RugNotes

KOBTV.com - Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store

2005-10-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

KOBTV.com - Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store: "Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store

Sharon Schenck’s rug store in Santa Fe is packed nearly to the rafters with rugs – many from her store in New Orleans.

By: Todd Dukart

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina flooded much of New Orleans, a Santa Fe business remains flooded with rugs from a New Orleans store.

Sharon Schenck, who owns the Oriental Rug Resource in Santa Fe, had to move more than 1,500 rugs from her New Orleans store after the hurricane.

The hurricane didn’t flood the New Orleans store, but damaged it enough to close down.

The rugs, which she says she handpicked for New Orleans, fill up her Santa Fe store and her garage.

“It’s just unbelievable the amount of rugs in this tiny little space,” she said.

She had just ordered 200 more rugs for her New Orleans store from Afghanistan. Now, those rugs are sitting in customs.

The rugs can’t be stored too long, she says, because of moths. The least expensive rugs normally retail in the hundreds of dollars, while some fetch thousands.

Schenck says she’s brainstorming to figure out ways to sell the New Orleans rugs by discounting prices or selling them to evacuees in Houston."

Keshishian Family Sponsors of Washington International Horse Show

2005-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Press Point: "October 16, 2005

Washington International Horse Show Brings Together Show Jumping Elite at MCI Center in Nation’s Capital.

Washington, DC – October 14, 2005 – This year’s edition of the Washington International Horse Show, scheduled for the MCI Center in Washington, D.C., on October 25-30, 2005, will bring together a slate of this country’s finest show jumping riders. Eight United States Olympians highlight this year’s roster of equestrian superstars. In addition, the show, one of the country’s most prestigious and competitive indoor equestrian events, will feature some of Europe’s legendary and most successful equestrian stars.

Nick Skelton and Michael Whitaker, both four time Olympians for their home country of Great Britain, have confirmed that they will attend this year’s show. Both riders were key members of this year’s British Samsung Super League Teams. Skelton is the 1995 World Cup Champion while Whitaker, who was second at the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas earlier this year, won the European Championship in 1995.

Also coming to the MCI Center this year is Philippe Rozier, a two time French Olympic Team veteran. 2004 Olympian Gerco Schroeder of the Netherlands will also attend. Schroeder, with three World Cup Finals appearances, was the Young Rider Gold Medalist at the European Championships twice. Harrie Smolders, also from the Netherlands, rounds out the contingent from Europe.

The MCI Center will showcase a battle of the best riders the United States has to offer, including sixteen of the top twenty-five riders on the United States Equestrian Federation Show Jumping Computer Rankings.

The star studded field of American riders is headlined by 2004 Olympic Team Gold Medalist McLain Ward. The 2004 President’s Cup Champion and Washington International’s Leading Jumper Rider, Ward returns to defend his title in 2005 and looks forward to the enthusiastic crowds at the MCI Center. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the great crowds at Washington,” Ward said. “The fan support we get is very exciting and induces good competition.”

Ward, who produced double clear rounds in Aachen, Germany this summer to propel the United States to the championship in the summer long Samsung Super League Series, says that Washington has emerged as the preeminent indoor show in the United States. “The Washington International is a real first class, international indoor horse show. It rivals what Madison Square Garden once was,” asserted Ward. “It’s in the middle of downtown. There’s electricity in the air. They pack the place on President’s Cup night, probably more people than the Garden ever got on grand prix night. And, it’s a very horse educated crowd. They understand what’s going on, and they’re very supportive. That’s the key to making any event great,” he said.

In addition to Ward, other United States Olympic veterans competing at this year’s Washington International Horse Show include two time Olympian, Leslie Howard, with Gold and Silver Team Medals from Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and in Atlanta in 1996.

Also returning to the MCI Center is Norman Dello Joio, the Individual Olympic Bronze Medalist from Barcelona in 1992. Dello Joio won the President’s Cup at Washington in 2000. Other Olympic veterans include Margie Goldstein Engle (Sydney 2000), Lauren Hough (Sydney 2000), Laura Kraut (Sydney 2000), Alison Firestone (Athens 2004) and Todd Minikus (Sydney 2000). Minikus captured the President’s Cup at Washington in 1990.

Two time President’s Cup winner Aaron Vale (2001-2003) will try to make it three in 2005. Vale is on fire, chalking up 23 grand prix wins this season including the $100,000 USGPL Finals. Vale, a part of the United States Equestrian Team’s efforts in Europe this summer, won a Lexus automobile by capturing the Lexus Queen’s Cup at Barcelona, Spain.

Schuyler Riley will make Washington a stop on this year’s tour. Riley galloped her way into show jumping history this summer when she won the $175,000 Chrysler Classic at Spruce Meadows for the second year in a row. Her back to back victories were the first since legendary Canadian Ian Miller posted consecutive wins with Big Ben in the late 80s. She’s the only woman to ever capture that prestigious event.

Georgina Bloomberg and Danielle Torano, who dominated last year’s Amateur Owner Jumper division, will be competing in the WIHS Open Jumpers in 2005. Danielle’s husband Jimmy Torano, who put together an amazing string of six consecutive grand prix wins this summer, will challenge as well.

“This is without a doubt the greatest field of open jumper riders at the Washington International Horse Show in the last fifteen to twenty years,” said WIHS manager Hugh Kincannon.

The $100,000 President’s Cup sponsored by Salamander Hospitality, LLC highlights this year’s jumper division and will take place on Saturday night, October 29, 2005.

Other exciting jumper action includes the $25,000 International-Open Jumper Time First Jump-off, a President’s Cup Qualifier, sponsored by Split Rock Farm and the Braun Family on Friday, October 28th and the $20,000 International-Open Jumper Time First Round, sponsored by Monarch International/Show Circuit Magazine on Thursday afternoon, October 27th, also a President’s Cup Qualifier, Also on the agenda for 2005 is the $20,000 International-Open Gambler’s Choice on Thursday evening.

The all new AOL.com Night at the Washington International Horse Show features two exciting show jumping events, the $20,000 International-Open Jumper Accumulator and the $25,000 AOL.com International Open Puissance classes.

Tickets for the 2005 Washington International Horse Show are still available at www.ticketmaster.com or call 202-397-SEAT. Barn Night Groups (10 or more) receive $5 off each ticket.

WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL HORSE SHOW

FAST FACTS

Washington International Horse Show Media Credentials Available Online

Media interested in covering the WIHS can apply for accreditation through the official website www.wihs.org. The WIHS will accept any legitimate requests for applications, even if received after the deadline of October 10th.

If you would like to cover the WIHS, please fill out the accreditation form at http://www.wihs.org/news/media.cfm.

Washington International Horse Show – (Office) 16063 Comprint Circle, Gaithersburg, MD 20877 – 301-987-9400 Fax: 301-987-9461 – www.wihs.org – Susan Webb - Susie@wihs.org

During Show at MCI Center: 202-661-5227 – Fax: 202-661-5228 – Web Site: www.wihs.org (#s TBD)

PRESS LINK PR/Diana De Rosa: O: 631-773-6155, C: 516-848-4867, dderosa1@optonline.net

PHELPS MEDIA GROUP, INC./Mason Phelps, Jr.: O: 561 753-3389, mpjr@phelpsmediagroup.com

BENDURE COMMUNICATIONS/Vicki Bendure: (540) 687-3360, bendurepr@aol.com

WHAT: Washington International Horse Show

WHO: Elite equestrians and their multi-million dollar horses competing for some of the most coveted trophies in the world.

WHEN: October 25 – 30, 2005

WHERE: MCI Center, Washington, DC

TICKET PRICES

Day
Day
Evening Regular
Evening VIP**

Tuesday
$15
$20
$40

Wednesday
$15
$20
$40

Thursday
$15
$30*
$45*

Friday
$15
$35
$60

Saturday
$20
$35
$60

Sunday
$15
No Evening
No Evening

Anytime Package
$85
Regular admission for each performance ($235 package)

Barn Night Groups (10 or more) receive $5 off each ticket. See back panel for rules or visit www.wihs.org
VIP Seats include premium arena-level seating and a FREE WIHS Program Book ($10 Value). Take ticket stub to WIHS Souvenir Booth.
www.ticketmaster.com or call 202-397-SEAT
.

2005 SPECIAL “ANYTIME PACKAGE” OFFER:

This year the Washington International Horse Show is offering an “Anytime Package” ticket deal for $85.00. The “Anytime Package” allows admittance for spectators to all events and performances from Tuesday, October 25th through Sunday, October 30th. The cost of tickets if purchased for each event would total $235.00, at the very least, so this opportunity is a great way to save money while enjoying all that the show has to offer. Also included in the Anytime Package is free admittance into the Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion which will have a host of activities for families to enjoy on Saturday, October 29th from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

SCHEDULES:

10/25 – Daytime: Regular & Green Conformation – 1st & 2nd Green – Regular Working – A/O Hunter (35 & Under and Over 35) – Evening: WIHS Children’s Hunter Championships & Adult Hunter Championships

10/26 – Daytime: Regular Working & Regular Conformation – 2nd year Green & Green Conformation – 1st year Green

A/O Hunter (35 & Under & Over 35) – A/O Jumpers – Evening: WIHS Children’s Jumper Championships and Adult Jumper Championships

10/27 – Daytime: Small Jr. (15 & Under), Large Jr. (15 & Under) – Small Jr. (16-17), Large Jr. (16-17)

$25,000 President’s Cup Qualifier – A/O Jumpers – Evening: WIHS Dressage Invitational Grand Prix, $20,000 Gambler’s Choice

10/28 – Daytime: Small Jr. (15 & Under), Large Jr. (15 & Under), Small Jr. (16-17), Large Jr. (16-17), WIHS Equitation, A/O Jumpers – Jr. Jumpers TFR - $20,000 Open Jumpers – Evening: AOL.com Night features Dressage Invitational Freestyle Competition, $25,000 AOL.com Puissance

10/29 – Daytime: Small, Medium, Large Pony - Afternoon: $15,000 Open Jumpers Speed Class – Jr. Jumpers, Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion and Mystics Family Fun Day

Evening: WIHS Equitation Classic: (Jumper Phase & Final work-off) - $100,000 President’s Cup Grand Prix, Tracy Byrd Concert

10/30 – Small, Medium, Large Pony – WIHS Pony Equitation Classic – Local Hunter Finals (Horses) – Local Hunter Finals (Ponies) – Jr. Jumpers TFJO – Local Jumpers Finals

Exhibitions to Include: Barrel Racing – Terrier Races – Musical Free Style – Dressage - Tracy Byrd in concert- AOL.com Night- Mystics Family Fun Day- Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion…and more

SPONSORS: Salamander Hospitality, LLC, RLJ Development, Mignon C. Smith, Washington Mystics, Monarch International/Show Circuit Magazine,Gotham North, Arwen Stables, The Braun Family, Stadium Jumping, Inc., Salamander Resort & Spa, J. Aron Charitable Foundation, Newstead Farm, Legg Mason Funds, MasterfoodsUSA, Shalanno Farm, Tara Management, JPC Equestrian, ITS Industries, Ernie & Betty Oare, Pennfield Feeds, Linda C. Dickinson, Mr. and Mrs. Austin Kiplinger, S. Craig & Frances Lindner, Chris Rogers/Hillary Stiff, EMO Insurance Agency, Inc., Tad Coffin Performance Saddles, The Tack Box, Inc., Pat Carleton, Phillips Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. David Pollin, Rill & Decker, Potomac Valley Builders, Tony Weight, USTrust, Lilly Elizabeth & Stella Gray Pollin, Lake Placid Horse Shows, Delaware Park Racing Association, Keshishian Family, McGuire Woods, LLP, Horse Watch

MEDIA PARTNERS: NBC4 – Metro – Practical Horseman – The Gazette – The Journal – The Chronicle of the Horse – Equiery – WAMU 88.5 FM – The Washington Post – MIX 107.3 FM – Sidelines – Horse Talk – 97.1 Wash-FM – The Washington Times – Primedia Equine Network- 98.7 WMZQ- Washington Life Magazine- Press Link PR- Towerheads- Phelps Media Group, Inc.- Virginia Equestrian- Reins & Manes- Equine Journal

Publications interested in covering the Washington International Horse Show can fill out an accreditation form at www.wihs.org.

ABOUT THE MCI CENTER: The MCI Center offers sponsors luxury hospitality, an upscale spectator base, prime media exposure, and a highly-visible corporate presence.

SPONSOR OPPORTUNITIES: Thursday Evening’s Performance, WIHS Equitation Classic, WIHS Championships, $20,000 Gambler’s Choice, Junior Jumper Division, Amateur Owner Jumper Division, WIHS Pony Equitation, Exhibitor’s Lounge,$25,000 Open Jumpers – Friday, $15,000 Open Jumper Speed Class – Saturday, Small Junior Hunter Divisions, Large Junior Hunter Divisions, Pony Hunter Divisions, Lunches for Judges & Officials, Leading Jumper Rider Award, Exhibitors Numbers, Hunter Divisions, Soda & Snacks For Exhibitors, Individual Hunter Classes, and Individual Pony Hunter Classes

QUICK FACTS:

-English Style Horse Show Spectators & competitors have one of the richest income/economic demographics of any sports audience.

-USEF members average HHI - $134,500 – net worth $955,400 – Professional/managerial positions – 60%

27 million Americans ride a horse at least once a year – More than 10% of U.S. households currently participate in riding – 2,000,000+ people currently own horses – An additional 18% of U.S. households have an interest in riding – 33% of American households own/ride horses or would like to own/ride horses – 2/3 of current horse owners own more than one horse.

-The MCI Center offers sponsors luxury hospitality, an upscale spectator base, prime media exposure, and a highly-visible corporate presence.

-With everything from shopping at the specialty vendor booths and bidding on silent auction items to cheering on Olympic riders, the WIHS combines affordable family fun, shopping, glamour and international equestrian competition.

-The WIHS is a charitable organization; proceeds donated to local and national charities. Past recipients include: CRPF, NBC4s Camp 4 Kids, Canine Companions for Independence, ASPCA, Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health, Partners in Education, Community Services for Autistic Adults & Children, National Center For Therapeutic Riding, etc.

- This year’s chief charity for 2005 is the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg, the foundation is dedicated to brightening the lives of seriously ill children and their families. Their website is www.slsb.org.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

The 47th Annual Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) has served as one of the world’s elite show jumping competitions since its genesis in 1958. From its birthplace at the DC Armory, to the Capital Centre, and now at the state-of-the-art MCI Center, the WIHS brings the “country to the city” every October with Olympic horses and riders competing throughout the 6 days of competition for some of the most coveted and prestigious awards in the world.

The Washington International Horse Show takes place each year at the MCI Center, Washington, DC. The musical freestyle dressage exhibitions by top dressage riders are a crowd favorite. Musical freestyle dressage is often referred to as “dancing on horseback” since riders and horses perform a routine of complex movements – all to the beat of music.

Each year, equestrians from all across the US competed in horse shows to qualify to compete at Washington. The world’s top riders fly their multi-million dollar equine athletes to Washington to view for top honors in this world class show jumping event.

The Washington International Horse Show is a great place to start shopping for the holiday season with amazing bargains in both the Silent Auction and at the 60-plus specialty vendor booths along the concourse of the MCI Center. To view information about this year’s specialty vendors and descriptions of their products, visit www.wihs.org

WIHS EQUITATION QUALIFYING INFORMATION

Competitors must be WIHS members for qualifying points to count. Membership forms and Show Application Equitation forms may be downloaded at www.wihs.org – or contact Ryegate Show Services, 717-867-5643 - wihs@ryegate.com

RULES & REGULATIONS (new for 2005): Riders must be members of the WIHS Equitation to earn points in the standings.

The WIHS Equitation and Washington Pony Equitation are open to USEF and CEF member shows that request an application to hold an equitation qualifier class.

Shows must apply 30 days prior to the start of the show in order to offer the equitation class(es). Upon receipt of the application, the show contact will be mailed all pertinent forms.

Completed results forms and payment ($7.00 fee per rider in each class) must be returned to the Ryegate office within 10 days from the conclusion of the recognized horse show.

Qualifying period: shows starting on or after September 1st through shows starting on or before August 31st. The top 30 riders in the WIHS Equitation and the top 25 riders in the Washington Pony Equitation will be invited to compete in the Finals at the Washington International Horse Show.

Multi-day horse shows are permitted to hold either a one or two phase WIHS equitation qualifier. One-day horse shows are only allowed to hold a one-phase event. Washington Pony Equitation Classes may only be held as one phase.

The WIHS Equitation classes are open to junior members of USEF or CEF. Three riders must complete the course for the class to be included in the National Ranking.

· The same horse must be used in all phases of the event...No Exceptions.

· One rider per horse, unless the judge requests a change.

· Classes to be judged in accordance with the current USEF standards for equitation.

· Riders may only compete in one WIHS Equitation class at a show.

· Splitting of classes must be in accordance with USEF Article 2203.3.1.

As a service to our visitors and international sports organizations, Sports Features Communications™ is posting recent press releases at no charge to the viewer or organization. "

BCNG Portals Page: Local carpet company finds a niche Steve Roberts and the Rug Badger

2005-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

BCNG Portals Page: "

Local carpet company finds a niche

By BrennanCLARKE

Victoria News
Oct 14 2005 In more ways than one, Steve Roberts is cleaning up in the world of business.

But his services have never been in higher demand than they were last week in Louisiana.

Roberts, co-owner of Luv-a-Rug carpet cleaning in Saanich, spent a day in New Orleans late last month salvaging waterlogged Persian carpets that had been damaged in the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"It was really quite extraordinary. We were driving down the streets in a carpet cleaning van with a U-Haul trailer and people were literally chasing down the van saying 'can you help?'" Roberts said.

"The lesser quality carpets were all junk because the colours had all run, but many of the good ones were salvageable."

Roberts drove the van and trailer through the ritzy Metairie district in suburban New Orleans, where homeowners were piling their flood damaged belongings on lawns and in driveways. Within three blocks, he found himself overloaded with high-quality carpets.

"People would go to the heap, pull a rug out of the pile and I would discover it was a $20,000 Isfahan, or a $10,000 Tabriz, or even a $40,000 Beshir rug, all completely restorable," he said.

Roberts travelled to the Gulf Coast at the invitation of fellow carpet cleaner George Bell of Jackson, Miss., who called Roberts away from a Las Vegas trade show, saying that thousands of expensive rugs were rotting away amid continuing hurricane clean-up efforts.

As it turned out, Roberts had been marketing a new carpet cleaning invention called the Rug Badger.

Roberts said the Rug Badger uses high-speed vibrations to remove tiny particles of sediment, heavy metals and other contaminants from carpets.

"It's something we developed right here in Victoria. We were cleaning carpets and people would call us to say they're still dirty," Roberts said via a cell phone from an Alabama factory where the units are being assembled. "Now we're taking orders from all over the world - Australia, we sold six in the UK, all over the United States."

The Rug Badger retails for about $3,500. Roberts said he's sold about 60 of them so far and orders continue to pile up."

Iran Daily - Arthur Upham Pope's Narenjestan-e Qavam

2005-10-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Panorama - 10/12/05: "Narenjestan-e Qavam

Narenjestan-e Qavam is a fascinating and pleasant garden, the fragrant trees and flowers of which have given it a beautiful and poetical atmosphere. Inside the garden which is known as “Narenjestan“ because of its bitter orange trees, we come across an old building complex whose exquisite architecture is admired by all viewers.
The structure of this building is one of the outstanding artistic masterpieces of Shiraz artists, and dates back to the 19th century. All the graceful and unique decorations were completed in about five years.
These constructions were designed by Ebrahim Khan-e-Qavam (prime minister during the reigns of the two Qajar kings, Aqa Mohammad Khan and Fath Ali Shah) and carry the symbols of that era’s architecture. A walk through the garden proves to be a pleasing experience so much that leaving the scenes of nature’s beauty, enhanced by admirable works of art is difficult to do.
This building was used as the Birooni building (to receive people out of the family circle). The complex was the domicile of governor’s court of Fars during the Qajar period. It also includes Zinat-al-Mulk house, designed and used as Andarooni (the home for only the close family). The two buildings are examples of traditional residential architecture in Iran.
These buildings were granted to Shiraz University in 1966.
Narenjestan was used by the Asian Institute under famous archeologist, Professor Arthur Upham Pope, between 1969 and 1979. The complex is part of the faculty of Art and Architecture of Shiraz University since 1998.
The other parts of the complex were: private bathhouse; public bathhouse; Hosseiniyeh (building for religious ceremonies); detention house; and stable. The detention house and stable no longer exist."

Editorials - The Ithaca Journal - Pakistan: Old friend helps many - JAKCISS Oriental Rugs

2005-10-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

Editorials - The Ithaca Journal - www.theithacajournal.com: "Pakistan: Old friend helps many

Editorials

Thanks to the ever-rotating spotlight of world catastrophe, many in this area are rediscovering the small villages of India and Pakistan and joining the world in aiding the earthquake stricken nations. These efforts are desperately needed, and those who answer this call are saving lives.

Worth noting, especially as the shadow of this crisis lingers, is that both nations have struggled for decades with deep poverty and religious tension. While the earthquake has brought many new friends, one old friend has been helping improve lives in the villages of Pakistan for years - and this community has played an important role in that effort.

The non-profit business Ten Thousand Villages has been spreading its fair-trade message for almost 60 years, now through more than 160 stores in North America, including its operation on The Commons in downtown Ithaca. Collectively, these stores spread throughout the United States and Canada generated $22.8 million in sales last year, sending more than $7.7 million to artisans and workers from Asia to Central America. The company, a program of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches, has as its mission the goal of providing a needed and fair income to Third World people.

Well more than $1 million of those payments went to Pakistan, where Ten Thousand Villages works with an artisan group known as JAKCISS Oriental Rugs. Through them, the company works with 700 families in more than 100 Pakistani villages. JAKCISS even supports two schools, and work on the hand-knotted rugs is often done indoors so women in more conservative Muslim areas can join other Muslim and Christian adults in earning a fair wage.

Since most Ten Thousand Villages stores are too small to stock these rugs, the company sends them on tour around the country, introducing local people to the craft and the purpose of the fair trade relationship at these “rug events.” A few weeks ago the rug event stopped in Ithaca, with 300 rugs taking up residence in donated space at St. Catherine of Siena Church. Mike Westlund, manager of the Ithaca Ten Thousand Villages, said the events was a success, generating enough in sales in this community to supply one year's worth of income to 20 families in Pakistan. After the event, Westlund heaped praise on the church and the community, but he may not have been surprised by the good results. Of all the Ten Thousand Villages stores, Ithaca has the highest per-capita rate of fair trade purchases.

Like the rest of the world, Ten Thousand Villages has stepped up its efforts in Pakistan since last week's earthquake. Its rug program Web site (http://rugs.tenthousandvillages.com) reports some damage to the schools but, so far, no word of serious damage or loss of life among artisans. But before catastrophe demanded it, the non-profit chain - with the strong support of Ithaca and Tompkins County - was saving and improving lives in Pakistan as it does in many regions of the world. New friends are always needed in tough times, but old friends deserve thanks. For helping lives in the Third World, and for teaching consumers in the First World how to make a difference, Ten Thousand Villages deserves special thanks from us all.

Originally published October 13, 2005"

Hundreds of Priceless Oriental Rugs Rescued From Hurricane Flood Damage by Canadian Business Owner

2005-10-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Hundreds of Priceless Oriental Rugs Rescued From Hurricane Flood Damage by Canadian Business Owner: "Steve Roberts, owner of Luv-A-Rug, a Victoria, B.C., based area rug cleaning company, never imagined being directly involved with any rescue efforts in New Orleans. But a telephone call from Jackson, Mississippi, changed all that.

(I-Newswire) - "I was an exhibitor at a Carpet Cleaning Trade Show in Las Vegas when I got a frantic call from George Bell, who owns a rug cleaning company in Mississippi," remembers Roberts. "He desperately needed one of my new rug cleaning machines that I recently unveiled to the industry, so after the show, I flew down and personally delivered one to him."

When Roberts arrived in Jackson, George Bell lamented to him how he and all his best people were so busy restoring flood damaged rugs from New Orleans that he didn't have anyone else that could go back down and pick up other rugs that needed to be saved. "There are thousands of rugs rotting away down there that still can be saved," explained Bell.

Roberts immediately volunteered to go and help rescue these rugs. Even with all the TV coverage, Roberts was not prepared for the devastation he witnessed. "Trees, roofs and even buildings were all blown down. I needed to use a GPS to figure out where I was because there weren’t any street signs left standing," Roberts remarked.

It was while driving through the older upscale district of Metairie that Steve Roberts saw all the front yards piled high with the damaged contents of the houses. "Anything left in the homes during the flood was ruined," Roberts said. "People were dragging out furniture, TV's, kitchen cabinets, washers, dryers, electronics, you name it, it was out there."

Even with all this clean-up going on, people would notice the area rug cleaning van that Roberts was driving and they would chase him down to get him to look at their rugs. "People were so happy to hear their rugs could be saved," recalls Roberts.

Whenever Roberts drove by a house with a rug on a garbage pile, he would stop and ask the owners about it. Many people said, "Oh, you can't save it," but Roberts would reply, "You know what, if it's a good rug, it's worth taking a look at." He was often surprised at what was thrown away. "People would go to the heap, pull the rug out of the pile and I would discover it was a $20,000 Isfahan, or a $10,000 Tabriz, or even a $40,000 Beshir rug, all completely restorable!"

According to Roberts, the only salvageable personal item many people had in their flooded home was their oriental rug. Often it was a family heirloom. “In one trip alone, I was able to save over 80 waterlogged rugs that were covered in filth, slime and unimaginable stink,” said Roberts. “Good quality handmade rugs are extremely resilient and can be easily restored because their dyes will not run nor will they fall apart like many glued synthetic rugs even under severe conditions like what happened in New Orleans.”

To see dramatic images of flooded homes and rugs visit: http://www.rugbadger.com/documents/85.html"

The sacred, profane world of Islamic art : Arts Weekend : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

2005-10-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

The sacred, profane world of Islamic art : Arts Weekend : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri): "The sacred, profane world of Islamic art
Robert Reed / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

"The Middle East has played a pivotal role in human civilization for thousands of years, and during its long and fascinating history it has repeatedly produced art that still has the power to engage us today." So begins Palace and Mosque, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

Written by Tim Stanley, this book offers a concise illustrated history of Islamic art while also serving as the catalogue for an exhibition of the same name composed of works from the V&A collection. Having toured to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and another U.S. venue, the exhibition is now on at the Setagaya Museum of Art in Tokyo until Dec. 4.

It is an interesting story how the V&A came to have one of the best collections of Islamic art in the world. Part of the reason for the founding of the museum--which opened in 1852 as the Museum of Ornamental Art and later the South Kensington Museum--was the tremendous success of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations held in London in 1851. This exhibition, which can be considered the first World Exposition, drew some 6 million visitors to its extensive displays of decorative art and industrial design from around the world.

From a historical standpoint, the exhibition was held at a time when there was serious concern about improving the artistic quality of British industrial design. And one of the results of the exhibition was a rediscovery of the beauty and sophistication of Islamic art. The success of the Great Exhibition prompted the British government to establish a Department of Practical Art in 1852, and creating a museum of outstanding decorative art from around the world was one of the Department's first moves.

This marked the start of today's V&A collection. In the following decades the collection grew thanks to ambitious archeological and collecting work by British Middle East experts like Sir Robert Murdoch Smith.

One of the first commentary panels viewers encounter at the current Setagaya show--Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum--offers a definition of "Islamic Art" as consisting of two separate traditions.

One is firmly based in the Islamic religion and manifested primarily in the mosques of the Islamic world. The other is secular art produced for the rulers of the Islamic world and manifest mainly in their palaces and later in the commercial industries like ceramics and textiles that they patronized.

As with early Buddhism and Christianity, Islam strictly forbade the appearance of any figures, including humans and animals, in decorative arts for places of worship or in the illustration of the religious texts of the Koran.

This was to prevent such images from becoming the object of idol worship. And, whereas images of the Buddha and Christ and other religious figures eventually found their way into Buddhist and Christian art, true Islamic art in the religious context remained free of any figures. This makes it easy to distinguish between the secular and religious art of the Islamic world.

The spread of the Islamic faith after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 is one of the most dramatic events in the history of human civilization. Only slightly more than a century later, the first Islamic empire extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus valley on the subcontinent and the Chinese empire in central Asia. The Middle East was the hub of trade between the East and West and all goods traveling along the system of land trade routes known as the Silk Road and the sea routes to the East passed through the Middle East and ports like Basra in Iraq and Suez in Egypt.

The first exhibits we see in the Setagaya show aim to show how the geography of Islam influenced its arts and science. Five times a day, Muslims are expected to pray facing toward the sacred Ka'bah in Mecca. This led to the development of the astrolabe, a device to determine both the direction to Mecca and the irregular hours of prayer. Unlike a mechanical clock or a magnetic compass, the astrolabe was based on astronomy and mathematics and contributed to a rapid development of these sciences in the Islamic world.

The geography of Islam also defined the decoration of mosques, where the most important feature of the basically unfurnished architectural space of the mosque is the mihrab alcove on one wall indicating the direction to Mecca. The arched shape of the mihrab alcove became one of the few motifs allowed in Islamic art and in this show we see how its shape is used on intricately woven prayer mats and decorative wall tiles.

The only other substantial furnishing of a mosque is the minbar, the Islamic equivalent of the Christian church pulpit, which stands beside the mihrab and from which sermons are delivered at Friday prayer services. One of the highlights of this exhibition is the seven-meter tall minbar for Sultan Qa'itbay, (15th-century Egypt), which the V&A has allowed to leave its halls for the first time for this touring exhibition. The wooden minbar is ornately decorated in carved geometric patterns and ivory inlay.

With the extremely limited subject matter and motifs available for use in Islamic religious art, the written word of the Koran itself became the most important element of artistic design. Some of the most beautiful works on view in this show are glass and metal vessels decorated with stylized Arabic calligraphy and the calligraphy of hand-written copies of the Koran. Although a number of strict rules governed calligraphy style when copying the Koran, we see a very high level of calligraphic art in the copies on display in this exhibition.

The show also features many examples of the famous blue and white fritware pottery for which the Middle East is famous. Fritware is in fact the product of a long history of Middle East craftsmen trying to imitate exquisite Chinese porcelain by grinding stone and sand into an extremely fine powder in lieu of porcelain clay.

Of course, no exhibition of Islamic art would be complete without Persian carpets, and another highlight of this show is the V&A's famous Chelsea Carpet from early 16th-century Persia (now Iran). Its intricate motifs of lions in the hunt are unequalled in today's carpets.

In all, there are 105 works in the Setagaya show, including ceramics, glassware, metal ware, woodwork, ivory carving, fabrics and rugs, costumes, manuscripts and paintings. Most of the works are from the 13th to 17th centuries and are grouped for this exhibition into five sections: Mosques, Shrines and Churches: Places of Prayer; The Written Word; Courts and Courtiers: Art and Power; Ottoman Patronage; and Artistic Exchange.

The exhibits are arranged with plenty of space for each work, although the galleries were not crowded on the second Saturday of the show. One thing that detracted from the exhibits was the darkness of the galleries, even in rooms where there were no works on paper that would demand such low lighting. Still, this exhibition is sure to be an educational experience, with informative description panels in English and Japanese throughout.

===

Palace and Mosque--Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum

Through Dec. 4, open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (entry until 5:30 p.m.). Closed Mondays.

Setagaya Art Museum in Kinuta Park, a 17-minute walk from Yoga Station on the Tokyu Denenchofu Line.

Admission: 1,200 yen for adults; 900 yen for university and high school students and seniors aged 65 and over; or 400 yen for middle and primary school students. Information: visit www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp or call (03) 3415-6011.

(Oct. 13, 2005)"

AP Wire | 10/11/2005 | U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' case

2005-10-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

AP Wire | 10/11/2005 | U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' "Posted on Tue, Oct. 11, 2005

U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' case

CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
MIAMI - The U.S. government issued a statement of regret Tuesday for the actions of soldiers who took valuables belonging to Hungarian Jews that had been seized on a Nazi "Gold Train" during the chaotic end of World War II.

The statement issued by the U.S. Justice Department said that the government "regrets the improper conduct of certain of its military personnel" who took items that had been on the train, which was carrying jewelry, gold, artwork, Oriental rugs, china, cutlery, linens and other items.

"The United States has concluded that, although the conduct of its personnel was appropriate in most respects, it was contrary to U.S. policy and the standards expected of its soldiers" in some actions, the Justice Department statement said.

The apology was required as part of a settlement approved Sept. 26 by a federal judge in Miami between the U.S. government and about 62,000 Hungarian survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. The settlement calls for $25.5 million to be distributed to needy Jews through social service agencies around the world, with the bulk going to those in Israel, Hungary, the United States and Canada.

The "Gold Train" was captured by U.S. soldiers from pro-Nazi Hungarian forces in May 1945. A U.S. investigation found in 1999 that some Army soldiers failed to return items initially "requisitioned" from the train and used in postwar offices, such as rugs, cutlery and even typewriters.

The investigation also concluded that some property was stolen from a warehouse by soldiers. Although some personnel were caught and prosecuted, little of the property was recovered.

The government did hold an auction of remaining items in 1948 to benefit Jewish relief victims after determining that it would be impossible to identify the owners of the Gold Train property and that Hungary's then-communist government would be unlikely to cooperate.

"The United States expresses its sympathy and solidarity with these victims and hopes that the settlement approved by the district court will provide meaningful assistance to those survivors," the Justice Department statement said.

The Bush administration was under bipartisan pressure to settle what was seen as a black mark on the U.S. record in World War II. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., were among 17 senators who urged a resolution in a letter last year."

At Home In the World: Paulette Cole - ABC Home

2005-10-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

"At Home In the World: Paulette Cole
Your partner wants to focus on growth. You want to follow a passion more than a strategy. Could you walk away? Paulette Cole recently did that with ABC Home, and she recently made a joyous return.

From: Inc. Magazine, October 2005 | Page 132 By: Lora Kolodny
In 2000, more than a decade after co-founding the New York City emporium ABC Home--the store that gave jumble a good name--Paulette Cole reluctantly left it. She and her husband and partner, Evan Cole, had separated. And they were increasingly at odds over whether to emphasize rapid growth (his choice) or socially responsible sourcing (her passion). She left control of ABC in Evan's hands and returned to the travel that had inspired much of her approach to the store.

Three years later, it was Evan who wanted a change. He went to Los Angeles and opened H.D. Buttercup, a furniture store that leases space to manufacturers and lets them sell directly to the public. Paulette moved back in--literally; she has an apartment on the top floor of the flagship store--as ABC's CEO and creative director.

Today, Paulette Cole wants to transform ABC into a 100% socially responsible world market. The trick, she acknowledges, will be to do it without sacrificing the company's $80 million in annual revenue, its 350 employees, or what more than one New Yorker

My father ran this New York institution, the ABC Carpet Store on 19th and Broadway. It looked exactly the same for 20 years, all broadloom.

When I was young, I really believed the worst was to go work for my family. So I started as a waitress at age 14 and never went without a job from that point on. Instead of going to college, I assisted an established designer in New York for two years. Finally my father convinced me--for a supposed trial period--to see how I liked working at ABC.

He wanted me to understand each aspect of the business: buying, sales, the warehouse. Everything. Right away I went to Europe to visit international markets and a factory in Spain that we worked with. I didn't even speak Spanish, but I could oversee design, and make sure this big order for wool carpet we had placed came through on time.

In the middle of that, the factory workers went on strike. It was like a coup; they were locking out the owner. They wanted to make it into a cooperative. We were determined to make our order happen and keep the factory running--we couldn't lose the business and have them lose their business. It worked. The owners and workers went through mediation and the workers got partial ownership. We placed orders for years for both the workers' looms and the owner's.

I'd witnessed firsthand how you could advance a community and its economics just by doing business.

Traveling also taught me new things about design. In the States, as a people, we're too young to know how to create a home the way they do in Italy, Turkey, or Spain. But cultures of indigenous people who have done design and craft through the generations have made it a part of their whole being. They have incredible ways to create a feeling of home, and I wanted to do this in my own life.

That was my first instinct to begin importing some of this knowledge, and to take back to New York a little piece of each place I fell in love with.

Actually, I met my husband in New York when I sold him carpet! Evan Cole, when I met him, was an agent at William Morris. His side project was an eccentric little Christmas store on 52nd Street. We really hit it off, and after the sale he invited me to visit his store. Once we were married, he came to work at the family business.

Evan was a gambler with a brilliance all his own. He was a perfect balance to my father, who taught me how to be frugal, how to stay grounded, how to make a commitment about things like real estate. Evan was passionate but operational about it all. Working with him, I learned to invest in what I was feeling.

We didn't have a business plan. But around the mid-'80s, the trend of Oriental rugs, as they were called, began. Demand in the States was so strong! We started importing.

We'd be in Europe and Asia buying rugs, and we'd fall in love with other things. That's how we started with ABC Home, just bringing back antiques. If I loved it, Evan and I trusted our customer would love it. We just started to buy things. It wasn't about a plan. Eclectic was the whole thing.

Later, just like with the Oriental rugs, I realized there were no high-thread-count linens, no beautiful jacquard sateens like I found abroad. I brought some back. At first it was like, Linens have nothing to do with anything! Where are you going to put that?

This wrinkle on my forehead--I call it the linens wrinkle because that whole phase really wasn't easy. But when people started buying and kept on buying sheets, Evan and I were fully focused on ABC Home. We incorporated early on and were always separate, financially and creatively, from my father's business.

We went from rugs to antiques to linens, accessories, gifts, furniture, and lighting. The day we moved rugs from the main floor to the upstairs floors, I felt like we had arrived. We weren't a store organized by manufacturer, or pillows in aisle 5. It was a visual experience that told a story. It was more like a museum than a store.

Seeing how you could mix any colors that appeared in nature together in the home, seeing how you could mix things from Uganda, France, and Tibet in one room--that freed people who visited us to be creative, to make their homes a collection, over time, and stop worrying about "decorating," which is all about one pretty moment. The business results were that all those items sold together. It's known as cross-merchandising today, but we were breaking a lot of rules of retail. We brought the company from zero to $80 million in under a decade breaking rules.

I realized ABC's influence when I went to big mills and said, Do you have these organic fabrics? They said no, so I suggested they get informed. All of a sudden, all the mills--and then the department stores--had the fabrics. There would be a ripple effect every time we announced we were doing something. So I wanted to start trends that could make a social impact.

Evan would say, we need to be profitable, we need to grow. Growth was his agenda; it was our agenda at first. I think that's where our visions began to diverge.

"I believe that you cannot replicate the multilayered museum experience of ABC. That's the whole point." I was all about cultural awakening, and Evan wanted to open outlet stores and create a formula to duplicate ABC elsewhere. I believe that you cannot replicate the multilayered museum experience of ABC. That's the whole point. Still, I knew that our staff needed to be led by one vision, and there were things in the world I wanted to learn and do.

We had our difficulties out of the workplace too, and separated. It was wrenching, but I left ABC Home in Evan's hands in 2000. I was sad about the diffusion of the brand. I wanted to spend a lot of time with our daughter, and to get back to travel.

During that time I joined the Social Ventures Network. They basically exist to teach entrepreneurs to address the social issues--poverty, the environment, and tolerance--through business.

By 2003 I realized that the store and its outlets were not growing in the way Evan had wanted. He had a business idea, called "manutailing," that he wanted to go and start separately. I bought his shares in 2004. I really felt it was my calling to move back to New York and take ABC on to the next level, as I see it.

Today, ABC Home has 350 employees. It isn't like I can just divest from the things that do not align with my vision, like the outlets, or some products that we now carry, overnight. There's the global community, and there's your community at work. You want to keep anyone who wants to stay, and you need to be fiscally responsible.

Nineteen percent of our volume is socially responsible. I'd love to see us at 50% in five years, 100% in a decade. But I don't know how realistic it is. A huge amount of product development needs to be done.

I look at the organic food market, at what's happened with Whole Foods. That's what we're going to bring to the home. In 10 years, you'll be able to buy a desk or a bed made by a women's cooperative in Uganda from salvaged wood as easily as you can buy an organically grown tomato today. If I can start that, and model a way that the industry can be socially responsible, then I think, I'll feel like I've really made this my own."

AP Wire | The Wertime "Silk & Leather," Show at the Textile Museum

2005-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

AP Wire | 10/10/2005 | Exhibits offer ideas on Asia garments: "Exhibits offer ideas on Asia garments

CARL HARTMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Anyone who thinks Western fashion houses need new colors and designs might get some useful ideas from three sumptuous shows of traditional Asian dress at Washington museums this autumn.

Already on view at the Textile Museum are clothes developed over millennia by the hard-riding people of central Asia - hat, boots, sash, tunic, trousers and caftan - the last a long, loose, long-sleeved garment, worn by both men and women.

John T. Wertime, guest curator of the show called "Silk & Leather," described the ancient warriors of central Asia who sometimes spent days in the saddle, fighting or checking out new pastures for their herds. They needed clothes that would both protect them from the cold and keep their legs from chafing against their horses' flanks. Their coats had to give them room for driving a war chariot and for wielding bow, arrow or heavy bronze sword while mounted.

This "steppe style," Wertime pointed out in an interview, also had the advantage that it needed no clasps or buttons to keep on. In ancient Europe garments like the Roman toga were usually made of a single piece of cloth draped around the body. They needed constant adjustment or a clasp to hold them in place. One solution was the fibula, something like a giant safety pin.

"You know the Venus de Milo," said Wertime, referring to the ancient Greek statue, nude to the hips. "The arms are broken off, so you don't know what she was doing with them. Some people think she was wearing a single piece of cloth that just slipped from her shoulders."

That wouldn't have happened to a central Asian woman, wearing a basic shift-like gown put on over her head.

The steppe style came into contact with the clothes of more settled peoples, like the Chinese. More than 2,000 years ago the central Asian nomads developed a taste for Chinese silks. In the same period, the skills of embroidery spread into central Asia.

These features made the garments more elegant and colorful without changing essential forms, Wertime said. The elaborate caftans are the stars of the show, along with embroidered boots to be worn indoors and hats that range from little embroidered beanies to tall cones, one adorned with feathers.

"Silk & Leather" will be on view through Feb. 26, 2006.

On Wednesday, the Textile Museum will open a show of Japanese rozome. It's a kind of batik, with wax applied to parts of the fabric that the maker wants to keep unaffected when it's soaked in dye. The rozome artist applies both wax and color to the fabric with a brush, enabling more subtlety in the tints and making the result into a single artist's work rather than a team job. It's a technique more than 1,400 years old, revived early in the 20th century. The work of 15 Japanese artists will be on view.

The exhibit, organized by the Massachusetts College of Art, was hailed as the first of its kind in North America by Masuo Nishibayashi, Japan's consul general in Boston.

Why don't the rozome artists just brush pigments on canvas as other artists do? asked Betsy Sterling Benjamin, who joined in organizing the show.

She answered her own question:

"It's the love of deep color, when water-soluble dye penetrates to the root of the fiber, changing its nature forever, the chemical action that allows the striking glow of dyed fabric. Rozome artists are painters addicted to the meditative stroke of hot wax on thirsty cloth, luminous color and a quiet solitary studio."

"Rozome Masters of Japan" will close Feb. 12, 2006.

Admission to the Textile Museum is free, with a "suggested contribution" of $5.

On Oct. 29 the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will show the big, bold designs of robes favored by Turkish sultans of 300 to 400 years ago, There will be 68 of them borrowed from the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul - velvet, brocade and cloth made of gold and silver thread.

Among the exhibits is a plain silk satin robe worn by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent - a contemporary of Elizabeth I of England, whose empire stretched from Morocco to Iraq. The sultans, leaders of the Islamic faithful, nevertheless tolerated the export of luxurious silks for ceremonial robes of the Russian Orthodox church, including Christian images made by Turkish weavers.

Some robes were lent to the show by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Like other Smithsonian museums, the Sackler does not charge admission.

"Style and Status," as the Turkish show is called, will close on Jan. 22, 2006.

ON THE NET

Textile Museum: http://www.textilemuseum.org

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: http://www.asia.si.edu"

Iran News - Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments

2005-10-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments " Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments

Monday, October 10, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 10 (IranMania) - Iran's southern Kish Island can serve as the center for attraction of foreign investment, said a top business official, said IRNA.

Acting head and member of the Board of Directors of Kish Free Trade Zone Organization Abdolrahman Bushehri told Kenyan Ambassador to Tehran Ali Abbas Ali that Kenyan public and private sectors by effectively making investment in the zone can get a foothold in the big regional and Central Asian markets.

Bushehri referred to lack of any restrictions on industrial investment, a 15-year tax exemption, duty free import of machinery and raw material and free transportation both inside and outside Iran as some of advantages of investment in the zone.

He said there are plans to expand air, port and marine transport facilities, improve the water, electricity, sewage, internet and telecommunication services in the area for this purpose.

He added that location of the Bank of Iran and Europe and Standard Chartered Bank in Kish as well as imminent inauguration of an oil, gas and petrochemical stock market there will give boost to foreign investments.

The Kenyan diplomat said that his country is willing to make investment in the zone, adding that this is why he and his companions are visiting the area to get first hand information on advantages of investment in Kish FTZ.

Ali said Middle East is a lucrative market for Kenyan tea and Kenya eyes markets in the region and Central Asia, hoping that Kish FTZ can play a constructive role in that connection.

He said a top-ranking delegation would shortly visit Kish for the same purpose.

During his stay in Kish FTZ, the Kenyan ambassador visited the industrial units, infrastructural projects and tourist attractions there."

Guardian | Lifting the veil - Parviz Tanavoli

2005-10-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

Guardian | Lifting the veil: "Lifting the veil
The finest collection of 20th-century western art outside Europe and America has been gathering dust in storage. Why? Because it's owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But now, Christopher de Bellaigue reports, these spectacular works are finally being displayed in Tehran

Christopher de Bellaigue
Friday October 7, 2005

An Iranian woman stands in front of a huge Picasso, Painter and his Model, on show at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art. Standing in his studio, illuminated by subdued pools of coloured light, the artist is depicted as an extension of the inanimate objects around him. He has been reduced to a series of mostly straight lines; his arms, palette and easel merge into each other, and the rest of his body into the floorboards and wall panelling. To the model, on the other hand, Picasso has given a stark voluptuousness. With her expanse of stomach, distended breasts and club-like limbs, she imposes herself on the scene in a way that the painter, who is part of the scene, cannot. For a few minutes, the Iranian woman is absorbed by this rich autobiographical painting, with all its intimacy and ambiguity. Then, rearranging her headscarf to cover her fringe, she moves on to a Braque still life.
It is hard to decide what to marvel at - the Picasso, or the fact that it hangs here, in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, part of a big show of modern western art. In Tehran, any big exhibition is scrutinised before it begins, by censors from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. What, you wonder, did they make of the Picasso? Are the model's breasts too removed from conventional anatomy and her genitalia, paraphrased by an inky sliver, too figurative for her to be considered a proper (and therefore impermissible) nude? Perhaps they were flummoxed by the phallic limb protruding from her side? Whatever the reason, they let the Picasso through but acted decisively when they came to Francis Bacon's Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendant, a few rooms further on. The censors have shorn this triptych, whose gorgeous passages of paint evoke a terrible solitude, of its central panel. That panel - as visitors to Tate Britain, where it was on loan until the summer, will recall - depicts two naked men lying on a bed. It was deemed too gay for the Islamic Republic. (A little bit gay is too gay for the Islamic republic). The Bacon is now a diptych partitioned by a phantasmal smudge.

Of all the ironies raised by the current exhibition, titled simply Modern Art Movement, none is more dramatic than this: arguably the finest collection of modern western art outside Europe and America is owned by a country that, ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has prided itself on expressing contempt for western culture. The Tehran show is the first exhibition of the whole collection since the revolution.

The fact that it is being staged at all owes much to the cultural glasnost that was pursued by the man who was president until this summer, Muhammad Khatami, and by the outgoing museum director, Ali-Reza Sami-Azar. Iran's conservatives delight in showing that even broken taboos can be revived, and now, after eight years of reformist government, they are back in power. Khatami's successor as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June, is an Islamic hardliner who shows little appreciation for western culture. The new museum director is an unknown quantity. To be sure of seeing these remarkable pieces, art enthusiasts should hotfoot it to Tehran before the show ends on October 22. For Iran's hardliners, these works are an unwelcome reminder of a morally corrupt, monarchical past; they may shrink at bringing them out of the vaults again soon and fears are already being raised that some of the best pieces may be sold off.

In the exhibition catalogue, Sami-Azar alludes to the collection's origins by thanking Kamran Diba, the museum's architect and first director, who negotiated the purchase of many of the works on display. (Diba left Iran when the revolution started; he now lives in France and Spain.) This may be Sami-Azar's elliptical way of thanking Farah Diba, Kamran's cousin and the wife of the former shah. While her husband poured money into buying the latest military hardware, Farah thought of preserving, and developing, Iran's artistic heritage. She set up several museums, which survive today, and started Iran's equivalent of the National Trust. She bought collections of Iranian art that had been in western hands and put them on public display. And she persuaded the shah that it would be a good idea, commercially and culturally, to build a collection of modern western art and put it in the museum that Kamran was building (again, at her behest).

The times were propitious. Iran was swimming in foreign money after the oil price hike of the early 1970s. For the same reason, the western art market was suffering, and masterpieces were going relatively cheap. According to Parviz Tanavoli, one of Iran's most distinguished sculptors and a former cultural adviser to the queen, the collection was amassed for "tens, not hundreds, of millions of dollars" - from dealers such as Ernst Beyeler in Basel and Leo Castelli in New York. At the time, the queen used to joke that the collection cost less than one of the shah's beloved Tomcats. A few years ago, it was valued at $2bn (£1.1bn).

Most Iranians interested in modern western art will never make it to New York's MoMA, or the Pompidou Centre in Paris. MoCA (the wannabe acronym for Museum of Contemporary Art was Sami-Azar's idea) is the next best thing. The thrill of cultural exchange, of finding yourself among artists who speak a different visual language, is palpable when you enter the very first gallery, filled with impressionists and pointillists, not least from the chorus of beeps triggered by excited students as they cross infrared barriers installed to keep visitors and works apart.

Iran's traditional pictorial art, miniature painting, inclines to formalism, rigid convention and the respectful portrayal of kings - how different to a shimmering Pissarro depiction of peasant homes, and a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph of a jockey dominated by a horse's posterior. A tour group gathers before a Gauguin still life that contains a Japanese print and a carved Tahitian head. As a riposte to the Islamic Republic's official distrust of foreigners, and to the equation of contact with contamination, it could hardly be bettered.

The show takes you through Kamran Diba's varied spaces, past a rare Leger from 1913 and Picasso's synthetic cubist masterpiece, Fenêtre Ouverte sur la Rue de Penthièvre, to a marvellously inventive late bronze by the same artist, of a baboon and her young. The curators have given deserved prominence to a trio of circus performers by the fauvist George Rouault; its robust central figure, with her striking arrangement of Mesopotamian wedge nose and saucer eyes, might have been unearthed at Ur.

Every room has its own ironies. Particularly striking is a watercolour by the German Dadaist George Grosz, called The Unexpected Guest. It shows a gluttonous burgher gorging himself, surrounded by the cracks and tumours of his own ruin, while Death appears at the door. Grosz painted this picture as a communist in the 20s, but it could just as easily represent the perception that Iran's revolutionaries had, half a century later, of the elite they were supplanting.

There are three big omissions from the European part of the collection up to 1939: Cezanne, Matisse (bar one lithograph) and Mondrian. But such absenses seem trifling when you enter the large, well-lit gallery that is devoted to abstract expressionism, the movement that proclaimed America's cultural primacy after the second world war.

Far away at the United Nations, the US and Iran trade insults; Iran's nuclear dossier edges closer to the Security Council. But here, art shouts louder than politics. Visitors contemplate two trembling Rothkos and a magnificently vivid Pollock drip painting (Mural on an Indian Red Ground) that seems to unite the balletic and the calligraphic. (The dealer Ernst Beyeler considers this Pollock to be one of the finest works that has passed through his hands.) The collection's sole De Kooning, a dark and vehement abstract work called Light in August, reminds us of one that got away. In 1994, before Sami-Azar's directorship, the museum swapped a painting from De Kooning's monumental Woman series for a rare volume of illuminated Persian miniatures, then part of an American collection. That series marked De Kooning's apostasy from abstraction, and a split in the movement; the chance of seeing Light in August and Woman side by side is gone.

Several rooms of exuberant pop art mark another high point in the show. Warhol, Lichtenstein and Oldenburg are ill served by these small spaces, but there is no denying the pedigree of the art - or its relevance. Iran's new consumer culture, an unstoppable reaction to 15 years of revolutionary austerity, means that Tehran is a good place to revisit pop art's mixture of celebration and irony, of childlike appetites and social blindness. What a shame that Sami- Azar never managed to rescue the silkscreen that Warhol executed of Farah while on a visit to Tehran. It entered the queen's modest private collection, and now languishes in a damp basement underneath one of the former royal palaces.

Everyone agrees that the collection's later works are not its best. For every luscious Bacon (the collection has two, though one is currently on loan) or teeming Dubuffet, there are half a dozen modish duds. The collection takes us up to 1977. And then there is silence - a silence that is, for all Iranians, filled with screaming, convulsive politics. The 1979 revolution and the shah's flight; the US embassy hostage crisis; eight years of war with Saddam and his backers in Europe and America; for many Iranians, these events seemed to augur permanent conflict between them and the west. And this was reflected in attitudes towards western art and its champions. In the eyes of the revolutionaries, the deposed queen - who had fled into exile - symbolised a kind of moral sickness, masquerading as culture.

That so much of Farah remains, even today, is testament to the humane good sense that underpinned many of her public endeavours. As queen, she was charitable, progressive and (unlike so many at court) uncorrupt. Nevertheless, she was prone to bad lapses of judgment. Farah was the shah's willing accomplice in a grotesquely vainglorious commemoration of Iran's monarchy, staged in the ruins of Persepolis, the ancient Achaemenid shrine city, in 1971. (She and her husband played host to some 60 potentates and presidents. The shindig cost tens of millions of dollars, at a time when a shameful number of Iranians had no electricity or running water.) Equally damaging was her patronage of an arts festival whose most notorious performances featured nudity and live pigs. Pious Iranians did not forget these affronts. After the revolution, fanatics set out to tear down Persepolis. (They were stopped.) Royal palaces were thrown open as examples of degenerate living. And there were rumours that the nation's modern art collection would be sold, lock stock and barrel, to Kuwait.

The art was saved, probably for commercial reasons, but it remained mostly unseen, while the museum put on edifying shows of religious and revolutionary art. Acquisitions were out. Only under Sami-Azar's directorship were these trends challenged. Sami-Azar helped to reduce artistic censorship and he promoted Iranian artists abroad. His tenure was marked by increased foreign contacts and loans; in 2004, the museum collaborated with the British Council to stage an ambitious exhibition of 20th-century British sculpture. But the conservatives needled him. An appointed upper house vetoed a parliamentary bill that would have enabled the museum to purchase works from abroad. (Sami-Azar wanted to fill those pre-1939 gaps and invest in Brit Art). The hardliners prevented him from sending works from the museum's western collection, along with examples of contemporary Iranian art, to an ambitious festival of Iranian culture that was being planned by the Swiss dealer Beyeler. The festival never happened.

If you hurry, you will catch some wonderful art in Tehran, and a shy nostalgia in its concrete corridors. Picture the museum rising in the 1970s - at a time, in Tanavoli's words, when Tehran was "an international capital" and the streets teemed with foreigners. Imagine the inauguration, on a sweltering night in 1977, when Iran's beau monde gathered to celebrate the queen's birthday and view parallel shows of modern western and Iranian art. Amid performance and music, the shah and Farah were feted by some of the world's most important curators, among them Nelson Rockefeller and the director of the Guggenheim. Amid the glittering company and self-congratulation, who could have imagined that revolution was less than two years away? But that's not the story of an art collection. It's the universal story of an elite too busy gorging itself to notice the Unexpected Guest, standing at the door.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005"

A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia

2005-10-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia: "A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia
Thursday, October 06, 2005

By Gregory L. White, The Wall Street Journal
MOSCOW -- Two have fled the country. Another is in jail, his oil empire in ruins. Russian President Vladimir Putin has largely succeeded in his campaign pledge to make oligarchs -- the powerful tycoons who emerged in the chaos of post-Soviet Russia -- disappear "as a class."

Now, most of the country's super-rich are either packing up or hunkering down and trying to stay on the government's good side.

Except Mikhail Fridman. Using bare-knuckles business tactics, the 41-year-old built an $8 billion empire spanning oil, telecoms, banking and retail. Now, he's picking a fight with Leonid Reiman, Russia's telecommunications minister and a longtime Putin friend.

Last fall, lawyers for units of Mr. Fridman's Alfa Group lined up Anthony Georgiou, a former Reiman partner, to provide testimony to a British Virgin Islands court that he'd paid over $1 million in bribes to Mr. Reiman. He testified that the payments happened when the future minister was a top executive at a Russian state phone company in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. Based in part on allegations raised in the case, German prosecutors have opened an investigation into whether Western banks facilitated any criminal activity.

Mr. Reiman has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and late last year accused Alfa of smearing him to prevail in a business dispute. "Alfa, because it's an old oligarchic structure, is trying to use the traditional means by which they've resolved conflicts many times over many years -- by putting pressure on officials," Mr. Reiman told reporters.

In fact, Mr. Fridman makes little pretense that this is just about clean government. He's in a vicious battle over a stake in Russia's No. 3 mobile-phone company. His lawyers are using the corruption charges to fight off a legal challenge from a Bermuda-registered investment fund that claims it owns the stake. Mr. Fridman has offered to drop the lawsuits if the other side agrees to settle.

In Russian business, where hostile takeovers often involve burly men with masks and submachine guns, toughness has long been a key to success. But Mr. Fridman, whose hardball tactics are legendary, is charting a lonely course of resistance at a time when the state is increasingly squeezing private business.

"It's our style, our strategy and we're not changing it. We do a lot of things that might seem aggressive to some people," the baby-faced Mr. Fridman says with a smile, sitting in his spartan white office in downtown Moscow.

So far, Alfa has managed to avoid trouble with the Kremlin itself. Mr. Fridman has tried to insulate himself by hiring former top government officials as advisers, including Pyotr Aven, a former trade minister and an old friend of Mr. Putin who meets the president regularly.

Mr. Fridman says he's careful to avoid anything that the Kremlin would see as a challenge to its control of national politics. That's widely believed to be what got billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky in trouble: He was contributing tens of millions of dollars to a broad range of political parties. He's now serving an eight-year prison sentence on fraud and tax-evasion charges. His OAO Yukos oil company was slapped with $28 billion in back-tax claims and largely nationalized last year.

Where Mr. Khodorkovsky was often openly critical of the Kremlin during his frequent trips to the U.S., Mr. Fridman is much more careful. In January, he flew to New York to open a lecture series his bank endowed at the Council on Foreign Relations. The speaker was Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a Putin confidante and a man frequently tipped as a potential presidential successor. Mr. Fridman introduced him as "an outstanding politician."

Alfa also has lined up some high-profile insurance. The oil company it controlled is now half-owned by BP PLC, in a deal for which Mr. Fridman made sure to get public backing from Mr. Putin and United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the wake of the Yukos case, which has battered business confidence and badly tarnished Mr. Putin's international reputation, Mr. Fridman says he doesn't think the Kremlin will risk another open clash with big business.

Still, these days every new back-tax claim against a company linked to Alfa spurs a wave of speculation in the local press that Mr. Fridman is about to face the same fate as Mr. Khodorkovsky.

A devoted movie and theater buff, Mr. Fridman is also known to take a turn at the piano at Color of the Night, the Moscow jazz bar he owns. He still looks a bit like the nerdy kid from school, his brown hair untouched by grey. The self-described adrenaline junkie has a taste for adventure that extends beyond the office to annual off-road rallies through the jungles and deserts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Public information about the Alfa Group is limited, since it's a private company owned by Mr. Fridman and two university friends. Run roughly like a giant private-equity fund, the group holds assets valued at about $20 billion, says Mr. Fridman, who adds that his stake is "more than 40 percent." The assets are owned by a complex web of holding companies located in discreet offshore jurisdictions like Gibraltar. Managers of the various businesses -- banking, oil, trading, retail and telecoms -- own minority stakes in the individual units, sometimes alongside outside partners.

"We're financial investors," says Mr. Fridman, who keeps an apartment in downtown Moscow and commutes regularly to Paris, where his wife and two daughters have lived since the early 1990s. "We don't consider ourselves experts in the industries we're in."

Colleagues say Mr. Fridman led the group's push in the late 1990s into the oil business, which now delivers most of the profits. Telecom has been the focus for expansion since then -- Russia has been among the world's fastest-growing wireless markets for the past several years. Mr. Fridman says he aims to cobble his stakes in the region together into a regional network and then negotiate an equity alliance with a global player like Vodafone Group PLC.

For Mr. Fridman, a Jewish kid from Lvov in what's now Ukraine, persistence has long been a business signature. As a student in Moscow in the 1980s, he says he was blocked from continuing his studies because of anti-Semitism in the Soviet education system. So he started a window-washing cooperative, becoming one of the first to take advantage of the chance to open a private business.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he built his fortune trading everything from Oriental rugs to Cuban sugar to Russian crude. As the government began privatizing thousands of state companies, Mr. Fridman pushed the group into the oil business. He lined up two Russian emigre partners who helped cobble together a patchwork of formerly state-owned companies into a group they called Tyumen Oil Co., known by its Russian abbreviation TNK.

It was a heady time for Mr. Fridman and his fellow oligarchs. They'd made millions as capitalism was just taking root in the early 1990s and used their fortunes to build vast political clout. In 1996, Mr. Fridman and a handful of tycoons teamed up to finance President Boris Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign. Using their close connections with the Kremlin, they snapped up the country's richest assets in often-rigged privatizations and, in some cases, were awarded with top government jobs. Boris Berezovsky, for example, whose interests ran from oil to television, was named deputy secretary of Russia's powerful Security Council.

Along the way, Alfa cemented its reputation for aggressive tactics. Alfa often took advantage of gaps in the bankruptcy law that allowed small creditors to take control of debtor companies.

Officials at Norex Petroleum Ltd., a small Canadian oilfield-services company, contend Alfa went a step further in 2000, when it moved to take control of a Siberian joint-venture Norex had with a TNK unit. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Norex alleges that TNK took over with 20 machine-gun-toting guards. One executive was quoted in the lawsuit as saying that a top Alfa official vowed to "run over (the company) like a steamroller" if they resisted. Alfa says it's confident that its takeover of the company was legal but won't comment on details of the case, which hasn't yet gone to trial. Norex is seeking to recover $1.5 billion.

But even as Alfa was still throwing its weight around, twilight was setting in on the era of the oligarchs. Mr. Putin came to power in 2000 vowing to reassert Kremlin authority. Within a year, two of the most politically influential oligarchs, Vladimir Gusinsky and Mr. Berezovsky, had left the country under threat of prosecution, leaving the bulk of their empires behind. Oil tycoon Roman Abramovich quietly began selling off his holdings and spent more and more time in London, where he bought Britain's Chelsea soccer team. Last month, state gas company OAO Gazprom announced a deal to buy the oil company he controls, OAO Sibneft, for $13.1 billion.

Sensing the winds shift, Mr. Fridman realized he needed to move fast to get a foreign partner for TNK, a move that would provide both political insurance and cash. "We knew at some point that opportunity would be gone," he says.

Tempted by Siberia's vast reserves, BP was already on the prowl for a Russian deal. But Alfa had to rebuild relations with the British giant that had soured in the late 1990s when Alfa, in a battle with another oligarch, stripped key assets out of BP's previous investment in Russia. Mr. Fridman patched things up with BP CEO John Browne. BP wound up paying $7 billion in 2003 for half of the oil company Alfa owned with two partners. "There is a toughness built into the culture of Russia," Mr. Browne said at the time. "You have to cooperate."

Mr. Fridman's timing was impeccable. Although analysts touted the BP deal as the first of many foreign investments in the oil patch, the Kremlin soon closed the door on such big deals with foreigners and geared up to attack Yukos.

But it wasn't long before Mr. Fridman got into a government-relations mess of his own. In a complex series of transactions in the summer of 2003, Alfa had bought a 25 percent stake in Megafon, Russia's No. 3 cellphone company. The stake had previously been owned by LV Finance, an investment firm controlled by Leonid Mayevsky, a former legislator.

Within days, a little-known Bermuda investment fund called IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd. contested the sale, claiming it was entitled to the shares under a pair of option agreements dating to 2001. IPOC went to court in Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where some of the Alfa companies holding the Megafon shares were registered. IPOC also launched arbitration proceedings against LV Finance in Switzerland, where the 2001 option agreements had been executed.

Lawyers for LV Finance, cooperating with Alfa's legal team, argued IPOC hadn't properly paid for the options. They also sought to convince the courts that IPOC was in effect a criminal enterprise, thereby rendering any of its contracts illegal and voiding its claim to the Megafon shares.

In written arguments in the BVI case, Alfa lawyers asserted that an affidavit from former IPOC President Vidya Sharma showed IPOC was "simply a front for laundering the proceeds of criminal conduct in Russia for ... Leonid Reiman."

Alfa lawyers argued in court papers in the BVI that IPOC was part of a complex network of companies that served to conceal Mr. Reiman's ownership of large stakes in Russian telecom companies, including Megafon. They alleged the fund got its money from corrupt dealings in Russia involving the minister.

IPOC denied the allegations and accused Alfa of paying witnesses. In fact, Alfa did pay $7 million to Mr. Georgiou, the former partner of Mr. Reiman. Alfa said the payment was to buy out most of Mr. Georgiou's Russian businesses, which he feared would suffer after his testimony.

Mr. Reiman denies any wrongdoing. Jeffrey Galmond, a Danish lawyer who has known Mr. Reiman since the late 1980s, has testified that he's the owner of IPOC and its related companies -- holdings that could be worth more than $1 billion. He says the corruption allegations are just an effort to distract from what he says is Alfa's fraudulent acquisition of the shares.

"It looks to me as an attempt simply to crush a competitor by Alfa," he told a civil proceeding in Geneva last year. "They are all over the place and there is, in my personal opinion, no limit to what they are capable of doing."

The conflict has been tense. At the Geneva hearing, the presiding arbiter complained his house was being watched and his garbage searched. He said police told him the surveillance was linked to the case, although the culprits were never caught. Acting on an IPOC complaint, Russian police are investigating possible fraud charges against Mr. Mayevsky for his role in the Megafon share sale. He briefly fled Russia to avoid arrest.

Mr. Galmond says he got the money for IPOC from a series of lucrative deals in Russian telecoms and real estate in the 1990s. In court testimony, he admits that Mr. Reiman's work "played an important part in the creation of my own success and wealth," but says that took place before Mr. Reiman became minister. Mr. Galmond acknowledges he bought a summer house on the Danish coast in 1993 that he says he and Mr. Reiman shared, but denies any wrongdoing.

Court rulings are still pending in most of the cases. Prosecutors in Frankfurt, tipped off in part by the allegations from Alfa and LV Finance, are already investigating whether Germany's Commerzbank AG, which worked with Mr. Galmond, was involved in money laundering as a result, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor. Commerzbank denies it broke any laws, but a senior executive involved in the case resigned this summer and the bank has vowed to tighten internal oversight.

So far, the Kremlin is showing no sign that it's concerned about the allegations. Last year, Mr. Putin even took the unusual step of intervening to restore Mr. Reiman's ministerial job when he was about to lose it in a government reshuffle. He'd left nearly all the other appointments to his prime minister to decide.

As the grudge match dragged on, some of Alfa's other investments in Russia ran into trouble. In December, telecoms company OAO Vimpelcom, in which Alfa owns a big stake, was told it owed $160 million in unpaid taxes and fines. Vimpelcom's American depositary receipts, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, plummeted 30 percent in two days. The company later got the tax claim sharply reduced and the stock has recovered. And in April, authorities slapped Alfa's main oil investment with $790 million in back-tax claims for 2001.

But unlike Yukos, which was crippled by tax assessments and saw executives jailed, tax and regulatory problems so far haven't fazed Alfa or its companies. The regulatory issues have cleared up and in August, TNK-BP said it settled the tax claims for $250 million. Auditors are still looking at company taxes for 2002 and 2003.

Mr. Fridman says the Megafon fight is worth it: He estimates Alfa's stake is now valued at about four times the $300 million he paid for it in 2003.

"We understood that there would be unhappiness on the part of certain bosses in the telecommunications ministry, but we were ready for that," Mr. Fridman says, adding that Alfa's legal position is "ironclad.""

Lansing State Journal: Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank

2005-10-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Lansing State Journal: Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank: "Published October 4, 2005
[ From the Lansing State Journal ]

Floor model: Area rugs can serve as versatile decorating tools. This living room in Nashville, Tenn., features a 60-year-old Heriz rug from the Middle East.

Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank
By Anna Watson
Gannett News Service

Ready for a room makeover? The addition of one simple item can easily change the composition of an entire room.

Available in all shapes, sizes, colors and materials, area rugs are among the most versatile decorating tools available. From a trendy little throw rug from the Swell line at Target to large hand-woven Persian carpets, area rugs are designed to make a statement.

As more homes turn to wood and tile floors, area rugs are increasingly being used to add warmth to a room or to define a space. But they're not just for hard floors; they work just as well on carpeting.

Advertisement

Practicality aside, area rugs are just plain fun - not to mention, often very beautiful.

Whether you're buying an Oriental rug or a bath mat from Kmart, think about what you want your rug to do. Once you've defined its purpose, you can more easily wade through the myriad choices regarding color, material, shape and size of area rugs.

Color

When choosing a color for your area rug, do not try to match the color perfectly to the walls or other furniture, says Barbara Jennings, interior design specialist and consultant in Costa Mesa, Calif. Rugs are meant to blend with existing colors in the room.

For example, Jennings says, if you have neutral walls and a patterned couch with a dark background, pick a rug with shades of each so it ties the colors together.

Also, try not to choose competing patterns for both the rug and the couch. In a room with neutral colors and hardwood floors, consider a throw rug with rich tones to add warmth.

Materials

These days there are many materials and colors to choose from.

Oriental rugs are made from silk or wool. Although these are the most expensive rugs, they are also some of the most durable. Acrylic materials are less expensive and a good choice for resisting sunlight, stains and mildew.

According to Deborah Burnett of the American Society of Interior Designers, Olefin, or polypropylene, is known to be the most stain-resistant - if you have kids or pets, this is probably your best bet. A nylon fabric is generally very durable and easy to maintain. Wool and cotton rugs are softer than acrylic materials, but jute is usually a bit pricklier. Burnett emphasizes that natural materials are not quite as kid-friendly as some of the synthetic rugs. It's also a good idea to keep them out of direct sunlight.

Within these materials, you must decide whether you want a flat-woven rug (like an Oriental) or a plush pile surface.

Shape

Choose a rectangular shape for defining a space such as a living room, Burnett says. Irregular rug shapes tend to be smaller, used as a focal piece in a room.

Size

Rugs come in several standard sizes: 2-by-3, 3-by-5 and 4-by-6 feet. These smaller rugs work well in an entryway, in a hallway, or by the fireplace and are used in large rooms to define different spaces and break up large stretches of floor. Large rug sizes are generally 6-by-9, 8-by-10 and 9-by-12 feet, though they can run up to 16-by-20. If you want your furniture to go on your area rug, you'll want a larger rug that extends beyond the grouping of furniture, Jennings says.

In a dining room, for example, the rug should be big enough that the chairs remain on the rug even when pushed back.

Finally, don't make the mistake of many people and buy a rug with a pattern they love that is too small for the space, Jennings says. When the furniture is half on and half off the rug, the room loses its sense of balance."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 10/04/05 - Tanavoli’s Sculptures for Canadian Event

2005-10-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

Tanavoli’s Sculptures for Canadian Event

Parviz Tanavoli

TEHRAN, Oct. 3--The latest collection of works by noted Iranian sculptor, Parviz Tanavoli, will be displayed at Eliot Louis Gallery in Canada in February-March.
The works, which were created with a new look at the collections ’Nothing’ and ’Mountain Digger Farhad’ differ from his earlier creations.
Elaborating on this style, Tanavoli said, “When I started working on the collection ’Mountain Digger Farhad’, my intention was to render a general view of this mythical figure’s character but in the new undertaking I dealt with the details of his character and appearance.“
A new work by the artist features Farhad’s hand. In order to achieve his love, he digs the mountain with all in his power for years.
This job needs more power and hand is the symbol of human strength.
“I designed Farhad’s hand in a way to depict his power,“ he noted.
In his later works, he wishes to focus on the details of Farhad’s character, he said.
Some of the sculptures have been molded in Tehran and will be sent to Canada within several months.

Parviz Tanavoli - Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected

2005-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected: "Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected

Sunday, October 02, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 2 (IranMania) - A noted sculptor has called for paying more attention to woven handicrafts of tribal communities in order to prevent them from becoming extinct, said Iran Daily.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of an exhibition featuring tribal carpets, Parviz Tanavoli said, ?We are seeking to recover unique Iranian carpets which were smuggled out of the country due to inattention of Iranian kings, and the neglect for carpets woven by tribesmen.?

The Carpet Museum adopted a wrong policy in seeking the return of carpets from the Safavid era which were smuggled out of the country by the Europeans during the Qajar era, he said adding that the museum however managed to get back only a few of them at huge costs. However, if the museum had focused its attention from the outset on collecting unique carpets woven by tribesmen, an unmatched collection of carpets would have been available now, he regretted.

Tanavoli further stated that everybody thinks that it is easy and commonplace to identifying such carpets while the number of the experts majoring in this difficult field in Iran is few and far between.

Observing that one of the most important ways of preserving valuable carpets is to set up regional museums, he recalled that 80 years ago, the tribes were considered the most important power in the country.

They were brave, vigorous, proud and content people whereas today they are poor, he said, adding most of them own pickup vans because they have lost their cattle due to draught.

Meanwhile, director of National Carpet Center, Morteza Faraji referred to the positive impact of such exhibits and said that the carpet industry should be viewed from various perspectives including safeguarding cultural heritage, economy, job generating and preventing migration to cities."

Westchester County Business Journal - Luigi Festagallo

2005-10-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

Westchester County Business Journal: "Luigi Festagallo

Arrivederci Roma
Cousin's business a draw for leaving Italy
By BOB ROZYCKI
Luigi Festagallo doesn't remember much about the day that his dad was killed.

He was 4 years old, and according to the story passed down through the family, his mother had a bad feeling about the day and told her husband not to go to work.

It was July 19, 1943, and Allied planes dropped bombs for the first time on Rome. Bombing of the city had been avoided up until that point because of its religious importance.

His dad didn't return home from work as vice president of a company that sold propane tanks. Propane was a major fuel source in Italy. Festagallo's uncle went to the factory only to find the building in shambles. The uncle found the father of three dead under rubble.

The bad news would not be easy to deliver. In addition to the three children, another was on the way.

But Festagallo holds no grudge against Americans. "It was war," he says.

While "it was a bad situation after the war," his father's stature with the company left the family in good shape financially. And while there was very little to buy and "everything was expensive," his uncle owned a bakery, so the family "didn't suffer from lack of food."

Festagallo said his mother, brother and two sisters were not poor. "We never suffered poverty. Relatives in the United States sent money and packages."

After the war, Festagallo went to school in Rome and played soccer with his friends. He saw numerous popes give the Sunday benediction in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.

After high school, he joined his brother in running a business that exported, cleaned and repaired Oriental rugs. They opened a 1,500-square-foot store on Piazza Navona, known for its three fountains, including the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers and church of Sant'Angese in Agone.

During a visit to America for a wedding, Festagallo talked with his cousin Antoinette Lombardi about joining forces to create a rug store in Westchester County.

Lombardi, who is known as "The Rug Lady," created what would become Rug and Home Gallery, now located in Thornwood. Festagallo moved from Italy and the two went into business together.

The language was not much of a barrier to Festagallo since his cousin speaks Italian. Rugs were the universal language though.

Festagallo said he can look at a rug and tell where it was made, whether it is China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Persia or Afghanistan. When a customer has a rug in need of repair, such as missing fringe, broken border or even a hole from wear, Festagallo sizes it up and determines the cost. And if repair costs exceed the worth of the rug, Festagallo said he would tell the customer. And, he said, all repairs are done by hand. Even rug washing is done manually.

One thing that Festagallo said he has found to be different here in the United States is driving, specifically the drivers themselves. "It's a completely different mentality." In Italy, he said, people drive with the other motorist in mind. Here, people drive thinking only of themselves.

Having grown up in Rome, Festagallo said he never had a garden and he doesn't have one now at his home in Ossining. "There was no space for gardens in the city."

He said he loves to eat and cook. He said a specialty is his sauce. And like any cook will concur, "it's better with fresh tomatoes," never from the can."

Pittsburg Rug Dealer Richard T. Walker Dead at 65 - PittsburghLIVE.com

2005-10-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Oriental rug expert enjoyed exotic travels - PittsburghLIVE.com: "Oriental rug expert enjoyed exotic travels

Richard T. Walker
By Jerry Vondas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, October 2, 2005
As one of the leading Oriental rug dealers in the nation, Dick Walker was the expert that U.S. Customs officials often trusted to authenticate the value of Oriental rugs coming into the country.
But such recognition came with a price, said his wife and partner, Kathleen Walker. "We traveled a great deal," she said. "In the years before the Shah of Iran was deposed, Dick and I made our way throughout the back roads of Iran looking to purchase quality Oriental rugs."

Richard T. Walker, of Upper St. Clair, owner of Walker Rugs on Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon, died of heart failure on Friday, Sept. 30, 2005, at his home. He was 65.

"We had guides take us to these hamlets by jeeps, trucks and old junkers," Mrs. Walker added. "On one occasion, our guide left us as soon as it got dark because of his religious beliefs that required him to be in his house before sunset.

"He left us stranded with a rented Mercedes that Dick couldn't take out of reverse," Mrs. Walker said. "Dick drove the 25 miles to the airport in Teheran in reverse. There was only one plane a week leaving Teheran."

Kathleen Walker also recalled how President Nixon invited them to travel to China to train potential Oriental rug dealers on retail sales procedures. "Dick's father often supplied the White House with Oriental rugs. President Nixon knew we could handle the assignment."

Born and raised in Mt. Lebanon, Richard Walker was one of two sons in the family of Russell C. and Leona Thomssen Walker.

His father, a native of St. Louis, opened his first Oriental rug store in 1940 by leasing space in Kaufmann's Department Store, Downtown. He later leased space in department stores in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Indianapolis, Houston and St. Louis.

"We cut back about 15 years ago," said Mrs. Walker. "Mt. Lebanon is our only store."

Dick Walker learned the Oriental rug business by helping his father after school and on weekends, Mrs. Walker added. "The Kaufmann family selected Dick's father to provide the Oriental rugs for Fallingwater," the Fayette County home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1958, following graduation from Mt. Lebanon High School, where he played the trumpet in the school band, Mr. Walker enrolled at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

Upon receiving his degree in 1962, he married Kathleen Lynott and began his 43-year career with the family business. Upon his retirement this year, his son, R.T. Walker, assumed the management of the company.

Although traveling was a major part of their married life, Mrs. Walker recalled that the greatest joy that came with traveling came about when Mr. Walker would take his family cruising throughout the world.

Mr. Walker is survived by his wife, Kathleen Lynott Walker; two daughters, Mary May and her husband, Marcus, of Bath, Ohio, and Anne Watterson and her husband, James, of Solon, Ohio; two sons, Richard T. Walker Jr. and his wife, Frances, of South Fayette, and John Walker and his partner, Ken Henkle, of Atlanta; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Russell Walker and his wife, Donna, of North Fayette.

Visitation will be from 4 to 9 p.m. today at Beinhauers, 2828 Washington Road, Peters. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Monday at St. John Capistran Church, Upper St. Clair. Burial will be in Queen of Peace Cemetery, Peters.

Jerry Vondas can be reached at jvondas@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7823."

Iran News - 2m work in Persian carpet industry

2005-10-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

Iran News - 2m work in Persian carpet industry: "2m work in Persian carpet industry

Sunday, October 02, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 2 (IranMania) - Some two mln people are involved in Persian carpet industry nationwide, said the head of the National Persian Carpet Center of Iran, adding that the industry can slow down migration of rural and tribal people to larger cities, if it receives greater attention from the state.

According to ILNA, Morteza Faraji further said that the center is planning to find the causes of declining demand for Persian rugs on international markets.

?The center?s research department as been tasked with conducting a research study to determine why international Persian carpet sales are declining,? he said, adding that the center will also seek expert views from NGOs, unions, cooperatives and academicians on the key issue.

The Persian carpet industry, he pointed out, has to be looked at from different angles, stressing that the industry generates financial resources and job opportunities while preserving cultural heritage and arts.

Experts say modern marketing methods have to be employed to reverse the declining trend of Persian carpet exports, adding that the quality of Persian rugs have to improve as well.

On the other hand, new international markets need to be created for Persian rugs.

Some $470 mln worth of Persian carpets were exported in the year to March 2005. The government must boost export incentives to encourage the Persian carpet industry to step up exports.

Increasing imitation of unique Persian rug designs by Pakistani, Indian and Chinese carpet weavers has resulted in Iran losing some 40 % of its share in the global hand-woven carpet market.

The carpet industry needs to devise design and production standards to protect the high status of Persian carpet at the international level.

Experts say regional carpet weavers, especially in Pakistan, imitate the designs of Persian carpets and export them to international markets.

Roqayyieh Almasi, a member of Scientific Association of Persian Carpet, said earlier that Pakistani weavers use Persian designs and export their products under world-famous Iranian brands such as Haris, Afshar, Kashan, Kerman, etc."

Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05

2005-09-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05: "Rural Economy Revisited

Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts.

With almost 50 percent of Iran’s nearly 67 million people living in rural areas that often lack social and employment opportunities, and with rural-to-urban migration putting pressure on the cities, rural development is now a major focus of the government.
According to the latest demographic figures released by Iran Statistics Center, the country’s population stands at above 66 million, exactly at 66,480,000 out of which 44,372,000 are urban settlers and 22,108,000 live in the countryside.
Public participation is now generally assumed to be a good if not vital ingredient of rural development plans because past development strategies failed through its absence.
According to a report in Payam-e Jahad-e Keshavarzi, earlier, development policies had focused on improving the physical facilities and material resources of rural inhabitants. The emphasis was on investment to restructure and boost productivity, financing of infrastructural projects and the encouragement of inward investment.
An effective approach nowadays is one that seeks to enhance the particular strengths of a rural locality by developing the potential of local actors - individuals, businesses, communities and voluntary organizations - and its cultural and natural assets.
It entails recognizing and accommodating the integrity of local areas - the interdependencies of environment, economy and society within a locality.
For years, pressed by mounting external debt repayments, Iran had been looking for alternative approaches to development without focusing on people’s participation as a mechanism for promoting rural development.
People’s participation implies the active involvement in development of rural societies, particularly disadvantaged groups that form the mass of the rural population and have previously been excluded from the development process.
Through participatory programs and activities it is possible to mobilize local knowledge and resources for broad-based development and, in the process, reduce the cost of governments for providing development assistance. People’s participation is also recognized as an essential element in strategies for sustainable agriculture, since the rural environment can only be protected with the active collaboration of the local population.
The importance of people’s participation has also been highlighted by international organizations with emphasis that a participatory approach including the involvement of NGOs, is crucial to any strategy for successful human development.

Women’s Role
Rural women have always been an important foundation of production units. Without the presence of women, the economic structure of family let alone the locality cannot be sustainable.
Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts. These activities let them play an effective role in reducing production costs and increasing family revenues, in addition to attending to their children and household.
Rural women have realized that they must have greater access to education in order to elevate themselves and their own status in the society and their family.
The tendency of rural women to have greater education and participation in decision making necessitates a transformation in social vision and providing new opportunities for participation in the development process. The change in culture and the special cultural roots which exist about the role of women and value of rural women in family and society is indeed a slow process, which needs a greater amount of time to reach its objectives.

Agriculture and associated activities typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income.

Gov’t Duties
Government support should play out in the form of establishing clear policies and regulations that favor people’s participation and encourage the establishment of people’s organizations.
Towards this end, it is also important to establish a legal framework which provides a basis for free association of rural people in organizations of their choice, introduce and enforce policies and legal and structural reforms (such as land reform, reform of tenancy laws, water use rights, etc.) which promote more equitable access to resources and services for the rural population, especially the poor. Government should also enact and amend laws to ensure equal rights and full membership for women and other disadvantaged groups in people’s organizations and where necessary, enhance provincial authorities to promote and facilitate democratic participation of rural people through organizations of their choice.

Farming
Few countries have significantly reduced poverty in the countryside without also experiencing economic growth. For most developing countries, improved agricultural productivity will be the engine of non-agricultural growth.
Agriculture and associated activities -- the driving force of the economy in many developing countries -- typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income. In many countries, growth in food and agricultural output has been the main basis of economic growth and higher per capita incomes. Most developing countries that grew rapidly during the 1980s and achieved the largest improvements in food situations experienced rapid agricultural growth in the preceding years.
Rural growth also contributes to reducing urban poverty. When agricultural productivity improves, rural wages and employment rise, reducing labor flows to urban areas -- leading to wage increases for the unskilled and semi-skilled in cities too. Increased agriculture productivity also reduces the price of food in urban areas, often a significant component of household expenditure for the urban poor. Indeed, stimulating sustained growth is unlikely to succeed unless agriculture is first energized.
It is clear that sector-wise policies are no longer adequate mechanisms for solving the multi-faceted and changing social needs of the countryside; the call for more integrated rural policies responsive to the diversity of rural areas has strengthened.
Given pressures on public funding, it is essential that public subsidies available for rural development are targeted efficiently so as to maximize the economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits. More reliance will be placed on rural communities themselves responding creatively to the various pressures.
Endogenous approaches to rural development stress the need to make the most of the local resources, including human capital, and favor encouraging local people as agents in the development process. Participation, therefore, becomes both a means and an end of rural development."

New Orleans businesses lGreg Dombourian, owner of Dombourian Oriental Rugs

2005-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

2theadvocate.com: Business - New Orleans businesses l eager to get back in black 09/27/05: "New Orleans businesses l eager to get back in black

By JOE GYAN JR.
jgyan@theadvocate.com
New Orleans bureau

NEW ORLEANS -- Billy Derenbecker, general manager of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in the French Quarter, and Greg Dombourian, owner of Dombourian Oriental Rugs in the lower Garden District, were cleaning up their businesses Monday and wondering what business will be like when they finally reopen following the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The Bubba Gump restaurant and market, located on Decatur Street in the Quarter, had its power restored Monday for the first time since Katrina hit Aug. 29. The Dombourian firm, which sits on Magazine Street in uptown New Orleans, is still without electricity and water.

"We just got our electricity today. We're still waiting for clean water,'' Derenbecker said as he sat on a bar stool at Bubba Gump. "The biggest thing we need is people. We need employees, and we need customers.''

Dombourian, whose store sustained some roof and ceiling tile damage, said he has business interruption insurance but is waiting for a visit from his insurance adjuster.

"It's a disaster. I can't do nothing with no power,'' he said. "My biggest concern is trying to get some money so I can pay the bills and the employees.''

Mayor Ray Nagin allowed businesses in the French Quarter, uptown New Orleans and the city's central business district to return to the city Monday to assess their storm damage and clean up.

Derenbecker said many of his 125 employees are "scattered'' across the country. Some have gotten positions at other Bubba Gump locations, while others have taken jobs outside the company.

"We're probably looking at about 50 percent coming back,'' he said, adding that some of them will "come back to nothing'' in terms of their homes.

Bubba Gump's New Orleans site, which opened in 1999, was sailing along this year -- that is until Katrina came calling. The restaurant/market had made more money through the first eight months of the year than it had all last year, Derenbecker said. Katrina forced Bubba Gump to throw away $35,000 worth of spoiled food early last week, he said.

Derenbecker said Bubba Gump won't reopen until its employees are "stabilized.''

"We're taking it very slow as far as reopening. It's going to be like starting over again. We're going to have to hire a lot of people and train them,'' he said. "We'll be treating this reopening like we're opening a new store.''

Dombourian, a third-generation owner of the 95-year-old family business that buys and sells and cleans and repairs oriental rugs, said many of his customers are in the hard-hit areas of Lakeview in New Orleans and Old Metairie in neighboring Jefferson Parish.

"My grandfather went through the Depression, but I never thought anything like this would happen,'' he said, his face dripping sweat from the heat inside his 4,000-square-foot building.

Dombourian, who first checked on his business a week ago, has a building note due in November. He also has a line of credit with Hibernia National Bank, which has given him until January to pay on it while interest accrues. He also has to pay rug importers.

"If I can get open next week, I can get some cash flow going by the middle of October,'' he said, adding that he has rug deliveries to make and cleanings to perform. "The real question is, once I open, how many people will be here.''

Dombourian said he will have to take it "a day at a time.''

The Avenue Pub on St. Charles Avenue also has no power, but co-owner Polly Watts said she plans on reopening today. The pub's workers have been cleaning up for a week.

"They finally came and picked up the garbage yesterday,'' she said Monday.

Watts said the entire surface of the pub was bleached.

"It's probably cleaner now than before the hurricanes,'' she said.

Watts said business will be slow because her clientele are service industry workers in New Orleans who have been displaced by the storms.

"So many of our regular customers don't have jobs yet,'' she said.

Still, Watts is guardedly optimistic.

"We have a shot at surviving this ordeal. It's not a question of making a huge profit,'' she said.

Watts said she couldn't even estimate how much money the pub has lost since Katrina shut her down.

"It's ugly. It's too depressing to think about,'' she said.

The Royal Street Grocery at Royal and St. Ann in the French Quarter is open -- and surviving on Quarter residents who never evacuated and on military and law enforcement personnel. The store got electricity Monday morning. Before that, it was running on generator power.

"The most you can buy is one six pack,'' store owner Robert Buras told a customer who was headed for the beer compartment. "Until I get my suppliers, I have to ration,'' he told a reporter.

Buras said he was up and running four days after Katrina hit, but looters forced him to shut down. He opened back up the Sunday before last. Buras said he was driving all the way to New Iberia in the aftermath of Katrina for hamburger meat, but then Rita shut down that supplier.

"Rita messed everything up. My New Iberia connection has no power. It cramped my style,'' he said.

Since Rita hit southwestern Louisiana, Buras said, he has noticed a "marked decrease'' in Marines and National Guardsmen coming into his store.

Restoration work in the central business district, anchored by Poydras and Canal streets, is largely confined to the hotels and large office buildings at this point. On Poydras near the Louisiana Superdome in the area of several damaged skyscrapers, wooden signs in the street warn of "falling glass.''

Businesses in the Jackson Square area of the French Quarter remain closed, as does Café du Monde. Plywood used to board up a building in the French Market area marks the passage of past hurricanes. The wood reads, "Go Away Andrew '92,'' "Go Away Georges '98,'' "Go Away Isidore '02'' and "Go Away Lili '02.''

It will have to be updated to reflect '05 - a year that Katrina and Rita have made sure New Orleans and Louisiana will never forget."

The Guardian | Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims

2005-09-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims "Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims

Barbara McMahon in Rome
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian
The world's richest art institution knowingly bought scores of archeological treasures looted from Italy, it has been alleged.
Despite being warned as far back as 1985 that dealers were selling stolen goods, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles continued to buy them. The practice continued for so long that, according to the museum's internal review, almost half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection are likely to have been acquired illegally.

New evidence of the scale of what Italy is calling "the Getty scandal" emerged yesterday, painting a picture of the fabulously wealthy institution riding roughshod over a ban on taking Italy's historic treasures out of the country.

According to the Los Angeles Times, which has obtained hundreds of pages of memos, purchase agreements and correspondence records from the museum in Malibu, high-ranking staff were complicit or simply turned a blind eye to the plundering of the priceless antiquities.
The investigation makes several main claims:

· that Getty officials spent $10.2m (£5.7m) in 1985 to acquire three objects taken from ruins near Naples, despite being warned that the purchase was in clear defiance of Italy's "cultural patrimony" laws, which state that all artifacts discovered after 1902 are government property;

· that the museum purchased an ancient urn for $42,000 despite being told that the Italian police were looking for it;

· that it spent $18m in 1988 on a statue of Aphrodite dating back to 400BC which was probably the centrepiece of a Greek temple in southern Italy, even though officials were suspicious of the dealer's explanation about where it came from.

The newspaper also prints extracts from the resignation letter in 1986 of an acting curator who talked about problems in the antiquities department and warned that the museum's "cultural avarice" would some day lead to demands from foreign governments for the return of looted artifacts.

Italian authorities are demanding the return of 42 objects in the Getty collection that they believe were stolen, including a 5ft marble statue of the Greek god Apollo unearthed in southern Italy and said to be more than 2,000 years old.

The museum's own lawyers, however, have found even more examples of artifacts of dubious provenance, according to the report. They counted 82 artworks as being purchases from dealers and galleries under investigation by Italian officials, including 54 of 104 artistic treasures described by the Getty as masterpieces.

The Getty's former antiquities curator Marion True and antiquities dealer Robert E Hecht Jnr have been charged by the Italian authorities with conspiring to export illegally excavated treasures. They have denied the charges and a trial is scheduled in Rome in November. Another dealer, Giacomo Medici, received a 10-year prison term but remains free pending an appeal."

Iran Daily: A Strategic Island Called Kish

2005-09-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: " Review

A Strategic Island Called Kish

Kish Island is the most up-to-date model of urban development in Iran.

The Pearl of the Persian Gulf, Kish Island is without a doubt one of Iran's most attractive tourist sites. The resort island, lapped by the sheltered waters of coral-edged lagoons, is also the most up-to-date model of urban development in Iran.
The paradise island is home to many of the world's species of reef fish. Kish lies like a pearl across the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf and is a heaven of peace and tranquility fringed by sandy beaches and coral reefs vivid with colorful fish.
Kish Island has a calm and beautiful coast. Its soil made of coral with a silvery color, shines dazzlingly under the sunlight and may not be seen in many other coasts in the world covered with gray sand. The seawater in Kish Island is bright and clear and the seabed can be easily seen from a great distance.
The Kish coast is one of the least dangerous in the world.
These are just few reasons that have turned Kish Island into a popular holiday destination in the region. All together, it offers a stunning variety of cultures, scenery, sports, duty-free shopping and entertainment.
Kish Island, measuring 91.5 sq. km, is situated 18 kilometers south of Iran's southern coast and about 300 kilometers from the port city of Bandar Abbas. Kish is almost elliptical with an east-west length of 13 kilometers, and a 7-kilometer width running north to south. The Island's highest point is its eastern part which rises about 45 meters above the sea level. And, its relative height is 32 meters, which means only a 13 meters difference from its highest point.
Kish is hot and humid in summer but has a very mild weather for at least six months of the year.

Kish lies like a pearl across the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf.

Archeological Discovery
In 1931, archeologists discovered ruins of two royal palaces in northern parts of the island and several ancient houses on the eastern side. The palaces belonged to the Sassanid era and were made of mud-bricks. Inside the palaces the statues of Shapour the Second, the Sassanid king, were found and Roman coins belonging to 4,5 and 6 centuries AD were unearthed from the ruins of the houses.
In the Islamic era, the island used to play a substantial role in promoting trade between Iran and the Arab world. Ruins of Harira City have lately received attention from the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization.
Zakaria Qazvini, a historian of the 12th Century AD, writes about Kish: "Ghiss is an island in the Fars Sea. A city lies in the center of the island with beautiful houses and landscapes. The city is surrounded with orchards. Indian and Arabian merchants do business on the island and one can find in Kish whatever is available in India."
Strategic Location
Kish Island has since ancient times been the focus of the colonialist nations due to its strategic location in the Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf has been a valuable waterway since the beginning of history and as the venue of the collision of great civilizations of the ancient East, its antecedents go back to several thousands of years. For centuries, the Ilamites used the Port of Bushehr and the Kharg Island for dwelling, shipping and ruling over the coasts of the Persian Gulf as well as transaction with the West Indies and the Nile Valley. In Latin American geography books the Persian Gulf has been referred to as More Persicum or the Sea of Pars.
The Portuguese colonialists conquered Kish in the early 16th Century to have an easier access to the eastern markets. The island remained under their control until the Safavid kings freed it. The Portuguese rule brought nothing but destruction and demolition for the Kish inhabitants.
Kish was traded several times during the Qajar Era before it was discovered to be a great resort island by a group of Iranian and US experts, who recommended that the island could well turn into a tourist attraction after they toured the beautiful island in 1970.
The Kish Development Company was established in 1973 with the aim of turning the island into Hawaii of the Middle East. But the company was dissolved--before it managed to implement the second phase of the project--with the triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the early 1980s, the Revolution Council set customs duties for Kish Island, a law that was not enforced until 1989, when the Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani administration officially declared it as a free trade zone.
The island got a new lease on life in 1992, when the Kish Free Trade Zone Organization was founded.

Kish Island, measuring 91.5 sq. km, is situated 18 kilometers south of Iran's southern coast.

Attractions
The 'world road' surrounds the island like a belt. Some 25 areas have been ceded to representatives of 25 provinces to showcase their products and handicrafts. Next to every provincial stall is a foreign country represented by its own stall and representatives.
The Greek Ship, which never managed to leave Kish after it ran aground in summer of 1996, creates an attractive sight especially at sunset.
Many tourists visit the Greek Ship every day and take photos.
There is also a forest on the island, inhabited by deer. The Kish deer can also be seen playing around in other parts of the island.
Kish visitors would rarely lose the opportunity of visiting the island's huge aquarium, which is home to various species of stunningly beautiful and colorful marine life.
Those who are not able to go diving can have the delightful pastime of observing what is going on beneath the Persian Gulf waters in the unique aquarium.
For the diving enthusiasts the island has its own Dive Center. A variety of other water sports are also available. Jet-skiing, sailing, fishing, parasailing, reef walking, coral viewing, boating and water skiing are just a few popular ways to spend your time and enjoy yourself during a visit to the island.
Soft golden beaches, palm trees and crystal clear waters, in a place where time moves imperceptibly, surround Kish Island. The island offers relaxation combined with adventure in a destination that is unspoiled by commercialization, with its refreshing natural beauty and the unsophisticated life style of its people still very much intact.

No Entry Visa
Foreign nationals need no visa at the authorized arrival and departure points of Kish Island. At Kish international airport the officials will just stamp your passport, which allows you to stay up to 14 days on the island.
However, upon request by the Kish Free Trade Zone Organization the validity of such permits can be extended for three months and if need be for another three months. Such permits are extendable for a maximum period of 6 months and 14 days following which the foreign national has to leave the Iranian territory and re-enter Kish if so desired.
Foreign nationals who visit Kish for business or tourism purposes and intend to travel to mainland Iran should submit their application to the office representing the Foreign Ministry stationed in Kish and obtain an entry visa.
The procedure for the issuance of an entry visa to the mainland takes no longer than 48 hours by which the special Kish entrance stamp is replaced by an entry visa. Should the applicant submit his/her application from outside Kish Island, an entry visa will be issued for him/her upon arrival in Kish airport where the foreign national is required to contact the office of the Foreign Ministry stationed there and ask for his/her entry visa to be issued. Foreign nationals residing in Iran who wish to travel to Kish Island need no entry visa and are just required to present their valid residence documents."

Iran Daily: Iranian Handicraft Exhibit

2005-09-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Handicraft Exhibit Underway

By Azam Mohebbi
The Second Biennial Exhibition of Iranian Handicrafts, in which some 600 pieces of handiwork are on display, is currently underway here at the Arts Academy.
The festival–s secretary, Abdolmajid Sharif-Zadeh said at a press conference that the biennale aims to introduce Iranian arts and promote national identity through handicrafts.
—The young generation should be made familiar with national handicrafts and the event seeks to achieve this goal,š he said.
On holding exhibitions in foreign countries on a reciprocal basis, he said that plans have been drawn up and will be announced soon.
Sharif-Zadeh said that Iran–s Handicrafts Organization regularly organizes seminars in which foreign specialists in the field of handicrafts and traditional arts deliver lectures on their research findings.
He said that the eastern nations and African states have so far held art exhibits in Iran and that cultural exchanges with foreign countries would develop further.
Modernity, he pointed out, has created a gap between the young generation and traditional arts adding that globalization poses a challenge to the diversity of traditional arts from different nations.
The High Council for the Youth, Iran–s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Ministry of Science, Research and Technology are expected to contribute to holding traditional art exhibits, he said.
Handicrafts by 250 artists in the field of Mo–araq, engraving, ornament, sculpture, tile painting, pottery and the Persian rugs are on display at the event which will continue until October 17.
A seminar will be held on the sidelines of the event in which six experts will deliver lectures. Ten workshops will also be conducted for young visitors.
Sharif-Zadeh said that 60 artists took part in the first biennale in 2002 compared to the 250 artists from across the country taking part in the current round of the event.
He said that an exhibit of handicrafts by the youth will be held next year.
Meanwhile, head of Saba Cultural House Mohsen Zare– said that the center is planning to hold exhibits of calligraphy, centenary of Iranian sculpture, painting biennale, and poster biennale.
He said that music and drama is part of traditional arts and the center will include the two branches of arts in subsequent events."

Iran Daily: Kamal Tabrizi

2005-09-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

"Kamal Tabrizi
Kamal Tabrizi was born in 1959 in Tehran. He graduated from the College of Cinema and Theater.
He began his artistic activities at the Students Society of Polytechnique College and then joined the IRIB where he made a number of short and feature-length documentaries and TV feature films.
He started with photography, screenwriting and directing short films in 1979. His short films include: A Revolution Greater than the First Revolution (1979), This is the University Campus, Seekers of Martyrdom, and The Film We Made (1980).
Some of his feature films are The Passage (1988), On the Altar of Love 1990), End of Childhood (1993), Leily Is With Me (1995).
He directed short films from 1979 to 1988 when he finally made his first full-length feature "The Passage." His breakthrough came with "Leily Is With Me" (1995), a satire on the Iran-Iraq war. The film launched a new trend in treating war and the Sacred Defense themes in a comic, satirical vein. It was presented at several local and international film festivals and won the prize of Best Script and Diploma of Honor for Best Actor at the Fajr Festival.
"Maternal Love" (1998) secured his international reputation and was awarded an array of prizes at numerous festivals, including the prize of Best Film at the children and young people's section of Berlin Festival, and Best Film award at Zlin, Cairo, Olympia and 44-Strokes (Canada) festivals. His film "The Wind Carpet" (2003) recounts how a young Japanese girl travels to Iran with her father to collect a Persian carpet designed by her mother, who has been killed in an accident. It was awarded the spectators prize and the special jury prize at Fajr Film Festival, 2002.
Then for several years, he was in charge of training programs at the former Azad Cinema Group and organized training programs in filmmaking and taught film direction and theory. He also taught at the Young Cinema Society of Iran and the Islamic Training Center for Filmmaking--affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Tabrizi then made Sheyda in 2000.
Tabrizi has also directed the two TV series Tales of the River (an Iran-Malaysia Co-production, unreleased), and years of Rebellion, which was a highly popular series and was selected as the critics' choice of best TV series.
Tabrizi was also jury member at several editions of the Short Film Festival organized by the Young Cinema Society, two editions of the International Festival of Films for Children and Young Adults, and Fajr International Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival.
His latest film Marmoolak (2004) which is about a convict who escapes prison in the cloak and turban of a cleric, was a hugely popular hit. The protagonist, called Marmoolak (Lizard), is a hardened prisoner, in for armed robbery, who meets a cleric in the prison infirmary. After a day of listening to the cleric's wisdom, Marmoolak escapes the prison hospital in the cleric's cloak and turban. He ends up in a small border town where he has contacts who are going to help him cross the border. The town is waiting for its newly appointed pastor, who, unbeknownst to them, is sick in Tehran. Marmoolak is mistaken as the eagerly awaited cleric. He plays along and becomes a popular pastor while his quest for a passport and border crossing is delayed by a series of mishaps. "

Iran Daily - Karoun 3 Dam Wipes Out Tribal Routes

2005-09-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Karoun 3 Dam Wipes Out Tribal Routes

TEHRAN, April 22--Tribes who migrate from winter to summer quarters in Khuzestan province have had to abandon their traditional migration route after the commissioning of Karoun 3 Dam.
Announcing this, director of the excavation team at the historical sites surrounding Karoun 3 Dam, Jafar Mehr-Kian told ISNA that topographical changes brought about by Karoun 3 Dam have forced migratory tribes to alter their routes and cross large bridges.
They are also forced to complete their migration quickly to reach their destination on time.
Mehr-Kian called on the Tribal Affairs Organization and Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization to extend support to the tribes which still inhabit the region.
He further said that the condition of the tribes is deplorable since they will have to take the most frequented paths which expose them to numerous dangers.
Karoun 3 Dam is located in an area used by the Gallehdar-e Dehkordi and Qashqai tribes to migrate between their summer and winter quarters."

Iran Daily - Carpet Expert Roqaieh Almasi Compiling Carpet Encyclopedia

2005-09-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Expert Compiling Carpet Encyclopedia

TEHRAN, April 19--An expert on carpet at Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization has announced that she is currently working on an encyclopedia of Persian carpets.
Roqaieh Almasi added that it will take at least three years to conduct research and compile the data for the encyclopedia.
Almasi, who is also a member of the board of scientific studies on Persian carpet, said that the encyclopedia will deal with carpet motifs based on geography, demography, tribes, ethnic groups, plans, designs, rivers, mountains, natural features of Azarbaijan province, techniques of carpet weaving and dyeing, said ISNA.
She said that Azarbaijan province is rich in carpet designs citing Afshar, Tekab, Heriss, Bakhshayesh and Tabriz carpets. She added that some local people weave carpets by memorizing the designs without exactly following the models.
She said that the findings of field studies on the history of carpet weaving, geography and culture of Azarbaijan province will also be included in the encyclopedia.
Almasi called on other experts to cooperate with her in compiling carpet encyclopedia."

Iran Daily - Gabbeh

2005-09-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Gabbeh Has Lost Originality

TEHRAN, April 15--The great demand for Gabbeh, a kind of traditional carpet woven by tribesmen as a family handicraft, has had an impact on its original design.
Expressing this, Ahmad Alizadeh, an expert of Iran Carpet Company, told CHN that since Gabbeh found its way to markets in cities, it gradually adapted itself to the designs which are on demand in the market.
He said that Qashqaei tribesmen of the southern province of Fars were the original craftsmen who wove the Gabbeh, but, after demands for this item grew, tribesmen in other provinces began to produce the same product.
He said that the original brand of Qashqaei Gabbeh is different from what is currently available in the market.
“Qashqaei Gabbeh is four centimeter thick because they used to spread it on stones and rough surface and they did not have more than 15 to 20 warps whereas the knots of Gabbeh being sold in the market are smaller than the original ones having more than 50 warps.
Alizadeh said that the girls of Qashqaei tribe used to weave a Gabbeh within one or two weeks, but now, the Gabbeh producers are using computerized designs to attract domestic and foreign customers.
He said that the warps of the original Gabbeh is 2-6 meters, whereas, the warps being utilized by the modern producers are wider than the original Gabbeh"

Iran Daily: Persian Carpets: A Living Heritage

2005-09-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Persian Carpets:
A Living Heritage

The carpet industry needs to be looked at in a more scientific and realistic way in order to find its true position and outlook in national development and growth as well as its economic, artistic and technical impact on the country’s economy.
Iran’s carpet industry has been suffering due to shabby treatment by businessmen, middlemen and profiteers for many years. These groups have managed to influence economic experts and officials to think of the industry as an underdog and insignificant when compared to modern industrial parameters, says an article in the Persian daily Sharq.
Businessmen, traders and exporters prefer to see carpet as a commodity that can only bring in foreign exchange. Carpet producers and bureaucrats try to justify their policy of mass production by arguing that more carpet factories and workshops are needed in order to supply the overwhelming demands. But no one really cares if the Iranian hand-made carpet industry is constantly and unfairly compared to other carpets produced around the world and that its limited market share is largely controlled and dictated by foreign elements.
It is also totally untrue to state that hand-made carpets produced by households in rural areas have been an obstacle to national development and growth.

Businessmen, traders and exporters prefer to see carpet as a commodity and foreign exchange earner.

History
Iran’s carpet-industry dates back to 3,000 years ago. There are records of the magnificence of the carpets woven during the Safavid era. In those days Iranian carpets had high status and value. Iran used to take orders from European kings of the time and export carpets to their palaces. Therefore, hand-made carpet was a prosperous industry, enjoyed high technical and artistic levels and was well developed nationwide, particularly during the Qajari era.
As mentioned in several historical records and documents, after the Safavid era, carpet weaving flourished during the reign of Karimkhan Zand and Nader Shah amid conflicts and wars. Its growth and development has also been well documented in the economic book of Charles Isavi and many others such as ’Industrialization of Iran’ by William Flor, and those written about the industry and economy of Qajari era, as well as carpets and products exported to other countries.
After the 16th and 17th centuries and during the renaissance of Iranian carpet industry, the Dutch reported that “in 1713 Persian silk carpets for Japan’s emperor were no longer available in the same amount and design, and that it could take a year to order one from the market. Every year the Iranians made several hand-made carpets in velvet and gold and then sent them to the king of Bavaria and sometimes as presents to the Netherlands.“
Several Iranian cities, which were major producers of carpets such as Arak, Bijar, Sananadaj and Malayer, do not have a history more than 200 years. But when building the city of Arak, it had a complete map with proper government buildings, offices, schools, mosques and public bathrooms. The officials invited artists, industrialists and workers from other parts of the country to help them build and develop the city. They also invited carpet designers and weavers from other cities and set up central workshops for them.

Travel Account
A historian Dr. Borieh says in his travel account that “before building Arak there were other towns such as Sarouq and Diz Abad, which had many carpet weavers. Those who think that Iranian carpet industry was initially introduced and developed in Arak are completely wrong.“
In Bijar, magnificent carpets woven during the time of Amir Nezam Garousi, the samples of which are still in the mosques of Bijar, Sanandaj, Malayer and other cities, also prove that hand-made carpet industry’s development dates back to many centuries earlier. Charles Isavi’s in his ’History of Economy’ wrote that “Today, in the middle of the 19th century, Russia and Turkey are the only markets for Iranian exports. These goods, as recorded by Tabriz Customs House, include silk, scarf, carpet, leather, cotton, dried fruits and many other products that are exported to Turkey.“
In 1850, Amir Kabir ordered to dispatch fine samples of carpets, Kerman scarf, Kashmiri design, Roman scarf, silk, mirror frames, pearls, guns and several other handicrafts to an exhibition of Iranian handicrafts in London. There are also reports about “giant carpet factories in Tabriz in which over 1,500 workers were employed, working in huge sections allocated for weaving carpets and coloring at the close of the 19th century.“

Iranian carpets have enjoyed a great reputation for several centuries.

Way of Life
Carpet weaving was a way of life both in rural areas and towns for many centuries. Iranian carpets enjoyed a great reputation for several centuries. However, production and transportation costs severely affected and limited the industry’s development and growth. The industry faced huge demands from America and Europe in the middle of the 19th century. The British consul in Tabriz reported in 1874 that “there was a huge demand for Iranian carpets last year, even though exports doubled.“ He went on, “Carpet is produced in all parts of the country but those woven in the following areas have better quality and longevity: Farahan, Soltan Abad, rural areas in Mashhad, Javin, Sananadaj, Azarbaijan, Qareh Bagh and Bakhshayesh.“
He also wrote about 󈬢,000 carpet weavers working in carpet workshops nationwide.“ He said the carpets were exported to the European markets, France, England and the United States. It was right after this period that foreign traders, companies and profiteers realized the true potential of the carpet industry and decided to get into such a profitable business.
It is important to point out another issue mentioned in Ebrahim Dahgan’s book about Ziegler and Partners’ Co. The company was so obsessed with its own interests and products that it practically took drastic measures to create obstacles for Iranian businessmen in the carpet industry. It even refused to use Iranian designs on its carpets. Therefore, Iranian hand-made carpet was not just an old art of the past, but a beautiful and practical art that easily managed to find its special place and position amid hostilities of governments and tough competition by machine-made carpets.
Political and economic interferences of the British Empire in Iran during the Qajari era became tenfold but trade volumes with Russia, Turkey, the Caucasus, Georgia and even Egypt reached so high that even the colonial empire was forced to admit its defeat in controlling the market. For that reason, Britain limited the volume of Iranian exports to India and exported products from Manchester.

Exports
Hand-made Iranian carpets have always had the potential for exports in the world markets and have always managed to attract all types of buyers. From the middle of the 19th century, with the introduction of trade zones and frontiers, Iranian carpets managed to conquer world markets, capturing the imagination of thousands of designers, artists and buyers in Europe and America. The success reached to a point in which the country was no longer able to supply world market demands.
But are hand-made carpets an impediment to national development and growth? The answer is negative.
Ravandi wrote in his ’Social History of Iran’ that “The Qajari statesmen did not support domestic products because of national, social or economic concerns. It was not because of nationalism either. It was because they used to receive bribes from foreigners to let them import foreign goods into the country. Therefore, they were largely blamed for closure and failure of domestic workshops.“
Another book, entitled ’Iran and Iranian Issue’, wrote that “the main policy of Europe regarding Iran was to export more products to the country to paralyze its handicrafts and manufacturing industries, put off the ongoing industrialization phase, import only raw materials and transform it into a half-colonized territory.“
Important Role
It was only in the 20th century that national industries experienced some sort of growth. During this particular period, hand-made carpet industry played an important role in the development process by means of creating jobs for some 250,000 people in rural areas.
The hand-made carpet industry needs to be protected, and preserved as a magnificent art by means of supportive and benevolent ideas"

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 07/12/05 - Parviz Tanavoli Depicting Guantanamo Inmates

2005-09-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 07/12/05: "Sculptor Depicting Guantanamo Inmates

TEHRAN, July 11--A prominent Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli will create a piece of sculpture portraying the inmates of the infamous US detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
According to ISNA, the piece of sculpture, which is called ’Cage--None’, will go on display in Britain soon.
The world-known sculptor has planned to create the 130-cm-high sculpture on humanitarian ground to expose the dreadful conditions under which prisoners, mostly Afghans, are held in Guantanamo Bay detention center.
The sculpture will be ready within 15 days.
Meanwhile, Tanavoli said that he will build a bigger statue for installing at one of the squares in Afghanistan. It will take one year to build the statue for the Afghan people."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 07/21/05 - High European Demand for Bushehr Gabbeh

2005-09-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 07/21/05: "High European Demand for Bushehr Gabbeh

TEHRAN, July 20--Gabbeh, a traditional handicraft of Bushehr province, is not only a work of art but also a merchandize.
Gabbeh, which is hand-woven textile made of colored threads, is often produced at home by girls particularly during their summer holidays, CHN said.
Lovers of Iranian art works in Europe appreciate the beauty of Gabbeh and other kinds of handicrafts such as Kelim, Mo’araq and pearl crafts.
Masoud Nobakht, a handicraft expert, said that the sector can be very effective in creating jobs for the people of the province.
He called for providing low-interest loans to craftsmen so that they can buy equipment and raw materials.
Nobakht said at the same time that the provincial handicrafts department should also be provided with enough credit for conducting training workshops for craftsmen to help them acquire modern techniques in their own branch of activities.
He said that the craftsmen should also be provided health insurance and retirement benefits."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/06/05 - Kelim Exhibit in Isfahan

2005-09-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/06/05: "Kelim Exhibit in Isfahan

TEHRAN, Aug. 5--A specialized exhibit of Kelim will begin in Isfahan on Saturday and continue until August 18, reported ISNA.
The exhibit, which is being organized at Zendeh Roud Gallery, will present handicrafts produced by craftsmen from Isfahan.
Kelim, jajim, floor covering and hand-woven carpets all belong to the same category of art which also includes other manually woven handicrafts.
Iranian handicrafts have been enthusiastically received worldwide.
In recent years, a special kind of carpet called ’Gabbeh’ has been woven and a film by the same name was made by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and screened in some foreign countries.
Thanks to the innovative ideas of Iranians, some other magnificent carpets have attracted the attention of foreigners."

Kish Draws $1.1 Billion in Investment

2005-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Domestic Economy - 08/08/05: "FTZs Absorbed Only $1.8b in 3 Yrs.

Kish, with $1.1 billion, and Chahbahar, with $56 million, attracted the highest and lowest amounts of foreign investments.

TEHRAN, Aug. 7--Free trade zones (FTZs) absorbed a total of $1.8 billion in foreign investment in the past three years, reported ISNA.
Kish, Qeshm and Chahbahar FTZs also managed to attract 25.3 trillion rials in domestic capital over the same period.
According to statistics released by the secretariat of the High Council of Free Trade Zones, the three FTZs recorded the highest rate of foreign investment in 2003 with $520 million, whereas they absorbed the lowest amount in 2001, when investment reached $378 million.
Kish, with $1.1 billion, and Chahbahar, with $56 million, attracted the highest and lowest amounts of foreign investments in the same period, respectively.
Kish Island also received the highest amounts of domestic investment with 21.8 trillion rials, whereas Chahbahar attracted only 956 million rials in the period.
Experts say poor financial support by the government and low investment ventures have prevented free trade zones (FTZs) from developing properly, stressing that prevailing instabilities in FTZ laws have added to the dilemma.
Hadi Haqshenas, who is a member of the Majlis Plan, Budget and Audit Commission, told ISNA earlier that FTZs lack basic infrastructure, including proper airports, as investment laws remain ineffective.
“Our political problems and tensions with some other countries, including regional states, have prevented a significant rise in foreign investments,“ he said.
Economic activities of Iranian FTZs remain insignificant due to sluggish economy and constant lack of understanding among senior officials about the important role free trade zones can play in improving the country’s international transactions.
The tiny Persian Gulf state of United Arab Emirates has taken full advantage of Iran’s inability to lead the regional marine transit to boost its multibillion-dollar business.
This is while many Iranian officials are skeptical about establishing more FTZs given the globalization process and the prospects of the country’s joining the World Trade Organization."

Parviz Tanavoli's Tribal Handiwork Encyclopedia Compiled

2005-09-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/20/05: "Tribal Handiwork Encyclopedia Compiled

TEHRAN, Aug. 19--Prominent sculptor Parviz Tanavoli has compiled an encyclopedia on ’Handiworks of Iranian Tribal and Rural Areas’ during the last 30 years.
ISNA said that Tanavoli has authorized the publication of the encyclopedia which will be available within six months.
The encyclopedia, Tanavoli’s fifteenth book about Iranian tribesmen, gives details about hand-woven texture of Azari-speaking Afshar tribesmen living in Kerman’s mountainous area.
He compiled information about hand-woven texture from museums. He has taken photos of museums as well as pictures of traditional festivals of the tribesmen.
Tanavoli published his first monograph about Iranian tribal lifestyle, titled ’Shahsevan Tribesmen in Northern Iran’ in 1985 in Switzerland, Germany in three languages of French, German and English.
ISNA said that Tanavoli has decided to increase the number of monographs about Iranian tribesmen to seven editions.
He has already conducted research studies on three tribes of Shahsevand, Qashqaei and Afshar as well as Turkmen, Baluch, Lor, Kurd and Fars ethnic groups.
After his monograph about Afshar ethnic group, he has planned to complete studies about hand-woven texture of Lor tribesmen. It will be completed by next year.
In the meantime, Tanavoli has published an encyclopedia on ’Iranian Tribes’ in English in Britain "

Iran Daily - Kamal-ol-Molk House to Become Museum

2005-09-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/20/05: "Kamal-ol-Molk House to Become Museum

TEHRAN, Aug. 19--The residence of the great Iranian artist Mohammad Ghaffari, also known as Kamal-ol -Molk, in Neishabour, Khorasan Razavi province will be restored and turned into a painting museum.
Announcing this, deputy head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department in Khorasan Razavi province, Siavash Saberi told ISNA that his office decided to repair Kamal-ol-Molk’s house at a cost of 41 million rials.
“The house will be restored as a mark of respect for the great painter and establish a painting museum,“ he said.
Saberi said that Kamal-ol-Molk has a high status in serving to upgrade Iranian art and culture and his house in Neishabour had become a tourist site. “Therefore Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization decided to set up painting museum at the location.
A number of invaluable paintings by Kamal-ol-Molk are being kept in substandard conditions in the Majlis Library.
Experts have expressed concern about the packing of Kamal-ol -Molk’s paintings in a small store in the Majlis Library, because the Museum of Constitutional Movement in the new library building is not yet ready."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - Ganj Ali Khan a famous governor during the reign of Safavid king, Shah Abbas

2005-09-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/15/05: "ICHTO Planning Documentaries on Kerman Sites

A view of 'Ganj Ali Khan Public Bath' in Kerman
(IRNA File Photo)

TEHRAN, Aug. 14--Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) in Kerman province plans to produce documentary films about four cultural sites in Kerman.
According to ISNA, documentary filmmaker Farhang Khatami has undertaken the production of the films about ’Ganj Ali Khan Public Bath’,
’Ibrahim Khan Complex’, ’Vakil Cultural Complex’ and ’Haji Agha Ali Complex’.
The public bath was built by Ganj Ali Khan, a famous governor during the reign of Safavid king, Shah Abbas (1587-1629 AD). As governor of Kerman province he constructed many monuments and buildings. Ganj Ali Khan complex comprises of a school, a square, a caravanserai, a public bath, a water reservoir, a mint, a mosque and a bazaar.
Meanwhile, ICHTO inaugurated a museum in Sirjan, Kerman--the seventh to be launched in the province since the merger of the cultural heritage and tourism organizations in 2004. Kerman province thus holds the national record in establishing museums.
Head of the ICHTO’s provincial branch, Mohammad Saam told CHN that his department has given importance to setting up museums in view of their significant role in education.
“There are also other new museums throughout the province which will be inaugurated soon,“ he noted.
Six museums such as Traditional Musical Instruments and Archeology Museum in Harandi Garden, provisional Jiroft Museum, Gonbad-e Jabalieh Historical Inscriptions Museum, Zoroastrian Anthropology Museum, Kerman Press Museum and Sirjan Museum have been completed or inaugurated in the past ten months across the province.
In addition to plans to construct Jiroft Museum and Kerman Regional Museum, ten other specialized museums will become operation in the province soon, Saam concluded."

Iran Daily - Panorama - 08/27/05 - Precious Seirafian Persian Rug on UN Wall

2005-09-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Panorama - 08/27/05: "Precious Persian Rug on UN Wall

Picture shows the 25 sq.m. carpet hung on a UN Headquarters wall.

One of the world’s most valuable carpets crafted by leading Iranian artist Master Mohammad Sairafian was mounted on the wall of one of the chambers in the United Nations Headquarters in New York, thanks to seven-month efforts of Iran’s mission to the international organization.
The finely-woven carpet, which measures 5x5 square meters and has 200 knots in each centimeter, was presented by Iran’s permanent envoy to the UN, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The Isfahani craftsman has expended 10 years on this artistic work.
The carpet depicts a couplet by the renowned Iranian poet Saadi which reads, “Human beings are all members of one body. They are created from the same essence.“ An English translation of the poem would also be installed next to the carpet.
In an interview with IRNA, Zarif said that based on a global custom, states dedicate gifts to the UN. “Former Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq had also presented a fine carpet to the international body.“
He described the measure as important, “because the walls of all halls and chambers in the UN Headquarters are almost entirely covered by art and tableaus gifted by different member states.“
Iran’s permanent mission to the UN spared no efforts over the last year and finally managed to get the green light for putting the carpet on the wall of a chamber where most diplomats meet and hold their deliberations, Zarif elaborated.
Installment of the carpet, depicting the altruistic couplet by Sadi woven into it by gold-made thread, is a unique success for Iranian culture and art, the official stressed.
Iran’s UN ambassador believes that the measure would help boost the Islamic nation’s peaceful image as a country which initiated ’Dialogue Among Civilizations’.
President Mohammad Khatami proposed to the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000 to designate the year 2001 as the year of ’Dialogue Among Civilizations’ to foster peace and friendship in the international community."

Qajar Buildings in Zanjan date to 1830

2005-09-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/25/05: "Zanjan’s Qajari Buildings Attract More Tourists

Farzaneh Shokri
Historical buildings from the Qajar era have become the main attraction for tourists visiting the western province of Zanjan.
Zanjan’s old marketplace (Bazaar), Zolfaqari Palace, Jame’ Seyed Mosque, Lady (Khanom) Mosque, Mir Bahaeddin Bridge, Sardar Bridge are among the examples of Qajar architecture in the city.
Though several ancient buildings are threatened with destruction, the splendor of the ancient architecture has won the admiration of every visitor.
The construction of the traditional marketplace (Bazaar) began in 1834 under the Qajari king, Agha Mohammad Khan and ended under Fath-Ali Shah Qajar.
Several mosques, guesthouses and public baths were added to the compound in 1945.
The marketplace is built in a straight line--upward and downward--and divided into the eastern and western wings.
Corridors separate the areas according to craftsmanship. For example, the sections reserved for goldsmiths, cloth merchant, hat makers, tinsmith and other crafts are separate from each other.
There are five ancient mosques--Chehelsotoon (40 pillars), Agha Seyed Fathollah, Hojjatoleslam, Jame’ Mosque and Molla Mosque--which have added to the splendid architecture of Zanjan’s marketplace.
An Iran Daily reporter visiting the city cited Zolfaqari Palace as another heritage of Qajar architecture which contributed to the historical identity of Zanjan.
The palace has interior and exterior departments which include administrative sections. It was built in Qajar era before the construction of Zolfaqari Street (modern Taleqani).
Sections of the palace are currently in ruins. Of course, the exterior part of the building remained durable. Zolfaqari Palace was built in two stories. The underground part of the building has water storage facilities and the entire design is based on European Gothic architecture.
Zolfaqari Palace was built in the late Qajar era.
Jame’ Seyed Mosque, which is situated in the heart of the city, is yet another edifice of cultural heritage. It is linked to Qeisarieh market from the west, to an alley from the east to Imam Street from north and Sabze Meidan from south.
Prior to the construction of the modern Imam Street, the Mosque was linked to a square in front of Darol-Hokoumeh (Administrative Building).
The mosque was built by Mirza, the eleventh son of Fath Ali Shah of Qajar when he was the governor of Zanjan.
Lady (Khanom) Mosque was also constructed during the Qajar reign. It is located at Fakhim-oddoleh on present-day Imam Street. It has interesting interior decorations of tiles and brick works.
It has a minaret for Azan (call to prayers at mosque three times a day). There is spiral stairway through which the muezzin, the person who calls people to prayers, goes up to the minaret.
The mosque enjoys unique interior decoration.
Another historical structure, Mir Bahaeddin Bridge, called Pol-e Kohneh (old bridge), was built in the southern part of Zanjan over Zanjan-Roud (river). It has helped villages living on the other side of the river have access to Zanjan.
It is 100 meter long, 6.7 meters wide and 12 high from the surface of the river.
Of course, modern bridge has been built linking Zanjan to cities in Kurdestan province.
Pol-e-Kohneh has decorative arches and was built under Nasser-eddin Shah of Qajar.
In addition Zanjan also boasts of the famous Soltanieh Dome, a cultural heritage structure in the suburbs of Zanjan, which is on UNESCO’s global heritage list."

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.co.uk

2005-09-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "Iran plans to weave world's largest carpet
Sat Sep 24, 2005 1:25 PM BST

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is seeking to revive its carpet industry by weaving the world's biggest rug, weighing in at 35 tonnes.

The mammoth rug from the spiritual homeland of Persian carpets will cover almost 6,000 square metres and will fetch some $8.2 million, its makers told Reuters on Saturday.

"We will have two working shifts of 1,000 weavers working for 14 months non-stop to deliver the carpet on time," said Karam Reza Haseli, a deputy manager at the state-supported Iranian carpet company.

Work is due to start in three months.

The carpet has been ordered by the Sheikh Zayed mosque that is being built in Abu Dhabi, after Iran scoured its Gulf neighbours for contracts that might help revive business for local wool merchants, dye makers and weavers.

Although hand-woven carpets are normally Iran's top non-oil export, the industry has been hit by cheaper Pakistani, Chinese and Indian copies of traditional Iranian patterns.

Iran is hoping to break its own record for Gargantuan carpets, which it says is currently held by the 4,400 square metre carpet woven for the Sultan Qaboos mosque in Muscat.

Haseli said the quality of the workmanship would be maintained by paying some of the master craftsmen up to $7 a shift, far more than the $1 going-rate in areas near the Afghan border.

"We intend to monopolise the market with expensive delicate carpets and leave the cheap fake carpets market for others to fight for," Haseli said."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/17/05 - Exhibit of Tribal Works

2005-09-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 08/17/05: "Exhibit of Tribal Works Opens Tomorrow

TEHRAN, Aug. 16--Capabilities of tribal people will be featured in an exhibit-cum-sales of works produced by tribesmen at the Arts and Cultural Complex here from August 18 until August 27.
According to ISNA, the exhibit will be held in cooperation with the Center for Iranian Tribesmen with the aim of introducing various aspects of their cultures, traditions, cultural heritage, great personalities and ethnic identity.
The event also seeks to help boost the quality and quantity of goods produced by the tribal people including dairy products, foodstuff, textile, hand-woven textiles and arts.
The event will present tourist spots and sightseeing areas in the tribal regions of the country.
The exhibit, which will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., will provide a good opportunity for marketing the products manufactured by the tribal population."

Iran Daily - Domestic Economy - 08/24/05 Persian Carpet Exhibit Underway

2005-09-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Domestic Economy - 08/24/05: "Persian Carpet Exhibit Underway

Some 25 percent of carpets offered in international markets are imitations of Persian carpets.

TEHRAN, Aug. 23--The 14th Persian Carpet Exhibition opened at Tehran’s International Fairgrounds on Tuesday.
According to IRNA, some 360 carpet production, export and cooperative companies and institutions are taking part in the weeklong event, which is being held in a total area of 22,000 square meters.
Several specialized seminars and conferences have been planned on the sidelines of the exhibition.
Some 2,000 businesspersons from around the world have been invited to the event.
Experts say the greatest challenge to the Persian carpet industry is the high prices of the handworks, which have reduced the national industry’s competitive power at the international level.
The increase in prices of Persian carpets has even created problems at home, where high wages and non-organized production have led to a hike in prices.
Some 25 percent of carpets offered in international markets are imitations of Persian carpets. China mostly uses its own designs while others try to copy Persian carpets.
Pakistan has taken full advantage of poor state support for the industry in Iran to imitate the designs of Persian carpets and export them to international markets.
As Persian carpet production continues to decline, labor costs have gone up drastically, posing a serious threat to the future of the once thriving industry.
China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Turkey are Iran’s major rivals in the carpet industry."

Iran Daily - Domestic Economy - 08/24/05 Persian Carpet Exhibit Underway

2005-09-24T15:40:00.001-07:00

Iran Daily - Domestic Economy - 08/24/05 Persian Carpet Exhibit Underway

2005-09-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Tribal culture dying out: Iranian sculptor

2005-09-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Tribal culture dying out: Iranian sculptor: "Tribal culture dying out: Iranian sculptor

Saturday, September 24, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

Related Pictures

LONDON, September 24 (IranMania) - Leading sculptor Parviz Tanavoli has said that he believes that permanent museum of tribal culture should be established to safeguard national traditions.

Tanavoli, who has carried out research studies on ethnic arts and culture, said that he has collected several thousand pieces of hand-woven artworks by Iranian tribesmen and wished to set up permanent museums of tribal handicrafts, Iran Daily reported.

Tribal lifestyle is rapidly being destroyed, he said noting that tribal people sell their horses and camels to buy vans and cars. ?I assure that you will not see tribal lifestyle in a few years from now. There will be no sign of tribal life in the near future. Livestock breeding will become mechanized and if anyone wanted to know about the nation?s background will not have reference books except for those printed abroad.?

He said that every province should have at least one permanent museum of hand-woven art works. He regretted that not enough has been done in this respect so far.

Tanavoli, a US-based Iranian sculptor founded the Association of Friends of Persian Carpet in 1972, but did not engage in social activities until three years ago. When he comes to Iran, he takes his team, which includes a photographer, a driver and an aide, to one of the provinces.

He visited Azarbaijan, Fars, Khorasan and Kurdestan provinces to conduct research studies on hand-woven textiles.

He has stayed longer in Tehran in the past three years and many publishers have announced their readiness to publish the findings of his systematic research studies about art and culture in his motherland.
Asked by ISNA to comment on the subjects he selected for his sculpture, he said that Iran has a treasure of references in the art of sculpture thanks to its rich culture.

He said that art has universal dimensions adding that Iran, which boasts of world renowned poets such as Sadi and Moulana, will never lag behind the West in this field.

Tanavoli, who organized solo and collective exhibits at museums in New York, Vienna, Essen (Germany), Budapest, St. Paul, Dakar, Seoul and Tehran, said that Iran has great potentials for sculpture given its rich culture.

?Iran is a like a little fish in the vast ocean of sculpture in the world. This little fish always wants to become distinct from all the sharks in the ocean.?

He criticized sculptors who follow western models and said that though sculpture is a western art, Iran has a great background in this field to make sculpture a national art.

He said that Iranian sculptors have a long way to go to transform the great Iranian literature into dimensional art."

Times of Oman: Iran plans to weave world's largest carpet

2005-09-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

Times of Oman: "Iran plans to weave world's largest carpet

TEHRAN –– Iran is seeking to revive its carpet industry by weaving the world's biggest rug, weighing in at 35 tonnes. The mammoth rug from the spiritual homeland of Persian carpets will cover almost 6,000 square metres and will fetch some $8.2 million, its makers told Reuters on Saturday.

"We will have two working shifts of 1,000 weavers working for 14 months non-stop to deliver the carpet on time," said Karam Reza Haseli, a deputy manager at the state-supported Iranian carpet company.

Work is due to start in three months.

The carpet has been ordered by the Sheikh Zayed mosque that is being built in Abu Dhabi, after Iran scoured its Gulf neighbours for contracts that might help revive business for local wool merchants, dye makers and weavers.

Although hand-woven carpets are normally Iran's top non-oil export, the industry has been hit by cheaper Pakistani, Chinese and Indian copies of traditional Iranian patterns.

Iran is hoping to break its own record for Gargantuan carpets, which it says is currently held by the 4,400 square metre carpet woven for the Sultan Qaboos mosque in Muscat.

Haseli said the quality of the workmanship would be maintained by paying some of the master craftsmen up to $7 a shift, far more than the $1 going-rate in areas near the Afghan border.

"We intend to monopolise the market with expensive delicate carpets and leave the cheap fake carpets market for others to fight for," Haseli said. –– Reuters"

Bob Rue braces for Rita's rains - The Rugs Are Back Up On Raisers

2005-09-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

New Orleans braces for Rita's rains

In the 1300 block of St. Charles Avenue, oriental rug dealer Bob Rue had moved his expensive rug stock onto risers once again.

"I'm getting them back up," said Rue, who, as a Tulane football player, had ridden out Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Katrina was his 36th storm.

"If it rains a lot, and they've got pumping stations down, it could be bad," Rue said. But he knew from Katrina that the lake water level stopped outside his door on the sidewalk. He's been receiving muddy rugs for cleaning, including one on which a Lake Vista woman's body had been found when floodwaters receded.

Rue said he would ride out Rita, intent on protecting his block of St. Charles from any looters, armed with a .38. His shop was open to receive oriental rugs, a favorite of New Orleanians, where old homes have old pine plank or other wood flooring.

A sign outside his shop has been made famous by post-Katrina photographers: "Don't try. I'm sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer."
"

Scotsman.com News - Don't try. I am sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer."

2005-09-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Scotsman.com News - International - Life begins to grow again in a city living in the twilight zone: "On St Charles Street, in the scenic Garden District, Bob Rue boarded up the windows of his oriental rug repair shop against looters after the storm, scrawling a warning on the wood: "Don't try. I am sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer."

The flood crept within inches of his door - at one point, he got his fishing rod and claims to have hooked a catch in the street outside his oriental rug repair shop - but has now dried up.

Some residents have already brought in their flood-soaked rugs for restoration but there are few signs of life and the district is still awaiting the return of its evacuated population.

"It's weird. For the first time ever, you can hear owls hooting at night because there's no traffic and no bustle," said Mr Rue.

"My message to New Orleans is: 'Come home.'"

He already has his float booked for Mardi Gras, the city's trademark annual festival that embodies the spirit of the south, when brightly-coloured beads are hurled from carnival floats into a partying crowd. "

Investors' Association - Oriental carpets / rugs

2005-09-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Investors' Association - Oriental carpets / rugs: "Oriental carpets / rugs
The FT

Don't be floored

"Oriental carpets have a magical quality, but investors shouldn't rely on prices flying high.

"Carpets haven't proved to be the best investment because they are so commanded by fashion," says Louise Kendon at Christie's carpet department. Carpets that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s - with bold designs and bright red and indigo colours - have lost their appeal."

"If you say 'oriental carpet' to someone, they will probably think of reds and blues and a dense pattern of curly vinery around a central medallion," says Jacqueline Coulter of Sotheby's. "These are now much less easy to sell."

Carpets have to live in rooms and, since the fashion now is for pale decors and natural colours, the most popular carpets today are ones that suit this modern aesthetic.

Tabriz carpets, from north-west Iran, typically have a range of colours that are attractive to today's interior designers. The most sought-after Hadji Jallili carpets, for example, vary from pale coral to creamy white and cost from £3,000 for a 9ft by 12ft carpet to as much as £120,000 for a 16ft by 24ft.

The earliest piled carpet dates from the eighth century and older carpets - particularly pre-1920 Oriental carpets from Persia (now Iran) and Anatolia (in modern Turkey) - tend to hold their value better than more modern ones, according to Mark Dance, head of the carpet department at Bonhams.

Ziegler carpets, from the Sultanabad area of Persia, have been a particularly good buy. They are named after the 19th-century Mancunian firm which started business by taking made-up pieces of cotton to Persia and bringing back local carpets.

From the 1870s onwards, the firm began to produce classical Persian carpet designs scaled up to fit large English houses and in colours to suit western eyes. A Ziegler carpet, which sold at Sotheby's for £10,000 in 1990, would now be likely to sell for nearly double that.

But remember that restoration is very expensive and will affect the value of a carpet. "Good condition always commands a premium," says Coulter.

Prospective purchasers should consider carefully where they buy their carpet. Buying at auction is cheaper than from a dealer, but you are unlikely to be able to "test drive" your chosen carpet.

If you buy a carpet from a dealer, you will usually be allowed to use it for a week or two before you decide to buy. Dealers also hold a larger selection of stock and are more likely to have a carpet that fits your room. However, all this will cost you extra.

Once your carpet is home, remember to look after it properly. Rotate it to reduce wear, and have it cleaned professionally every couple of years. For daily maintenance, no magic is required - your trusty vacuum cleaner will do the trick.""

Scotsman.com Business - Personal Finance - Mediterranean rugs let carpet baggers cash in

2005-09-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

Scotsman.com Business - Personal Finance - Mediterranean rugs let carpet baggers cash in: "Mediterranean rugs let carpet baggers cash in

CONAL GREGORY
PERIOD rugs and carpets are not only beautiful works of art but, if well chosen, can also increase markedly in value.

The earliest textiles to survive, mainly linen, date from 7,000-6,000BC and originated from the region between the eastern Mediterranean and western Iran. Wool from goats and sheep followed and, in time, cotton, silk and camel hair.

Persian rugs rarely lose their value. In the days when the British Rail Pension Fund allocated a proportion to collectibles, its trustees acquired a shrub lattice carpet for £68,200 in 1976 and sold it 14 years later for over £310,000.

The late 19th century Ziegler carpets of central Persia continue to be popular, partly because they show pale colours and do not apply a dominant central motif. A 15ft by 10ft example has risen from £400 in the 1970s to over £100,000 today.

Two key Persian markets are Heriz and Kashan. A late 19th century Kashan "Mohtashem" carpet sold for £32,400 at Sotheby’s in April last year.

In Caucasian rugs, which are noted for their bright colours, only early examples and the very finest hold their price. The major collectors are American, German and Swiss.

There is a trend away from medallion and pendant designs, even for those that are finely knotted. Dealers warn against buying the Chinese copies of Aubusson foliate designs as often only 10-20 per cent of the purchase price can be expected if resold. A genuine early 19th century Aubusson carpet from France can make £30,000.

Many are attracted to the Arts & Crafts movement of around 1910, notably the carpets designed by Garan Morton and GK Robertson.

Some were made by Alexander Morton & Co in north- west Ireland and others in Ayrshire. A Donegal example realised £8,704, including buyers’ premium, at Shapes Auction in Edinburgh last week against a £3,000-£5,000 estimate.

Take professional advice as there are clever reproductions of early Turkish and Caucasian rugs, where the chunky knots have been faked in Turkey using old wool."

Beacon Journal | 09/17/2005 | Ask Mary Beth - How to get cat urine out of Oriental rugs?

2005-09-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Beacon Journal | 09/17/2005 | Ask Mary Beth: "Posted on Sat, Sep. 17, 2005

Ask Mary Beth
Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal

How to remove cat urine odor

Q: Is there a good home remedy or commercial cleaner that will take the odor of cat urine out of Oriental rugs?

-- Robert K. Lewis Jr.

Akron

A: The best remedy I've come across for cat urine odor is an enzyme-based odor remover, available from most pet stores. I've found you really need to saturate the stained areas of the rug with it.

I'd test the product in a small area first. If the rug is very old or valuable, you might want to call a reputable dealer who specializes in Oriental rugs and ask about having it professionally cleaned by a conservator."

HoustonChronicle.com - Signs of life slowly returning to New Orleans - Bob Rue's Sarouk Oriental Rugs Shop

2005-09-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

HoustonChronicle.com - Signs of life slowly returning to New Orleans: "NEW ORLEANS
Signs of life are slowly returning
By ROMA KHANNA, THOMAS KOROSEC and MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
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NEW ORLEANS - Business owners who return today to kickstart the city's commercial rebound will be warned of contaminated water and fragile sewers and told to enter at their own risk — all signs that while the city is reopening, many basics are still unavailable.

Trucks carrying everything from exterminators to clean linens were parked two deep on the streets of the Central Business District on Friday as a number of businesses got an early start on revitalizing stores, restaurants and hotels that have been closed for more than two weeks.

But even as humming generators and whirring fans brought life to streets deserted since Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29, officials in Mayor C. Ray Nagin's office cautioned residents that his ambitious re-entry plan may not move as quickly as they have hoped.

"It is vitally important for this city to stay alive, to start moving commerce in the right direction," said Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' chief of homeland security.

"But we have to do it in a progressive manner."

Plans to open downtown, Uptown and the French Quarter this weekend to business owners and repopulate the neighborhood of Algiers on Monday remain on track, said Ebbert, who expects thousands to enter the city today.

But Nagin's prediction that within 10 days people will move into Uptown and the French Quarter, which have limited power and no drinkable water, will not get final approval until services such as 911 and hospitals are available.

"Three inches of rainfall would cause us to have flooding and we would lose ground," Ebbert said of the city's strained levees. "You can expect there to be a mandatory evacuation anytime we encounter a large rainfall."

Making preparations
Nonetheless, the prospect of the imminent return of residents set the city in motion Friday, as restaurants emptied refrigerators of rotten food and convenience stores and gas stations opened in the largely spared Algiers, on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

At the posh Shops at Canal Place, management trickled in to assess their stores.

Thick pipes from a dehumidifier snaked around displays of dainty high heels and jewelry on the first floor of Saks 5th Avenue, where a fire broke out several days after the storm hit.

"I wouldn't expect these places to be up and running right away," said Mike Cantrell, a private security guard helping store owners with logistics. "The building needs to be inspected and people need to have a place to house their employees. It is going to take some time, but they are eager to get there."

In the equally active French Quarter, Paul Prudhomme, the renowned chef of K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, said he will begin cleaning out the restaurant Monday and reopen "sometime the following week."

"We need to get open," Prudhomme said. "We've been here 26 years and we've had storms. We've been through lots of storms."

Prudhomme, who is credited with popularizing Cajun food worldwide, said he has gathered from his e-mail that people believe the city is a total ruin.

"I just drove to the airport and back and a lot of the city is standing and looks fine," he said.

'Back to basics'
Prices at his restaurant, which before the storm ran $26 per entrée, will be cut to $10 to $20, Prudhomme said.

"We're going back to basics, jambalaya, filé gumbo, red beans and rice, good food," the famed chef said.

Nearby at Matassa's deli and grocery, owner John Matassa said the timing of reopening presented a dilemma.

"We can't open until we get supplies in from Baton Rouge. And I don't want to order supplies if there aren't going to be customers."

But he was optimistic he'd be operating within a few days. "My family has owned this place for 82 years. We'll be back," he said.

The fact, however, that such business necessities as power and clean water are unavailable tempered many owners' optimism.

"Until we get power, nothing's gonna happen," said Bob Rue, who owns Sarouk Oriental Rugs Shop at the western edge of downtown. "I do have a phone. I thought I was hallucinating when I heard it ring the other day."

roma.khanna@chron.com thomas.korosec@chron.com michael.hedges@chron.com "

In hard times, Bob Rue sees an opportunity for profit: 9/ 17/ 2005

2005-09-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

In hard times, he sees an opportunity for profit: 9/ 17/ 2005: "In hard times, he sees an opportunity for profit
By THOMAS S. MULLIGAN, Los Angeles Times

NEW ORLEANS -- Bob Rue, renowned locally as a wit and bon vivant, figures he has two ways to make a pot of money in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Plan A is to leverage a book deal out of his sudden -- but probably fleeting -- international fame as the author of a series of vaguely sinister but funny anti-looting messages that he hand-painted on storefronts around the city's ritzy Garden District in the first days after the storm.
Plan B, decidedly more hardheaded, plays to another of Rue's strengths as a long-established Oriental rug merchant with an enviable address on St. Charles Avenue. The idea is to buy top-quality antique carpets from wealthy but cash-strapped storm victims and flip them for two or three times the money to dealers in Beverly Hills, Calif., midtown Manhattan and other decorator-rich environments.
"I'm tired of being rich and famous. I want to make some money," Rue said, stealing a quip he says he heard from New Orleans music legend Art Neville.
Rue, 59, has been posing nonstop for TV interviews in front of the rude warning to looters on the front wall of his store, located next to one of celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse's restaurants. Sometimes on camera Rue wears a floppy harlequin hat. Sometimes he brandishes a broken old claw hammer. Always he drops an amusing line about Mardi Gras or gumbo. Throughout the Katrina crisis, he has been Mr. Local Color.
That's all Plan A. Rue said he could easily fill a book with tales of how at the peak of the flood he'd stood in his doorway with a rod and reel, vainly trying to land two fat redfish that were splashing in the shallows of St. Charles Avenue. Or how he'd spent one humid night sitting alone on a patio with a pen and notebook, naked, creating literature about the Merlot he was drinking, but the giant Chinook rescue helicopters overhead kept blowing out his candles. There's lots more like that, he says. Make him an offer.
Plan B, which doesn't involve funny hats, almost takes care of itself.
"This town is all grasshoppers and no ants," Rue explained during a much-interrupted interview this week inside his still-unlit, un-air-conditioned showroom, surrounded by piles of rolled-up old Oushaks, Bijans and Ferrighan Sarouks that he'd hoisted onto tables and stacks of wood pallets to keep them out of reach of the flood. As it happened, the water crested on the sidewalk a foot from his door.
Rue assumes he will see a lot of carpets in the coming months. In the wake of the hurricane, many of the owners of the million-dollar wedding-cake houses along St. Charles Avenue are going to need liquidity -- and fast, he figures.
"By the time they get their kids into new private schools, fix their roofs, tear out their electrical systems and clean up all the mold and rot, they're going to need cash," he said. "Stuff is going to come piling in here."
Many will be dropped in his lap by Garden District patrons, but he also plans to advertise in newspapers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Miss., perhaps as far away as Meridian, Miss. Depending on the level of selling interest, he may lease a van and take a northern swing through the Gulf area.
Rue intends to buy only the finest pieces, nothing wet or damaged, but even at the sharply discounted prices he hopes to pay, it will take a lot of cash. That's why he was on the phone this week looking for an investor to back his play.
"The more cash I can get, the more rugs I can buy," he said.
He finally cut a deal with longtime acquaintance Mois Refoua of Caravan Rug Corp., which has a showroom in Beverly Hills. It took a while for Rue to convince Refoua that he was actually standing in his store in downtown New Orleans. Like everybody else, Refoua had heard that the city was shut down.
In a telephone interview from Beverly Hills, Refoua praised Rue for staying open -- or at least in the city -- after the nine or 10 other New Orleans carpet dealers he knew had fled.
"He's the man who stayed with his business, and we salute that," Refoua said. "We will support him by any means possible."
Rue said he was happy to partner with Caravan because they have pertinent experience.
After Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992, Rue said, Caravan "got a point man in Florida right away, so they know how to do this."
Post-disaster opportunism has a venerable tradition, Rue said. He recounted a years-ago conversation with the late Henry Stern, a well-known New Orleans antique dealer: "'Bob,' he told me, 'I made my fortune on the Hurricane of '47. I had a bunch of cash. After two weeks, the old ladies came in and started quietly dumping their stuff on me."'

This story appeared on Page A2 of The Standard-Times on September 17, 2005. "

Kashmir's ailing carpet industry (GreaterKashmir.com) 19/9/2005 : 7:31:25 AM

2005-09-19T05:35:00.000-07:00

Kashmir's ailing carpet industry (GreaterKashmir.com) 19/9/2005 : 7:31:25 AM: "Kashmir's ailing carpet industry

NISSAR BHAT
Kashmir carpet industry is of Persian origin. The trade, which has been handed down by the great artisans of Iran, flourished during the Mughal rule in Kashmir. However, the Persian culture influenced the Kashmiri carpet for quite a long time.
It was only after a long period of time that Kashmiri carpet acquired an indigenous character. With the introduction of the design patterns of shawls, traditional paisley, leaves and flowers the Kashmir carpet attained a high degree of perfection in 16th and 17th centuries under the Mughal emperors.
Although in India the origin of hand-knotted carpets can be traced back more than 2000 years, in Kashmir, however, its history begins with the intrusion of Mughals. With the tinge of local artistic magnificence the Kashmiri carpet attained a high degree of perfection and carved out a unique place in the international market.
However, a look at the present state of carpet industry in Kashmir makes one highly disappointed with the role of the government. Despite having all the potential for generating huge employment and earning bulk of foreign reserves, the low allocation by the government for this sector has truncated its growth to a limited size and curtailed its reach in the national market.
India is a huge market for carpet industry. With the growing demand for the carpet in the country, the outside Kashmir carpet manufacturing units have cashed in on this opportunity by increasing their production. The state governments have also played a significant role in terms of introducing artisan friendly schemes and enhancing the financial allocation for this sector. However, when it comes to Kashmir, the government here has apparently not been so enthusiastic to underpin the industry.
The results are obvious: 90 per cent demand for carpets in India is being meted out by the carpet manufacturing units at A itsar, Agra, Jaipur (Rajasthan), Eluru and Warangal (A.P). The Mirzapur-Bhadohi belt in U.P. has immerged as one of the main carpet manufacturing places in India contributing to a substantial portion in Indian market.
Although the countrywide transformation in carpet industry has been witnessed in Kashmir also, government’s indifference towards this sector has failed to make it a vibrant economic activity. Though the government is boasting of taking measures to encourage the growth of the handicrafts industry – carpet being one of the essential components of it – with abysmally low allocations for this sector the carpet industry has not grown on the scale it ought to have. Against an allocation of Rs 19.50 crore made for carpet industry in 1974-75, the budget allocation for this sector after 24 years see a meagre increase of 4.5 crores by reaching to Rs 24 crore during 1998-99.
Even as the government for the social security of artisans has introduced health and group insurance that provides the family of the artisans a free treatment cover, most of these schemes have remained confined to the papers.
The state has failed to sustain its export output growth. In 1973-74 state exported carpets worth 400 quintals. Even as this figure reached to all time high 5750 quintals in 1995-96 it again slashed down to mere 650 quintals in 1999-2000. The fluctuation in export figures besides debilitating the industry has arrested it from tapping the growing market in India and abroad.
On the production front although the figures are satisfactory the state carpet industrial sector has failed to keep pace with the growing outside state manufacturing units. In 1974-75 there was an estimated production of Rs 1.38 crores. In 2002-03 it reached a whopping 655.71 crores with 94,400 persons in this trade. During this period the growth in the outside state units has increased mani-fold.
Experts believe that the government’s failure to provide necessary training to the local artisans is yet another reason restraining many a youth to come in this field. With the result the innovative techniques and new talent has eluded this sector. In 1990-91 the number of training centres run by directorate of handicrafts was 513 where 8000 persons were trained. After a decade i.e. in 2002-03 the number of training institutes increased only by 40 (reaching to 553 training centres) and the number of trainees increased by only 100 (8100 at present).
Number of handloom training centres was 58 (handloom weaving) in 1991 and trainees trained were 546 in 2001-003 it was only 59 and trainees trained dwindled to 476. It is high time that the state took measures towards enhancing the budget allocation for this sector which has the potential to absorb thousands and thousands of our youth and earn bulk of foreign money for the state. There is a tremendous scope for the improvement in this sector so that the 90 per cent Indian market that has been taken by the outside state carpet traders is gained. The expertise and excellence in designs we have, the need is the government cooperation and schemes to help the local dealers to grow."

Bourbon Street's neon comes back to life - Bob Rue's Sarouk Shop Open For Business

2005-09-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Bourbon Street's neon comes back to life - General News - General Industrial Services - Industrial Products & Services - Economy - General: "Bob Rue's ringing phone was a sign at the Sarouk Shop that his Oriental rug business was up and running. On Saturday afternoon, residents dropped off their own rugs to be dried out at his shop on St. Charles Avenue, next door to Emeril Lagasse's Emeril's Delmonico restaurant in the Garden District area. Rue weathered Katrina and the mayhem that followed with a pistol and an old claw hammer that he found in the street to keep looters at bay.
'I do have the ugliest claw hammer on the face of the earth,' Rue said. He painted warnings on the outside of his building to ward off troublemakers. As for the floodwaters, they stopped just short of his building.
Jim Wright, a litigation lawyer who was dropping some rugs off at Rue's shop, said that it was the first time he had left his house to escape a storm. He said that the city would need to get its infrastructure back up and running before businesses can come back in force."

In London, Persia the Great

2005-09-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

In London, Persia the Great: "In London, Persia the Great

Sunday, September 18, 2005; Page P04
WHAT: "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia" at London's British Museum.
WHEN: Now through Jan. 8.

The British Museum digs up such Persian finds as a lapis lazuli head. (National Museum Of Iran)
HOW MUCH: About $14.40.

WHY GO: Two and a half millenniums before it got lumped into the "Axis of Evil," Iran was thriving as the Persian Empire, one of the farthest-reaching cultures of the ancient world. When the empire fell to Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., the well-traveled conqueror reportedly remarked that the wealth of its capital, Persepolis, surpassed anything he had ever seen.

With loans from the Persepolis Museum and the National Museum of Iran, the exhibition re-creates the royal atmosphere using everything from massive palace columns and huge stone carvings to intricately wrought drinking vessels and luxurious jewelry. But the show is more than simply a collection of rare artifacts. The history, geographical scope and administration of the Persians' far-flung land--its roads, armed forces and even its postal service--are also featured.

DON'T MISS . . . the silver foundation plaque (date unknown) of Darius I (who reigned from 522 to 486 B.C.), which was unearthed from Persepolis and is considered one of Iran's most important cultural treasures. The riches of ancient Persian rulers are embodied in an impressively wrought and inscribed golden bowl (date unknown) honoring "Xerxes the King," a son of Darius who ruled the empire from 486 to 465 B.C. Inscribed in Babylonian cuneiforms, the Cyrus Cylinder (circa 530 B.C.) recounts the humane treatment and privileges accorded to the defeated Babylonians by Persian king Cyrus (559 to 530 B.C.).

EATS/SLEEPS: Round out the archaeological extravaganza with some nice digs. At the Radisson Edwardian Kenilworth (97 Great Russell St., 800-333-3333, http://www.radisson.com/ ), just across the street, the exotic vibe continues. Many rooms feature African wood surfaces and bathrooms of Sicilian marble, and the Creation restaurant is outfitted in Far Eastern decor. Doubles start at about $170 per night.

Another ancient culture is featured at the Montague (15 Montague St., 011-44-20-7637-1001, http://www.montaguehotel.com/ ), a plush townhouse hotel that's also a few steps from the museum. The hotel's "British Museum Break" package includes a night's accommodations, full breakfast, a bottle of champagne and a book about ancient Egypt. For two, rates start at about $251.

Nearby but substantially cheaper is the Langland Hotel (29-31 Gower St., 011-44-20-7636-5801, http://www.langland%20hotel.com/ ), in a Georgian townhouse. Doubles start at about $125.

Fuel up on mirza ghasemi (grilled eggplant in tomato garlic sauce), chenjeh (skewered lamb) and baklava at Simurgh Restaurant (17 Garrick St.), whose decor pays homage to ancient Persia. That meal will run you about $46 per person.

GETTING THERE: For travel through Oct. 31, Virgin Vacations (888-937-8474, http://www.virginvacations.com/ ) offers a "London Midweek Fling" package. It includes round-trip air from New York, six nights' lodging and continental breakfasts. Rates start at $499 per person double (taxes and fees extra). Book by Sept. 29.

EXTRAS: Curiously, the ancient Persian god of light has a place of worship in London. (The gray and rainy weather may have something to do with it.)

To visit, head to the courtyard in front of the Sumitomo Bank at 11 Queen Victoria St. and check out the ruins of the Temple of Mithras, built by a cult of Roman settlers in the 3rd century. The temple, once underground, was uncovered in the city center during post-World War II reconstruction and subsequently was moved to its present location. Before the Romans adopted Christianity, a number of religious cults flourished around the Empire, often in secret.

London's Victoria and Albert Museum (Cromwell Road, 011-44-20-7942-2000, http://www.vam.ac.uk/ ; free) boasts an excellent collection of Persian decorative arts and textiles. Its marquee item is the 16th-century Ardabil Carpet, considered by many to be the finest Persian rug ever made.

Self-styled shahs can blow their extra pounds on a classic hand-woven Persian carpet at Liberty (Liberty Place, 210-220 Regent St., 011-44-20-7734-1234), the famous purveyor of exotic foreign goods.

INFO: British Museum, Great Russell Street, 011-44-20-7323-8000, http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/ .

-- Seth Sherwood"

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World

2005-09-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Auctions: Islamic art at Christie's
By MEIR RONNEN

Islamic paintings, manuscripts, pottery and Ottoman silver ranging from the 9th to the 19th century are on offer at Christie's London autumn sale of Islamic Art and Manuscripts on October 11. A sale of Oriental Rugs and Carpets two days later includes 19th-century silk carpets from two private European collections in addition to a large 18th-century Indian carpet.

A seated portrait of Muhammad Shah Qajar enthroned, 1844 CE (estimate: GBP250,000-GBP350,000) is signed Ahmad, one of the two principal court painters of that time.

Among the pottery is an exceedingly rare Sumarra luster-painted bowl from the Abbasid period, dating from the 9th century (estimate: GBP50,000-GBP70,000). On this signed bowl, a large and powerful falcon fills the center, painted in a rich deep, reddish-brown luster.

Medieval metalwork includes a late 13th-century/early 14th-century Seljuk white bronze candlestick inlaid with silver (estimate: GBP30,000-40,000); and a Mamluk silver inlaid brass candlestick, period of Al-Nasir Muhammad, 1293-1341 CE (estimate: GBP25,000-GBP35,000). In addition, there is a collection of 19th-century Ottoman silver from Turkey.

Also featured is a crisp white marble capital from Medinat al-Zahra in Southern Spain dating from the second half of the 10th century (estimate: GBP30,000-GBP50,000). Once decorated with colored paint, lines and circles incised on the top of the capital show the workings of how it was originally designed from a solid cube of marble.

The selection of carpets ranging from Turkey through Persia and India to China, from the 16th to 20th centuries to be offered on October 13, includes two private European collections of mid- to late-19th-century silk carpets with Persian examples from Kashan, Tabriz and Heriz as well as Turkish examples from Koum Kapi and Hereke, with estimates from GBP1,500 to GBP80,000. The best is an unusually large Koum Kapi carpet of 10ft x 6ft, attributed to the master weaver Zareh Penyamin (GBP60,000-GBP80,000).

One of the most interesting carpets is a late 16th- or early 17th-century prayer carpet from Isfahan, reportedly in outstanding condition (GBP80,000-GBP120,000). This example has the same inscriptions and is of the same size as the largest known group of Persian prayer carpets found in the Royal Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, and was woven in wool and silver thread on a silk foundation.

Also in the sale is a rare Mughal 18th-century carpet with an off-white background made from cotton with silk details. This was probably made in the Deccan in Central India and measures 26ft x 9ft (GBP100,000-GBP150,000). The coloring of this carpet is exactly the "look" sought by contemporary designers today."

SECOND �UPPER KARABAGH� WITHIN THE GEORGIAN TERRITORY / Diplomatic Observer

2005-09-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

SECOND �UPPER KARABAGH� WITHIN THE GEORGIAN TERRITORY / Diplomatic Observer: "SECOND “UPPER KARABAGH” WITHIN THE GEORGIAN TERRITORY
The intensified Armenian provocations on Armenians living in Georgia’s Javakheti (Ahilkelek) region – a crucial piece of land for Armenia to reach Black Sea - are regarded as Yerivan’s effort to create a second Upper Karabagh in Georgian soil.

On the other hand, Georgian officials are said to be contended with just observing the results of daily policies aiming Armenians of Javakheti region.

A brawl broke up when a group of students from Tbilisi State University attempted to visit Surp Nishan Church of Ahilkelek’s Samsari village where Armenians live intensely last week of July 2005, and Georgian press bodies that follow the recent developments and hardening Armenian attitude towards Georgians in the region started to bring up the cause and effect relationship on the issue.

Georgian press indicated that the results of the false policies of Georgian government were obvious and pointed out that the government had tried staving off riots or uprisings, instead of eliminating the minority problems; and as a result, 98% of Javakheti population could not speak Georgian language or know the law, thus Armenian nationalism relatively reached a very strong stage.

Georgian press also emphasize that Russia’s interference with Georgia’s internal policies by causing instability in Javakheti region and Moscow uses the region as another source of instability just like Abkhazia.

The question was put back on the agenda with the tension between the Georgian students and Armenians and prioritised not only by Georgian press but also by Georgian Parliament Human Rights Commission Chairman Yelena Teodoradze.

Tevodoradze, in a statement, said nobody had a right to refrain Georgian citizens from visiting historical sites and Armenians were brought to the region only after the Ottoman-Russian wars in 1830s and lived there for a mere 170 years but Georgians existed in the disputed soil a long time ago.

Tevodoradze stated that the 58 of 68 ten year primary schools of Javakheti region were Armenian schools, where as 9 Russian and only 1 Georgian schools existed in the region; and stressed on the similarity of the Armenian formation in Upper Karabagh and Javakheti and qualified this formation of Armenian origin. Nationalist Armenians from Javakheti had assisted Upper-Karabagh Armenians during the clashes and this fact confirms Tevodoradze’s allegations on the issue.

Tevodoradze mentioned the Javakheti Armenians’ statements on the protection of Armenian cultural heritage and terms of regional development, however their minimum target’s being autonomy and the final aim was annexation of the region to Armenia; and Russia who wishes to generate chaos in Georgia was the country that supported Armenians on this issue.

Tevodoradze says bigger problems have not been faced in Javakheti yet, since the Armenian government does not wish to fight on two fronts on the Upper Karabagh and Javakheti axis, and is conscious of a full siege in case of a clash with Georgia.

Tevodoradze says the Armenian minority tries to characterize the problems as economic, but VIRK movement that represents local Armenians has statements regarding the issue as political. Tevodoradze also quotes VIRK movement leader David Rıstakian as having said that “a special status must be initiated to protect the multinational structure of the region, and NATO and Turks would settle down in the region if the Russian bases were to close”.

As a matter of fact, cultural and political autonomy demand of Javaheti Armenians is not a new matter.

Armenians are the majority in Javakheti region, also the homeland to Aheska Turks who were exiled to live there in Stalin era. Armenians search for cultural and political autonomy goes on for more than ten years.

The aims of Armenians are clearly confirmed by VIRK movement leader David Rıstakian’s statement of “Armenians of Georgia demand a Armenian Autonomous Republic within Georgia”.

Armenian intrepidity –as they embezzle the human rights watching Georgian government’s positive approach- of stopping Georgian citizens to visit historical sites and even burning the Georgian flag is strengthened by cultural and political autonomy demands that would give way to annexation to Armenia."

Forward Newspaper Online: Riding the Persian Carpet to Fame (Iranian Jews in America)

2005-09-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

Forward Newspaper Online: Riding+the+Persian+Carpet+to+Fame: "

Home > Fast ForwardFast Forward
Riding the Persian Carpet to Fame
A Generation of Young Iranian Jews Takes a Stab at Showbiz
By Karmel Melamed
September 16, 2005

'It sucks being Iranian these days," Iranian-born Jewish comedian Dan Ahdoot jokes in his stand-up act. "People ask me the dumbest questions... 'Yo, Dan, level with me. Are they making the nuclear weapons or what?' Like there's this big e-mail list that goes out every month to anyone who's Iranian, that reads, 'Greetings from Tehran. Everything is going according to plan. Soon all the Americans will die! And now birthdays: Mahmoud from Virginia is celebrating his 34th!'"

Though not necessarily for the reasons he outlines in his onstage routine, life has not been without its difficulties for Ahdoot. About five years ago, after graduating pre-med from Johns Hopkins University, he was set to enter medical school. But before he could even crack open an anatomy book, he decided to change course and take a shot at becoming a professional comedian.

"My whole family was basically against it, but I used that as a motivation to prove them wrong," Ahdoot said. "Life is too short. You have to take risks. That's basically what I did, and thank God it's paying off."

The generation of Persian Jews whose parents fled revolutionary Iran 26 years ago is now struggling to find its voice. Like the members of many immigrant generations before them, they find that their parents are hoping they'll fulfill the American dream. But success can mean different things in different places. Two of the centers of Persian Jewish life in America — Los Angeles and New York — are also entertainment hubs, and for many young Iranian Jews it is the entertainment field and not law or medicine that offers their adopted land's true promise.

Ask him what his name means in English, and Iranian Jewish stand-up comic Marvin Kharrazi will sarcastically say, "satisfied donkey!" His parents, however, are less satisfied. "I still can't have a conversation with my mom without her pleading with me to return to law school, or even consider medical school!" the 31-year-old Los Angeles-based comic said.

Ahdoot, 26, who hails from the Persian Jewish enclave of Great Neck, N.Y., has built a much-lauded act centered on life as a second-generation Iranian-American. (He was a finalist on the NBC reality show "Last Comic Standing.") But it seems that his act has gone beyond merely tickling funny bones and toward addressing the anxieties of his peers. "After my TV appearances, I've received e-mails from other Iranian Jews, saying, 'I'm a lawyer or a doctor, and I don't want to do this anymore,'" he said.

Adhoot noted that many Iranian Jewish families feel a strong need for their children to succeed professionally and financially, because a large segment of those who left Iran two-and-a-half decades ago were forced to leave behind vast fortunes. He also stated that being uprooted created among his parents' generation a sense that education was essential.

"Education is almost as important as money in our community, because it's something no one can take away from you," Ahdoot said. "Most parents in the community believe that 'we came here with nothing and we built this, so you're supposed to carry the torch.'"

Comedy is not the only arena into which young entertainment-minded Iranian Jews have delved. Azita Zendel is among the growing number of Iranian Jewish filmmakers to have found success in the film industry. Prior to forming her own production company, Screen Entertainment Magic, Zendel worked for four years as an executive assistant to acclaimed writer-director Oliver Stone collaborating with him during the making of such films as "JFK," "Nixon" and "Natural Born Killers."

"I guess I have stories inside of me that need to be told, and I just love the work," Zendel said. "God knows it's not an easy route, but I really couldn't see myself doing anything else."

Zendel said she never encountered objections to her career decision from her family. In fact, she gives credit to her parents for having exposed her to the performing arts at a young age.

"When I was 6, my mother enrolled me in singing and music classes in Iran, which I really enjoyed," Zendel said. "In the U.S. I took acting classes, modern dance, and was in a few musicals."

After earning a bachelor of arts in communications and attending film school at University of California, Los Angeles, Zendel wrote, directed and produced her own independent film, "Controlled Chaos," which had a limited theatrical run.

While she understands how Iranian Jewish parents may be concerned with their children's financial stability, she feels that the pressure they apply can be counterproductive.

"To be honest with you, parents aren't so wrong in saying their kids should have something else to fall back on," she explained. "What I mind is when they actively try to kill [artistic] desire in kids by bad-mouthing the arts."

Young Iranian Jews also have ventured into the music realm. One emerging Southern California band that has attracted attention from the Iranian Jewish community and beyond is Baba Kazah, which has forged a unique sound by merging rock, pop and reggae elements.

The brainchild of Robert Kavian and Sam Dagighighian, Baba Kazah has taken many in the music industry by surprise. "It strikes people to see guys like us being the main part of this project, because they'll be expecting a dude with dreadlocks and a joint hanging out of his mouth. We don't really have that image," Kavian said. The two formed the band and began an independent record label, but they maintain their day jobs in property management and in engineering.

"It's true that some Persians may look down on young musicians like us, pursuing entertainment careers, but we have both always recognized in our Jewish background fine world musicians like George Gershwin, Yehudi Menuhin and Bob Dylan," said Kavian. "Young Persian Jews trying to get into this business should know their roots but not be tied down to them. You should absorb all the good your culture has to provide and reject the negative materialism that discourages individual growth."

Karmel Melamed is an internationally published freelance journalist living in Southern California."

StarNewsOnline.com: Bud and Peggy Dealey Oriental Rugs at Newcastle.

2005-09-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

MAGIC CARPET? Bud and Peggy Dealey, longtime supporters of Castle Street revitalization efforts, have opened Oriental Rugs at Newcastle.

Located at 617 Castle St., the rug gallery features Pakistani and Iranian carpets made with vegetable dyes. A partner is located in Pakistan and selects every rug that is shipped here, Mr. Dealey said.

The couple also plans to open their own rug factory in Pakistan before the end of the year.

The new store joins the antique shops and restaurants that are part of bringing Castle Street back to the shopping district it once was in the 1930s, Mr. Dealey said.

Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday and other times by appointment.

For more information, call 343-3182."

Asia Times Online Carpet exhibition in Tehran

2005-09-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "At a huge, "international" carpet exhibition - a cluster of hangars dripping with rugs - the Islamic republic's relative cultural isolation is more than evident. The atmosphere is not exactly international - apart from Iranian firms based in Hamburg or Istanbul. There's hardly a foreigner and practically nobody speaks a language other than Persian.

Instead, we have upper-middle class Tehran involved in a favored ritual - family carpet buying. This means a whole family sitting on a pile of carpets eating kebab out of plastic boxes and watching two men unravel another pile of carpets. Prices are steep - $3,000 for a standard silk Qom. Bazaaris say, optimistically, that 10% of the Iranian population - roughly 7 million people - can afford to buy silk carpets, personal computers and travel abroad. Virtually everybody - buyers and sellers alike - voted Ahmadinejad. The explanation is always the same: "We're tired of corruption, and he's an honest man." In the middle of all the haggling, Fariba Bloorieh glides by. Her older sister graduated in carpet design - a traditional profession for women - in Kerman, in the best school in Iran. Fariba went one step ahead, graduated in English literature and wants to pursue her master's in England ("but it's so expensive!") She voted for a reformist in the first round and Ahmadinejad in the second round. "We want our rights," she says. "We want more convenience in our daily lives. We are tired of paying up for everything, and nothing works." She had plenty of hopes during the eight years of previous president Mohammad Khatami. Those were not fulfilled. "I will hope for four more years.""

Tanavoli to donate handwoven works to upcoming Zanjan carpet museum

2005-09-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

Tanavoli to donate handwoven works to upcoming Zanjan carpet museum: "Tanavoli to donate handwoven works to upcoming Zanjan carpet museum
TEHRAN, Sept. 6 (MNA) -- Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli intends to present his collection of nomadic handloomed works and carpets to a carpet museum to be established in Zanjan within months by cultural officials, an official of the Zanjan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department said on Tuesday.

“It is not clear what kind of carpets will be displayed at the museum, but it will likely showcase regional carpets and nomadic handwoven works. A great number of the works will be presented by Tanavoli to the museum,” Shahram Jamshidi added.

A number of experts of the Zanjan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department are carrying out some restorations on the historic building of former finance department in downtown Zanjan, which is to be developed into carpet museum.

Author of several books on nomadic handwoven works including “The Tacheh of Chaharmahal”, “Rustic and Tribal Weaves from Varamin” and “The Sofreh of Kamo”, Tanavoli developed his house in Tehran into a museum for his works in 2003, but the City Council ordered its closure the next year due to illegal change of land application.

Last July, the court ruled in favor of Tanavoli, however the house is still closed."

The Lost History of Armenia - Peter Balakian Rug Collector

2005-09-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

The Lost History of Armenia: "The Lost History of Armenia
by Gigi Marino

Peter Balakian '73 collects antique carpets. His 1828 home, once a stop on the underground railroad in Hamilton, N.Y., is filled with them. He can instantly spot the differences between a Sevan Kazak and a dragon rug from Karabagh, which to the untrained eye look pretty, but similar. Patterns woven into Armenian village rugs reveal ancient histories about a culture -- but until you know what the patterns mean, you can't fully appreciate the artistry of these rugs, which often take years to complete. These rugs can be considered a metaphor for Balakian's Armenian past and for the way he has approached difficult and contentious material, first as a poet, then memoirist, and now historian with his new book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, moving from the personal to the political. For Armenians who've had their collective history subsumed by Turks -- both ancient and contemporary -- the personal and the political often overlap.

Armenian village rugs reveal ancient histories about a culture -- but until you know what the patterns mean, you can't fully appreciate the artistry of these rugs, which often take years to complete. These rugs can be considered a metaphor for Balakian's Armenian past and for the way he has approached difficult and contentious material, first as a poet, then memoirist, and now historian with his new book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, moving from the personal to the political. For Armenians who've had their collective history subsumed by Turks -- both ancient and contemporary -- the personal and the political often overlap.

A Way to Modern Genocide
"You can't understand the 20th century without understanding the Armenian genocide," says Balakian. A bold statement perhaps, especially to those who may never have even heard of Armenia, which is, in fact, one of the oldest civilizations in the world and was the first official Christian nation. Its original borders encompassed Mount Ararat, where the Bible says Noah landed after the great flood. For roughly the next 1,600 years, Armenia was conquered by the Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, and Russians. But the Ottoman Turks hold the distinction of being the most brutal.

One of the major premises of The Burning Tigris is that the torture and murder that the Ottoman Turks inflicted upon the Armenians provided a blueprint for genocides to come. "The genocide perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire was repeated in Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda," says Balakian. He also points out that Raphael Lemkin, the Polish scholar who coined the word genocide at the Nuremburg Trials, did so in large part on the basis of what had happened to the Armenians.

In a 1946 issue of the American Scholar, Lemkin wrote, "Genocide can be carried out through acts against individuals, when the ultimate intent is to annihilate the entire group composed of these individuals …" And that, says Balakian, is what happened to the Armenians. He writes, "There is something apocalyptic and `modern' about the 1915 genocide of the Armenians." It was the beginning of mass and systematic slaughter of innocent, unarmed civilians.

The Armenian Problem
In his memoir, Black Dog of Fate, Balakian writes about picking up Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, a book he had glimpsed for years on his parents' bookshelf. He was 21 at the time, and the book, the American ambassador's firsthand account of the atrocities forced on the Armenians in 1915, cracked open his consciousness.

During the 1890s, the "Armenian question" was a part of international parlance. For the Ottoman Empire, the question was what to do with the large minority of Christians who kept asking for reform and change in Muslim Turkey. As Christians, they were legally relegated to infidel status. The Armenians kept asking, "Can a Christian be the equal of a Muslim in the Ottoman Empire?" Sultan Abdul Hamid II's response was to punish the Armenians: During his reign, he massacred 200,000.

The sultan was overthrown by a group of army officers who called themselves the Young Turks. And they were far more efficient, killing or starving 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. Ambassador Morgenthau recorded Talaat Pasha's boast: "I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in 30 years!"

Public Execution: The Young Turks executed or deported more than one million Armenians, Constantinople, ca. 1915. (caption)

The Burning Tigris tells of the abominations the Young Turks wrought -- the rape and killing of Armenian women and children, girls being crucified and their corpses eaten by vultures, public executions, children's tendons being cut with cotton-chopping tools, Turkish soldiers playing a game of impaling girls on swords. Says Balakian, “In one year, the Young Turks wiped out most of the Armenian population.”

Morgenthau's position in the embassy required neutrality, but he was not quiet. The book that inspired Balakian was published in 1918, the same year Near East Relief was incorporated by Congress, raising what would amount to a billion dollars in today's standards of aid.

After Black Dog of Fate was published in 1997, Balakian says that he would give readings, and people kept giving him articles about how Americans had rallied to help the Armenians. He did more research and found that people like Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, as well as numerous civic leaders -- and in the decades before them, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and William Lloyd Garrison Jr., -- castigated the Ottoman rule and supported the Armenians. “I kept digging and found a richer story,” he says. He realized that this public response was the beginning of America's first international human rights movement, the second major premise of The Burning Tigris.

Resurrecting a Lost History
Hitler, says Balakian, was inspired by the way the Ottoman Empire masterminded its genocide. “Hitler not only saw how a whole people could be gotten rid of, but he saw that it's even easier with the absence of memory,” he says. When the Young Turks were finished, cities like Diarbekir, Bitlis, and Erzerum were empty of Armenians -- all dead or deported.

Between 1917-23, war and complicated political shifts realigned Armenia's borders. Today, the Republic of Armenia (Soviet Armenia from 1920-91) is a fifth of its original size and does not include Mount Ararat. Balakian points out that in 1915, the New York Times published 145 articles about the Armenian genocide, but by 1920, the once-friendly United States had turned its back on Armenia, failing to support a mandate to help guide Armenia into its new nationhood and granting Armenia autonomy from both Turkey and Russia. To this day, Turkey denies there ever was such a thing as the Armenian genocide.

Balakian says that Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush have all avoided talking about the Armenian genocide. On the 75th anniversary in 1990, Senator Bob Dole lobbied for a bill to commemorate the Armenians and lost. Turkey flexes its NATO muscles, Balakian asserts, and the United States caves, ensuring the continuation of Turkey's military contracts with American companies. He says, “Turkey is a very repressive society. It denies its own people access to their history.” Any protests he's received about his book come from Turkish people who simply don't believe him. He says, “Turkey remains a prisoner of its own guilt and denial.”

However, Balakian says, “In the last decade, there's been a huge interest in this seminal event, and the catch-up will be fast.” Dozens of other books about Armenia have been published, and Atom Egoyan's historic film Ararat is gaining a wide audience. Balakian says, “I am not the only voice out there.” He also serves on a committee to build an Armenian genocide memorial museum in Washington, D.C. The Burning Tigris debuted as number 4 on the New York Times best-seller list, made four other best-seller lists, and is in its eighth printing. He says, “My greatest hope for the book is that it will move this major piece of history to its rightful place.”

Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of Humanities at Colgate University. He is married to Helen Kebabian '75. For more information about his work, go to http://www.peterbalakianbooks.com/.

"

Aghdashlu to turn critic for Forgotten Empire & Tanavoli Lectures

2005-09-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

Aghdashlu to turn critic for Forgotten Empire: "Tehran: 16:36 , 2005/09/11 Print version Email this to a friend

Aghdashlu to turn critic for Forgotten Empire
TEHRAN, Sept. 11 (MNA) -- Iranian painter and graphic designer Aidin Aghdashlu plans to travel to London in order to review the exhibition Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, which is currently underway at the British Museum.
“The exhibition is a great event being held for the first time in the world. Researchers should focus on it,” he told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Sunday.

Aghdashlu, 65, will leave Tehran for London shortly and will stay in the city for 20 days. He plans to write an account of his visit to the exhibition for publication in Tehran.

Aghdashlu and Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli delivered lectures at an international conference surveying the status of Iranian art since the victory of the Islamic Revolution at the University of Oxford last July.

Forgotten Empire tells the story of the Achaemenid Empire (circa 550-331 BC), which was the largest empire the world had ever seen at the time.

The exhibition, which opened officially on September 9, will continue until January 8, 2006.

Forgotten Empire is to be transferred to the Kaisha Foundation in Spain for another showcase next year."

Iran News - Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs

2005-09-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs: "Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, September 11 (IranMania) - A number of Persian Gulf littoral states have placed orders for Iranian carpets, announced the managing director of Iran?s Carpet Joint Stock Company.

Speaking to Fars news agency, Mohammad-Ali Karimi said that Iran has signed several agreements with Persian Gulf littoral states including Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the export of Iran?s world-famous rugs.

?Both the private and state sectors are involved,? he said, without giving details about the value of the deal or the time of delivery.

The news agency further reported that Iran has recently received an order from Oman?s Sultan Qaboos for weaving a uniquely designed hand-woven carpet.

The rug, which measures up to 390 square meters and totals almost 460 square meters with the borders included, will take two and half years to weave in Isfahan.

Karimi said the deal was a groundbreaking event which raises the prospects of Iranian carpets regaining former status in the global market.

Iran?s hand-woven carpet has long been the government?s second source of revenues after oil. However, the industry has in recent years suffered setbacks to the extent that many today claim Iran has lost its outstanding position in the global carpet markets.

Given that the carpet industry is a major foreign exchange earner and a vital sector in Iran?s fragile economic system, a slump in the industry would lead to unemployment and cost the government hugely.

Akbar Harischian, who heads Persian Carpet Exporters Association, told ISNA recently that Iran?s carpet exports have declined significantly in the past months, blaming high inflation rate.

Iran Carpet Center experts are working on the Comprehensive Persian Carpet Scheme, which aims to organize and promote fine rugs in international markets."

Iran News - Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs

2005-09-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs: "Arabs interested in Iranian's fine rugs

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, September 11 (IranMania) - A number of Persian Gulf littoral states have placed orders for Iranian carpets, announced the managing director of Iran?s Carpet Joint Stock Company.

Speaking to Fars news agency, Mohammad-Ali Karimi said that Iran has signed several agreements with Persian Gulf littoral states including Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the export of Iran?s world-famous rugs.

?Both the private and state sectors are involved,? he said, without giving details about the value of the deal or the time of delivery.

The news agency further reported that Iran has recently received an order from Oman?s Sultan Qaboos for weaving a uniquely designed hand-woven carpet.

The rug, which measures up to 390 square meters and totals almost 460 square meters with the borders included, will take two and half years to weave in Isfahan.

Karimi said the deal was a groundbreaking event which raises the prospects of Iranian carpets regaining former status in the global market.

Iran?s hand-woven carpet has long been the government?s second source of revenues after oil. However, the industry has in recent years suffered setbacks to the extent that many today claim Iran has lost its outstanding position in the global carpet markets.
Given that the carpet industry is a major foreign exchange earner and a vital sector in Iran?s fragile economic system, a slump in the industry would lead to unemployment and cost the government hugely.

Akbar Harischian, who heads Persian Carpet Exporters Association, told ISNA recently that Iran?s carpet exports have declined significantly in the past months, blaming high inflation rate.

Iran Carpet Center experts are working on the Comprehensive Persian Carpet Scheme, which aims to organize and promote fine rugs in international markets."

Portland Art Museum is World's Only Venue for Darmstadt Madonna Exhibition - (Jacksonville Article)

2005-09-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

Travel Oregon: Portland Offers Animation, Art - (Jacksonville Article): "Portland Art Museum is World's Only Venue for Hesse Exhibition

The Portland Art Museum is the exclusive venue for the first public presentation of the artistic wealth of the house of Hesse which will take place October 2005 through March 2006. In addition to the great Holbein Madonna, this ground-breaking exhibition will include outstanding examples of German baroque silver and furniture, a royal coach, a gilded throne, German Romantic paintings, Winterhalter portraits, a Russian dowry, Jugendstil from the Hesse-sponsored Darmstadt artists colony, classical antiquities, and jeweled orders and tiaras.

Hesse: A Princely German Collection will run Oct. 29, 2005-March 19, 2006. Among the treasures on display will be Hans Holbein's Madonna, one of the most important paintings in private hands. The painting's permanent home is Darmstadt Castle, one of the major estates of the Princes of Hesse-Darmstadt. The painting has only been exhibited twice in Europe; it has never traveled beyond the Continent. In addition to the great Holbein Madonna, the exhibition will include a royal coach (nicknamed the "Cinderella Carriage" by the curators who are lovingly restoring its glittering opulence), a gilded throne, jeweled tiaras, examples of German baroque silver and furniture, German Romantic paintings, Winterhalter portraits, a Russian dowry, and other antiquities.

The term "Hessian" evokes the 18th century German soldiers whose training and prowess were so esteemed that they were engaged by the British to fight in the American War of Independence. Few outside of Germany, however, know of the noble family that has led the state of Hesse since the 16th century and continues to this day. Art historians are familiar with the great Madonna by Holbein which belongs to the family and is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt. Apart from this unsurpassed masterpiece of German Renaissance art, the vast Hesse art collections are virtually unknown.

One of the leading princely houses of Europe, the Hesse dynasty has welcomed into its ranks daughters of George II and of Queen Victoria; Tsar Nicolas I; Kaiser Friedrich III; and King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. The family tree includes the last czarina, Alexandra Feodorovna, who was born Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt. The family archive contains a wealth of unpublished material, letters, photographs and documents from which a chapter of European social history has yet to be written.

For information on the Portland Art Museum and its exhibits, visit www.portlandartmuseum.org"

JS Online: Store owner Gabriel cared about customers

2005-09-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Store owner Gabriel cared about customers
By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS
asilvers@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 7, 2005
Lee Gabriel did not plan to go into the family business and, being raised with traditional values, did not expect to welcome a daughter into a more professional role.

Lee N. Gabriel hadn’t planned to go into selling Oriental rugs, but he took over the downtown Milwaukee business after his father’s death and ran it until 1992. “He wanted most to be remembered as a down-to-earth man, who just treated every customer fairly,” said daughter Gloria Lee Gabriel.

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Life unrolled like the beautiful Oriental rugs that Gabriel - and later his daughter - sold at the Gabriel Rug Co., 420 E. Wells St.

"His dad died when my dad was in his second year on a football scholarship at the University of Wisconsin," said daughter Gloria Lee Gabriel.

It soon became clear that he was needed to take over the business.

"He went into the business to support his family," she said. "He just did the right thing. He never complained."

Lee N. Gabriel died of congestive heart failure Monday. He was 81. He and his wife, Victoria Gabriel, last made their home in downtown Milwaukee.

"He hired me as a secretary," Gloria said, explaining that it wasn't what she had planned to do. One day, she knew what a customer wanted, and stood up to take over for a male salesman.

"He was going to stop me," she said of her father. "I told him to sit down.

"I walked up to the customer, and said, 'I think I know what she wants,' " Gloria recalled. "They bought the rug and he never said another word about me not selling. He was born in America, but was an Armenian man from a different era. He adapted and accepted the idea of a daughter in a non-secretarial position, and he complimented me to everyone."

Started by his father
The family business was started here early in the 20th century by his father, Nishan Kaprelian, who fled the Armenian area of his native Turkey.

He changed the family name to Gabriel, the English translation, after learning that another family was selling rugs here under the Kaprelian name.

Lee Gabriel was a natural athlete, all-conference in football and basketball - and even all-state in football - at Shorewood High School. A caption and his nickname from the school yearbook tell the story: "Who made the last touchdown? Who sunk the winning basket? Lightning Lee, of course."

"I think he wanted to continue in football, maybe even try for a professional career," Gloria said. "He was on a UW team with Elroy Hirsch."

He was also a high school classmate of William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who died Saturday.

"My dad followed his career," she said. "And he was so excited that someone from Shorewood High School would end up on the Supreme Court."

Gabriel spent his own career making things pleasant underfoot. He sold both new and antique rugs - but always those made by hand, never by machine.

"Why do you want this rug?" he would ask, according to one feature story. "Tell me about your place. Let's talk about your children, your pets, your furnishings. How do you feel about tradition?"

"He wanted to do the right thing for the customer," his daughter said. "He took the time to make sure they found the right rug for, not just price, but their family situation and how they planned to use it. He took a lot of pride in that."

The Gabriels made the decision to close the business, rather than sell it to another firm that might change the way business was done there. The remaining rugs were sold to customers, not other dealers at auction, so Gabriel knew where they were going. The store closed in 1992.

Gabriel long kept a photo of Vince Lombardi in the shop.

"Vince Lombardi was his hero," his daughter said. "He admired him for his fairness and integrity and athleticism."

She also remembered getting the chance to talk to her father at times when the shop was quiet and it was just the two of them.

"He wanted most to be remembered as a down-to-earth man, who just treated every customer fairly," Gloria said. "I think he really enjoyed the business, and I think he missed his customers, but he enjoyed retirement, too."

Survivors also include Victoria, his wife of 55 years, and another daughter, Vicky Lee Gabriel.

Visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral Home, 10121 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa. A private service is planned for family.

From the Sept. 8, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Have an opinion on this story? Write a letter to the editor or start an online forum.

Iran Carpet Company

2005-09-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Iran Carpet Company: "Article by "Iran Carpet Company", 2000

Iran Carpet Company (2000)

Iran Carpet Company was established in 1935 by a decree of the then government, following the dissolution of the “Eastern Carpet Manufacturing Company”, which was a non-Iranian property. Indeed the Eastern Carpet Manufacturing Co. had itself come into existence subsequent to the expanded activities of Baker’s Company set up by Cecil Edwards. Following the death of Charles Edwards, after a short while, Cecil Edwards, keen to pursue the activities of the Baker’s Company cleared the path for its continued functioning and soon after his return to Iran in 1911, he expanded the scope of the activities of the company by establishing three main and fully operative branches in the cities of Kerman, Arak and Hamadan. Thus, through changing its name to the Eastern Carpet Manufacturing Company, the Baker’s Company officially started and continued its carpet weaving operation in Iran under the new name.

This company grew rapidly and established sales centers in 7 major cities of the world, London, Paris, New York, Sidney, Constantinople, Buenos Aires and Toronto, while the city of Izmir in Turkey was chosen to house the company’s headquarters. But, finally, on February 3, 1936, the then government of Iran ordered the closure of the afore-cited company in a bid to revive the carpet weaving craftsmanship in the country; and following the order, all activities of that company were closed down and the management of the company, as well as all its assets were handed over the Iran Carpet Company.

Although according to the existing evidences, a great number of the carpets, produced by the company, were still in its possession until at least 1939, the transfer of the company laid a sound foundation for the operations of the Iran Carpet Company from the very outset to the extent that today (2000) this company backed by over 65 years of valuable professional experience, inherited from Iranian skillful workers, from those eras is regarded as one of the most unique producers of carpet in the world, entrusted with the task of preserving the worthiness of Iranian past heritage and keeping alive the art and craft of carpet weaving in Iran.

One of the major objectives of Iran Carpet Company has been to obtain high-class raw materials and ensure their proper use in the carpets manufactured under its auspices. This objective materialized in 1954, when factories were established in the city of Karaj, for the production of quality raw materials, needed by the country’s carpet industry. With nearly 50 years of experience, they produce the best quality wool balls and offer such services as sorting, washing, spinning and dying in conformity with the highest standards in Iran and throughout the world.

Given the carefully-observed weaving criteria of Iran Carpet Company, the most outstanding features of the products of this company may be summarized as follows:

1- The wool used in the carpets made by this company is a homogeneous ivory spring wool of grade 1 category and of the finest make. The washing, dying and spinning units of Karaj factories transform this wool into yarns, used in the production of the carpet.

2- The wool purchased by the company, which is chosen from the highest quality stock, are sorted out into various categories, according to their usage and in terms of the physical properties of the wool, such as its curl, length and micron. These are the factors that guarantee the durability and steadfastness of the carpets, made by Iran Carpet Company.

3- To make the carpet pile more resistance against wear and tear, the wool yarns used in the company’s carpets are entirely two-ply with the extra ply meant to increase the pile’s resistance and make it more wear-proof.

4- Dying process in Iran Carpet Company is inspired by traditional practices. All the dyes used in the company’s carpets are obtained from plant or animal sources, including in particular madder roots, walnut shell, pomegranate rind, vine leaves, cochineal (reddish bead) with black dried curd and soured yogurt used as auxiliary substances for better absorption of the dyes. Carpets, in which natural dyes have been used, usually have a longer durability and obtain special vividness and beauty with the passage of time, hence acquiring greater value steadily.

5- Yarns used in Iran Carpet Company are mothproof and will remain so as long as the carpet is in existence.

6- Cotton threads used in warps and wefts of the carpets produced by Iran Carpet Company are of pure cotton spun in 3 plies with circular finish. Furthermore, in order to make the threads more resistant and durable, they are wetted before being put on spinning machine.

7- All the weft threads used in the company’s carpets are dyed in blue before use, so that when washed the carpet will not shrink widthwise. Moreover, this coloring procedure will give the carpet special glamour, when it is aged. Warps and wefts of the company’s carpets are absolutely free from artificial yarns.

With the most experienced pattern-drawers and carpet dyers at its disposal, Iran Carpet Company runs the largest carpet designing unit in Iran, supported by skilled work force of over 40.

The company prepares all the drawings and designs needed for its own production and additionally has the ability to meet varied demands of carpet producing units across the country for the most exquisite and original Iranian designs.

As the drawing unit has began its work simultaneously with the inception of the company itself, it is worthy of mention that the said unit has already accomplished its performance over 65 years of experience in the field of carpet designing. Bolstered by valuable collection of mother designs in excess of 2000 samples, the drawing unit of Iran Carpet Company makes the best use of such designs in its carpets.

The unit is also prepared to make its unparallel collections available to all carpet manufacturing workshops in the country and take orders from within or from abroad for any design suiting the special tastes and styles of the customers in keeping with the originality of Iranian carpet drawing.

The address of the central office of Iran Carpet Company is:
No. 6, Kalantari St., Qarani Ave., Tehran
Phone: 98 21 890 9217/9
Fax: 98 21 890 6059"

P.R.J. (Jim) Ford on OCM with a highly critical attack on the Iranian Carpet Industry

2005-09-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

83 Textile Museum Conference: "Some of the liveliest commentary in the conference came in the afternoon from P.R.J. (Jim) Ford, Eastern Kayam OCM (Oriental Carpet Manufactory) London. As heir of A. Cecil Edwards's legacy at Oriental Carpet Merchants (sic) (OCM), Mr. Ford had ransacked the company archives for material about the origins of the company and the original principals. James Baker and four associates founded OCM in 1908. He was the son of George Baker, the official gardener for the Turkish sultan; he was also the uncle of A.C. Edwards.

James Baker had called Cecil Edwards a "doomed man" in 1915 for the latter's finicky attempts to control the quality of the carpet production he had begun in Hamadan in 1910. No one, however, who saw the downturned mouth and the dark eyes smoldering with passionate intensity shown in Edwards visage would have so badly underestimated Jim Baker's nephew. Cecil Edwards's memorably intense face was one the most striking images projected on the screen all day and served as a suitable reminder of the strong influence he has any discussion of the commercial aspects of the late 19th century Persian rug boom.

A rug boom in 1987 it was not, however. When asked about current Persian rug production as a member of a panel discussing rugs in the market, Jim Ford replied emphatically that "current rug production in Iran is of no interest to most of the world," that only old Persian rugs command attention. Too many Persian rugs, according to Ford, are now woven with bad wool colored with the cheap dyes of "catastrophic" quality. He then described a rug seen in a recent trip to Kerman in which a black dye had been substituted for indigo blue. The black had subsequently bled into areas of undyed woo1 so that the piece presented itself as a "spongy grey mass with green highlights." By contrast, new carpets from Western Turkey have, he said, excellent wools and dyes.

The countryside in Iran, said Ford, has been depopulated by absorption of young men into the army. The subsequent impoverishment of the farming economy has been so severe that Iran, historically an exporter of agricultural products, is now importing butter."

Daily Times - Pakistan Carpet fair attracts $4m orders from Europe

2005-09-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

Daily Times - Site Edition: "Carpet fair attracts $4m orders from Europe

By Imran Ayub

KARACHI: Carpet manufacturers have succeeded to attract $4 million export orders in a week mainly from European countries.

Carpet manufacturers and exporters say a large number of foreign buyers, who have been in the city for the last couple of weeks to attend the carpet fair, are making deals to import Pakistani products.

“So far we have signed $1 million export deal,” said Abdul Ghafoor Sajid of the Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association. “Other $2 million to $3 million deals have been finalised and would be signed in a day or two.”

He said the main interest in Pakistani carpet was witnessed from Germany, France, Italy and Greece coupled with big import orders placed by some Asian countries including Japan, China and Thailand.

Pakistan’s carpet industry experienced a serious shock when it declined to $230 million in 2003-04 from $300 million in 2001-2002, following repatriation of Afghan refugees whose hand-knotting are in demand in international market.

Voluntarily repatriation of over two million Afghan refugees since March 2002 supposed to be a good omen for Pakistan turned out to be a crucial social happening for the hand-knotted carpet industry, which is visibly shaken with the departure of Afghan weavers and having suffered a loss of around $80 million.

However, with the recent activity, the exporters say they have succeeded to attract buyers from Europe and the United States – the two big markets of the luxury product. “Apart from big orders we have also got good prices,” said Abbass Khan, a Peshawar-based manufacture and exporter, who is due to send $0.2 million export consignment to Greece next week.

“It ranges from $30 per square metre to $150 per square meter. We have received both hand-knotted and machine-weaved carpet orders and we expect to get more queries once our consignment is landed in the Europe.”

He said in recent days Pakistan’s carpet weavers had managed to plagiarise Oriental Persian rug designs, employing Sana Knot like Afghans, instead of sticking to the traditional Kashmiri school of carpeting widely followed in India.

The country’s carpet exports increased to $283 million during 2004-05 from $230 million registered during 2003-04. Exporters say the figures may go much higher as the products are well in demand in the European countries and the United States, which require better marketing strategies.

They say recent carpet exhibition in Karachi has lifted hopes of increased number of export figures by the fiscal end as it has allowed manufacturers to directly interact with foreign buyers and explore new markets while staying in the country.

“In a latest development, some Lahore-based exporters and manufacturers have got an opportunity to visit Europe,” said Nasir Behzad, an exporter and member PCMEA.

“It is one of deals which I know. There may be some more interactions between individuals, so it would be clearer in a week or two.”

He said currently the carpet manufacturing was dependent on cottage industry and around 1.5 million cottages were operating with the local workers across the country. The exporters say they have already tabled a proposal before the federal government to provide 100 acres on the outskirts of Karachi to develop a Carpet City to build proper industry infrastructure and increase exports.

“The policy has helped the neighbouring India to increase its export manifold,” said Mr Sajid of the PCMEA.

“We believe the development would increase demand for Pakistani carpets and give a boost to carpet manufacturing in the country. Unfortunately, even after the passing of over 50 years, the sector has not yet developed as an industry,” he remarked."

Iran News - Iran's handicraft trade picking up

2005-09-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran's handicraft trade picking up: "Iran's handicraft trade picking up

Monday, September 05, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, September 5 (IranMania) - A handicraft industry official said that handicraft exports are expected to jump by 200% to reach $240 mln by March 2006, stressing that more than $150 mln worth of handicrafts is exported via carry-on luggage trade each year.

Abdolhamid Hajipour, deputy head of Iran?s Handicraft Industries Organization for technical and economic affairs, told ISNA that low customs duties

levied on handicraft exports have encouraged carry-on luggage trade, adding that a portion of the precious products is smuggled out of the country.

On handicraft imports, the official said Indian and Chinese handicrafts are smuggled into the country because of high tariffs.

?Smuggled handicrafts enter the mainland mostly via the Persian Gulf islands of Kish and Qeshm,? he said, adding that given the lower prices of

foreign handicrafts, officials must make the industry more competitive in the course of the country?s World Trade Organization accession.

Handicraft exports from March to July this year rose by 187 % to reach $57 mln.

Iran exported more than $100 mln worth of handicraft in the year to March 2005.

Handicraft exports rose from $60 mln to $76 mln during 2003-2004.

The country is said to be amongst the world?s top three countries in terms of handicraft production.

Experts say there are great potentials for improving Iran?s handicraft industry.

In the year to March 2005, some 1.2 mln tourists visited Iran taking 440 bln rials worth of handicrafts as souvenirs back to their countries.

Experts believe that the main challenge facing handicraft exports is inattention to the taste of international customers."

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Rare cheetahs spotted in Iran

2005-09-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Rare cheetahs spotted in Iran: "
Rare cheetahs spotted in Iran

By Ali Akbar Dareini
The Associated Press

Rare Asiatic cheetahs are seen in this June 10 photo taken by camera traps in Dareh Anjir, in an isolated wildlife refuge in central Iran.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two groups of rare Asiatic cheetahs were spotted in central Iran in recent months, raising hopes that one of the world's fastest-moving creatures could be saved from extinction, a conservation official said Saturday.

Iranian wildlife scientists saw four adult cheetahs in August, two months after camera traps revealed a female cheetah with her four cubs resting under the shade of a tree, said Houshang Ziaei, an official of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran.

Once ranging from the Red Sea to India, the Asiatic cheetah today is hanging on by only the thinnest of threads. Fewer than 60 exist on the entire Asian continent, mostly on Iran's arid central plateau.

Fewer than 10,000 cheetahs may be still living in Africa, where protection is questionable and habitat is vanishing.

"The two discoveries of cheetahs are very encouraging," said Ziaei, who heads a project seeking to protect Asiatic cheetahs in Iran. The project is being run in conjunction with the United Nations Development Program and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The two groups of cheetahs are the largest-known of the rare cats ever photographed in Asia, Ziaei said.

Once known as "hunting leopards," cheetahs have played a big role in Iranian history, being trained by ancient emperors to hunt gazelles.

In the 1970s, estimates of the number of cheetahs in Iran ranged from 100 to 400. But the predators have been pushed to the brink of extinction by widespread poaching during the 1979 Islamic revolution and degradation of habitat by livestock grazing.

Asiatic cheetahs became extinct throughout much of the Middle East about 100 years ago. They vanished in India in 1947, while spotty records claim they ranged in Central Asia as far as Kazakhstan from the 1960s through 1980s.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company"

Tanavoli to publish memoirs 10 years on

2005-09-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Tanavoli to publish memoirs 10 years on: "Tanavoli to publish memoirs 10 years on
TEHRAN, Sept. 3 (MNA) -- The book “Kabud Atelier” by the contemporary sculptor Parviz Tanavoli will be published by the Bongah Publications in the near future, the Persian service of the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported on Saturday.
The 85-page book was written 10 years ago.

Tanavoli expresses his memories on Kabud Atelier, where he and Hossein Zendehrudi founded the Saghakhaneh (Coffee House) School in which they employed the combination of traditional and modern styles in their works of art.

The Contemporary Artists Group, including Sohrab Sepehri, Sirak Melkonian, Manuchehr Sheibani and himself, was formed based on his suggestion in 1962 at the atelier.

The books “Riding in Splendor: Horse and Camel”(1998), “Trappings from Tribal Iran”(1998), “The Tacheh of Chahar Mahal”(1998), “Rustic and Tribal weaves from Varamin”(2001) and “The Sofreh of Kamo” are works written by him.

The Kabud atelier is Tanavoli’s first workshop which is located on Vali-e Asr Ave., across from the Artesh (Army) Hospital."

A Quest for Carpets Reveals the Persian Past and the Soul - New York Times

2005-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

A Quest for Carpets Reveals the Persian Past and the Soul - New York Times: "A Quest for Carpets Reveals the Persian Past and the Soul
Hasan SarbakhshianCarpet repairers in Saraye-Rahimiye, or House of Rahim, in Tehran.

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By IAN FISHER
Published: September 3, 2005
ATHENS, Sept. 1 - Brian Murphy propped his big black glasses up on his forehead, his eyes a few inches from one of the first carpets he ever bought. Rosaki the cat had left a fine coat of white fur on the rug, a Turkoman that was otherwise a rusty red. But Mr. Murphy focused on a little scar of stitching a few shades off the original.

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Rugs Are a Matter of Taste: Yours (September 3, 2005)
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Hasan Sarbakhshian
Workers at a small dye business in Shiraz, from the book "The Root of Wild Madder." The madder root is used for a natural red.
"It's a perfect example of lousy repair," he said.

Carpet snobs might be horrified, but there was real pleasure in his voice.

"It doesn't bother me at all," he said. "You are missing the forest for the trees if you think that way. I look at these things as little interesting footnotes to an interesting piece of artwork."

A carpet is a story, Mr. Murphy says, with whatever wear and imperfections, and he has just finished a book, "The Root of Wild Madder" (Simon & Schuster), dedicated to the general story of carpets - and of a few particular ones he bought or chased in several years traveling as a reporter for The Associated Press.

The book documents Mr. Murphy's journeys in Iran and Afghanistan since 1999, during which time he dragged some 40 carpets home to his family's apartment in Athens. Along the way, Mr. Murphy, 45, now a religion writer for The A.P., also collected the material for the book, which explores the high-flown mystique of the Persian carpet, the earthbound carpet market - guided, these days, in part by e-mail missives on the tastes of rich customers in the West - the mystical poetry of Hafez and precisely what makes collecting carpets different from collecting any other kind of art.

Mr. Murphy knows his carpet esoterica, and his book makes a wide and entertaining arc to capture it. But his basic answers about the appeal of carpets are simple.

"Me, you, everyone wants to be surrounded by beauty," he said on a lovely summer evening here, sitting on his apartment's terrace with his wife, Toula Vlahou, 45, also a reporter, who helped edit the book, and their daughter, Zoe, 10. "People tend their gardens and create for themselves space that is going to make them feel good. Carpets make me feel good. It's not the craftsmanship. It's not the knots per square inch. It's not whether it has natural or chemical dye.

"The average carpet aficionado has the same feeling I do: You are with it, and it makes you feel good."

And apart from their history and mystery, he added, carpets are bought with "a different thought process" than a painting or a sculpture.

"You think of life unfolding on this thing you are going to buy," he said. "With a carpet, things are going to be happening there."

For Mr. Murphy, who grew up in Bernardsville, N.J., and has been a foreign correspondent since 1993, based in Rome and Athens, the book began, fittingly, as some combination of reason and obsession.

In 1999, he was charged with the difficult task of opening a full-time bureau for The Associated Press in Tehran. He did not succeed but ended up making some 20 trips to Iran from his home in Greece. He made another half-dozen trips to another heart of carpet history, Afghanistan, after the attacks of 9/11 - an event that casts a shadow on the book and the world he describes.

But Mr. Murphy said he intentionally decided not to highlight it.

"The subject of carpets is almost timeless," he said. "We are dealing with creativity and spirituality. It would have diminished them to fit it all into the context of these years after the catastrophe of 9/11."

But with all the anger and suspicion between East and West since then, he said, he did try to tell people's stories - his carpet tutors, hungry refugees in Afghanistan ready to trade an heirloom carpet for food, an Iranian carpet weaver who lost a son - in a human way that went beyond talk of evil empires and Islamic extremism.

"There are a lot of generalizations about Iran and Afghanistan," he said. "Because of politics and the way things have always been framed, very little of the humanity of both our cultures gets through. Iranians think we are always just doing drive-by shootings, and we think of they are always shouting 'death to America.' " The book, he said, aims to show "that there are a lot of commonalities."

At the outset of what his wife calls his quest, Mr. Murphy's rational brain told him that carpets, inseparable from Iranian history and culture, would be a good way to learn more about the big and complicated country he had to cover.

And they did: a carpet dealer he met early on recommended he read Hafez, the 14th-century poet who in many ways embodies the Persian soul (to the confusion of some strict Muslims, as Mr. Murphy points out, given his frequent references to wine and intoxication).

This opened the way to forays into mysticism, Sufism, Islam, Persian folk music, nomads, the impulse to democracy in a land of mullahs and also the subjects that divide carpet experts everywhere: child labor, knot counts, chemical versus natural dyes (the wild madder of the title is a plant used for centuries as a natural red), old carpets versus new.

But his less rational side simply loved carpets. He found himself prowling around one carpet shop and then the next, chatting up and sparring with merchants far more cunning than he, wondering if he could live without the piece in front of him and, inevitably, overpaying.

"It's a sick obsession," he said.

His wife recalled their long distance talks during his travels. "A lot of conversations were: 'Hi, how is everything going? How many carpets did you buy?' " Ms. Vlahou said. "At times, I said, 'Another rug - to clean!' "

The rugs are everywhere in their apartment, which luckily is pretty big: stacked up in a guest bedroom, taped up in rolls, stashed under the bed. A few big favorites are on the floor, including a majestic Sumac kilim interlocked with crazy animals: a two-headed deer, serpents and magical horses. Unlike many collectors, Mr. Murphy said he is generally relaxed about the condition of his carpets. The Sumac, though, he wants to keep pristine.

"If the cat puked on this, I think I'd be mad," he said. "It's one of the only ones.""

Iran loses 40% of its share in world carpet trade (Sept. 2)

2005-09-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Economic news in brief (Sept. 2): "Iran loses 40% of its share in world carpet trade

TEHRAN – Iran’s representative at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said on Thursday that illegal copying of Persian carpet designs has seriously damaged the reputation of these carpets in the international markets.

“Weavers in China, Pakistan and India have stolen these unique designs and have woven low quality carpets, which have been offered to the international markets under the name of Persian carpets,” regretted Hossein Mo’ayedoddin, “This act of violation has cost Iran losing 40% of its share in the markets.” He urged domestic carpet industry officials to introduce exclusive standards so that Persian carpet designs and weaving styles can be officially registered and be internationally identified as Iranian intellectual properties. Not so long ago, Iran was regarded as the world’s nonpareil carpet producer and exporter."

The Seattle Times: Books: "The Root of Wild Madder": Digging for roots of a Persian icon

2005-09-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Books: "The Root of Wild Madder": Digging for roots of a Persian icon: "Friday, September 2, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Book Reviews
"The Root of Wild Madder": Digging for roots of a Persian icon
By Deloris Tarzan Ament
Special to The Seattle Times
"The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet"
by Brian Murphy
Simon & Schuster, 297 pp., $25

Brian Murphy wants you to understand that Persian carpets have soul. As bureau chief for The Associated Press in Athens, Greece, and The AP's international religion writer, Murphy covered the conflicts in Iran and Afghanistan, and has traveled extensively in surrounding areas.

Politics have affected the making of carpets — an important Middle East export. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 sent millions of refugees into Pakistan, many of them weavers, willing to work for rock-bottom pay.

"For decades," Murphy writes in "The Root of Wild Madder," "the economic center of gravity in the carpet world has been drifting east. Pakistan, India and China have emerged as new giants in hand-woven carpet exports. ... For them, it's mostly straight-up capitalism: a reasonable product for a competitive price."

Those carpets, he explains, are fine, but they lack the soul of traditional rugs. Hooked on the beauty of hand-woven rugs, Murphy set out to educate himself about what makes a carpet superlative or inferior, and why some rugs grow more beautiful with time.

Armed with a translation of the "Divan of Hafez," a collection of poems by the 14th-century Persian writer whose work a rug merchant assures Murphy is essential to know for a true understanding of Persian rugs, he seeks out yarn dyers, weavers and rug markets in Iran, Afghanistan and neighboring countries.

His quest carries him across history. He begins to see weaving rugs as a "theology of the loom," with carpets as one of the great crossroads of spiritual and creative yearnings. "The challenge for dedicated weavers," he writes, "is the same that has taunted artists forever: trying to sense a divine power and represent this feeling in form and color."

One of his guides explains, "The weaver — whether he knows it or not — is making a version of paradise: a perfect, self-contained world."

The work that goes into such a creation is daunting. A carpet 4-by-6 feet with a good knot count can take up to two months for two weavers working eight hours a day. "Few tasks I can think of, apart from specialized work such as archaeology or delicate surgery," Murphy writes, "require so much effort with such incremental progress."

Many rugs are woven by children, whose small, flexible fingers are ideal for intricate weaving. One importer explained, "We don't realize sometimes that if it weren't for the 7-year-old weaving, his six-member family could be dying of hunger."

Murphy learns how to assess a carpet by studying the back, and to see the differences between natural and chemical dyes. Rugs woven of yarns colored with vegetable dyes are made with the same precision as those done with chemical dyes, but subtleties are lost, Murphy insists. After 1868, when coal-tar dyes were developed that could be made for a fraction of the cost and trouble of growing madder, the weaving of madder-dyed carpets steadily declined. That trend is reversing. Murphy found the percentage of naturally dyed wool in Iranian carpets has steadily risen since the 1990s.

The heart of the matter is madder, a hardy plant whose roots contain a pigment so potent that it turns the teeth red of dyers who handle it. Animals who eat it have red bones. "There are thousands of species of madder," he writes, "but only a small percentage contains sufficient quantities of the pigment alizarin and related components in its roots." Dyers' madder is Rubia tinctorum. Madder-dyed carpets grow more beautiful with time.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company"

Tanavoli sculptures to be displayed at British Museum's exhibition of Islamic art

2005-08-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tanavoli sculptures to be displayed at British Museum's exhibition of Islamic art: "Tanavoli sculptures to be displayed at British Museum’s exhibition of Islamic art
TEHRAN, June 12 (MNA) -- Sculptures by Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli will be put on display in an exhibition of Islamic art of the Near East at the British Museum, although no date has been set for the event.

The artist said on Sunday that his sculptures will be showcased in a collection of works by artists of the last 1000 years, adding, “So my works must focus on the value of Iranian artists of the past.”

Tanavoli is the only living artist from the Middle East whose works will be put on display at the exhibition.

He has created new works for the exhibition, but gave no additional information on them.

Tanavoli, who studied fine art and sculpture in Iran and Italy, also paints, makes ceramic works, and weaves carpets. He is famous for his bronze sculpture works.

His statues of "nil" are symbols of life in Iranian mysticism.

Tanavoli feels that his statues of "nil" or "nothing" are purely Iranian in terms of form, concept, and style and do not represent despair and hopelessness.

His works are currently installed in front of Tehran’s City Theater, Laleh Park, and City Park and in museums and open areas in South Korea, the United States, Austria, and Germany."

American Archaeologist Authenticates Afghanistan's Recovered National Treasures

2005-08-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

American Archaeologist Authenticates Afghanistan�s Recovered National Treasures: "Washington Report, May/June 2005, pages 42-43

Special Report

American Archaeologist Authenticates Afghanistan’s Recovered National Treasures
By Pat McDonnell Twair

Archaeologist and National Geographic Fellow Fredrik Hiebert (second from right) watches as a safe found to contain a trove of priceless Bactrian gold objects is forced open in April 2004. More than 20,000 Bactrian gold objects, secured in six safes, were found intact. Also pictured are Afghan Minister of Culture Sayed Makhdoom Raheen (left, with hands on safe), and Viktor Sarianidi (center, with white hair), the archaeologist who originally discovered the huge gold hoard in northern Afghanistan in 1978 (Kenneth Garrett © National Geographic).

TELEVISION VIEWERS around the world witnessed the looting of priceless antiquities from Iraq’s national museum as U.S. troops passively observed the blatant theft of a nation’s heritage.

It was presumed the same thing happened to Afghanistan’s historical treasures when that country’s national museum was reduced to a roofless, derelict building during the war against Soviet occupation and subsequent Taliban rule.

But archaelogists were puzzled by the fact that most of the precious objects from the Kabul museum failed to show up in Western auction houses. The museum had gained notoriety for its collection of more than 21,000 primarily gold objects of the Bactrian culture recovered in 1978 at Tilya Tepe (Mountain of Gold) by Russian archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. As word of the horde of gold ornaments spread, Sarianidi rushed the treasure trove to the Afghan capital for safety.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan shortly afterward, in 1979, it was feared the prized objects had been sent to the U.S.S.R. or melted down.

In 1988, a young American archaeologist, Fredrik Hiebert, began working with Sarianidi. He soon became a specialist on the ancient Bactrian cultures that thrived in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

In the summer of 2003, Hiebert received word that the Bactrian gold was in the hands of the Afghan government. The legendary Bactrian gold collection and Afghanistan’s gold bullion had been sequestered in an impenetrable vault protected by seven elaborate locks in the presidential palace complex. The Taliban had tried and failed to crack the safe.

After the Taliban were expelled, the new government called in a team of locksmiths to open the vault, and invited Hiebert to Kabul to head a team of archaeologists to verify the authenticity of its contents.

During a Jan. 27 lecture at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Hiebert, who is a National Geographic fellow and a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania and Oxford University, said he and Sarianidi were present in Kabul as five Central Bank officials and technicians began to open the vault.

“Bactrian Aphrodite,” a brooch that was part of the Bactrian gold collection recovered in April 2004, shows Greek, Indian and Asian influences (Credit: Fredrik Hiebert © National Geographic).

An exquisitely carved ivory panel depicting scenes of royal court life, from Begram, summer capital of the Kushan kings, near Kabul; it is dated to the second or third century (Credit: Fredrik Hiebert © National Geographic).

“We were shocked,” Heibert recalled, “we weren’t prepared.” Eighteen people watched breathlessly as one treasure after another was removed from its quarter-century interment.

The awestruck scientists stared in disbelief as precious gold appliqués, pendants and clasps, an elaborate crown and a statue of Aphrodite were carefully unwrapped.

As Minister of Culture Makhdoom Raheen removed each object, he handed it to Hiebert, who weighed and measured it, then gave it a new identification number and description in English and the Afghan Dari language. The final step was to take a digital photograph of each item.

“I wanted to make sure we weren’t disrupting the traditional system with our photographic and scientific measurements,” Hiebert explained. “We preserved the traditional Afghan keyholder system and repacked the objects in new safes with UNESCO and the Afghan government overseeing their storage in a secret location.”

As the inventory process drew to an end, the minister of culture inquired: “Would you like to look at these other boxes?”

Hiebert stared incredulously as he was presented with six dented and dusty tin trunks.

“Then there were 20, then 80, and finally 120 containers were brought to us,” he told his UCLA audience. “Some were just tin boxes with a lock, others were safes with keys. Many were dented and indicated animals had leaned or rested on them.”

Ultimately, more than 2,500 objects documenting the unique history of Afghanistan were pulled from the ragtag amalgam of containers.

Exquisitely carved ivory plaques from the Kushan culture, cast bronze busts of the classical Roman style, Chinese lacquer bowls, Buddhist bodhisattva sculptures, first century glassware and a crystal vase engraved with the image of Alexandria’s Pharos lighthouse were withdrawn from the battered containers.

Hiebert and Sarianidi were delighted to discover that 2,000 of the choicest coins were intact. These include a series of 5th century B.C. coins illustrated with the profiles of successive kings.

Miraculously, fewer than 100 objects are now missing from the Kabul Museum’s original display collection.

“The Kabul Museum was small, but every article was a masterpiece,” Hiebert explained.

“The real heroes are the men who risked their lives while bombs were falling to rescue their national treasures,” the American archaeologist said. “We’ll never know who they were, but they carefully packed each object in pink toilet paper or newspaper. They sealed lock holes over with a paper bearing the names of eight to 10 of the signers stating the boxes couldn’t be opened unless all the signatories or their descendents were present.”

“Best of all,” Hiebert marveled, “through every indignity occurring in their country, they managed to keep the whereabouts of their national treasures secret.”

Hiebert views these recovered antiquities as proof of a distinct Central Asian identity midway between the eastern and western outposts of the Silk Route.

“These objects from China, India, Egypt, Rome, Greece and ancient Afghan cultures represent a Silk Route melting pot,” he enthused. “Having handled each of these pieces, I see a tremendous similarity, such as evidenced in hundreds and hundreds of appliqués made from one mold, that indicate a unique culture emerged in Afghanistan.”

Hiebert hopes the rest of the world will have a chance to see these protected antiquities—and not only for their beauty. “A tour through the world’s most respected museums,” he explained, “would help to raise revenues to build a state-of-the-art national museum to keep these objects safe in perpetuity.”

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles."

Magic carpet ride - The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet

2005-08-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

Magic carpet ride: "Sunday, August 28, 2005

Magic carpet ride
By RAY ROUTHIER, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc
About the Author
BRIAN MURPHY covers international religion for The Associated Press from his office in Athens, Greece, but also owns a home in Belfast, on Penobscot Bay. His most recent book is "The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet." He is also the author of "The New Men: Inside the Vatican's Elite School for American Priests."

Carpets, on the surface, don't seem like a topic that would hold much interest for an international religion writer.

But Brian Murphy, on his reporting trips to Iran, found out that carpets and religion are definitely intertwined. In Iran anyway.

Murphy, who reports for The Associated Press, decided to delve into Iranian culture, religion and history while writing a book on the history of Iran's famous Persian rugs. The book, called "The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery, and Lore of the Persian Carpet," hits stores in August.

Murphy's previous book was "The New Men: Inside the Vatican's Elite School for American Priests."

Before starting work for the AP in 1987, Murphy had been a reporter at the Lowell (Mass.) Sun and the Boston Herald-American.

Murphy, 45, is based in Athens, Greece, but also has a home in Belfast.

Q: How did you get interested in this subject?

A: It was a passing interest for quite a while. I had to work in Turkey and Iran over the last decade, and I came to enjoy the artwork and artistry.

I sort of stumbled into the whole carpet world trying to learn about Iran, which was a new area of coverage for me. It's a very different culture than Arab culture.

I came across a carpet seller in a Tehran bazaar. He said something like, "If you want to understand carpet, you need to understand Persia (the historic name for Iran and part of Afghanistan), and if you want to understand Persia you need to understand mysticism."

One of the things that strikes you early about Iran is how deeply infused the country is in these kind of mystic and epic poets (from the country's past). Cab drivers will be quoting them, these 14th-century poets. I can't imagine an analogous comparison with American culture.

Q: What made you think there was enough for a whole book?

A: Pretty much what convinced me was that it seemed to be part of the country's psyche. I thought that if I learned about carpets while trying to dig deeper into the Persian soul, the two would eventually intercept.

Q: Did you travel much for this?

A: Almost exclusively it was sideline work during my regular reporting. That changed after 9/11. This whole meeting with the carpet dealer and genesis of this idea was pre-9/11. Then, the project became much more on Iran itself, so I could dig more directly into this whole idea and how it overlapped with what was going on in that part of the world. I got sent to Afghanistan a lot, to the benefit of the book, where there is a lot of carpet making. They use a lot of child labor in the making of these rugs now, not so prominent in Iran, but in Afgahnistan and Pakistan. Nine- and 10-year-old kids. It reminded me of the old 19th-century mill workers.

Q: What are some Persian carpets worth?

A: That's one of the real subjective areas. It's hard to place a definitive value. Things like knot count or whether the fringe is silk or cotton don't seem to be as important (to some people) as the originality of the design, the interesting interplay of colors, the use of as much vegetable dye as possible.

Q: How far back does rug making go in Iran?

A: At the moment, carpet making can definitely be traced back 2,500 years to Central Asia, actually a little further north, near Kazakhstan.

Q: What was the most surprising thing you found out about Persian carpets?

A: Probably on the carpet front, the thing that surprised me the most was this important shift in the making of the carpets. They used to be made in small workshops, or by nomads, but now there are these big carpet enterprises in Pakistan, India and China. These big carpet houses have been copying Persian designs. They are perfectly good carpets, but the originality of the (Persian) carpet is one of the most prized aspects.

Q: How has your research changed your view of Iran and its place in the world?

A: Through this project, I've been reminded constantly how different Iran is from its neighbors to the west, from Saudi Arabia, from Iraq, from any Arab country. Iranians see themselves as culturally superior to the Arab world. With their imperial history, they had a flourishing cultural and religious life centuries before Islam.

And they see their language as part of the family of Indo-European languages.

The one thing that anybody who is going to study Iran should at least bear in mind is how Iran fits into the very complex puzzle in that part of the world. This is lost on American policymakers who want to cover the Islamic world with one broad brush.

When considering whether or not Iran will become a nuclear power, it certainly fits into the Iranian approach. Iranians see themselves as a major pole of influence in the world and react very badly to being told what to do. They see other countries (developing nuclear weapons) and say, "Why can't we?"

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com"

Scoop: Mazur: Proof of James Mellaart Fraud - But Why?

2005-08-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

Scoop: Mazur: Getting To The Bottom Of The Dorak Affair: "Mazur: Getting To The Bottom Of The Dorak Affair
Saturday, 27 August 2005, 10:38 pm
Article: Suzan Mazur

Dig Of The Century: Getting To The Bottom Of The Dorak Affair

By Suzan MazurHe's held out longer than Woodward, Bernstein & Deep Throat. But it's time British archaeologist James "Jimmie" Mellaart, now age 80 or so and in his golden years, finally fesses up to the whereabouts of the priceless "Royal Treasure of Dorak," which he first tantalized the world with by publishing drawings of the artifacts in the November 28, 1959 issue of The Illustrated London News, saying the pieces were from a clandestine dig in northwest Turkey. And after which the press clamored to see it. However, fabulous Dorak had by then apparently vanished, along with its owner, Anna Papastrati.

Mellaart said he first met Papastrati, a Greek woman who spoke English with an American accent, on a train bound for the Aegean coast city of Izmir in the summer of 1958. He described her as, "very attractive in a tarty sort of way", and said he was fascinated by an ancient gold bracelet she wore.

Jimmie said Anna told him the bracelet was part of a collection and that she invited him home to see it. After arriving in Izmir -- despite Mellaart's excitement -- they took the long way by ferry to her house across the bay in the Karsiyaka suburbs, where he said he spent the next several days making "rubbings" of the pieces . . .

First, some background on Jimmie Mellaart. And then the evidence that Dorak was a ruse.

James "Jimmie" Mellaart -- Photo credit: now-defunct Horizon Magazine
In the early 1950s, the Dutch-born Brit was a scholar attached to the British Institute of Achaeology -- Ankara (BIAA). He was born into an art family, and from childhood surrounded himself with books on the ancient world, so that upon arrival in Turkey he was hellbent on uncovering the country's rich cultural prehistory. Mellaart's discoveries in southern Turkey made him famous in archaeology circles: Copper Age Hacilar in 1956, and then in 1958 Catalhoyuk (formerly called Catal Hoyuk and meaning "forked mound"), a Neolithic site dating from 7,500 BC, considered by many to be the world's oldest urban civilization. [Click here: www.catalhoyuk.com http://catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/index.html]

Catalhoyuk's man-made walls revealed murals of what Mellaart interpreted as goddesses giving birth to bulls and other hunt-fertility symbols. The site produced obsidian mirrors and idol figurines believed to be the earliest depictions of the cult of Kybele - Anatolia's mother goddess.

"Catalhoyuk was also a sort of cathedral to the bull and the first evidence we have of the domestication of cattle," writer Michael Rice told me by phone from Britain. Rice, author of The Power of the Bull (Routledge), said that with the discovery of Catalhoyuk - a site thousands of years earlier than the first cities of Mesopotamia - Mellaart transformed our understanding of the origins of civilized society in the ancient Near East.

However, true celebrity for Mellaart came only after publication of his tale of the glitzy treasure of Dorak the following year. He wowed readers by claiming the treasure had been illegally dug up during the Turko-Greek war (1919-1922) from two royal tombs of the Yortans, neighbors of the Trojans.

The significance of this Yortan find was its establishing that a major seafaring nation existed in northwest Anatolia, adjacent to Troy, around the time of the Egyptians. Mellaart said he was able to deduce this from a gold sheet in the collection, which he claimed was once attached to a wooden throne. It was embossed with Egyptian hieroglyphics bearing the name and titles of Pharaoh Sahure (2487-2473 BC) - thus a royal gift from the Egyptians.

And Mellaart said there was a "silver sword of state" as well, decorated with seagoing ships. In other words, the Yortans were no longer merely a collection of villages producing pottery.

"Certainly the earliest detailed representation of ocean-going ships yet known outside Egypt . . . indeed it is in vessels like these that we can imagine the legendary Argonauts sailing through the Sea of Marmora, past Dorak, on their way to Colchis."
Credit: The Illustrated London NewsMichael Balter in his recent biography of Catalhoyuk, The Goddess and the Bull (Free Press), says Mellaart's pursuit of the Sea Peoples, who he theorized came from Anatolia and "harrassed Egypt and the Levant", was what originally took Mellaart to Turkey. Balter also says Mellaart's goal regarding Catalhoyuk and Hacilar was to prove Anatolia central to the, "sweep of cultural and technological changes that accompanied the Neolithic Revolution."

Other pieces of the Dorak treasure included jewel-encrusted daggers, gold and silver bracelets, an ivory comb, marble scepter, ceremonial axes studded with lapis, obsidian and amber, a goddess made of electrum wearing a grass skirt presenting her breasts. Mellaart said the goddess's silver attendants and bronze priestesses wore dresses of the Yortan aristocracy and that one attendant was carrying a musical instrument. And there was, of course, Yortan pottery plus a double-handled drinking vessel of gold. A woven rug, he said, unfortunately, disintegrated at the time of excavation.

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Yortan Goddesses. Credit: The Illustrated London News

Mellaart resurfaced from Anna's place with rough sketches of the pieces. He said he'd also seen quasi-professional documentation of the clandestine dig -- orientation of bodies and position of artifacts. And that the tombs were found on Lake Apolyont near Dorak Village, south of the Sea of Marmara.

Excited by the Dorak find - particularly on the heels of Hacilar and Catalhoyuk, hard acts to follow - Mellaart redrew the roughs and rubbings with the assistance of colleagues at BIAA. Mellaart was assistant director of BIAA at the time; his wife Arlette was secretary. The drawings were further dressed by Hydie Lloyd, BIAA director Seton Lloyd's wife, and her friend.

About a dozen years ago I attempted to publish a piece skeptical of the Dorak treasure's existence. My collaborator on the story was Ozgen Acar, a man who through his award-winning journalism (e.g., "Who Stole The Lydian Hoard" and "The Hoard of The Century" -- Connoisseur) helped to rein-in the Munich-based Turkish antiquities mafia. I did most of the interviewing and running around on the Dorak story, wrote it and pitched it. Ozgen provided essential clues and contacts.

I phoned James Mellaart at his home at the time in St. John's Wood and asked him about the treasure. He held to his claim of earlier years that he'd been "set up" - that Anna Papastrati was a plant. Said he'd had an "unsympathetic hearing" before Turkish authorities. And that "nothing was left on the walls [at Catalhoyuk]". Also, that he'd been "trying to get back to Ankara since 1965".

The Turkish government shut down Catalhoyuk several years after the "Dorak Affair". Antiquities had been bleeding from the site through workmen. It resumed excavation only in 1993 -- about 30 years later -- but with Mellaart's role redefined as adviser to the dig. Ian Hodder, then an archaeology professor at the University of Cambridge, took over as project director.

Some of the pieces looted from Catalhoyuk wound up in the hands of Aydin Dikmen, a Konya collector/antiquities dealer. There is a school of thought that Aydin Dikmen was Mellaart's inspiration for Anna Papastrati.

According to Ozgen Acar citing Turkish antiquities authorities, Dikmen had been "collecting" pieces from Turkish villagers beginning in the mid 1950s, when he worked as a technical draftsman in the Konya irrigation office. Dikmen traveled into remote regions where villagers at the time had no sense of what the antiquities were they were finding buried in the fields with their crops. And in case they did, Dikmen had forged paperwork giving him authority to purchase the antiquities on behalf of Turkish museums.

Dikmen would also make a name for himself as a master of fakes. He was more recently arrested in Germany for possession of stolen antiquities, which he'd plastered inside his apartment walls in Munich over the years.

According to Dutch art dealer Michel van Rijn, a former business associate of Dikmen's, "police had expected to find, at most, two or three dozen Byzantine works not 350 pieces worth a cool $60 million." And that the Bavarian police had described it as "the largest mix of stolen art and antiquities recovered since caches of Nazi loot were traced after World War II."

Aydin Dikmen on his knees with St. Andrew. Photo credit: Michel van Rijn
But the statute of limitations ran out on Dikmen's case and after being held by German authorities for a year, he was released in 1998.

Dikmen's role in Catalhoyuk gets buried in the Balter book, even though Kenneth Pearson and Patricia Connor clearly establish Dikmen's connection to the site in their book, The Dorak Affair (Michael Joseph Ltd, 1967). Pearson and Connor say Dikmen's hoard included 1,900 pieces worth 10,000 British Pounds: Lydian gold wreaths, Greek and Roman vases, boxes of coins, several Hacilar pots, a steatopygous (fat-bottomed) nude female fertility goddess, a necklace, obsidian mirror, blades, etc.

Dikmen was arrested in 1966 regarding his Konya antiquities stash. Nevertheless, in September 1966, a piece Dikmen sold through a middle man to the Cleveland Museum in the US made the cover of Art News celebrating the museum's 50th anniversary. "Jonah Cast up by the Whale" was a genuine early Christian marble, one of five originating in Afyon, southern Turkey. Cleveland also bought some of Dikmen's fake Hacilar pieces. And he has sold over the years to Sotheby's as well.

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"Jonah Cast up by the Whale" -- Ancient marble sold by Dikmen to Cleveland Museum Photo Credit: Art News
In the summer of 1966, Dikmen gave an interview to Pearson and Conner at his home in Konya, excerpts of which appear in The Dorak Affair:

'This stuff from Catal, you bought that from Mellaart?'
'No, of course not,' said Dikmen genuinely surprised by the suggestion. 'I bought them from some of his workers.'

'Is that legal?'

Dikmen shrugged. 'It's only illegal if you take the things out of Turkey.'

'But weren't they robbing Mellaart and the Turkish museums?'

'I suppose so,' he said. . . .

'Weren't you involved in some way with the break-up at the end of that season?' we asked Aydin Dikmen.

'Yes, I was,' he said. 'The government woman asked me to come along to the site that day, and she introduced me to Mellaart's workers.'

'You knew him already?'

'Of course. Konya's not very big and I'd got to know him because I was fascinated with the work he was doing. . . . Anyway, the workmen came up one by one to shake hands. Some of them looked very surprised to see me. Whenever I came face to face with a man I had already met, I gave a little nod. There were four altogether. The foreman and three of his assistants. By the next morning, Mellaart told me later, they had vanished.'
In 1991, I visited Dikmen's apartment at #9 Schuzenstrasse in Munich hoping to arrange an interview and ask about Anna Papastrati.

Dikmen's wife "Coco," a Romanian gypsy, buzzed me in. I walked up five flights of stairs and rang the bell. Ozgen stood watch from across the street. We were working on a story about Dikmen for Connoisseur.

I expected Dikmen would be far less congenial than he was during the Konya years. Coco opened the door. She seemed fragile, her face drawn and eyes darting. We shook hands.

I told her I was a reporter on assignment for Connoisseur, an American art magazine, and asked if I could speak with her husband. She said that she did not speak English but managed to convey that Dikmen was in the hospital. There was a medicinal smell coming from inside the dimly-lit flat, but Dikmen was nowhere in sight.

I said I would telephone, and eventually did reach Aydin Dikmen. However, he too claimed not to be fluent in English, although Pearson and Conner said their Konya interview with him was in English.

When I asked James Mellaart about Aydin Dikmen, he would only say, "I don't want to discuss that man. I'd rather not. I don't like people who ruin archaeological sites. I know he had a collection of certain objects which are certainly from excavations. I don't like to go on."

Meanwhile, Connoisseur closed its New York office, so the Dikmen and Mellaart stories the magazine commissioned, Ozgen and I were then free to submit elsewhere. They were rejected by JDF Jones, the Financial Times arts & literary editor, who wrote to me: "The Mellaart article would fall fowl of the British libel laws." Jones later told me by phone that the problem was Mellaart was seen in the UK as "a brilliant scientist". I found an enthused editor at The Guardian, but when he left for a position at The Observer, the paper paid a kill fee.

There was really no other showcase at the time we considered appealing, so we put the Dorak story aside to see how the Catalhoyuk dig would unfold. Ozgen still believes Mellaart may ultimately reveal himself, although he has so far not accomodated the "biographer of Catalhoyuk", Michael Balter.

James Mellaart is almost always described as a genius archaeologist, a man capable of losing himself in discovery and ignoring realities like holes in shoes and the possible motives of a woman wearing the right sort of ancient jewelry.

Long-time Near East expert at the Metropolitan Museum, Oscar White Muscarella ( The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near East Cultures, Styx Publications)[Click here: The Whistle-Blower at the Art Party by Kareem Fahim], who says the plunder of antiquities is about class and the rich, "annihilating the world's history", told me in his office at the Met that, "when with him [Mellaart], there is a presence, a calmness, a sincerity that can affect you." Others simply describe Mellaart as complicated.

Indeed, Mellaart's achievements have been historically pivotal and compared to those of Heinrich Schliemann - the father of field archaeology - who excavated Troy in 1871-3. However, parallels have also been drawn between Mellaart's work and Schliemann's for a lesser distinction, namely the practice of romantic enhancement.

It's believed the photo of Sophie Schliemann wearing the "Jewels of Helen of Troy," for example, did more to make her husband, Heinrich a star than anything else. Kind of like the National Lampoon's " Cosmo pinup" of Henry Kissinger catapulting his career.

Mellaart's supernova was meant to be Dorak. But it resulted in throwing a wet blanket over his scholarship. Although, Mellaart insists Dorak is "fact, not story," there is compelling evidence to the contrary.

For starters, Anna and the Dorak treasure have never been found, although there have been numerous so-called Dorak sightings since 1959. Patricia Connor told me Karl Meyer at the New York Times was "one of the people who used to ring me up and say, 'there's a bit of Dorak cropped up'".

Pearson and Conner similarly came up empty-handed regarding the whereabouts of Dorak and Anna Papastrati in their book, which documented their visit to Turkey in the summer of 1966, following reports by the Turkish press about Mellaart's possible involvement in the Dorak treasure's disappearance. They scoured the Turkish countryside for clues, interviewing collectors/dealers, including Dikmen, and Mellaart and his Turkish wife, Arlette. Some years after publication of the book, they threw away their notes and switched careers, leaving the mystery still unsolved.

Pearson and Connor invited me to their home on the outskirts of London for tea, on my way through London in 1991, but when I got there they would confess that, "it was 24 years ago and our knowledge doesn't go beyond that book." However, Conner did say regarding Mellaart and Dikmen that: "To a greater or lesser extent their lives must have been intertwined. There's a sense . . . if you've got a man who's living and is a collector five, ten miles from the site you're digging, you're bound to at least 'emesh' somehow".

Mellaart seems to have an army of loyalists. I also visited his friend Yanni Petsopoulos while in London. Petsopoulos is an art dealer who shares Mellaart's passion for kilims. He told me at his shop in Notting Hill that "Mellaart was mad for that girl [Papastrati] !"

To learn more about the Dorak drawings, I next attempted to contact former BIAA director Seton Lloyd by phoning his niece Dominique Collon in London. She was curator of West Asiatic art at the British Museum at the time. Collon worked at BIAA in 1964 when Lloyd was director. However, Collon refused to give Lloyd's phone number to me saying only, "My uncle is on holiday in Belgium. He is 89 years old; discussing Dorak would upset him." Seton Lloyd has since died.

David Stronach, a professor of Near East studies at Berkeley, who assisted in redrawing the sketches for The Illustrated London News, hung up on me when I called him in California. He said he was no longer an Anatolian expert. His area was now Iranian archaeology.

But, the Papastrati letter is most problematic. Several months after the supposed encounter with Anna, Mellaart said he received permission from her to publish the sketches:

"Dear James, Here is the letter you want so much. As the owner, I authorise you to publish your drawings of the Dorak objects, which you drew in our house. You always were more interested in these old things than in me! Well, there it is. Good luck, and goodbye. Love, Anna Pappastrati."
The letter was dated "I8/I0/I958" bearing the return address: "Kazim Direk Caddesi no. 2i7, Karsiyaka - Izmir". However, the house in Karsiyaka, Izmir could not be found in local records or in actual foot-searches by anyone.

Michael Balter, who like Pearson and Conner was allowed to see Mellaart's original rubbings of Dorak, fails to address in his book the misspelling of Papastrati's street address in her letter to Jimmie. According to Ozgen Acar, the street was named for a well known governor of Izmir, Kazim Dirik. But Anna spells the name "Direk" - meaning "lampost".

James Mellaart's book, The Goddess from Anatolia, raised more eyebrows when it was published in 1989. The book featured modern kilim designs that paralleled Mellaart's own "sketched reconstructions" of Catalhoyuk frescoes. The book, available only through its publisher in Milan, was received with reservation in professional archaeology circles. Particularly critical of Mellaart's book was Dominique Collon, who cleaned many of the Catalhoyuk wall paintings while at BIAA. [Click here: The Goddess from Anatolia: An Updated View of the Catal Huyuk Controversy. by Marla Mallett.]

Collon wrote an article for Hali (September 1990), a kilim magazine, in which she reported that Mellaart had shown colleagues drawings of 70 unpublished Catalhoyuk landscapes. She noted that Mellaart announced at a lecture in 1987 at London University the existence of other frescoes from the site with a religious theme. The new wall paintings she said Mellaart claimed were reconstructed from tiny fragments which were too numerous and too small to be preserved or photographed and that the tracings on which the reconstructions were based had been destroyed in a fire at Arlette's father's home on the Bosphorus in the mid 70s.

Unfortunately, no one from the dig remembered these fragments, Collon said. She questioned how tracings of small fragments could be reliable. She also argued that Mellart's new murals were vastly different in color and sophistication from the earlier ones, and noted other discrepancies and inconsistencies. Many in the archaeology community felt that the Collon article was hard to overlook.

David French was a co-discoverer of Catalhoyuk with Mellaart, which Mellaart acknowledges in his conversation with Pearson and Conner on the Bosphorus: "It was about four in the afternoon . . . 10 November, 1958 . . . when we arrived at the mound. I had two friends with me. And a whopping great mound it was."

But regarding Mellaart's Dorak treasure, French, a man who was affiliated with BIAA for almost 40 years and most recently served as its director, told me by phone from Ankara that little aside from grave pottery has ever been found that is considered Yortan. That there's really nothing to compare Mellaart's Yortan treasure with.

"I think archaeologically this [view of Yortan] is a little outdated now," French said. "I think that Yortan culture as such doesn't exist; it's a particular type of grave pottery which was common in the northwest of Anatolia. The rest - well, forget."

Dr. Jack Ogden, then a technical analyst of ancient art based in Cambridge, told me: "I find it hard to believe that Mellaart invented the whole thing - surely a bent archaeologist would invent academic, not glitzy objects - interesting texts and terracottas, not gold encrusted daggers. He would be out to impress the scholarly world, not fire the greed of readers of The Illustrated London News."

However, Ogden, who specialized in precious metals, said further that fakers often include pieces such as Dorak's Egyptian gold sheet with hieroglyphics in "so-called find-groups" to date the collection.

The other point is the finding of the Dorak treasure. Ogden asked, as did the Met's Oscar Muscarella, and others: What clandestine excavator in the early part of this century, let alone now, keeps such a detailed record of his finds including orientation of bodies and precise arrangement of finds?

"I don't believe Jimmie is the kind of person who would have made Dorak up. He's not that," Patrician Connor told me during my visit."As I said, he's a very naive man and I think he got embroiled through his naivete."

Ken Pearson also defended Mellaart, "Maybe I'm naive, but I don't believe Mellaart could have put together a scam of that grandeur."

But the Papastrati letter is troubling for another reason. Comparing Mellaart's other correspondence from BIAA - I've seen half a dozen of the Institute's letters from that period - those typed by Arlette Mellaart have identical style features to the Anna letter, such as the use of Roman capital "I" instead of "1" in the date.

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Anna Papastrati Letter--Photo Credit Horizon Magazine

Click for big version
Mellaart Letter To The Bank-- Credit: British Institute Of Archaeology--Ankara

Letter from Anna - "I8/I0/I958"; letter from Mellaart to the bank - "I6/7/I958". Most people would type lower case "ell" for the number "one" if there were no number one on the keyboard.

A spokesperson for the Department of English at Oxford told me that outside Oxford/Cambridge scholarly circles dating a letter with Roman numerals is just not done and was not done, even 40 years ago.

Evidence indicates James Mellaart was the author of the letter, not Anna Papastrati, and that Mellaart's wife Arlette, who was secretary at BIAA, assisted with the letter's typing.

And the Dorak treasure? Since the letter from Anna is the only proof the treasure exists and it was typed on the British Institute of Archaeology -- Ankara's Remington manual typewriter, it is almost a fait accompli there is no Dorak treasure.

The remaining question, which only James Mellaart can answer, is: Why?

*************
Suzan Mazur's stories on art and antiquities have been published in The Economist, Financial Times, Connoisseur, Archaeology and Newsday. Some of her other reports have appeared on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been a guest on McLaughlin, Charlie Rose and various Fox television news programs. Email: sznmzr@aol.com"

Iran News - Iranian handicraft exports up 187%

2005-08-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iranian handicraft exports up 187%: "Iranian handicraft exports up 187%

Saturday, August 27, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, August 27 (IranMania) - A senior handicraft industry official said that handicraft exports from March to July this year rose by 187% to reach $57 mln.

Ali Yazdani, who heads Iran?s Handicraft Organization, told ILNA that there are more than 256 categories in the handicraft industry, stressing that some of these categories have now turned old-fashioned or are on the verge of extinction.

?Given our high global status in the handicraft industry, we need to take practical steps to revive some handicraft arts, which are being destroyed,? he said, adding that the organization has handed over the Persian carpet industry-related affairs to the Commerce Ministry in view of its significance in generating revenues and jobs.

He further noted that the organization has high on its agenda the policy of protecting industrialists and university graduates in handicraft industry-related majors, stressing that it is also planning to create provincial handicraft markets and promote training schemes.

Iran exported more than $100 mln worth of handicraft in the year ending March 2005. Handicraft exports rose from $60 million to $76 mln during 2003-2004. The country is said to be amongst the world?s top three countries in terms of handicraft production.

Experts say there are great potentials for improving Iran?s handicraft industry.

In the year to March 2005, some 1.2 mln tourists visited Iran taking 440 bln rials worth of handicrafts as souvenirs back to their countries.

Experts believe that the main challenge facing handicraft exports is inattention to the taste of international customers."

James 'Jim' Gunn Rug Collector

2005-08-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

James 'Jim' Gunn: "Get to know me
James 'Jim' Gunn

Who is he? Jim, 58, of Rockford is a retired art teacher who worked at Harlem High School for 34 years. Since his retirement he has turned his love of gardening into a referral-based garden design and landscaping business. He is a member of Klehm Arboretum, the University Club of Rockford and Emmanuel Episcopal Church, where he sings in the choir. He has also sung with the Rockford Symphony. He has been featured on the Klehm Garden Glory Tour and the National Garden Conservancy Tour. He also enjoys collecting antique brass candlesticks, oriental rugs and oriental porcelain. He has two children and one grandson.

What's next? As fall approaches I'm looking forward to spending more time at the bridge table and less time in the garden.

Describe the perfect day: A perfect day for me would include time spent in the Uffizzi Art Gallery in Florence, Italy.

What do you think the Rockford area needs? I'm very enthusiastic about Mayor Morrissey's plans for riverfront development. I always enjoy dining outside by the water.

Last good book you read: "The Master Butcher's Singing Club."

Last movie you saw: "You, Me and Everyone We Know."

Five items you can't live without: My glasses, garden pruners, microwave, friends and something interesting to read, not necessarily in that order.

Something people would be surprised to learn about you: People who know me seem surprised to learn that I'm not much of a cook.

What is the most daring thing you've ever done? The most daring thing I've ever done is to walk into a classroom of 30 adolescents and try to convince them that they wanted to know what I needed to teach them.

Something you've always wanted to do: I've always wanted to see as many of the works of Michaelangelo as possible.

Favorite expression: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

If they made a movie about your life, who would portray you? A movie about my life, my former students say, would star Frasier (Kelsey Grammer).

What are you watching on TV? "Six Feet Under," "Boston Legal" and everything on PBS.

If you could have one additional talent, what would it be? I would like to play the piano well.

What song describes you? Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.

What purchase was your biggest waste of money? A cabinet that lost all its veneers when I had it stripped.

What purchase was your best investment? A 1920s blue sarouk oriental rug.

-- By Kevin Haas"

Ahmadinejad's Iran

2005-08-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

National Post: "In Ahmadinejad's Iran, expensive Persian carpets belong in a museum

Agence France-Presse
August 25, 2005
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new President, is stripping his office of pricey Persian carpets and is sending them off to the museum -- proving his notorious austerity extends even to interior decoration. According to the Siasat-e Rooz newspaper, the former mayor of Tehran is clearing the presidential office of the symbols of wealth in a bid to maintain his image as a man of the people. The carpets, many of which are over 100 years old and highly collectible, will be rolled up and transferred to Iran's national carpet museum for all to enjoy. Only a few will be kept for meetings with foreign visitors. Unlike previous presidents, Mr. Ahmadinejad, pictured, has refused to use the opulent former royal palaces in northern Tehran and receives dignitaries in the old offices in the downtown core of the city.

© National Post 2005"

Rug Collector Margo Grant kicks back by hunting for old stools / Footstools, itinerant art forms on view at SFO's International Terminal gallery

2005-08-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Interior architect kicks back by hunting for old stools / Footstools, itinerant art forms on view at SFO's International Terminal gallery: "Interior architect kicks back by hunting for old stools
Footstools, itinerant art forms on view at SFO's International Terminal gallery
Zahid Sardar, Chronicle Design Editor

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

The early American footstool, handmaiden to the most comfortable chair in the pioneer house, caught interior architect Margo Grant Walsh's eye decades ago when she started to furnish a weekend home for herself in upstate New York.

"In 1983, I found a house in Dutchess County that was to become my refuge from New York," says Grant Walsh, who started her design career in San Francisco at Skidmore Owings and Merrill nearly four decades ago. She went on to launch Gensler Associates in Houston and eventually became Gensler's vice chairman in New York.

There, she began to frequent antique shows in the country, hoping to find great primitive furniture and stumbled upon her first footstool, a handmade object about 8 inches high, 9 inches wide and a foot long.

"It was nice and architectural. I liked the form and crudeness of the piece," she says, and started to hunt for more. Footstools were inexpensive, on average about $25 each, and quite portable, and as a result she would walk home with several at a time. "My friends joked about my eccentric interest," says Grant Walsh.

Now a third of her 350-piece, 18th to early 20th century primitive American footstool collection will be on view September through March, at San Francisco Airport Museums, International Terminal North wall gallery. "The Footstool: Form, Function and Fancy" will quietly remind those rushing by of a more leisurely era not so long ago when people used this quaint piece of furniture as earnestly as yoga fans use meditation mats to take the weight off their feet.

Grant Walsh, 68, retired last year but while she was still immersed in the hectic world of corporate maneuvering, sleuthing for footstools was a welcome distraction during business trips.

"For me, it was also a way to decompress in different cities. Antique malls are usually such placid, quiet places," she says. There she found big, small, squat, elegant, plain or decorative footstools. But her most recent -- and ugliest -- footstool acquisition was found right in her own Upper East Side neighborhood.

Now she distributes her time between New York, the Oregon coast and Portland, where she keeps homes. However, the public debut of the footstool collection was deliberately planned to be in San Francisco, the city that first fueled Grant Walsh's career.

"SOM designed the International Terminal and Gensler had always done interior design work at the airport. I saw a tramp art show there once and thought the gallery might be interested in showing my footstools," she says.

As she prepared for the first serious exhibition of these unique sculptural objects, Grant Walsh discovered that the history of footstools in America is obscure. There are no books on the subject at all.

"I have so many footstools, I have become the de facto expert," she says with a laugh. Even Witold Rybczynski, author of "Home: A Short History of an Idea," makes no mention of footstools at home, Grant Walsh observes. "Perhaps they were so commonplace, they were not worthy of any attention," she says.

Grant Walsh is fascinated by them. Train steps, sitting stools and three- legged milking stools from the days of the pioneers, the Amish, Shakers and the studios of Gustav Stickley come together in her collection. Grant Walsh also has examples of dollhouse footstools and salesmen's samples.

Well-crafted or crudely made, "they were always light and portable," Grant Walsh said. Thus, when pioneer or Depression-era Americans moved, their footstools moved with them, making it harder to find distinguishing characteristics that bind them to time and place. "There is no way to date them accurately."

When her brother was still in grammar school, he had to make a footstool, Grant Walsh remembers. But as a viable form of furniture the American footstool probably disappeared from the scene late in the Depression and about the time television crept into living rooms.

The footstool grew into the ottoman and overblown coffee table.

"I have another theory about footstools," says Grant Walsh. "When women did embroidery and such to pass the time, men made footstools. Men taught their sons to make furniture and they began with footstools because they were easy," she says. Footstools were learning tools, but they also had practical applications. "You could put your feet up, stand on them to reach high shelves and for children to sit on in front of the fire. They were satisfying."

Although Grant Walsh's collection is mostly of wood, a material that had to be used very judiciously because at the time these objects were made, everything was in short supply. Some parts were even recycled from broken furniture. Old chair parts reappear as footstool legs or tops. Grant Walsh's footstools are for the most part not upholstered, but a few European examples such as a pair of stools from France have leather tops. Others from England have had their fabrics replaced.

"Some of the footstools are so primitive and imprecise. That's what makes them charming. They all have a little twist," she says. The objects are not effete or fussy and their tough forms echo Grant Walsh's own upbringing on an Indian reservation in Montana where electricity and running water were missing in the post-Depression home her Chippewa father and Scottish mother built.

Her parents eventually moved and raised their family in Portland. In love with New York now, Grant Walsh has appeased Portland with a gift of her antique silver collection to the Portland Art Museum. Silver and Oriental rugs are among the more valuable things she collects.

But the footstools have surprised her with their burgeoning value and popularity. The prices have soared to an average cost of about $100 each.

"Until now, I was not thinking of this as a museum collection," Grant Walsh admits. But the cataloging and scrutiny of each object for archiving purposes has made her reconsider.

Having cultivated a knack for authenticating originals, she said, "I have a new appreciation. I look for signs of age and designs I like." On a recent trip to Atlanta, she was able to spot Chinese replicas of original types in her collection.

She has gotten to know each piece so well she has named every one of them after friends and even enemies.

Recently at the Hotel Drisco where she likes to stay in San Francisco, Grant Walsh made a startling confession. Before the idea of an exhibition took root, she had so many odd examples in her collection, she decided to winnow it down.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this," she says in a whisper. "I threw them in the fireplace and used them as firewood."

More than 50 friends and foes burned that way."

Iran Daily - Some 25 percent of carpets offered in international markets are imitations of Persian carpets.

2005-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Razi Miri Speakes on Global Persian Carpet Market

2005-08-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Persian Carpets Face Serious Challenges

Hand-woven carpets have always been the most tangible manifestation of Persian art for other nations.

Carpet weaving is an ancient tradition in Iran.
Until a few years ago, Iran was the world's leading carpet producer. The Persian carpet with its fast colors, fine designs and unique texture, has always been the most tangible manifestation of Persian art for other nations.
Its pile material and construction, design and color composition, border design, foundation threads and knot density, generally distinguish a good quality carpet. In spite of serious challenges in the global carpet market, Persian carpets have a superior quality from every aspect.
Unlike the figural arts of the western culture, in Persian art, words and shapes are important means to convey artistic messages. The art of carpet weaving takes the most of the shape aesthetics. The Iranian carpet weaver in her enchantingly beautiful designs penetrates deep into human emotions. Carpet weaving is a well-established traditional form of art in most parts of Iran. The best Persian carpets are usually produced in Tabriz, Kashan, Qom, Isfahan, Mashhad, Naiin, Kerman and Hamedan. Regional carpets have design and colors specific to that region.

Suitable Opportunity
The 13th Tehran International Carpet Exhibition held recently focused on the export and foreign sales of Iranian carpets. Officials say the experience gained from the past twelve exhibitions greatly helped Iranian producers and exporters to provide the visitors and Persian carpet lovers from around the world with the finest and most beautiful carpets from different regions of Iran. This unique commercial, artistic and cultural event also provided a suitable opportunity for producers, exporters and buyers to exchange ideas and adapt to the latest market conditions. The exhibition helped bring those involved in the carpet field closer together. The event, officials say, would contribute to better marketing and supply of carpets that meet the consumers' needs and preferences.

Lost Position
Hand-woven carpet has long been the government's second source of income after oil. However, the industry has in recent years suffered setbacks to the extent that many today claim Iran has lost its outstanding position in the global carpet markets.
Given that the carpet industry is a major foreign exchange earner and a vital sector in Iran's fragile economic system, a slump in the industry would unleash unemployment and cost the government hugely.
For a short while during the 1980s and early 1990s, non-oil industries such as carpet got a major boost, mainly because of the state's encouraging policies like extended deadline to exporters for the return of foreign exchange into the banking system, allocation of export proceeds to exporters for the import of authorized goods, relaxed banking regulations and the introduction of the floating foreign exchange rate instead of the preferential rate.
These measures pushed up carpet exports to $2,132 million in 1994. The following year, however, exports slipped to $979 million. The downturn was blamed on stringent banking laws that obliged exporters to deposit guarantee funds with banks for the return of foreign exchange. Other factors included high carpet prices and the reduction of purchasing power among the European customers.
The downward trend continued until 1997, mainly because of unstable export regulations and flagging demand for the Persian carpet.

A slump in the carpet industry will unleash unemployment and cost the government hugely.

Downward Trend
Carpet exports tumbled to $641 million in 1996 and $636 million 1997. This downward trend reduced the share of carpets as non-oil exports from 44 percent in 1373 (1994) to 22 percent in 1376 (1997).
Experts warned that ineffective policies and negligence would result in more cuts in the share the hand-woven carpet has in the non-oil exports sector.
The government tried to improve the situation by passing lenient laws on exporters. The First Five-year Economic Development Plan (1989-1993) envisaged carpet exports to reach $4,400 million within the plan period. Exports topped $4,504 million, well above the plan forecast.
The Second Plan (1995-1999) envisioned $7 billion in carpet exports, a target level, which for many reasons was not materialized.
The carpet industry has long been plagued by smuggling, as encouraged by the high price difference between the foreign exchange rate of the black market and the officially declared rate. On the other hand, hand-woven carpets are being unrealistically priced, and this causes problems in the international market.
The importers of Iran's hand-woven carpets are mainly countries with high per capita income. They include Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria and Britain in Europe; plus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Japan in Asia, and Canada. European customers, led by Germany, buy around 70 percent of Iran's carpet exports.

Promising Figures
General Director of Iran's Carpet House said a few days ago that Iran's carpet exports increased by 28 percent last year, 2003-04.
Speaking to the press, he said with the efforts made to improve the quality of carpets both in design and weaving, the growth in carpet exports is projected to be higher than the mentioned figure, hitting above 50 percent.
Saeed Bolourchizadeh said that Iran lacks proper marketing strategy; the reason the country lags behind competitors in international carpet markets.
"Countries such as Pakistan and India have dominated carpet markets due to the cheap labor force and better marketing strategy," he said, adding that Iran currently exports carpets to North European countries, Germany, Italy, Spain, and some states of the USA.
Stressing that in order to maintain these markets and focus on more markets, the country should improve the quality of the carpets supplied, Bolourchizadeh said. He emphasized that in addition to absence of a proper marketing strategy, Iran's carpet industry lacks proper administration, which is not just the problem of the carpet sector but prevalent in all industries.

Exhibitions contribute to better marketing and supply of carpets.

Meager Share
In an interview with the Persian daily Iran, a member of the Carpet Exporters Union's board of managers, Razi Miri, admitted that the situation in the global carpet market has in recent years proceeded to the disadvantage of Iranians. "Market circumstances have more or less been to the benefit of countries such as Pakistan and China," he said, adding that presently, Iran's share of global carpet transactions stands near 27 percent.
Miri said on the whole, international carpet markets have undergone major recession in the past few years, leaving an adverse impact not only on Iranian exports but on other major producers as well.
Miri admitted that a number of countries easily outclassed by Iran have now emerged as the country's major competitors and significantly increase the share of the market. "They have done this mostly in collaboration with the US. A privilege that Iran is deprived of."
The official noted the carpet industry in Iran has in the past two decades suffered deadly blows, the effects of which could not be overcome easily and in a short period.
Saying that customer tastes (of carpet design and colors) have undergone unprecedented changes in recent years, Miri said Iranian carpet weavers should keep abreast of these trends. "This, of course, calls for an organized and coordinated system."
Here in Iran, said Miri, regulations are changed too often and the state is in control of everything, whereas in most countries the private sector is in charge of most economic affairs with governments only responsible for policy making.
"Still, Iranian carpet manufacturers have suffered badly due to poor performance of the government, more than ever necessitating the private sector to take over carpet-related affairs."
Market Balance
Asked whether liberalization of carpet exports through carry-on luggage trade would help promote overseas sales, Miri said he believed such a move would only further damage the industry. "Consumers should not be allowed to engage in the distribution network. This will create a direct link between producers and consumers, disturbing the balance in such a vital sector."
"Passengers carrying the valuable item abroad do so for profitability; to exchange the national currency into foreign exchange, harming not only the reputation of Iranian carpets, but also offering them at a cheap price."
According to him, estimates show that the price of hand-woven carpet in domestic market is unreasonably high, while they are sold below their real value in other countries.
To avoid further damage, the government should impose more strict regulations on carpet exports through carry-on luggage trade, he added."

Rare Persian (Seirafian) carpet put on display at UN headquarters

2005-08-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

Rare Persian carpet put on display at UN headquarters: "Rare Persian carpet put on display at UN headquarters
TEHRAN, Aug. 24 (MNA) -- A rare Persian carpet designed and woven by master Mohammad Sirafian was put on display at the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
The unique carpet was displayed in the building by Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The 25-square-meter carpet has many exclusive designs and bears an inscription of the famous poem by Sa’di which graces the entrance to the Hall of Nations of the UN building in New York. An English translation of the poem is displayed next to the carpet.

The colors used in the carpet are all made from natural materials, with fast colors which change and become more beautiful with the passing of the time.

Zarif said that it is common for countries to present gifts to the UN building, adding that Iran donated a rare Persian carpet to the building in the 1950s during the time of former prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.

“The locations designated for storing and displaying gifts are almost full. The importance of this new gift is (indicated by the fact) that it is being displayed in one of the best spots in the building, where all the diplomats meet and hold talks,” Zarif said.

Following is the English translation of the Sa’di poem inscribed on the rug:

"Of one Essence is the human race,

Thusly has Creation put the Base;

One Limb impacted is sufficient,

For all Others to feel the Mace.""

Iranian Handicrafts Export Shows Significant Rise - Persian Journal Latest Iran news & Iranian Newspaper

2005-08-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

Iranian Handicrafts Export Shows Significant Rise - Persian Journal Latest Iran news & Iranian Newspaper: "Culture Aug 21st, 2005 - 14:08:15
Page One > Culture

Iranian Handicrafts Export Shows Significant Rise
Aug 21, 2005

With a 167 % raise in its export value of handicrafts, Iran has gained 51,250,000 dollars from the trade during the first four months of the year.

The value of the exports has raised 167% and the weight of the goods exported some 17/5%, explains technical and economical deputy of Iran?s Handicrafts Organization, Hamid Hajipour.

The total amount of handicrafts export value during last Iranian year has been 76 million dollars, which considering the country's potentials in the handicrafts sector is not satisfying at all, believes Hajipour.

Even with the large increase, the amount of Iranian handicraft export is not yet satisfying. "Since Iran is one of world's three major countries in producing handicrafts, we believe that we can easily have a total of 200 million dollars for our annual export value, even raising the amount to 500 million," hopes Hajipour.

Iran's highest record of handicrafts export goes back to 9 years ago, reaching a total amount of 1.700 billion dollars in 1373. However, at the time carpet was also considered among handicrafts and moreover, later reports were published of the inaccuracy of the numbers.

Glass works, ceramics, tiles, precious and semiprecious stones, leather, miniature, marquetry, embossing, wood and metal art pieces, are among Iranian handicrafts, which due to improper packaging, lack of an understanding of the foreign target market, low quality of some works, and competition from countries such as China and India that provide products with lower prices are not enjoying the success they really deserve."

Story of diggers eclipses quest of ancient village - James Mellaart

2005-08-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

Story of diggers eclipses quest of ancient village: "Story of diggers eclipses quest of ancient village
Sunday, August 21, 2005
John R. Alden
Special to The Plain Dealer
Catalhoyuk, pronounced "Chat-al Who-yuck," pre serves the remains of one of the world's oldest villages. Paradoxically, this site in southern Turkey is also one of the world's most modern archaeological excavations. "The Goddess and the Bull: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization" tells the tale of this scientific enterprise and the people behind it.

Unfortunately, Michael Balter doesn't tell it very well. A science writer adopted by the excavation team as their "official biographer," he spends too much time on the life histories of the clique of diggers and not enough time with the evidence, procedures and sometimes not-so-scientific interpretations the team is producing.

A large village occupied from roughly 7500 to 6000 B.C., Catalhoyuk sat in a marshy section in south central Turkey's Konya Plain. Its people lived by farming, herding sheep and goats, and hunting wild cattle. They built their houses of sun-dried mud brick, made pottery and used tools of obsidian and flint.

They also made clay figurines, most notably of what we today might call 'plus-size' women - the "Goddesses" of the book's title - and often painted designs or mounted horns of wild cattle on the walls inside their windowless houses. Curiously, these houses had no doors; they were entered by ladders through openings in the roofs.

Balter's account begins with the story of the first archaeologist at the site, James Mellaart. Mellaart was an experienced excavator, and extraordinarily fast. In three seasons in the early 1960s, he cleared more than 200 houses and made some truly spectacular finds. But he got mixed up in a shady affair involving a mysterious -and perhaps mythical - hoard called the Dorak Treasure and was thrown out of Turkey. For the next quarter century, Catalhoyuk sat untouched.

In 1993, British archaeologist Ian Hodder arrived. Hodder, Balter's friend and the primary source for this book, had no obvious qualifications for the work. He hadn't dug in the Middle East, didn't speak Turkish and had no experience excavating mud brick.

Under Hodder, work at Catalhoyuk has been achingly slow and strikingly expensive. The group spent three entire seasons scraping and mapping the surface of the site. Over the next three seasons, they excavated one complete and four partial buildings. The actual excavation was done by professional archaeologists rather than local workmen, and experts on animal bone, stone tools, soils, human skeletons, carbonized wood and other plant remains analyzed everything the team dug up. Given the time and money devoted to this site, the results, at least as presented in this book, aren't impressive. The cattle were wild, not domesticated. The people used dried dung for cooking. And many of the team's jargon-laden interpretations seem particularly ill-considered.

Does sharing cattle meat indicate ritual feasting or a wild cow too big for any one household to eat? Did the bull horns mounted on house walls signal "an offering to secure the place of that house in the larger community," or were they simply trophies commemorating a successful hunt? Did the people of Catalhoyuk bury their dead under their houses because they were obsessed with their ancestors? Or perhaps, because the site was surrounded by marshy ground, villagers simply had no better place to bury them?

Balter does recognize some of the problems with the dig, especially "the inherent conflict between Ian's contextual approach and the need to make visible progress" with the excavations. Such doubts, however, are cursory asides. After all, these are Balter's friends. He goes to their parties, celebrates their birthdays and drinks their beer. In short, it is no surprise that he has written an uncritical account of the Catalhoyuk excavations.

"The Goddess and the Bull" tells an entertaining story, but it's not good science writing.

Alden is a critic and archaeologist who works in South America and the Middle East.

To reach John R. Alden:

books@plaind.com"

Kamal-ol-Molk, Man of Genius

2005-08-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

Kamal-ol-Molk, Man of Genius: "Kamal-ol-Molk, Man of Genius

ILI [Iran Language Institute] (Quarterly Magazine)
Winter 1998, No. 6, Vol. 2
By: Morteza Assadi
Pages: 35-39

Born in Kashan in 1226 A.H., to a family greatly attached to art, Mohammad Ghaffari, better known as Kamal-ol-Molk, was undoubtedly one of the most eminent artists in Iran. His uncle, Mirza AbolHassan Khan Ghaffari, known as Sanee-ol-Molk, a 13th century A.H. celebrated painter, was unrivalled in watercolor portraits. His father, Mirza Bozorg Ghaffari Kashani, was the founder of Iran's painting school and a famous artist, too. His brother, AbuTorab Ghaffari, was also a distinguished painter of his time. Mohammad developed an interest in calligraphy and painting from the early years of his life. In his childhood eagerness, he drew charcoal sketches on the walls of his room. Some of the sketches he drew in that very house may still be visible.

Upon completion of his primary education, Mohammad moved to Tehran. To further his studies, he registered in Dar-ol-Fonoon School where he studied painting with Mozayyen-od-Doleh, a well-known painter who had visited Europe and studied Western art.

He studied there for a period of three years during which the sparks of his genius ignited. Whenever he found some free time, he spent it on painting, strengthening his union with nature. Through his sharp vision, he could see secrets in lines and colors hidden from the common eye.

In his school days, the young Ghaffari was given the name Mirza Mohammad Kashi.

In this very short period of education he was able to attract public attention to himself as a talented artist.

Man of Genius

In his visits to Dar-ol-Fonoon, Nasereddin Shah Qajar came to know Mohammad Ghaffari and, having observed his incredible talent, he invited him to the court. Mohammad did his best to perfect his technique. Noticing his mastery in painting, Nasereddin Shah gave him the title "Kamal-ol-Molk (Perfection on Land)."

During the years he stayed at Nasereddin Shah's court, Kamal-ol-Molk created some of his most significant works. The paintings he did in this period, which lasted up until the assassination of Nasereddin Shah, were portraits of important people, landscapes, paintings of royal camps and hunting grounds, and different parts of royal palaces.

In this busiest period of Kamal-ol-Molk's artistic life, he created over 170 paintings. Unfortunately, most of these paintings have either been destroyed or taken abroad.

The works he created in this period indicate his desire to discover the laws of oil painting. He advanced so much that he even acquired laws of perspective by himself and applied them to his works. His mastery in the delicate use of a brush was well as bright and lively colors distinguished him from his contemporaries.

Visit to Europe

Following Nasereddin Shah's death, Kamal-ol-Molk found it impossible to work under Mozaffareddin Shah. Therefore, he set out for Europe at the age of 47 to improve his art. The West opened a new horizon before the curious eyes of the artist. Discussions with distinguished European artists gave him the opportunity to know the ins and outs of their style and improve his own technique.

Kamal-ol-Molk copied some of Rembrandt's works. He recreated Rembrandt's famous "Self Portrait", "Jonah", and "Saint Matthew". These copies were so splendid, so enchanting that those who compared them with the originals were unable to tell them apart.

Kamal-ol-Molk visited most of Europe's museums and closely studied the works of some well-known artists such as Raphael, Titian, and da Vinci and copied some of their works.

He stayed in Europe for about four years during which he never spent a single moment in vian. He experienced, created and learned. In 1277 A.H., he returned to Iran.

Migration to Iraq

The increasing pressure on Kamal-ol-Molk, originating in Mozaffareddin Shah's court, left him no option but to leave his country for Iraq, in spite of all the affection he felt for Iran.

The visits he made to the holy cities in Iraq opened a new window to his creative spirit and great talent. The golden domes, turquoise minarets, mosques, holy tombs, long lines of pligrims walking round the holy shrines were all sources of inspiration for the artist.

"Karbala-ye-Moalla Square", and "Baghdad Jewish Fortune Tellers" are two of his most magnificent works of this period.

With the advent of the Constitutional Movement, after a two-year stay in Iraq, Kamal-ol-Molk returned to Iran and joined the Constitutionalists because of the harted he had developed towards Mazaffareddin Shah's government. Portraits like "Commander Asa'd Bakhtiari" and "Azad-ol-Molk" signify this period.

Kamal-ol-Molk Art School

The post-Constitutional Movement era brought about a new atmosphere for the artist. The Constitutionalists were cultured and appreciated art more than did their predecessors, thus respect for Kamal-ol-Molk and his work increased.

The master established Sanaye Mostazrafeh Art School, better known as Kamal-ol-Molk Art School, pursued his artistic career and steadied the new style in Iranian art.

The School's goal was to find new talents and educate them in the best possible way. Kamal-ol-Molk did not confine himself to painting. Rahter, he introduced other arts and crafts such as carpet weaving, mosaic designing, and woodwork to his school in order to revive the dying fine arts. In addition to teaching art, through his kind behavior he also taught students love, morals and humanity. Many a time he stayed late at school, teaching. He even allotted a portion of his monthly payment to poor students. In a relatively short time, Kamal-ol-Molk trained competent students, who became famous artists later on. The achievements of these artists received much attention both in Iran and Europe. Among them are Hossein Ali Khan Vaziri, Esmaeel Ashtiani, Ali Mohammad Heidarian, Mahmood Olia', Nemat-ol-Lah Moshiri, Ali Akbar Yasami, and Mohsen Soheili.

Seclusion

With the 1299 A.H. coup and Reza Khan's seizure of poer, Kamal-ol-Molk learned that the Pahlavi Dynasty was no different from the corrupt government of Qajar and refused to cooperate with Reza Khan Pahlavi.

Whenever Reza Khan encountered Kamal-ol-Molk, he tried to turn his attention to the court, but due to Kamal-ol-Molk's uncompromising stand on Reza Khan's government, he never succeeded. The nearer Reza Khan came, the farther Kama-ol-Molk moved away. When Reza Khan learned that he could not persuade Kamal-ol-Molk to cooperate with his government, he cut out his monthly payment and school expenses to force him to resign.

In Ordibehesht 1307 A.H., following his resignation, the great artist was exiled to Neishaboor and stayed in Hossein Abad, a village he had selected to do farming in. The man who had spent his entire life reviving the Iranian art and promoting the Iranian culture was exiled for the crime of love of freedom and independence.

Of the most important and unfortunate events in this period is that he lost an eye, the why of which is unknown to us. That is why, during the years he spent in exile, he never did any painting.

In 1319 A.H., Kamal-ol-Molk, the distingushed artist whose love of his country knew no boundary, died in Neishaboor. Mournful people marched his body to Sheik Attar's tomb where he would rest in peace.

Kamal-ol-Molk's Style

Kamal-ol-Molk founded a new style in Iranian art. Iranian painting before him and even in the early years of his life was quite different. In the Qajar era, and before the Iranian painting was limited to miniature. It should be noted that by referring to Kamal-ol-Molk's style as an innovative style, it is not intended to devalue painting in the past; rather it is meant to say that Kamal-ol-Molk in fact expanded the art of painting in Iran and opened new horizons to the painters succeeding him. It goes without saying that Iranian miniature is among the most valuable styles of painting in the world.

Kamal-ol-Molk's Famous Works

As is was said before, Kamal-ol-Molk received his education in Dar-ol-Fonoon. His love of painting helped him create some works during his school days. He also did some painting in the Shams-ol-Emareh edifice by thr order of Nasereddin Shah. During his stay in Europe he never spent an idle hour. In his visit to Iraq and during the years he taught in the art school he created numerous paintings. Unfortunately most of these paintings have either been destroyed or are in private collections and impossible to lay hands on. What will come here as his works include those kept in the former National Consultative Assembly, Golestan Palace, museums, and other centers.

If should be noted that, although he did some color paint works, his oil paintings are of a higher quality and consequently better known. He also did some sculpture, but his works in sculpture are overshadowed by his paintings. Among the paintings signed "Naghghash Bashi" (The Painter) are "Twin Waterfalls" painted in 1261 A.H. "Golestan Palace" (1262 A.H.); "Imameh Village" (1263 A.H.); "Bagh-e-Shah" (1265 A.H.); "Zanoosi Valley" (1265 A.H.); and "Government Camp" (1258 A.H.), the oldest painting signed Naghghash Bashi. "Golsmith", "Two Beggars Girl" and "Fortune Teller" all painted in 1268 A.H. are among his valuable works.

"Hanging Partridge" and the copies he made of European artists are among his most well-known works. But his masterpiece is "The Mirror Hall".

The Mirror Hall

The first painting he did after he received the title "Kamal-olMolk" was his magnificent masterpiece "The Mirror Hall". This is the first painting bearing the signature "Kamal-ol-Molk". "The Mirror Hall" was in fact more of a turning-point in Iran's art than a mere painting; a window to a new world rather than paint on canvas.

This exquisite painting is indicative of Kamal-ol-Molk's talent and creativity. In this work, the artist marvellously depicts all the delicacy and details of the vast "Mirror Hall" of Golestan Palace. In this lively spirited painting, Nasereddin Shah is portrayed sitting in the middle of "The Mirror Hall". The reflection of light and the shadow of the objects in the Hall in hundreds of pieces of mirror as well as the reflection of mirrors in one another are so delicately pictured that the beholder can do nothing but stand and wonder.

During a period of about six years (1264-1269 A.H.), he used all his creativity, stamina and talent to create the painting. A critic once said of the Mirror Hall:

"The delicate struvture of the painting resembles a miniature. Massive chandeliers, crystal prisms, begemmed chairs and tables, a carpet rich in designs, long wavy tulle curtains, tree boughs learning against the window as if whispering the wind's song into the Hall's ears are all reflected in the pieces of mirror, small and large, on the walls and ceiling. The golden rays of the sun have slipped on the magnificent carpet. Light and shadow are harmoniously mingled together to create a scene that mesmerizes the spectator"."

Iran News - Kamal-ol-Molk house in Iran to become museum

2005-08-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Kamal-ol-Molk house in Iran to become museum: "Kamal-ol-Molk house in Iran to become museum

Saturday, August 20, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, August 20 (IranMania) - The residence of the great Iranian artist Mohammad Ghaffari, also known as Kamal-ol -Molk, in Neishabour, Khorasan Razavi province will be restored and turned into a painting museum.

Announcing this, deputy head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department in Khorasan Razavi province, Siavash Saberi told ISNA that his office decided to repair Kamal-ol-Molk?s house at a cost of rls41 mln.

?The house will be restored as a mark of respect for the great painter and establish a painting museum,? he said.

Saberi said that Kamal-ol-Molk has a high status in serving to upgrade Iranian art and culture and his house in Neishabour had become a tourist site.

?Therefore Iran?s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization decided to set up painting museum at the location.

A number of invaluable paintings by Kamal-ol-Molk are being kept in substandard conditions in the Majlis Library.

Experts have expressed concern about the packing of Kamal-ol -Molk?s paintings in a small store in the Majlis Library, because the Museum of Constitutional Movement in the new library building is not yet ready."

Iran News - Iranian tribal handiwork encyclopedia compiled

2005-08-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iranian tribal handiwork encyclopedia compiled: " Iranian tribal handiwork encyclopedia compiled

Saturday, August 20, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, August 20 (IranMania) - Prominent sculptor Parviz Tanavoli has compiled an encyclopedia on ?Handiworks of Iranian Tribal and Rural Areas? during the last 30 years.

ISNA said that Tanavoli has authorized the publication of the encyclopedia which will be available within six months.

The encyclopedia, Tanavoli?s fifteenth book about Iranian tribesmen, gives details about hand-woven texture of Azari-speaking Afshar tribesmen living in Kerman?s mountainous area.

He compiled information about hand-woven texture from museums. He has taken photos of museums as well as pictures of traditional festivals of the tribesmen.

Tanavoli published his first monograph about Iranian tribal lifestyle, titled ?Shahsevan Tribesmen in Northern Iran? in 1985 in Switzerland, Germany in three languages of French, German and English.

ISNA said that Tanavoli has decided to increase the number of monographs about Iranian tribesmen to seven editions.

He has already conducted research studies on three tribes of Shahsevand, Qashqaei and Afshar as well as Turkmen, Baluch, Lor, Kurd and Fars ethnic groups.

After his monograph about Afshar ethnic group, he has planned to complete studies about hand-woven texture of Lor tribesmen. It will be completed by next year.

In the meantime, Tanavoli has published an encyclopedia on ?Iranian Tribes? in English in Britain which focused on hand woven Kelim, Jajim and Zilo (different types of texture? . It has not yet been translated into Persian."

His Excellency President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appoints Mashaei as ICHTO head

2005-08-18T04:45:00.000-07:00

President appoints Mashaei as ICHTO head - Irna: "President appoints Mashaei as ICHTO head Tehran, Aug 18, IRNA
Ahmadinejad-Appointment
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Thursday appointed Rahim Mashaei as new head of Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO).

Mashaei who earlier served as head of Tehran Municipality's cultural and art organization and deputy interior minister for social affairs, replaces Hossein Mar'ashi.

In separate decrees issued on August 15, President Ahmadinejad appointed Ali Larijani, Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi and Gholam-Hossein Elham as new Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), senior presidential advisor and head of the presidential office, respectively."