Art of Carpet Making: New Facilities for Creative Work

Weavers at the Ashgabat art carpet enterprise produced one hundred and twenty square meters of carpet and carpet products in January. The capital’s weavers are making full use of weaving equipment with twenty upright looms employed to make floor carpets ranging from 2.5 square meters to 5 square meters in size, and ten looms − to produce pictorial carpets, portraits, and carpets with landscape scenes. Another seven looms are designed to weave souvenir items.  

The capital’s oldest enterprise, which has a glorious history and enjoys international fame, boasts a new facility that will enable to develop and promote the traditional craft. Builders of the Rukhabatgurlushyk Building Association built the new snow-white factory with an impressive façade overlooking Kemine Street on the site of the old structure constructed in 1948 after the devastating earthquake.

Some two hundred weavers are now working in a comfortable and stimulating environment in light and spacious shops tooled with HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) systems. The famed hand-knotted carpet shop alone occupies an area of one thousand square meters. 

The new building boasts a 50-seat canteen, changing rooms, and a shower area. The first floor accommodates a carpet shop. On the second floor there are a show-room, artists’ workshops, a conference hall, and administrative premises. The enterprise has a yarn dyeing laboratory, storage rooms and other facilities. The new enterprise has an annual production capacity of 1,650 square meters of carpet and carpet items, most of which will be exported. 

Apart from the Ashgabat factory, construction of four new shops will be completed at art carpet enterprises across the country against the order of the Türkmenkhaly Production Association. They will come into operation in Bakharden etrap (Akhal Velayat), Gubadag etrap (Dashoguz Velayat), Bairamali (Mary Velayat) and Khalach etrap (Lebap Velayat) as part of the program aimed at expanding and upgrading the Association’s production facilities and the Regions’ Comprehensive Development Program. 

The Türkmenkhaly State Association is a major supplier of handmade Turkmen carpets woven from pure wool to foreign markets. At present, the Association includes eight art carpet enterprises with more than 1,000 branches and production shops throughout Turkmenistan.  It currently employs 5,000-plus weavers.