FREEFORUM

Dear friends,

For the Iradi American Association picnic raffle this August I would like a real shyrdak, made by hand in the valleys, not a machine one from the factory. Is there a way to buy directly from the women's felt cooperatives and send it to Chicago? I will of course pay a fair price plus shipping, and I will send a short feedback form afterwards to everybody involved.

With respect,
Temir

Uncle Temir, yes. Our workshop is part of the Ak Kiyiz cooperative. Goods go down across the line with traders to Talas, and from Talas to the post.

A shyrdak 2 by 1.5 metres, two colours, ram's horn pattern, is about a month of work for two women. In Talas it sells for 450 som. Shipping I do not know, the post office knows.

Please no feedback form. My niece reads them to me and they are very long.

450 som for a month of two women's work. And a shop in Europe sells the same rug for, what, 400 euro? I'm not saying anything. I'm just doing arithmetic out loud.

Lena, you do arithmetic like our founder. She made us write the Talas price and the abroad price on the same blackboard, side by side. Now some rugs go straight to the fair-trade buyers, and the blackboard is less sad.

Ordered through a cousin in Talas. I will post a photograph of the rug only. No faces, no names, only the rug.

Report: the shyrdak arrived in July, crimson and white, ram's horns. It was won in the raffle by a lady who remembers Alatau Heights in the old days (no names) who cried and said it smelled like her mother's house. 31 of the returned feedback forms mentioned the rug. Thank you to the workshop.

Temir, how did you get it through customs? Toronto customs wanted to fumigate my aunt's felt boots.

I filled in a form. Of course.

Got a small felt saddle-cloth at Bazar-i Kalan for the counter of our taco stand. Customers ask if it's Mexican. I say sí, from the Iradi part of Mexico.

Winter is felt season. Our stove broke for a week and we rolled wool with cold hands. Cold hands make bad felt. A man from the workshop in the next valley came over the snow with a stove pipe tied to his horse.

That is how a cooperative works. Not the paper. The stove pipe.

The Herald came to the Kara-Suu workshops. "Felt across the line". Klara Zhumabek kyzy said a carpet sold in Talas buys flour, school shoes and diesel for the winter. True.

She also said the woman who made it knows what it earned. That part is newer. When I started, the men carried the carpet down and came back with the money and a story.

"Felt is also made one layer at a time." That line from the article is going on the Ak Jooluk office wall. With credit to the workshop.

my mum bought a shyrdak at a stall that said ak kiyiz. is it real or fake? the stall guy said "real as the mountains" which is not an answer

Turn it over. A real shyrdak: the two colours fit together like a puzzle, every stitch by hand, a little uneven. A machine one: perfect, and glued. If the stall man is shy about the back, he is not real as the mountains.

the back is uneven!!! mum says thank you and that she is never doubting a stall again (she will)