal grandmother in 2007.

Gulnoz in one of her wedding dresses, July 2003.

Aryana in adras dress standing on a suzani, home, March 2013

On March 24, 2013, as I wrote in my previous posts, Tajiks and their friends came together in celebration of their traditional holiday, Nawruz. This event took place in Brooklyn, New York, in Orion Palace catering hall. Many guests came adorned in their best abr-textile attires. 

Anushervon posing with Aryana, who is wearing atlas dress and pants

Unknown woman wearing old abr design dress. © Dan Culleton

Young lady in old fashion atlas is bored from poor performance of Boboi Dehqon. © Dan Culleton

Even black and white atlas looks cheerful. Courtesy of Jamila N.

Farangis (in atlas dress) and Madina (in adras dress) did a better job memorizing their lines (compared to Boboi Dehqon). Courtesy of Madina A.

Nigina's adras dress has very old motifs, but it is designed in modern style. © Dan Culleton

Our friend's niece performed gracefully while dressed in complete adras wardrobe. © Dan Culleton

Our friend's daughter who looks precious in this one color adras dress © Dan Culleton

Old abr-design, in one color, unique and fits her well. Courtesy of Mahina A.

Nasiba's adras dress seems to have two different designs, lovely in either case. © Dan Culleton

Another fine example of old abr-design on atlas. © Dan Culleton

After our Nawruz celebration, some of the guests also attended the Persian Parade in Manhattan.

 Here they are, better representatives of the Tajikistanians on Persian Parade in April 2013. Courtesy of Zach S.

A Tajik girl in Times Square. Courtesy of Kibi M.

Mesmerizing gaze of Tajik girl from Moscow. Courtesy of Anisa S.

Best example of modernity and tradition. Courtesy of Gulrukhsor A.

Bodom motif on adras (silk and cotton), produced in Khujand. Courtesy of Muqaddas P.

Two-colored atlas (silk), produced in Khujand. Courtesy of Muqaddas P.

Rainbow bows before these colors. Courtesy of Nissor Abdourazakov.

A blend of tradition and modernity. Courtesy of Nissor Abdourazakov.

Modern vintage. Courtesy of Diana Ibragimova.

A nomad warrior in peace time. Courtesy of Diana Ibragimova.

Miss "Toqi Party" 2013 in sleeveless "clouds". Courtesy of www.tonight.tj

A family photo of "Toqi Party" attendees. Courtesy of www.tonight.tj

Note on images in this blog. DO NOT USE without permission. I own only those images from my personal archives. Those whose names appear in the captions are the rightful owners of their respective images; I received their permission to use it ONLY for this blog.

The following images are from printed and online sources:

Image 2 from British Museum

Image 3 from Olaf Olufsen (see endnotes), page 291.

Images 4-7, 12-21 and 26-28 from the Library of Congress website, which can be located by clicking the numbers indicated in parenthesis:  4(14939), 5(12238), 6(12240), 7(14947), 12(14289), 13(14266), 14(12208), 15(14330), 16(15099), 17(14250), 18(14268), 19(14337), 20(12203), 21(14445), 26(04653), 27(04412), 28(03948).

Images 8-11 from Victioria and Albert Museum

Images 22 and 23 from Olaf Olufsen (see endnotes), pages 288 and 299, respectively.

Images 24, 25, 30-34 from Janet Harvey (see endnotes), 24(p16), 25(p94), 30(p31), 31(p33), 32(p99), 33(p56), 34(p102).

Images 29 from Gibbon and Hale (see endnotes), page 31.

Image 35 from the Special Collections of the University of Santa Cruz, California

Endnotes:

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[1] Katherine Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale, Ikat: Silks of Central Asia (London: Laurence King Publishing, 1997), 16.

[2] Janet Harvey, Traditional Textiles of Central Asia (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996), 93-94.

[3] J. Thorley, “The SilkTrade between China and the Roman Empire at Its Height, ‘Circa’ A.D. 90-130,” Greece & Rome (Cambridge University Press) 18:1 (Apr., 1971), 71 (http://www.jstor.org/)

[4] Laszlo Torday, Mounted Archers: the Beginnings of Central Asian History (Edinburgh: The Durham Academic Press, 1997), 118-119; Janet Harvey, 8-9.

[5] Ferdinand von Richthofen

[6] Laszlo Torday, 409.

[7] Robert Collins, The Deadly Banners of Carrhae, Silkroad Foundation, http://www.silk-road.com/artl/carrhae.shtml (May 28, 2013).

[8] Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004), 99-100.

[9] Colin Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 306.

[10] Janet Harvey, 93.

[11] Richard Nelson Frye, Bukhara, The Medieval Achievement (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 193.

[12] Arminius Vambery, Sketches of Central Asia: additional chapters on My Travels, Adventures, and on the Ethnology of Central Asia (London: Wm. H. Allen & Co, 1868), 120-121.

[13] Olaf Olufsen, The Emir of Bokhara and His Country: Journeys and Studies in Bokhara (with a chapter on my voyage on theAmu Darya to Khiva) (London: William Heinemann, 1911), 469. For digital copy of the book click here.

[14] Olufsen, 469-470.

[15] “These two elements are present in the fiber, in the proportion of about 75% parts fibroin C₁₅H₂₆N₅O₆ to 25% sericin C₁₅H₂₃N₅O₈” from William F. Leggett, The Story of Silk (New York: Lifetime Editions, 1949), 3-4.