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www.sairamtour.com For centuries Bukhara has boasted fine jewelers, engravers, ceramists and tailors. Yet it is the art of gold embroidery that has made it famous worldwide.
Gold embroidery was quite a common craft in the world. It was known in the countries of Hellinistic Asia and Western Europe, in the Caucasus, in Turkey and Afghanistan. In Tashkent province archaeologists discovered fragments of gold embroidery dating back to the beginning of the Common Era. According to legends, gold embroidery had been practiced in Sogd even before silk was brought here. The Arabs, who conquered Central Asia in the 8th century, were impressed by an abundance of gold embroideries on the clothes of the Sogdian aristocracy. There is historical evidence that in the later period gold embroidery flourished in Samarkand and Herat. The historian Melichos wrote that in Samarkand there was even a whole residential quarter of gold embroiderers. Then the center of this sun-reflecting craft moved to Bukhara, which in the 16th century became the capital of Sheibanid state, and gold embroidery was made an official craft of the court. From the 17th century onwards gold embroidery had become an industry. The craft became widespread in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The unlimited thirst of the rulers for luxury, flamboyant court ceremonies, and the emirs’ habit to give out presents to their subordinates and to receive presents from them, guaranteed large-quantity government orders – all this provided for the development of gold-embroidery craft.
“The needle dresses everyone but remains naked”, the saying goes. Most craftsmen who created the luxuries for Asian courts led quite modest lives. In Bukhara only the best of them were sometimes granted lower court ranks, as were jewelers and tailors. Only the dress of Bukhara’s aristocracy and, first of all, the emir, glittered with gold embroidery. The emir and his retinue used to be dressed in gold literally from top to toe. Gold embroideries were on their kuloh scull caps, turbans, sleeveless jackets, caftans, trousers, belts, kaushi and mahsi boots, and even foot wraps. Sometimes the emir would put on two or three thick gold caftans.
Gold embroiderers, called zarduz, were organized in guilds. Only those who had been through a long and hard apprenticeship and had been given permission to work on their own could become members of the guild. The craftsmen usually started to apprentice their sons or their close relatives’ sons at the age of 8 – 10, and thus the craft was traditionally hereditary. The term of apprenticeship was not fixed; as a rule, it lasted not longer than ten years. At the end of this period, the master would utter a ‘permission’ prayer for the apprentice to work on his own.
Some families of hereditary gold embroiderers have recently moved to Tashkent. And today real Bukhara gold-embroidered articles can be bought from one of the largest Tashkent markets “Eski Juva”. In Bukhara and Samarkand gold embroideries always occupy prominent places at the local markets where not only caftans, but also scull caps and vests, prayer rugs, various containers, elegant purses and handbags, and traditional fans- elpigich are on sale. Gold embroidery patterns of Bukhara’s masters are exhibited in museums in Uzbekistan, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka and other countries. Bukhara’s gold embroiderers-zarduzes invariably take part in various international exhibitions. Their works are admired in the UK, USA, India, Japan, Belgium, Syria, Sri Lanka, Germany and France. Splendid gold embroideries on the background of cherry or deep blue velvet point out the incredible richness of Uzbek arts and crafts traditions which are being cherished up to the present day
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