So now its a New Dawn that Iraqi's are waking up to, looks like Operation SSDD to me. its reprehensible that US and UK politicians can think that they have made such changes that they pull out US troops, UK already turned tail, leaving this ravaged country with a devastated infrastructure, in a political shambles with a rabble for its security forces. There's not much reason to look back at the crimes perpetrated by George Bush and Tony Blair in their "weapons of mass destruction" fallacy, except to say that Saddam Hussain isn't quite so much the evil dictator as both of these goons are. In Bush's case, stupidity ruled his inadequacy as a President, Blair on the other hand I'm sure knew what he was doing, he needed his Thatcher/John Major moment in history. Enough of them, how about the thousands of lives lost, our brave US/UK and coalition warriors. And then, what of the 100's of thousands of Iraqi's ? For what? what they are left with is a beautiful country ruined by the egos of western meglomaniacs. Whatever Saddam was, and none would want him back, ordinary Iraqis had power, water, food and normalcy of a sort, untainted by massive car bombs killing scores of people. The real winners in all of this are indubitably the Kurds of Northern Iraq. As for the rest of Iraq, I can only see this going down in history as another shameful episode of imperialism, both Britons and Americans should be thoroughly ashamed at this result. As to Afganistan, lets not even go there. Not trying to draw any parallels, with Saddam in Iraq, but Gengis Khan was the last "warlord" to hold Afganistan in check ............. et al ? Yes questionable !

Now, I am not usually one for profanity, but just lately I find myself wanting to say WTF about the mysterious and totally B****cks goofiness which is categorised as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Anyone else out there running a small business with a website who is as flumoxed as I am? I get bucketloads of offers from dubious companies offering to get me into the top 10 placements of my chosen "keyword or words", or links that I "buy" from them. Now I am not talking small beer, sums like $1-5,000 are bandied about. Who are these bandits, Google employees ? The internet is just a den for thieves now, and the honest truth is that they cannot guarantee you absolutely anything. I confess, I have fallen afoul of them a company called Axandra, from Germany, who took $250 of me, and promised me the known world ala Monty Python's Life of Brian when Brian's mum states that he is the son of a Centurian called Naughtius Maximus, who promised her the known World. In the end, my license ran out before I used the program and they demanded another $250 for the updates to be able to use it ..... another case of buyer beware ! My bottom line here is this, never mind all the shysters out there promising you the Known world of SEO, we like they are all bamboozled by Google who change their "algorithm" as often as a lady of the night changes her panties. And, the reality check, no one knows what the heck their algorithm is, or even what it does. I rest my case !

Now this is an exceptional example of Turkish Anatolian weaving, it is more than 100 years old, Circa 1900, there are possibly only 2 or 3 people on this earth, who are still alive when this was made. Dazkiri is a small town in the province of Afyonkarahisar in Western-Anatolia close to the Turkey's Agean Mediterranean coast. Few if any rugs have been made in this region for decades, most village cottage industry having migrated to the coast around Milas. Why is this rug important, well there are extremely few examples still existant, never mind in as excellent condition as this one is. It is made from fine sheeps wool, naturally dyed, a facet of this is that there is absolutely no colour bleed from the walnut and saffron dyed wool into the natural wool surrounding the large main medallion. Dazkiri villagers were unique in their selections of colours, yellows, brown walnut, almost orange hues and pristine undyed natural wool. This rug is Abrashed, meaning the rug has colour variences from its beginning to the top, because the weaver ran out of her dyed wool and had to sympathetically try and match a new batch, this is not an exact science and so colour variations in old rugs are a natural occurance. The closest example I have seen to this is exhibitted on Barry O'Connell's BLOG about Turkish Rugs, an example sold at auction 3 years ago for 18,500 Euros, check that one out at this link DAZKIRI RUG . Mine is in perfect condition, I have owned it for around 5 years now, found it in Cappadoccia on a rug hunt, on horseback, with a Turkish friend of mine, one weekend when I wasn't sailing.

Well here is a superlative addition to the TTCC website, a translation service powered by Google. I have been deliberating on this oft times and yet there was a very easy solution right before me. This is in its early days, I want to add a few more languages to it, not the least including Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and a few more other than middle-eastern languages. Really, its not that I want or intend to sell to people in those countires, altho' all selling is good. But, as my web site progresses, I want it to be informative as well as a platform for making money, after all this really began for me as just an interest, not a business. And so it has progressed to such, but I'll never lose sight of the fact that I am supplying a unique item to my customers, and so I want all of them and anyone else who visits my site or reads my blog to have the same privilages. I hope this addition proves useful to all, and I'd certainly like some feedback. I have it also in mind to replace this BLOG with a more user friendly interface, which will allow more interaction, its in the wings and just will take me a little while to develop and test before going fully online. For now, for all of my international visitors, I hope this will make things easier for y'all. Best regards to all, Paulo.

The Turkish Carpet Company Talking of Turkish rugs, I have just come across this excellent BLOG by a gentleman called Mitch Weisburgh from a couple of years ago entitled "What I learned buying a rug in Turkey" its both humerous and informative and well worth a read.  Here is the link: http://academicbiz.typepad.com/piloted/2007/01/what_i_learned_.html.

 

I have used eBay as a selling platform for my rug business for 4 years now, well until March of this year when I closed my store and set up my own fully functional website store here on TTCC. To be sure eBay did give me great exposure, and generally speaking it worked fairly well. So I hear you saying, "why did we fall out" ? Well, for 2 perhaps more reasons, and I am sure my reasonings will apply to millions of other small businesses and what are they, well number one would be the change in the way they displayed "ALL" listing; prior to April 2010  my listings both auction and often store items would compete amongst mebbe 250 others, and often times still littered with 100 kilim cushion covers which had been listed as vintage or antique, what a joke. Well, laudably my customers still found me amongst all of that and I guess I averaged around 150 sales a year which allowed me my indulgence of my hobby and made me a credible living also. After April, my 1 or 2 listings were suddenly competing with upwards of 3500 listings, and sales dried up faster than a pond in the Sahara desert. Reluctantly I closed my eBay store and set about fully promoting my products myself on my own website the TTCC. Now this is still early days, as when i launched it I would be around page 30 in Google page rank listing. Today I am top of page 2 and soon will achieve my goal of being on page 1. I am gonna blow my trumpet now, I am competing with thousands of rug companies with stellar budgets. I'm told that the coveted place on page one will probably value my company at 1/2 million dollars or more, this is not the most important thing for me. I'll still promote my ethical sale of excellent quality Turkish and Oriental rugs at a good price to my customers. As to eBay, perhaps I will still list the odd rug here and there just to keep my hand in. When I first started using them, in total my costs averaged about 5 percent, now they charge a whopping flat rate of 9 percent, and the only method they offer of accepting payment is their offshoot company PayPal which takes another 3 percent, all told 12% now who can exist with that, and there are no guarantees of sales. My customer base will increase again and sales too I am sure. Will I miss eBay, probably not, will they miss me ? I doubt it, my $6,000 a year they made off me is a drop in their vast Ocean, now extrapolate that by several million small businesses like me who jumped ship and yes they'll be hurting. Will they win us back, probably not I think we have all learnt our lessons from them all too keenly.

I have been thinking about this for a little while now and have not really ironed out all the wrinkles, however the largess of it is, I am going to hold a "monthly" (to start with) blind auction for a rug of my choosing, on the TTCC website. I'll choose a nice rug and feature it including a guide price, almost like a reserve price, which will be less than 1/2 of the value of the rug. I'll invite bids by email which will be held by myself until the day of the auction. On auction day, I'll accept telephone bids, even from existent email bidders on the bidding day, and of course the person with the highest bid will win. If no one hits the reserve, I'll email the reserve price to all bidders and then I'll accept the first past the post telephone call. Could be a lot of fun, I'll get to perhaps sell a few more rugs and my customers will get some bargains into the "bargain", any comments or suggestions please email me @ paul@theturkishcarpetcompany.com Keep sweet, Paulo.

Well Sep 29'th the embargo on importation of many things Iranian comes into effect, including rugs and carpets. For some like myself this will have zero effect on my business, as I really do not deal in Persian/Iranian, for others this could be a big deal. The last embargo lasted from 1987-2000, lifted by Clinton, I doubt that would have transpired under Bush.. There could be a few things which transpire as a result, the prices of rugs as a whole could go up which would be a good thing, as prices have been depressed these past two years since the w***er bankers kicked us all in the goolies. Secondary to this it may force the Pakistani/Indian weavers/exporters to own up to the origin of their produce, I really can't see many people returning from their oriental vacation with a declared Persian/Iranian rug only to be stripped of it by US Custom, but you never know, some people will be totally ignorant about this embargo and how it affects things.

It is so poignant that I can not be with all of you to celebrate my mother's life. Alas, I had to return to the United States. But, I was with her, together with my 2 sisters, when her time came and that was what was most important to me.

I don’t know where to start so untypically I'll start at the end, my mother passed away peacefully and she is now one with my father James Moran and the universe and that is good. She was a most gracious person, and throughout my life has been a continual source of help across all aspects of our human condition, she was my mother firstly and then friend, confidant, teacher, source of succor, chider and a person who never placed blame but raised awareness. In particular, during the worst time in my life, 5 years ago, she raised me up, gave me a reason to put the past behind me and carry on, she said to me that all things pass and that time will heal a wounded spirit, for that I'll always be eternally grateful and thankful that she was who she was. But, I do know that no amount of time will heal the loss of my mum.

This comes to me like a giant 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle from which I have now lost the most important pieces, something I will now never be able to solve again. She is those lost pieces of a puzzle which I'll now have to put back in the box, yes to revisit from time to time, but it'll never be whole again.

I will miss my mother in so many ways, no more phone calls waking her at 11 PM because I was dippy and forgot we are so far behind in time zones here in Oregon, no more shopping for gifts which would be just perfect for her, no more flowers on 2 mothers days, UK and USA, no more sharing fish and chips from Greenhill’s chippy in East Kilbride, Scotland and most of all no more comforting hugs making it all good again.

Thank you mum for all you are to me and always will be, I love you and miss you more than these words can say.

I am and always will be proud to call you mother and to be your son.

So where was I, ohh yes the Dobag. I personally had experience of a Government sponsored operation close to Marmaris in Turkiye. Admittedly, they were a co-operative who was as much interested in selling rugs to tourists as keeping up with the old traditions. However, as a Sunsail Skipper I was encouraged to bring groups to this place for drinks and a show designed to make the punters part with their cash, my end 10% ...... Sunsail's ? More than me I am sure. This cheapens the project to an extent, however everyone needs to make a living. Tourists are thinner on the ground now, and so I wonder if this establishment is still going. I dearly hope there is still as much interest amongst the YURUK or Black Tent Nomads in rug making, it would be such a disaster if the Chinese and Pakistani knock offs for genuine Turkish rugs were able to dominate the market. 30 years ago when I first became interested in Turkish rugs and began collecting them, you'd be hard pressed to find a rug dealer in the provinces hawking inferior bogus Turkish rugs, made in China, now its evermore common. To a tutored eye, very easy to spot, but a tourist could make a mistake and end up with a less than genuine "Turkish" rug for $2000.00 + dollars which is a shame. A clue, hand-made Turkish rugs are full of irregularities and sometimes something called Abrash, which is just a word for inconsistancies in the dye, making colour variations in the weave ...this is a good thing, and really not replicatable in knock-offs.

I must get some discussion going about the Turkish DOBAG project, rather than discussion on immigration and its costs. This is a very interesting project which saw its inception around the 1960's, to revitalize the Turkish Village Carpet Weaving Industry. the use of natural dyes, harmonious and regional designs from the past, hand looms and all of the love and effort that it takes to make a genuine Turkish Rug. It literally translated from Turkish as the Natural Dye Research and Development Project. Sustainable, I am not sure, so much of the Anatolian population have moved to the larger cities like Istanbul, rug making is not just a dye'ing art its a dieing art.

Its been said a few times, the question of why I go by the nom de plume of "turkishknot'. Interesting conundrum, of course I am not Turkish, I am Scottish. But, I have lived in Turkey for many years cumulatively since 1982, probably 5 in total. Which doesnt sound like a lot. However, I studied Turkish at the "school for spies" in London, SOAS, at London University for 2 years under the most brilliant Turkish scholar Margaret Bainbridge and altogether marvellous Professor Menage ('a un) neither of whom gave me an inch of license. It saw me well and I learned the language ideomatically, the culture I learned from living in Istanbul in the '80's, and through an impossibly gorgeous woman called Guzel Hanim, an exiled white Russian emigre Lady in her bloomage, what a trip she was. Every session of conversation we had we punctuated with a Vodka intermission, each time some new arcane flavour I'd never hear of, but tasty none the less. Tongue lubricated we'd talk of everything from food to political parties. God rest you Guzel Hanim, you educated me in so many ways, thank you ! And so I have no idea why turkishknot became my nom de plume, but it did, and from thence my love of Turkish Rugs.

Well, this isnt about rugs but I feel it needs to be said. So here we are with an environmental disaster of epic proportions and seemingly no way of stopping it. The containment chamber didnt work, heck I could have told them that, and perhaps they should have watched the John Stewart show last week on Comedy Central, he showed on air how it wouldnt work. So now, just heard this on the news .... they are going to fire a trash ball into it, to try and stop the leak, heck you just coudnt make this kind of comedy up, you have to hear it to believe it and then wonder what kind of goons BP has for its technical execs. Of course they don't want to lash out too much cash on it, after all a mere $1/2 million dollars would have prevented it with a kind of automatic shut off, but here in the USA our STUPID STUPID STUPID politicians and their crony lobbyists quashed that in favor of Halliburton/BP having to lay out extra cash for Safety. So why can they accomplish safe drilling (if there is such a thing) in the North Sea (a very hazerdous environment) and not here ? Halliburton is also complicit in, altho' the jury is still out, of a massive spill off the Great Barrier reef in Australia, and now somewhat responsible also in this disaster. BP made more than $5 billion profit in the last quarter alone, methinks its time to take "them" to the cleaners as well. What say you ?

The Turkish Carpet Company Khal Mohammedi rugs. I just acquired one from a wholesaler and I am very impressed. Its a 9 X 7 foot (approx) rug and weighs an impressive 45 pounds. Once I have it photographed I'll post it on here. Khal Momammed is a an Afgan man, he is Turkoman Esari and his family was from Uzbekistan originally. 

He and his workforce are prolific weavers with several looms in Afganistan probably HQ'd in
Mazar i Sharif. The upshot is, his style is very distictive, with very impressive results from natural dyes in dark reds and blues.
Well, this is a new rug (10-15 years old) and unused, a lot of so called "unused" Afgan rugs I have received from dealers are clearly not, and very very dusty ie. having been laid out for some time, take it from me Afganistan is incredibly dusty. This is not, its beautifully made and constructed. Technically, approximately 80 KPSI Turkish knots, wool on wool with 1 inch kilim weaving at each end, excellently bound 2-cord selvage overcast with black goat hair. I have tested the wool and to the best of my knowledge this is naturally dyed. The pile is thick and cut to 1/4 Inch length, exceedingly dense weaving which occasions its impressive 45 pound weight. The 12 medallions in the main field are unquestionably Esari as is the main border of Stepped Gables. Throughout the main field and even in the Gables are interestingly Uzbek motifs. Overall a superior work which will grace any floor.

The Turkish Carpet Company Next thing on my mind and concurrently with other projects, is a blog on the TTCC web site. I am going to try and make it interesting with facts and info about rug making, how to tell good from bad, differences between hand-knotted and mass produced, and some tips on how to spot a fake chinese rip off from a genuine Turkish rug ....and a whole lot more.
And the Blog is here now.

The Turkish Carpet Company There is a gnuine shortage of "genuine" Turkish hand-made rugs. I have even noticed that Turkish dealers are carrying Afgan, Uzbek and Pakistani rugs but what they are selling as "Genuine" Uzbekistani "Bokhara" which are fabulous rugs, are instead made in Afgan refugee camps just across the border in Pakistan somewhat ...lifeless and nothing like the feel of a genuine "silky" feeling wool Bokhara.

The Turkish Carpet Company So according to todays borse pricing its worth $2311.00 wholesale in Turkey, I am selling for $2500.00 but if you add 15% wholesaler markup, 8% Turkish export taxes, and probably $250.00 shipping and insurance, the wholesale price is now $3308.00. Makes my $2500.00 look pretty good huh !

The Turkish Carpet Company Its the recession, wholesale Quality handmade Turkish/Oriental (new) rugs are down in price, a year ago standard "wholesale' prices for dealers was $300 per square metre, now its down to $200.00, which is ridiculously low. I'll give you an example. I have a 13 foot by 8 foot palace size Anatolian rug, its stunning on t...he floor, exceptionally heavy and first class workmanship.