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Marketing mountain products in Kyrgyzstan

15.08.2016

The felted handicrafts that come from the Kyrgyz Republic are still just being discovered by the European and American markets. Kyrgyz artisans are the “master felt makers” of the world. The Kyrgyz come from a nomadic mountain tribal culture, and continuing their felt-making craft is keeping their history and culture alive. Historically the Kyrgyz shepherds would move through the high mountains of Central Asia riding on horseback and guiding their sheep. Kyrgyz people lived in Yurts, known as bozuy in Kyrgyz. They would cover their bozuy with sheets of hand-felted wool and construct exquisite hand stitched woolen quilts called shyrdaks to cover the ground. Today Kyrgyz women living in rural mountain villages are still actively making shyrdaks and have expanded that skill to creating other felt products. They are finding a marketplace in the West for these products that are uniquely associated with their culture.

Since 2002, the Bishkek-based Center of Exchange Experience in Handicraft has been exporting shyrdaks to the United States through Aizada Imports  and is now marketing other high quality felted crafts, such as hats, bags, slippers, dolls, decorative wall hangings and accessories. These new felts designs and products are gaining in popularity on the American market.

At an international trade exhibition in London, Paula Halverson, owner of Aizada Imports, had her first glimpse of the beautiful products handmade by Kyrgyz women. Halverson had been running an import shop in London but was about to move back to Montana. The trade show gave her an idea: she could travel to Kyrgyzstan, buy products from the women and sell them in the United States.

Today, her idea is a reality. Aizada Imports supports work for about 20 Kyrgyz women. “I think of Kyrgyzstan as the motherland of felting,” Halverson said. “It is a blossoming industry of the felt work.”

The Center of Exchange Experience in Handicraft welcomes others share their experience with them at [email protected]

News and photo by Ada Rasulova

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