Ceramics, carpentry, calligraphy and gem cutting: centuries of Afghan craftsmanship honed on the ancient Silk Road are being preserved in Kabul, a rare success story for an aid project in the war-torn country that organizers are now hoping to replicate with refugees from Syria.
In the 16 years since the fall of the Taliban, the Turquoise Mountain foundation has found some of Afghanistan’s best artisans and helped them preserve and pass on their skills, as well helping them showcase their work in international markets. A painstakingly restored caravanserai — a roadside inn — in Kabul’s oldest district is once again a hub for exquisite woodwork carvers, potters making traditionally-glazed ceramics, Islamic calligraphers and goldsmiths.
“When we started, there were very few artisans living in Kabul. Most of them were out of the country,” said Abdul Wahid Khalili, the nonprofit’s director.
Photo: AFP
“We had to start with the few old artisans we had, it was a very difficult start,” he said.
Kabul, a key stop on the silk road, was once renowned for its craftwork, but when Turquoise Mountain began work in 2006 in Mourad Khani, Kabul’s oldest district, they had to excavate the caravanserai from tons of rubbish.
“For more than 50 years the rubbish had piled up in the yard,” he said, adding that they also immediately began training students.
“The idea was to restore the (caravanserai) and train the new generation,” he said.
Slowly more and more Afghan artisans joined the collective, preserving priceless skills that many feared would disappear altogether due to decades of war — a problem that many Syrian craftsmen, who are fleeing their country in droves, now face.
First started by British diplomat Rory Stewart, the Turquoise Mountain foundation, which is supported by the UK’s Prince Charles, the British Council and USAID, says it has now worked with some 5,000 artisans.
Their efforts have breathed new life into Murad Khani’s ancient silver bazaar, with hundreds traveling every day to the restored cedar paneled courtyard to learn and teach woodwork, calligraphy, ceramics, jewelery and miniature painting.
RIGOROUS SELECTION PROCESS
Staff at Turquoise Mountain began by combing Kabul’s streets and knocking on doors in the villages trying to find artisans and students to enroll.
The foundation now employs 30 Afghan masters, who are given retraining and support from the organization and then help teach new apprentices in their craft.
Wakil Abdul Aqi Ahmani, 64, is one of the institute’s founding fathers.
“It’s my heritage, it’s important because we have to preserve the culture of our country,” he says, as he leans over his student’s cedarwood panels and explains the art of jali carving.
Turquoise Mountain’s selection process is now more rigorous: more than 500 candidates apply each year, Khalili said, with just 50 taken on, both girls and boys.
“They show what they learned with their family, in the shops, at the bazaar, with the elders,” said Abasin Bahand, who is in charge of the entry exams.
“They are all trained, but they are not professional — anyone can apply.”
The three years of their training are free, the students are fed and housed if they come from the provinces. They are also given a small monthly stipend to cover transport costs. They leave with a double certifications — Afghan and British.
“Eighty percent of our graduates have moved to their own business or are working for other business in the craft they chose,” said Nathan Stroupe, the director of the Turquoise Mountain foundation in Afghanistan.
INTERNATIONAL DEMAND
Some of their carpentry students have decorated palaces in London and the The United Arab Emirates, and jewelers have received commissions for New York Fashion Week.
“We have a business incubation process to support our students for three years,” Stroupe said.
“Some of the craftsmen had worked for the King,” he said, referring to [former Afghan monarch] Mohammed Zaher Shah, who was deposed in 1973.
But the process is still a race against time.
“For jali and Nuristani carving, we had teachers who were the last in Afghanistan, they passed away. If we were not able to preserve these arts, they would have been lost,” said Khalili.
“Already there are specific areas we lost — there are no copper makers left, no bronze makers.”
“Now we are documenting all those areas, we want to spread (knowledge) all over the country, the idea is to transfer it to the community ... if not it will be lost again,” he said.
After its successes in Afghanistan, the foundation is looking at war-torn Syria, which is also seeing ancient traditions threatened by an exodus of artisans.
“We have already met Syrian artisans in Jordan,” said Scott Riddle, a project director who will start work in September.
“Some people in Amman have already managed to set up small ateliers. We’re researching in the refugee camp in Azraq, in the desert in the country’s northeast.”
After Jordan, Turquoise Mountain is looking to work with refugee artisans from Libya.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
RSS