Hand-woven carpet trade nearly dead in Turkey

In Gördes, a town in Manisa province, there are maybe 10 to 15 carpet looms left, remnants of a trade that is being kept alive by Mehmet Ünal, one of the area's last carpet sellers. "Back in the day there was a carpet loom in every household around here; nowadays only older people are weaving carpets. Like many other forgotten trades, carpet weaving is soon to be a thing of the past," said Ünal, speaking to Sunday's Zaman. Handmade carpets with unique regional styles and patterns have slowly disappeared due to mass-produced factory products as well as the market being inundated with foreign imports. In İstanbul's Cağaloğlu quarter, retail and wholesale carpet sellers trick tourists into thinking they are buying Turkish-made rugs, when in fact they are buying those brought in from Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, Today's Zaman reports. "In the old days we were doing wholesale, but now only retail. Now only those who know the precious value of these carpets are buying them. Since labor costs are cheaper in the factories, overall costs are lower [for factory made carpets]. In comparison handmade carpets are much more expensive," said Ünal. "The handmade carpet trade is on its last legs. Now only those older than 50 are hand-weaving carpets, and they will stop doing so in a few years," he added, saying that at one point there were 200 carpet weavers in the area. Traditional handmade Turkish carpets reflect the personal labor of the weaver and feature colors and patterns unique to the region in which they are weaved. Mehmet Yavuz, who sells carpets in İstanbul, says tourists prefer the older handmade carpets. "We collect older ones and repair them. Tourists find them more appealing, as they come to see the real culture anyway," said Yavuz, speaking to Sunday's Zaman. Carpet sellers advise those with classic hand-woven rugs to protect them and store them with care, as they are of great value. Historians estimate that the history of hand-woven carpets in Turkey traces its roots back to the fifth century B.C. in Central Asia, a tradition brought by Turkic tribes to Anatolia. Twenty-two percent of carpets exported from Turkey in 2003 were hand-woven, although that percentage fell to half that number by 2009 and continues to decline year after year. In recent years, retailers have claimed that Turkey is no longer a country that produces its own carpets. They say the rising trend of minimalism in decoration is also partially responsible for the decline in the popularity of intricate, detailed hand-woven carpets.