Earthquakes Devastate Iranian Villages - Yahoo! News: "Earthquakes Devastate Iranian Villages By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - Three strong earthquakes and several aftershocks reduced villages to rubble in western Iran early Friday, killing at least 66 people and injuring about 1,200 others, officials said. At least 13 tremors jolted the mountainous region throughout the night, Tehran University's Geophysics Institute said.
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The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 5.7-magnitude quake shortly before 5 a.m., followed by a 4.7-magnitude aftershock about 15 minutes later.
The quakes were centered near Boroujerd and Doroud, two industrial centers about 210 miles southwest of Tehran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The regional head of emergency response, Ali Barani, said about 200 villages were damaged, some flattened. Barani said hospitals in Doroud and Boroujerd were filled to capacity.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting northern England, expressed her "deep sympathy" to the Iranians and offered assistance. The U.S. military provided aid after a devastating quake in southern Iran in 2003.
Washington and Tehran have no diplomatic relations and currently are at a stalemate over U.S. accusations that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies those charges.
After the first quake struck, police in the city of Boroujerd and the town of Doroud toured the streets with loudspeakers, urging people to leave their homes before more temblors hit.
The measure is believed to have contributed to a lower death toll than usual in Iran for quakes of this magnitude.
Many people ran into the streets in panic and refused to return to their homes.
"We are afraid to get back home. I spent the night with my family and guests in open space last night," Doroud resident Mahmoud Chaharmiri told The Associated Press by telephone.
Television showed survivors standing next to their destroyed houses in villages north of Doroud. The ground was strewn with the carcasses of sheep and goats killed by the quake.
Such quakes have killed thousands of Iranians in the past, especially in the countryside, where construction is often flimsy and many houses are built of mud bricks. But initial reports suggested the devastation was not so widespread this time.
Officials called doctors and nurses on leave back to work. Iranians are celebrating Nowruz, or new year, and most government offices are closed and their staff on holiday.
Barani told IRNA rescue teams had been sent to the region. He said survivors urgently needed blankets, tents and food.
State-run television said 66 bodies had been recovered from houses destroyed in Silakhor, a region north of Doroud.
The broadcast said 1,200 people were injured. Most people had been sleeping.
In February 2005, a 6.4-magnitude quake in southern Iran killed 612 people and injured more than 1,400.
A magnitude 6.6 quake flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam in the same region in December 2003, killing 26,000 people.
Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. On average, it experiences at least one slight earthquake every day.
The area had been hit by a 4.7-magnitude quake the day before, according to the USGS, which monitors earthquakes around the world."
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Karaim Turks of Lithuania - Turkish Daily News Mar 16, 2006
Karaim Turks of Lithuania - Turkish Daily News Mar 16, 2006: "Karaim Turks of Lithuania
Thursday, March 16, 2006
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DOMESTIC
All News »
» Student fatally wounded in school brawl
» Şemdinli commission questioning victims
» Solar eclipse helps bird flu-struck Turkey lure back tourists
» Eclipse sweeps shadowy path across half the world
» Fears of post-eclipse quake send hundreds outdoors
» Mumcu threatens to leave the country
» Rioters face off with police as army moves in
» DOMESTIC NEWSLINE
Ingmar Karlsson*
In Trakai, Lithuania, opposite the island in Lake Galve, where the city's medieval castle stands, is a street with very special houses. They are all wooden and painted green and yellow, and each of them has three windows facing the street.
Here, for more than 600 years, one of Europe's most remarkable and distinctive minorities, the Karaim, has been living on “Karaimu Gatve,” or Karaimu Street.
Their history in Lithuania began when, after the war against the Mongolian Golden Horde in Crimea in 1397, the Polish-Lithuanian King Vytautas Magnus brought 380 Karaim families with him to his capital city of Trakai.
They were given the task of guarding the royal castle as the only access to it was across a bridge from the part of the city the Karaim were allotted. Initially they worked as castle guards. In 1441, they were granted the same rights as the citizens of Magdeburg -- known as the Right of Magdeburg by the Polish--Lithuanian King Kasimir IV. This could be viewed as a model of self-government at the time, and the purpose was to ensure that they would become permanent residents. The Karaims increasingly engaged in agriculture and horticulture, horse breeding and different handicrafts and gradually came to constitute a middle class between the aristocracy and the framers who tilled the soil.
The head of the Karaim was the elected “vaitas,” and he was their official representative in contacts with the Polish-Lithuanian kings. Their houses had three windows facing the street because this demonstrated wealth, while to have four windows was considered to be showy and conspicuous.
On Karaimu Gatve one also finds the only “kenesa” in Europe, the shrine where the Karaim practice the distinctive religion that has given them their identity.
The religion of the Karaim was founded in the eighth century in Baghdad by a man named Anan Ben David. He based his teachings on the written Torah and rejected the oral tradition reflected in Talmud literature.
Thus, according to him, God's pure and true words were only to be found in the Old Testament. He considered this interpretation to be a continuation of the old Jewish tradition and himself to be a successor to the Essenes of Qumran.
Everyone should closely study the Old Testament on his own and interpret the text according to his own ideas. “Thoroughly research the Torah and do not rely on my view” is a motto attributed to Anan Ben David. No believer was to follow rules the meaning of which he did not understand even after having read them carefully. Thus, the Old Testament should be interpreted individually and independently, without reference to authorities and with the Ten Commandments as the moral norms. According to some, this central message explains the name of the sect, and the word "karaim" is believed to derive from the Hebrew word “karaa,” to read, which may thus refer to the fact that they only accept the written word.
Both Christ and Mohammed are regarded as Karaim prophets, and the religion is also influenced by Muslim schools such as the Mutazilit school of philosophy and the Hanafi school of law.
The emphasis on the written word “sola scriptura,” which Marin Luther was to assert 800 years later in relation to Rome, caused German Protestants to regard the Karaim as forerunners of the Reformation.
When the Karaim center was moved from Baghdad to Jerusalem, the religion began spreading through missionary activities to the Turkic-speaking peoples on the Crimean peninsula and the steppes of the lower Volga region. The Khazars, the Kipchak-Kumans and the Polovts were converted to the new religion in the ninth century, the ulterior political motive perhaps being that they would then constitute a buffer zone between the Russian Orthodox Church advancing from the north and the Muslim expansion from the south and therefore be left in peace.
There is another point of similarity between the Karaim and Protestantism that has contributed to preserving their identity, namely, they worship in their own language, Karaim.
This language belongs to the Kipchak group of the Turkic-Altaic family and is closely related to the language of the Crimean Tatars.
Since Karaim was an isolated linguistic island surrounded by the Slavic languages of Russian, Polish and Lithuanian, it contains many old Turkic words that do not exist in the Turkic languages spoken today. Hence, Karaim is of special interest for comparative Turkic linguistics -- a Polish linguistic researcher has compared it to a fly encapsulated in a piece of amber.
Karaim since the 17th century:
After a visit to Lithuania in 1691, Professor Gustav Peringer from Uppsala University was the first to establish that Karaim belonged to the Turkic language group. One of the foremost experts on the Karaim language today is Eva Csato Johansson of Uppsala University.
The Karaim enjoyed their autonomy according to the Right of Magdeburg until the Third Division of Poland in the late 18th century, when they ended up in the Russian Empire. Half of the inhabitants of Trakai were Karaim. Their legal status changed. At first, they were lumped together with the Muslim Crimean Tatars. In 1863 however, they received the status of a religious minority of their own with a special high priest, or “hakhan,” for the western provinces of the Russian Empire.
During World War I the Karaim were evacuated to Russian towns, mainly to the Crimea. They were able to return in 1920 but found themselves divided between two nations, Lithuania and Poland, where Trakai was now situated. Families were split up and communications between the two communities became more difficult. However, the national feeling was strengthened by the growing nationalism in the resurrected Lithuanian and Polish nation states.
There were therefore extensive cultural activities going on during the inter-war period. A journal, “Karai Avazy” (Voice of the Karaim), was published as well as a historical and literary magazine, “Mysl Karaimska” (Karaim Thought), which contained texts in the Karaim language. Also a society of the friends of Karaim literature and history was founded.
When the German Wehrmacht ran into the Karaim in their thrust eastward, the latter denied any connection to Judaism. They had always repudiated any connection between Judaism and their religion, claiming instead that they were a distinctive religious community.
They were supported in this by Meir Balaban, a learned Jew from the Warsaw ghetto. He was forced by the Nazis to make an evaluation of the Karaim from a religious and racial point of view. Despite the fact that in his earlier publications he had always characterized the Karaim as a branch of Judaism, he now claimed the opposite to save them from the Holocaust.
The German National Socialist race researchers declared that the Karaim indeed belonged to a Jewish sect but at the same time established that they had no Jewish blood in their veins but were in fact Turkic Tatars. There was probably a political background to this ethnic determination. Hitler saw in the Crimean Tatars an ally against the Soviet Union, and since they regarded the Karaim as Tatars, their persecution or annihilation would have jeopardized their alliance plans.
After World War II the borders were again redrawn, and Trakai ended up in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania. The Karaim school was converted into an apartment building and the “kenesa” built in Vilnius during the period of Lithuanian independence became a warehouse.
The Karaim took an active part in the drive for Lithuania's independence. In May 1988 the Lithuanian Karaim Cultural Society was founded and an anthology of poetry and a prayer book were published in the Karaim language. In April 1992 the Karaim ethnic group was given special legal status as a religious minority having existed in Lithuania since the 14th century.
Spiritual life of the Karaim:
Trakai has now again become the center for the spiritual life of the Karaim. They come here to see the place to where King Vytautas Magnus, whose portrait is to be found in most Karaim homes, brought their ancestors, and to visit their “kenesa.” This is a square building with a copper roof. There are oriental rugs on the floor, and the men sit in the main nave while the women follow the divine service from a gallery separated from the nave by a wall from which only narrow slits provide a view of the altar.
Representatives of the small Karaim communities dispersed over Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the Crimea had a meeting in 1989 in this “kenesa.” Contacts have also been established with the small Karaim (Karait) communities in Israel, Istanbul and the United States. There exists, though, a fundamental dividing-line among them. While the East European Karaim emphasize the independent nature of their communion, the others consider themselves to be Karaim Jews. They regard their religion as being based on Judaism in the same way as Christianity is a religion based on Judaism.
In addition to the religion various old customs and traditions of the Turkic peoples in the Caucasus and Central Asia have played a major role in preserving the Karaim identity. These include, e.g., the wedding traditions with the bride's melodious and mournful farewell song “Muzhul Kielin” (The Sad Bride) and choosing the “ataman” (matrimonial agent) for the wedding, as well as the moral advice the community's elders, the “aksakals,” give about future married life and the song sung when the couple enters the shrine.
600 years in Trakai:
The 600th anniversary of the arrival of the Karaim in Trakai was celebrated in 1997. A detailed census of the Karaim in Lithuania was carried out in this connection. At that time there were 257 Karaims in Lithuania, 132 men and 125 women. Thirty-two of them were under 16, 139 lived in Vilnius, 65 in Trakai and 31 in Panevezys. Furthermore, there were 133 Karaim in Poland, living in Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw.
Eighty-two percent said that Karaim was their mother tongue but only 31 percent could speak the language and only 13 percent said they used it in both speech and writing. Over 60 percent spoke Lithuanian, Russian or Polish. Among young people under 16 only three spoke Karaim, a figure that must be seen in light of the fact that the number of Karaim in Lithuania was 423 in 1959 and 352 in 1979.
The future may, therefore, seem gloomy but bearing in mind the high level of education and strong awareness of their distinctive identity, the Karaim have better chances of surviving than some remnants of other peoples.
While 11 percent of the Lithuanian population had benefited from higher education, the figure for the Karaim was no less than 44 percent; 66 percent were in top posts in the administration, six had Ph.D.s and were employed in the newly independent Lithuania's Foreign Service. Two of the most important posts, the ambassadors in Moscow and Tallinn, were both held by Karaim.
The latter, Halina Kobeckaité, subsequently became the Lithuanian ambassador to Turkey, a post she left last year.
* Ingmar Karlsson is Sweden's consul general in Istanbul. The above lecture is part one of a lecture given by Karlsson at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul on Feb. 22, 2006. The second part, on Gagauz Turks, will appear in tomorrow's Turkish Daily News."
Thursday, March 16, 2006
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DOMESTIC
All News »
» Student fatally wounded in school brawl
» Şemdinli commission questioning victims
» Solar eclipse helps bird flu-struck Turkey lure back tourists
» Eclipse sweeps shadowy path across half the world
» Fears of post-eclipse quake send hundreds outdoors
» Mumcu threatens to leave the country
» Rioters face off with police as army moves in
» DOMESTIC NEWSLINE
Ingmar Karlsson*
In Trakai, Lithuania, opposite the island in Lake Galve, where the city's medieval castle stands, is a street with very special houses. They are all wooden and painted green and yellow, and each of them has three windows facing the street.
Here, for more than 600 years, one of Europe's most remarkable and distinctive minorities, the Karaim, has been living on “Karaimu Gatve,” or Karaimu Street.
Their history in Lithuania began when, after the war against the Mongolian Golden Horde in Crimea in 1397, the Polish-Lithuanian King Vytautas Magnus brought 380 Karaim families with him to his capital city of Trakai.
They were given the task of guarding the royal castle as the only access to it was across a bridge from the part of the city the Karaim were allotted. Initially they worked as castle guards. In 1441, they were granted the same rights as the citizens of Magdeburg -- known as the Right of Magdeburg by the Polish--Lithuanian King Kasimir IV. This could be viewed as a model of self-government at the time, and the purpose was to ensure that they would become permanent residents. The Karaims increasingly engaged in agriculture and horticulture, horse breeding and different handicrafts and gradually came to constitute a middle class between the aristocracy and the framers who tilled the soil.
The head of the Karaim was the elected “vaitas,” and he was their official representative in contacts with the Polish-Lithuanian kings. Their houses had three windows facing the street because this demonstrated wealth, while to have four windows was considered to be showy and conspicuous.
On Karaimu Gatve one also finds the only “kenesa” in Europe, the shrine where the Karaim practice the distinctive religion that has given them their identity.
The religion of the Karaim was founded in the eighth century in Baghdad by a man named Anan Ben David. He based his teachings on the written Torah and rejected the oral tradition reflected in Talmud literature.
Thus, according to him, God's pure and true words were only to be found in the Old Testament. He considered this interpretation to be a continuation of the old Jewish tradition and himself to be a successor to the Essenes of Qumran.
Everyone should closely study the Old Testament on his own and interpret the text according to his own ideas. “Thoroughly research the Torah and do not rely on my view” is a motto attributed to Anan Ben David. No believer was to follow rules the meaning of which he did not understand even after having read them carefully. Thus, the Old Testament should be interpreted individually and independently, without reference to authorities and with the Ten Commandments as the moral norms. According to some, this central message explains the name of the sect, and the word "karaim" is believed to derive from the Hebrew word “karaa,” to read, which may thus refer to the fact that they only accept the written word.
Both Christ and Mohammed are regarded as Karaim prophets, and the religion is also influenced by Muslim schools such as the Mutazilit school of philosophy and the Hanafi school of law.
The emphasis on the written word “sola scriptura,” which Marin Luther was to assert 800 years later in relation to Rome, caused German Protestants to regard the Karaim as forerunners of the Reformation.
When the Karaim center was moved from Baghdad to Jerusalem, the religion began spreading through missionary activities to the Turkic-speaking peoples on the Crimean peninsula and the steppes of the lower Volga region. The Khazars, the Kipchak-Kumans and the Polovts were converted to the new religion in the ninth century, the ulterior political motive perhaps being that they would then constitute a buffer zone between the Russian Orthodox Church advancing from the north and the Muslim expansion from the south and therefore be left in peace.
There is another point of similarity between the Karaim and Protestantism that has contributed to preserving their identity, namely, they worship in their own language, Karaim.
This language belongs to the Kipchak group of the Turkic-Altaic family and is closely related to the language of the Crimean Tatars.
Since Karaim was an isolated linguistic island surrounded by the Slavic languages of Russian, Polish and Lithuanian, it contains many old Turkic words that do not exist in the Turkic languages spoken today. Hence, Karaim is of special interest for comparative Turkic linguistics -- a Polish linguistic researcher has compared it to a fly encapsulated in a piece of amber.
Karaim since the 17th century:
After a visit to Lithuania in 1691, Professor Gustav Peringer from Uppsala University was the first to establish that Karaim belonged to the Turkic language group. One of the foremost experts on the Karaim language today is Eva Csato Johansson of Uppsala University.
The Karaim enjoyed their autonomy according to the Right of Magdeburg until the Third Division of Poland in the late 18th century, when they ended up in the Russian Empire. Half of the inhabitants of Trakai were Karaim. Their legal status changed. At first, they were lumped together with the Muslim Crimean Tatars. In 1863 however, they received the status of a religious minority of their own with a special high priest, or “hakhan,” for the western provinces of the Russian Empire.
During World War I the Karaim were evacuated to Russian towns, mainly to the Crimea. They were able to return in 1920 but found themselves divided between two nations, Lithuania and Poland, where Trakai was now situated. Families were split up and communications between the two communities became more difficult. However, the national feeling was strengthened by the growing nationalism in the resurrected Lithuanian and Polish nation states.
There were therefore extensive cultural activities going on during the inter-war period. A journal, “Karai Avazy” (Voice of the Karaim), was published as well as a historical and literary magazine, “Mysl Karaimska” (Karaim Thought), which contained texts in the Karaim language. Also a society of the friends of Karaim literature and history was founded.
When the German Wehrmacht ran into the Karaim in their thrust eastward, the latter denied any connection to Judaism. They had always repudiated any connection between Judaism and their religion, claiming instead that they were a distinctive religious community.
They were supported in this by Meir Balaban, a learned Jew from the Warsaw ghetto. He was forced by the Nazis to make an evaluation of the Karaim from a religious and racial point of view. Despite the fact that in his earlier publications he had always characterized the Karaim as a branch of Judaism, he now claimed the opposite to save them from the Holocaust.
The German National Socialist race researchers declared that the Karaim indeed belonged to a Jewish sect but at the same time established that they had no Jewish blood in their veins but were in fact Turkic Tatars. There was probably a political background to this ethnic determination. Hitler saw in the Crimean Tatars an ally against the Soviet Union, and since they regarded the Karaim as Tatars, their persecution or annihilation would have jeopardized their alliance plans.
After World War II the borders were again redrawn, and Trakai ended up in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania. The Karaim school was converted into an apartment building and the “kenesa” built in Vilnius during the period of Lithuanian independence became a warehouse.
The Karaim took an active part in the drive for Lithuania's independence. In May 1988 the Lithuanian Karaim Cultural Society was founded and an anthology of poetry and a prayer book were published in the Karaim language. In April 1992 the Karaim ethnic group was given special legal status as a religious minority having existed in Lithuania since the 14th century.
Spiritual life of the Karaim:
Trakai has now again become the center for the spiritual life of the Karaim. They come here to see the place to where King Vytautas Magnus, whose portrait is to be found in most Karaim homes, brought their ancestors, and to visit their “kenesa.” This is a square building with a copper roof. There are oriental rugs on the floor, and the men sit in the main nave while the women follow the divine service from a gallery separated from the nave by a wall from which only narrow slits provide a view of the altar.
Representatives of the small Karaim communities dispersed over Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the Crimea had a meeting in 1989 in this “kenesa.” Contacts have also been established with the small Karaim (Karait) communities in Israel, Istanbul and the United States. There exists, though, a fundamental dividing-line among them. While the East European Karaim emphasize the independent nature of their communion, the others consider themselves to be Karaim Jews. They regard their religion as being based on Judaism in the same way as Christianity is a religion based on Judaism.
In addition to the religion various old customs and traditions of the Turkic peoples in the Caucasus and Central Asia have played a major role in preserving the Karaim identity. These include, e.g., the wedding traditions with the bride's melodious and mournful farewell song “Muzhul Kielin” (The Sad Bride) and choosing the “ataman” (matrimonial agent) for the wedding, as well as the moral advice the community's elders, the “aksakals,” give about future married life and the song sung when the couple enters the shrine.
600 years in Trakai:
The 600th anniversary of the arrival of the Karaim in Trakai was celebrated in 1997. A detailed census of the Karaim in Lithuania was carried out in this connection. At that time there were 257 Karaims in Lithuania, 132 men and 125 women. Thirty-two of them were under 16, 139 lived in Vilnius, 65 in Trakai and 31 in Panevezys. Furthermore, there were 133 Karaim in Poland, living in Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw.
Eighty-two percent said that Karaim was their mother tongue but only 31 percent could speak the language and only 13 percent said they used it in both speech and writing. Over 60 percent spoke Lithuanian, Russian or Polish. Among young people under 16 only three spoke Karaim, a figure that must be seen in light of the fact that the number of Karaim in Lithuania was 423 in 1959 and 352 in 1979.
The future may, therefore, seem gloomy but bearing in mind the high level of education and strong awareness of their distinctive identity, the Karaim have better chances of surviving than some remnants of other peoples.
While 11 percent of the Lithuanian population had benefited from higher education, the figure for the Karaim was no less than 44 percent; 66 percent were in top posts in the administration, six had Ph.D.s and were employed in the newly independent Lithuania's Foreign Service. Two of the most important posts, the ambassadors in Moscow and Tallinn, were both held by Karaim.
The latter, Halina Kobeckaité, subsequently became the Lithuanian ambassador to Turkey, a post she left last year.
* Ingmar Karlsson is Sweden's consul general in Istanbul. The above lecture is part one of a lecture given by Karlsson at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul on Feb. 22, 2006. The second part, on Gagauz Turks, will appear in tomorrow's Turkish Daily News."
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Good looks at Textile Museum�-�Entertainment�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Good looks at Textile Museum�-�Entertainment�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "Good looks at Textile Museum
October 24, 2005
Perhaps only at a Textile Museum gala would patrons and guests applaud the flower arrangements as well as the evening's honoree.
Supporters of that institution's formally-titled Tribute Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Thursday are inclined by nature to be appreciative of good aesthetics in any form. So cheering dramatically-arranged orchid displays went right along with toasts of port (not champagne) to New York-based textile designer and collector Jack Lenor Larsen, recipient of the newly-created George Hewitt Myers Award given in honor of the museum's founder.
More surprising was the fact that the occasion was the museum's first-ever fundraising gala in its 80-year history. In many Washingtonians' minds, it is "the little museum that could" -- one of the capital's often overlooked treasures suffering from an out-of-the-way location and a cramped physical space. Mr. Larsen, an honorary trustee known worldwide for his signature fabrics, called it "the only real textile museum in the Americas."
"It's a heroically important organization," said trustee Bevis Longstreth, author of a novel called "The Spindle and Bow" ("about the oldest pile rug in the world"), who came from New York for the dinner. Joan Mondale, a potter and wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale, flew in from Minneapolis where she has established that city's Textile Center. "Textiles and clay work together," she noted.
Famed furniture designer Sam Maloof, who flew in from Los Angeles, recalled when he traveled 30 years ago to Afghanistan with Mr. Larsen. (Their American hostess at the time, who was present Thursday, reacquainted herself with both men.) "I made a chair for his house," the artfully attired craftsman volunteered.
An Asian theme rightly dominated -- heralding the museum's latest exhibit on "Rozome Masters of Japan" and an accompanying weekend symposium on "Japanese Style and the Culture of Cloth."
"I'm the new guy in town," announced the museum's director, Daniel Walker, who arrived in May from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he headed the Islamic Art Department. That definitely was no surprise to the audience, many of whom spoke of him as the embodiment of new vigor and vision at the historic institution on S Street Northwest.
-- Ann Geracimos"
October 24, 2005
Perhaps only at a Textile Museum gala would patrons and guests applaud the flower arrangements as well as the evening's honoree.
Supporters of that institution's formally-titled Tribute Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Thursday are inclined by nature to be appreciative of good aesthetics in any form. So cheering dramatically-arranged orchid displays went right along with toasts of port (not champagne) to New York-based textile designer and collector Jack Lenor Larsen, recipient of the newly-created George Hewitt Myers Award given in honor of the museum's founder.
More surprising was the fact that the occasion was the museum's first-ever fundraising gala in its 80-year history. In many Washingtonians' minds, it is "the little museum that could" -- one of the capital's often overlooked treasures suffering from an out-of-the-way location and a cramped physical space. Mr. Larsen, an honorary trustee known worldwide for his signature fabrics, called it "the only real textile museum in the Americas."
"It's a heroically important organization," said trustee Bevis Longstreth, author of a novel called "The Spindle and Bow" ("about the oldest pile rug in the world"), who came from New York for the dinner. Joan Mondale, a potter and wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale, flew in from Minneapolis where she has established that city's Textile Center. "Textiles and clay work together," she noted.
Famed furniture designer Sam Maloof, who flew in from Los Angeles, recalled when he traveled 30 years ago to Afghanistan with Mr. Larsen. (Their American hostess at the time, who was present Thursday, reacquainted herself with both men.) "I made a chair for his house," the artfully attired craftsman volunteered.
An Asian theme rightly dominated -- heralding the museum's latest exhibit on "Rozome Masters of Japan" and an accompanying weekend symposium on "Japanese Style and the Culture of Cloth."
"I'm the new guy in town," announced the museum's director, Daniel Walker, who arrived in May from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he headed the Islamic Art Department. That definitely was no surprise to the audience, many of whom spoke of him as the embodiment of new vigor and vision at the historic institution on S Street Northwest.
-- Ann Geracimos"
Peter Pap - Antiques Roadshow/Tips of the Trade: Tips on buying an antique rug
Antiques Roadshow/Tips of the Trade: Tips on buying an antique rug: "
Appraiser Peter Pap inspects Susan's Hereke prayer rug at the Hot Springs ROADSHOW.
In Hot Springs, Arkansas, a woman named Susan discussed two oriental rugs that her grandparents had bought in 1931 for the exact same price: $2,000. One of the rugs, a very large Serapi, was woven in the late 19th century in northwest Persia, present-day Iran. In a little over 100 years this rug has appreciated twentyfold, to a retail value of $40,000. However, the other rug, a small Turkish Hereke prayer rug, has appreciated to only $6,000, which means its worth hasn't even kept pace with inflation.
What happened? Why does one old oriental rug soar in value over the years, while another one, just as old, stagnates in value?
We took these questions to Peter Pap, the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW rug expert who evaluated the two Hot Springs rugs. He says the differential in the appreciation of these two rugs, and of oriental rugs in general, is closely related to each rug's respective quality. He's quick to add, though, that the worth of a rug at any given time is also tied to cycles of the market and trends in people's taste.
The popularity of Turkish prayer rugs in the early 1900s spawned many copies, of which this is an example.
"What happens to the value of an oriental rug over time is in many ways no different than what happens to any antique or collectible," Peter says. "Supply and demand, and the effects of fashion, play major roles." Susan's two rugs serve as prime examples.
First, Authenticity
Older Hereke rugs — and other Turkish prayer rugs similar to the one Susan showed in Hot Springs — were in great demand during the first few decades of the 1900s, Peter says. This fact inflated their value at the time. The keen market in turn inspired ever more exaggerated sales pitches — a factor Peter says likely played a part in the grandparents' purchase.
The original paperwork from the interior designer who sold the Hereke rug lists it as a "semi-antique," a term used to refer to objects that are more than 50 years old, but not yet 100 years old — the minimum age for a bona fide "antique." But Peter says that this rug was not in fact a late 19th-century specimen; rather, it was a copy made no more than 20 years before Susan's grandparents purchased it.
"They were definitely misled, and they overpaid for the prayer rug," Peter says.
The rug's value is diminished by its poor-quality red dye, which has bled into the lighter colors over time.
Quality Matters
Quality of craftsmanship — or lack of it — has also played a role in the Hereke's lackluster appreciation in value. The red dye used in the pattern was of poor quality and has bled into the rug's lighter colors. Peter also notes that the rug is not actually made of silk, as was claimed, but instead is woven from treated cotton.
On the other hand there is the second rug, a Serapi, which Peter spotted in a photograph that Susan showed him of the St. Louis penthouse that her grandparents lived in. But how can Peter tell from the picture that this rug is a winner? Serapis, he explains, only started being made in the last quarter of the 19th century; in the 1930s, this type of rug hadn't been around long enough, nor become popular enough, for rug makers to begin producing copies for sale. That's why Peter doesn't have misgivings about its authenticity. And Susan reports that the Serapi is still in excellent condition. A wealthy collector, her grandfather even built a special museum-like room in St. Louis to house his rugs. So Peter feels comfortable that his $40,000 estimate is accurate provided the Serapi has continued to be well cared for.
"While large Persian carpets with primitive geometric designs were relatively inexpensive at the time this was bought, they are now one of the most desirable types," Pap says.
So the first — unsurprising — lesson illustrated by Susan's two rugs is that quality matters in oriental rugs. But what may be a more important lesson, even for collectors of fine hand-made oriental carpets, is that the market is fickle.
Susan's much more valuable Serapi rug can be seen in this old photo of her grandfather's St. Louis penthouse.
Fickle Market
Peter says that in the 1950s, oriental rugs lost their allure when buyers began to develop a preference for the color beige, as well as for wall-to-wall carpeting. Peter knows old-timers in the antiques business who had to dump the oriental rugs they bought as parts of complete estates. "One of my mentors in the business would drive from Washington in his Volkswagen Beetle to New England with $200 and be able to fill the car with antique rugs purchased at antiques shops," Peter says.
In the 1950s and 1960s for about $500 you could purchase a 9x12-foot Persian Bidjar carpet made in 1920. That same rug, if kept in good condition, is worth about $10,000 today.
Prices for Turkoman tribal rugs and saddlebags, however, which collectors eagerly sought in the 1970s, have moved in the other direction over the last 10 years. "Now collectors are only looking for the masterpieces to round out their collections," Peter says. "And there isn't a second wave of younger collectors to support the entry-level pieces, so the prices have dropped in value."
In addition to changing patterns of demand, changes in the supply of oriental rugs have also affected the prices of mid-century rugs. As part of the renaissance in oriental rugs over the last 20 years, rug makers have begun to use quality natural dyes again and have created vibrant designs that borrow from 19th-century patterns.
"These rugs now make many of the semi-antique rugs look stiff in design and have caused that market to come down in price," Peter explains. "Any rugs whose designs and colors evolved to meet current taste in the West after World War II are bound to experience drops in demand and therefore price."
So perhaps the ultimate lesson in all these up-and-down swings is to buy what you like and treasure what you have. "Investment should not be your number-one requirement with a rug," Peter says. "An oriental rug, if it's cared for, will last a hundred years or more. You don't want to discount the value of something that can be used for a lifetime."
Editor's note: This article was updated on November 10, 2003, to correct a reporting error, which stated that the making of Serapi rugs started in the first decade of the 1900s. In fact, as Peter Pap explained, Serapi rugs were made beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century."
Appraiser Peter Pap inspects Susan's Hereke prayer rug at the Hot Springs ROADSHOW.
In Hot Springs, Arkansas, a woman named Susan discussed two oriental rugs that her grandparents had bought in 1931 for the exact same price: $2,000. One of the rugs, a very large Serapi, was woven in the late 19th century in northwest Persia, present-day Iran. In a little over 100 years this rug has appreciated twentyfold, to a retail value of $40,000. However, the other rug, a small Turkish Hereke prayer rug, has appreciated to only $6,000, which means its worth hasn't even kept pace with inflation.
What happened? Why does one old oriental rug soar in value over the years, while another one, just as old, stagnates in value?
We took these questions to Peter Pap, the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW rug expert who evaluated the two Hot Springs rugs. He says the differential in the appreciation of these two rugs, and of oriental rugs in general, is closely related to each rug's respective quality. He's quick to add, though, that the worth of a rug at any given time is also tied to cycles of the market and trends in people's taste.
The popularity of Turkish prayer rugs in the early 1900s spawned many copies, of which this is an example.
"What happens to the value of an oriental rug over time is in many ways no different than what happens to any antique or collectible," Peter says. "Supply and demand, and the effects of fashion, play major roles." Susan's two rugs serve as prime examples.
First, Authenticity
Older Hereke rugs — and other Turkish prayer rugs similar to the one Susan showed in Hot Springs — were in great demand during the first few decades of the 1900s, Peter says. This fact inflated their value at the time. The keen market in turn inspired ever more exaggerated sales pitches — a factor Peter says likely played a part in the grandparents' purchase.
The original paperwork from the interior designer who sold the Hereke rug lists it as a "semi-antique," a term used to refer to objects that are more than 50 years old, but not yet 100 years old — the minimum age for a bona fide "antique." But Peter says that this rug was not in fact a late 19th-century specimen; rather, it was a copy made no more than 20 years before Susan's grandparents purchased it.
"They were definitely misled, and they overpaid for the prayer rug," Peter says.
The rug's value is diminished by its poor-quality red dye, which has bled into the lighter colors over time.
Quality Matters
Quality of craftsmanship — or lack of it — has also played a role in the Hereke's lackluster appreciation in value. The red dye used in the pattern was of poor quality and has bled into the rug's lighter colors. Peter also notes that the rug is not actually made of silk, as was claimed, but instead is woven from treated cotton.
On the other hand there is the second rug, a Serapi, which Peter spotted in a photograph that Susan showed him of the St. Louis penthouse that her grandparents lived in. But how can Peter tell from the picture that this rug is a winner? Serapis, he explains, only started being made in the last quarter of the 19th century; in the 1930s, this type of rug hadn't been around long enough, nor become popular enough, for rug makers to begin producing copies for sale. That's why Peter doesn't have misgivings about its authenticity. And Susan reports that the Serapi is still in excellent condition. A wealthy collector, her grandfather even built a special museum-like room in St. Louis to house his rugs. So Peter feels comfortable that his $40,000 estimate is accurate provided the Serapi has continued to be well cared for.
"While large Persian carpets with primitive geometric designs were relatively inexpensive at the time this was bought, they are now one of the most desirable types," Pap says.
So the first — unsurprising — lesson illustrated by Susan's two rugs is that quality matters in oriental rugs. But what may be a more important lesson, even for collectors of fine hand-made oriental carpets, is that the market is fickle.
Susan's much more valuable Serapi rug can be seen in this old photo of her grandfather's St. Louis penthouse.
Fickle Market
Peter says that in the 1950s, oriental rugs lost their allure when buyers began to develop a preference for the color beige, as well as for wall-to-wall carpeting. Peter knows old-timers in the antiques business who had to dump the oriental rugs they bought as parts of complete estates. "One of my mentors in the business would drive from Washington in his Volkswagen Beetle to New England with $200 and be able to fill the car with antique rugs purchased at antiques shops," Peter says.
In the 1950s and 1960s for about $500 you could purchase a 9x12-foot Persian Bidjar carpet made in 1920. That same rug, if kept in good condition, is worth about $10,000 today.
Prices for Turkoman tribal rugs and saddlebags, however, which collectors eagerly sought in the 1970s, have moved in the other direction over the last 10 years. "Now collectors are only looking for the masterpieces to round out their collections," Peter says. "And there isn't a second wave of younger collectors to support the entry-level pieces, so the prices have dropped in value."
In addition to changing patterns of demand, changes in the supply of oriental rugs have also affected the prices of mid-century rugs. As part of the renaissance in oriental rugs over the last 20 years, rug makers have begun to use quality natural dyes again and have created vibrant designs that borrow from 19th-century patterns.
"These rugs now make many of the semi-antique rugs look stiff in design and have caused that market to come down in price," Peter explains. "Any rugs whose designs and colors evolved to meet current taste in the West after World War II are bound to experience drops in demand and therefore price."
So perhaps the ultimate lesson in all these up-and-down swings is to buy what you like and treasure what you have. "Investment should not be your number-one requirement with a rug," Peter says. "An oriental rug, if it's cared for, will last a hundred years or more. You don't want to discount the value of something that can be used for a lifetime."
Editor's note: This article was updated on November 10, 2003, to correct a reporting error, which stated that the making of Serapi rugs started in the first decade of the 1900s. In fact, as Peter Pap explained, Serapi rugs were made beginning in the last quarter of the 19th century."
Peter Pap at the NY Winter Antiques Show
HALI.com: "Indian Winter
Deccani carpet, south-central India, 18th century. 1.19 x 1.42m (3'11" x 6'6"). Peter Pap at the NY Winter Antiques Show.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The prestigious New York Winter Antiques show, which opens on Thursday 19th January 2006 at the Park Avenue Armory (until Sunday 29th), is an annual showcase for leading US antique oriental carpet dealer Peter Pap (Dublin NH & San Francisco), at which he regularly represents rugs of beauty and historical significance.
Included in this year's show is an 18th century Deccani carpet, acquired in Japan, of the same general type of Indian export weaving as can be seen adorning some of the floats during Kyoto's annual Gion Matsuri festival. However, this rug can be sourced to a private Japanese collection rather than guild holdings, and is a previously unrecorded example of the type.
Non-Mughal Indian carpets from the Deccan are still quite difficult to identify or to distinguish from better known north Indian carpets, primarily because the process of describing them, 'defining their terms', both aesthetically and technically, is not yet complete. Imperial British Gazetteers from the turn of the 19th century mention an oral tradition which tells of carpet production in the south-central plateau of the Indian subcontinent, the Deccan, which was supposedly active in the 16th century, but if any of those carpets have survived, we would probably not yet be able to recognise them with any certainty. Black and white photographic images of late 19th carpets from traditional south Indian carpet centers such as Warangal, Ellore, Masulipatanam and Ayyampet do appear in a few of the early surveys, but, again, no structural information accompanied those images nor are we certain of their colours.
Until recently, almost the only physical evidence of earlier Deccani carpet production was a series of fairly coarse multiple-niche prayer rugs in museums such as London's Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as two or three odd carpets which had been collected in India in the late 19th century and which were reported at the time to have been made in one of the traditional Deccani carpet weaving centres. The other major sources of early Deccani carpets, private collections in Japan, were almost entirely unknown.
A survey of carpets used in the annual Gion festival in Kyoto, undertaken in 1990 by Nobuko Kajitani and Daniel Walker, was published in both English and Japanese and as a result, our present understanding of a wider range of Deccani carpets produced in the late 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries specifically for the Japanese export market, has expanded greatly.
Structurally, some Deccani carpets which are documented to have been in Japanese collections since the 18th century more closely resemble Iranian models (so-called Esfahan carpets) with Z4S white cotton warps and less alternate warp displacement than found in most north Indian Mughal carpets. But at the same time, they exhibit those two typically Mughal design characteristics: a fondness for ton-sur-ton colouring and an almost promiscuous display of racemes. These are definitely Indian carpets, but not from the north. Other 18th century Deccani specimens in Japan exhibit structures identical to standard north Indian Mughal carpets with Z6-8S white cotton warps, but their designs are so odd that they too must be Deccani variants.
The Pap carpet, accompanied by ample evidence supporting its 18th century date, including a meticulously labelled wooden storage box, is one of those structurally ambiguous examples. Measuring 1.19 x 1.42m (3'11" x 6'6"), its multiple-stranded warps could belong to a north Indian carpet, while its brown wefts and moderate alternate warp depression are features more suggestive of Deccani weaving.
Both the border and central field designs can be found on 17th century north Indian carpets, but here their scale has been altered, displaying a relative lack of design sophistication more often encountered on Deccani carpets. A section of a balanced, symmetrical large-scale floral arabesque field design intended for a much larger carpet has been used to fill the central field of this smaller carpet. In order to accommodate the border to border repeat, the design has been turned at right angles to the weave. This is indicative of 18th century commercial production, as is the fairly coarse knotting.
The Kyoto carpet is charming, with bright colours and a naïve appeal, and it is obviously of historical importance. Two 18th century carpets illustrated in Kajitani and Yoshida's 1992 Japanese catalogue of carpets in Kyoto exhibit quite similar central field designs (nos.19 & 20), while the border of no.33 is very close to the border of the Pap carpet, although structurally, we are told that no.33 has blue, rather than brown, cotton wefts.
Also included in Pap's Armory display is another 17th/18th century carpet, arguably of Indian origin, and certainly with an 'Indian' design, but which has been the subject of much to-and-fro theorising over the years. First tentatively attributed to northwest Persia in 1988 in an article by Ian Bennett published in Weltkunst, it later appeared in Alberto Levi's 1993 article on 'Proto-Kurdish' weaving (HALI 70, p.88, fig.50). Later the same year it came up for auction in the Jon Thompson sale at Sotheby's in New York (lot 79), equally tentatively assigned to 17th century India, although at the time HALI preferred to persist with a probable northwest Persian attribution (HALI 73, p.134). Then, in the 1997 Metropolitan Museum catalogue Flowers Underfoot, Daniel Walker cited it as one of two possible symmetrically-knotted Indian relatives of the 'Kyoto' group, the other being a fragment advertised by Jeremy Pine in HALI 78 (p.56).
1.
IMAGE DETAILS
1. Indian or northwest Persian Carpet, 17th/18th century. 1.50 x 3.48m (4'11" x 11'5"). Peter Pap at the NY Winter Antiques Show "
Deccani carpet, south-central India, 18th century. 1.19 x 1.42m (3'11" x 6'6"). Peter Pap at the NY Winter Antiques Show.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
The prestigious New York Winter Antiques show, which opens on Thursday 19th January 2006 at the Park Avenue Armory (until Sunday 29th), is an annual showcase for leading US antique oriental carpet dealer Peter Pap (Dublin NH & San Francisco), at which he regularly represents rugs of beauty and historical significance.
Included in this year's show is an 18th century Deccani carpet, acquired in Japan, of the same general type of Indian export weaving as can be seen adorning some of the floats during Kyoto's annual Gion Matsuri festival. However, this rug can be sourced to a private Japanese collection rather than guild holdings, and is a previously unrecorded example of the type.
Non-Mughal Indian carpets from the Deccan are still quite difficult to identify or to distinguish from better known north Indian carpets, primarily because the process of describing them, 'defining their terms', both aesthetically and technically, is not yet complete. Imperial British Gazetteers from the turn of the 19th century mention an oral tradition which tells of carpet production in the south-central plateau of the Indian subcontinent, the Deccan, which was supposedly active in the 16th century, but if any of those carpets have survived, we would probably not yet be able to recognise them with any certainty. Black and white photographic images of late 19th carpets from traditional south Indian carpet centers such as Warangal, Ellore, Masulipatanam and Ayyampet do appear in a few of the early surveys, but, again, no structural information accompanied those images nor are we certain of their colours.
Until recently, almost the only physical evidence of earlier Deccani carpet production was a series of fairly coarse multiple-niche prayer rugs in museums such as London's Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as two or three odd carpets which had been collected in India in the late 19th century and which were reported at the time to have been made in one of the traditional Deccani carpet weaving centres. The other major sources of early Deccani carpets, private collections in Japan, were almost entirely unknown.
A survey of carpets used in the annual Gion festival in Kyoto, undertaken in 1990 by Nobuko Kajitani and Daniel Walker, was published in both English and Japanese and as a result, our present understanding of a wider range of Deccani carpets produced in the late 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries specifically for the Japanese export market, has expanded greatly.
Structurally, some Deccani carpets which are documented to have been in Japanese collections since the 18th century more closely resemble Iranian models (so-called Esfahan carpets) with Z4S white cotton warps and less alternate warp displacement than found in most north Indian Mughal carpets. But at the same time, they exhibit those two typically Mughal design characteristics: a fondness for ton-sur-ton colouring and an almost promiscuous display of racemes. These are definitely Indian carpets, but not from the north. Other 18th century Deccani specimens in Japan exhibit structures identical to standard north Indian Mughal carpets with Z6-8S white cotton warps, but their designs are so odd that they too must be Deccani variants.
The Pap carpet, accompanied by ample evidence supporting its 18th century date, including a meticulously labelled wooden storage box, is one of those structurally ambiguous examples. Measuring 1.19 x 1.42m (3'11" x 6'6"), its multiple-stranded warps could belong to a north Indian carpet, while its brown wefts and moderate alternate warp depression are features more suggestive of Deccani weaving.
Both the border and central field designs can be found on 17th century north Indian carpets, but here their scale has been altered, displaying a relative lack of design sophistication more often encountered on Deccani carpets. A section of a balanced, symmetrical large-scale floral arabesque field design intended for a much larger carpet has been used to fill the central field of this smaller carpet. In order to accommodate the border to border repeat, the design has been turned at right angles to the weave. This is indicative of 18th century commercial production, as is the fairly coarse knotting.
The Kyoto carpet is charming, with bright colours and a naïve appeal, and it is obviously of historical importance. Two 18th century carpets illustrated in Kajitani and Yoshida's 1992 Japanese catalogue of carpets in Kyoto exhibit quite similar central field designs (nos.19 & 20), while the border of no.33 is very close to the border of the Pap carpet, although structurally, we are told that no.33 has blue, rather than brown, cotton wefts.
Also included in Pap's Armory display is another 17th/18th century carpet, arguably of Indian origin, and certainly with an 'Indian' design, but which has been the subject of much to-and-fro theorising over the years. First tentatively attributed to northwest Persia in 1988 in an article by Ian Bennett published in Weltkunst, it later appeared in Alberto Levi's 1993 article on 'Proto-Kurdish' weaving (HALI 70, p.88, fig.50). Later the same year it came up for auction in the Jon Thompson sale at Sotheby's in New York (lot 79), equally tentatively assigned to 17th century India, although at the time HALI preferred to persist with a probable northwest Persian attribution (HALI 73, p.134). Then, in the 1997 Metropolitan Museum catalogue Flowers Underfoot, Daniel Walker cited it as one of two possible symmetrically-knotted Indian relatives of the 'Kyoto' group, the other being a fragment advertised by Jeremy Pine in HALI 78 (p.56).
1.
IMAGE DETAILS
1. Indian or northwest Persian Carpet, 17th/18th century. 1.50 x 3.48m (4'11" x 11'5"). Peter Pap at the NY Winter Antiques Show "
Monday, March 20, 2006
Research Paper Summaries Ittig, Annette Louise
Research Paper Summaries: "Ittig, Annette Louise
A catalogue of twentieth century coffee house paintings in the collection of Her Imperial Majesty Farah, Shabanu of Iran. [Toronto]: c 1977.
[vii], 202 leaves, illus.; bibl. (pp 29-35).
M. Museol. thesis, University of Toronto.
Introduction (pp 1-28) traces the historical background and stylistic ancestry of the paintings in this collection, stored in the Negarestan Museums ince 1975. The catalogue follows (pp 35 to 202); it is divided into two parts : iconography based on literary themes, and iconography derived from religious subjects. "
A catalogue of twentieth century coffee house paintings in the collection of Her Imperial Majesty Farah, Shabanu of Iran. [Toronto]: c 1977.
[vii], 202 leaves, illus.; bibl. (pp 29-35).
M. Museol. thesis, University of Toronto.
Introduction (pp 1-28) traces the historical background and stylistic ancestry of the paintings in this collection, stored in the Negarestan Museums ince 1975. The catalogue follows (pp 35 to 202); it is divided into two parts : iconography based on literary themes, and iconography derived from religious subjects. "
Canadian International Policy :: Dr. Annette Ittig
Canadian International Policy :: Library :: Publications :: Canada - Asia Pacific Relations: "Annette Ittiq (Consultant)
Dr. Annette Ittig is an area specialist and international development practitioner with extensive project management experience in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. She has worked with several UN and international NGOs in both Taliban and Northern Alliance Afghanistan, including assignments with UNICEF, the World Food Programme, UNOCHA, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and the International Rescue Committee. These missions have variously involved refugee, returnee and IDP programming and program evaluation; microenterprise development; post-disaster relief and reconstruction; human rights (Western and Islamic) and IHL. Dr. Ittig's most recent assignment in Afghanistan was as the Principal Researcher for the 2001 World Bank/UNDP Afghanistan watching brief on remittances. Each of these missions has involved extensive interaction with local communities, including male and female civil society groups. Dr. Ittig holds her Ph.D. from University of Oxford, England. She is currently under contract to the Pakistan/Afghanistan Division, Asia Branch of CIDA."
Dr. Annette Ittig is an area specialist and international development practitioner with extensive project management experience in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. She has worked with several UN and international NGOs in both Taliban and Northern Alliance Afghanistan, including assignments with UNICEF, the World Food Programme, UNOCHA, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and the International Rescue Committee. These missions have variously involved refugee, returnee and IDP programming and program evaluation; microenterprise development; post-disaster relief and reconstruction; human rights (Western and Islamic) and IHL. Dr. Ittig's most recent assignment in Afghanistan was as the Principal Researcher for the 2001 World Bank/UNDP Afghanistan watching brief on remittances. Each of these missions has involved extensive interaction with local communities, including male and female civil society groups. Dr. Ittig holds her Ph.D. from University of Oxford, England. She is currently under contract to the Pakistan/Afghanistan Division, Asia Branch of CIDA."
Sunday, March 19, 2006
e-cmes Alumni Voices: Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
e-cmes Alumni Voices: Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections: "February 16, 2006HOME >> ALUMNI VOICES
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
by John Gault
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, the widely respected energy analyst, author, educator, consultant, and graduate of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), died in March 2005 after a long illness.
I first met Tom in the autumn of 1967 at Harvard. Basim Musallam introduced us. Tom was at the time a research fellow at the Center who was completing his Ph.D. dissertation, doing research on the petroleum industry, and teaching courses on Middle East economics. At 32 years old, Tom joked that he was a perpetual student who might never complete his dissertation. Tom's office was in the suite of his (and my) mentor, Prof. A. J. Meyer, Associate Director of the Center, then located at 1737 Cambridge Street.
Tom completed his brilliant dissertation in 1971 and, almost simultaneously, developed and introduced the now standard methods of analysis of petroleum fiscal regimes. Tom and A.J. Meyer were instrumental in creating and expanding Harvard¹s oil and energy seminar which became one of the most popular courses in the wake of the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979.
But Tom was far more than a superb economic analyst and inspiring teacher. Tom had an abiding interest in the culture and traditions of the Middle East. In the 1960s, he and his wife Ilse traveled with the Qashqai nomads and made several films about their lifestyle and rug-making. (Tom later donated these films to the Smithsonian Institution.)
Tom became one of the advisors of my own doctoral dissertation and I was privileged to work with him on a number of interesting assignments, in addition to serving as his teaching assistant in several courses. Over the years we collaborated on issues related to natural gas pricing and rationing
in the United States, the design and negotiation of a new type of production sharing agreement, inter-fuel competition, and the optimal design of petroleum fiscal systems.
By the 1980s, I had moved from Boston to Geneva while Tom had taken up a teaching position at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. We visited each other often during this fruitful period. I discovered the countryside around Vienna with Tom and his family, while Tom accompanied me on a number of hiking and cross-country ski expeditions in the mountains near Geneva. Later, after Tom and his family had moved to Washington, DC, we continued to meet on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tom's prodigious professional writings spanned such subjects as the measurement of corporate rates-of-return; the economics of gas-based industrialization in the Gulf; the impact of tax systems on oil exploration incentives; the effects of tariff designs on pipeline economics; the politics of water in the Middle East; and the economic cost to the United States of its Middle East policies.
Some of Dr. Stauffer's writings reflected his frequent involvement as an expert in arbitrations. Among his oft-cited papers are those dealing with risk and hydrocarbon property evaluation; regression models and their limitations in litigation; and the valuation of expropriated assets.
Tom was a good friend of OPEC and an advisor to the oil ministers of several member countries. OPEC invited Tom to speak frequently at its secretariat in Vienna, and awarded Tom a prize for his career accomplishments at the OPEC Seminar in autumn 2004.
Dr. Stauffer was also a serious stamp collector with an odd specialization: stamps overprinted and re-issued by occupation forces or revolutionary regimes, particularly in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Central Asia.
I cannot close without emphasizing the irrepressible curiosity and the indefatigable good humor which were essential parts of Tom's personality.
At a memorial service in Washington in June 2005 I recounted how Tom had introduced me to the Belgian cartoon character and boy journalist Tintin. Some of our shared adventures in Latin America and the Middle East were quite Tintin-esque, including a narrow escape from a revolution reminiscent
of "Tintin et les Picaros".
Like Tintin, Tom had eclectic interests, was always ready for a new adventure, clearly saw through the pompous posturing of politicians and ideologues, and took risks to set the record straight.
Dr. Stauffer is survived by his wife, three children and one grandson.
John Gault (PhD '75) is an independent consultant on energy economics based in Geneva."
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
by John Gault
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, the widely respected energy analyst, author, educator, consultant, and graduate of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), died in March 2005 after a long illness.
I first met Tom in the autumn of 1967 at Harvard. Basim Musallam introduced us. Tom was at the time a research fellow at the Center who was completing his Ph.D. dissertation, doing research on the petroleum industry, and teaching courses on Middle East economics. At 32 years old, Tom joked that he was a perpetual student who might never complete his dissertation. Tom's office was in the suite of his (and my) mentor, Prof. A. J. Meyer, Associate Director of the Center, then located at 1737 Cambridge Street.
Tom completed his brilliant dissertation in 1971 and, almost simultaneously, developed and introduced the now standard methods of analysis of petroleum fiscal regimes. Tom and A.J. Meyer were instrumental in creating and expanding Harvard¹s oil and energy seminar which became one of the most popular courses in the wake of the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979.
But Tom was far more than a superb economic analyst and inspiring teacher. Tom had an abiding interest in the culture and traditions of the Middle East. In the 1960s, he and his wife Ilse traveled with the Qashqai nomads and made several films about their lifestyle and rug-making. (Tom later donated these films to the Smithsonian Institution.)
Tom became one of the advisors of my own doctoral dissertation and I was privileged to work with him on a number of interesting assignments, in addition to serving as his teaching assistant in several courses. Over the years we collaborated on issues related to natural gas pricing and rationing
in the United States, the design and negotiation of a new type of production sharing agreement, inter-fuel competition, and the optimal design of petroleum fiscal systems.
By the 1980s, I had moved from Boston to Geneva while Tom had taken up a teaching position at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. We visited each other often during this fruitful period. I discovered the countryside around Vienna with Tom and his family, while Tom accompanied me on a number of hiking and cross-country ski expeditions in the mountains near Geneva. Later, after Tom and his family had moved to Washington, DC, we continued to meet on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tom's prodigious professional writings spanned such subjects as the measurement of corporate rates-of-return; the economics of gas-based industrialization in the Gulf; the impact of tax systems on oil exploration incentives; the effects of tariff designs on pipeline economics; the politics of water in the Middle East; and the economic cost to the United States of its Middle East policies.
Some of Dr. Stauffer's writings reflected his frequent involvement as an expert in arbitrations. Among his oft-cited papers are those dealing with risk and hydrocarbon property evaluation; regression models and their limitations in litigation; and the valuation of expropriated assets.
Tom was a good friend of OPEC and an advisor to the oil ministers of several member countries. OPEC invited Tom to speak frequently at its secretariat in Vienna, and awarded Tom a prize for his career accomplishments at the OPEC Seminar in autumn 2004.
Dr. Stauffer was also a serious stamp collector with an odd specialization: stamps overprinted and re-issued by occupation forces or revolutionary regimes, particularly in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Central Asia.
I cannot close without emphasizing the irrepressible curiosity and the indefatigable good humor which were essential parts of Tom's personality.
At a memorial service in Washington in June 2005 I recounted how Tom had introduced me to the Belgian cartoon character and boy journalist Tintin. Some of our shared adventures in Latin America and the Middle East were quite Tintin-esque, including a narrow escape from a revolution reminiscent
of "Tintin et les Picaros".
Like Tintin, Tom had eclectic interests, was always ready for a new adventure, clearly saw through the pompous posturing of politicians and ideologues, and took risks to set the record straight.
Dr. Stauffer is survived by his wife, three children and one grandson.
John Gault (PhD '75) is an independent consultant on energy economics based in Geneva."
e-cmes Alumni Voices: Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
e-cmes Alumni Voices: Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections: "February 16, 2006HOME >> ALUMNI VOICES
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
by John Gault
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, the widely respected energy analyst, author, educator, consultant, and graduate of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), died in March 2005 after a long illness.
I first met Tom in the autumn of 1967 at Harvard. Basim Musallam introduced us. Tom was at the time a research fellow at the Center who was completing his Ph.D. dissertation, doing research on the petroleum industry, and teaching courses on Middle East economics. At 32 years old, Tom joked that he was a perpetual student who might never complete his dissertation. Tom's office was in the suite of his (and my) mentor, Prof. A. J. Meyer, Associate Director of the Center, then located at 1737 Cambridge Street.
Tom completed his brilliant dissertation in 1971 and, almost simultaneously, developed and introduced the now standard methods of analysis of petroleum fiscal regimes. Tom and A.J. Meyer were instrumental in creating and expanding Harvard¹s oil and energy seminar which became one of the most popular courses in the wake of the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979.
But Tom was far more than a superb economic analyst and inspiring teacher. Tom had an abiding interest in the culture and traditions of the Middle East. In the 1960s, he and his wife Ilse traveled with the Qashqai nomads and made several films about their lifestyle and rug-making. (Tom later donated these films to the Smithsonian Institution.)
Tom became one of the advisors of my own doctoral dissertation and I was privileged to work with him on a number of interesting assignments, in addition to serving as his teaching assistant in several courses. Over the years we collaborated on issues related to natural gas pricing and rationing
in the United States, the design and negotiation of a new type of production sharing agreement, inter-fuel competition, and the optimal design of petroleum fiscal systems.
By the 1980s, I had moved from Boston to Geneva while Tom had taken up a teaching position at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. We visited each other often during this fruitful period. I discovered the countryside around Vienna with Tom and his family, while Tom accompanied me on a number of hiking and cross-country ski expeditions in the mountains near Geneva. Later, after Tom and his family had moved to Washington, DC, we continued to meet on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tom's prodigious professional writings spanned such subjects as the measurement of corporate rates-of-return; the economics of gas-based industrialization in the Gulf; the impact of tax systems on oil exploration incentives; the effects of tariff designs on pipeline economics; the politics of water in the Middle East; and the economic cost to the United States of its Middle East policies.
Some of Dr. Stauffer's writings reflected his frequent involvement as an expert in arbitrations. Among his oft-cited papers are those dealing with risk and hydrocarbon property evaluation; regression models and their limitations in litigation; and the valuation of expropriated assets.
Tom was a good friend of OPEC and an advisor to the oil ministers of several member countries. OPEC invited Tom to speak frequently at its secretariat in Vienna, and awarded Tom a prize for his career accomplishments at the OPEC Seminar in autumn 2004.
Dr. Stauffer was also a serious stamp collector with an odd specialization: stamps overprinted and re-issued by occupation forces or revolutionary regimes, particularly in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Central Asia.
I cannot close without emphasizing the irrepressible curiosity and the indefatigable good humor which were essential parts of Tom's personality.
At a memorial service in Washington in June 2005 I recounted how Tom had introduced me to the Belgian cartoon character and boy journalist Tintin. Some of our shared adventures in Latin America and the Middle East were quite Tintin-esque, including a narrow escape from a revolution reminiscent
of "Tintin et les Picaros".
Like Tintin, Tom had eclectic interests, was always ready for a new adventure, clearly saw through the pompous posturing of politicians and ideologues, and took risks to set the record straight.
Dr. Stauffer is survived by his wife, three children and one grandson.
John Gault (PhD '75) is an independent consultant on energy economics based in Geneva."
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, 1935-2005: Some Personal Reflections
by John Gault
Dr. Thomas R. Stauffer, the widely respected energy analyst, author, educator, consultant, and graduate of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), died in March 2005 after a long illness.
I first met Tom in the autumn of 1967 at Harvard. Basim Musallam introduced us. Tom was at the time a research fellow at the Center who was completing his Ph.D. dissertation, doing research on the petroleum industry, and teaching courses on Middle East economics. At 32 years old, Tom joked that he was a perpetual student who might never complete his dissertation. Tom's office was in the suite of his (and my) mentor, Prof. A. J. Meyer, Associate Director of the Center, then located at 1737 Cambridge Street.
Tom completed his brilliant dissertation in 1971 and, almost simultaneously, developed and introduced the now standard methods of analysis of petroleum fiscal regimes. Tom and A.J. Meyer were instrumental in creating and expanding Harvard¹s oil and energy seminar which became one of the most popular courses in the wake of the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979.
But Tom was far more than a superb economic analyst and inspiring teacher. Tom had an abiding interest in the culture and traditions of the Middle East. In the 1960s, he and his wife Ilse traveled with the Qashqai nomads and made several films about their lifestyle and rug-making. (Tom later donated these films to the Smithsonian Institution.)
Tom became one of the advisors of my own doctoral dissertation and I was privileged to work with him on a number of interesting assignments, in addition to serving as his teaching assistant in several courses. Over the years we collaborated on issues related to natural gas pricing and rationing
in the United States, the design and negotiation of a new type of production sharing agreement, inter-fuel competition, and the optimal design of petroleum fiscal systems.
By the 1980s, I had moved from Boston to Geneva while Tom had taken up a teaching position at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. We visited each other often during this fruitful period. I discovered the countryside around Vienna with Tom and his family, while Tom accompanied me on a number of hiking and cross-country ski expeditions in the mountains near Geneva. Later, after Tom and his family had moved to Washington, DC, we continued to meet on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tom's prodigious professional writings spanned such subjects as the measurement of corporate rates-of-return; the economics of gas-based industrialization in the Gulf; the impact of tax systems on oil exploration incentives; the effects of tariff designs on pipeline economics; the politics of water in the Middle East; and the economic cost to the United States of its Middle East policies.
Some of Dr. Stauffer's writings reflected his frequent involvement as an expert in arbitrations. Among his oft-cited papers are those dealing with risk and hydrocarbon property evaluation; regression models and their limitations in litigation; and the valuation of expropriated assets.
Tom was a good friend of OPEC and an advisor to the oil ministers of several member countries. OPEC invited Tom to speak frequently at its secretariat in Vienna, and awarded Tom a prize for his career accomplishments at the OPEC Seminar in autumn 2004.
Dr. Stauffer was also a serious stamp collector with an odd specialization: stamps overprinted and re-issued by occupation forces or revolutionary regimes, particularly in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Central Asia.
I cannot close without emphasizing the irrepressible curiosity and the indefatigable good humor which were essential parts of Tom's personality.
At a memorial service in Washington in June 2005 I recounted how Tom had introduced me to the Belgian cartoon character and boy journalist Tintin. Some of our shared adventures in Latin America and the Middle East were quite Tintin-esque, including a narrow escape from a revolution reminiscent
of "Tintin et les Picaros".
Like Tintin, Tom had eclectic interests, was always ready for a new adventure, clearly saw through the pompous posturing of politicians and ideologues, and took risks to set the record straight.
Dr. Stauffer is survived by his wife, three children and one grandson.
John Gault (PhD '75) is an independent consultant on energy economics based in Geneva."
Friday, March 17, 2006
MercuryNews.com | 03/17/2006 | PERSIAN RUGS
MercuryNews.com | 03/17/2006 | PERSIAN RUGS: "Posted on Fri, Mar. 17, 2006
VENTURE CAPITALPERSIAN RUGSBy Matt MarshallMercury NewsOnly in Silicon Valley, perhaps, can Persian rug merchants turn into venture capitalists.
For years, Saeed Amidi and his family have shown off elegant Persian and other Oriental carpets to customers of their store, the Medallion Rug Gallery, on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto.
The upscale area isn't a bad place to run a rug store, given the number of affluent executives and entrepreneurs willing to buy nice carpets for their homes. The store became a base for networking with well-heeled venture capitalists, who whet the appetite of Amidi and his brother to navigate the VC waters themselves.
The Amidis have invested in more than 20 companies since 1998 and are now picking up the pace. In January, Amidi, 46, and his brother bought and transformed a 40,000-square-foot building in Sunnyvale into an incubator for high-tech start-ups called Plug & Play.
``We're very entrepreneurial,'' says Amidi, referring to himself and his brother, Rahim. ``We're big risk takers and didn't want to be left out.''
It is all part of the transformation of the Amidi family and their business, the Amidi Group.
Saeed Amidi arrived in the valley in 1979 with the rest of his family after the Iranian revolution. The Iranian government nationalized most of his father's 11 factories, which had employed 7,000 people.
Each member of the family set about opening a business in the United States. Amidi's father had the idea to open the carpet store, and Amidi and Rahim helped out.
Amidi left college before getting a degree and started a packaging business, exporting mostly non-technology goods. He later started a bottled water business that now rakes in more than $100 million a year and employs 600, mostly in Europe and the Caribbean, he says.
Rahim Amidi, meanwhile, focused on real estate, which has since become the largest part of the family business. It was real estate that launched the family into funding start-ups.
The brothers, together with another Iranian immigrant, Pejman Nozad, created a separate arm, called Amidzad, for their VC activity.
It started in the mid-1990s, when they bought a tiny office at 165 University Ave. in Palo Alto.
It was great timing. As the technology market picked up in the late 1990s, the real estate market tightened, and companies became desperate to move into the popular Palo Alto area.
Internet boom
At the time, the brothers were wondering how they could participate in the Internet gold rush. So when PayPal, an online payments company, said it wanted to lease a space at 165 University, Saeed Amidi recalls, he demanded the family be allowed to invest.
PayPal agreed. And when the company went public in 2002 and then was sold to eBay, Amidi made a tidy 30-fold-plus return on investment, he says.
Looked at one way, that's money PayPal could have kept for itself, had it decided not to move into Amidi's property. But Peter Thiel, then PayPal's chief executive, says it was worth it. ``It was kind of a lucky office,'' he says, mentioning Google had the office previously. Thiel's company was able to hang its banner out of the window, and everyone on University Avenue got to see the company brand, he recalls. ``I still think Palo Alto may be the single best location for a start-up.''
The Amidzad trio began to make more investments. They invested $400,000 early on in Palo Alto mobile device and software maker Danger. The deal germinated when co-founder Andy Rubin bought a $5,000 rug from Amidi's store. Danger also moved into 165 University.
Amidzad has since teamed up with numerous other VCs to make investments. One is Barr Dolan of Charter Venture Capital, and another is Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital, both of whom have bought rugs from the store.
Amidi won't say how much his firm has made off the VC deals, but he is anxious to pick up the pace. He expects to make investments in 10 start-ups this year.
Networking through tea and cocktail events at the rug store is one way: They invite a dozen or so people per gathering.
``Jazz, wine and hors d'oeuvres,'' recalls Vipin Jain, an entrepreneur who met Amidi during one of these events last year. A red Ferrari Modena was parked on one of the store's poshest carpets, he recalls.
Jain has since moved his Internet company into Amidi's new incubator in Sunnyvale.
The connections became quite complex at times. At one point, an angel investor named Ron Conway invested in eRugs
.com, an online rug company the Amidis had launched. In return, the Amidis invested money into Conway's VC fund, which in turn invested in a small search engine called Google.
The new Plug & Play incubator in Sunnyvale will be another source of deals.
Amidi lets people pay for rent and office services according to how many workers they have -- between $400 and $450 per person per month. No pesky yearlong leases.
Some 20 start-ups have already moved in to the building, and Amidi has even invested in two of them -- Gabbly, which offers live chat on any Web site, and Melody, a secretive online music site in which some Google executives have also invested.
Valley observers say there is nothing else quite like Amidi's business incubator, where so many start-ups can share services like a cafeteria and, soon, even legal, accounting and human resources help. There are even Friday happy hours with beer and Beanie Bag toys lining a conference room wall.
`Right ambience'
Shridhar Mukund, president of Arithmosys, is building a semiconductor start-up and moved in to the Plug & Play space in January. Mukund says being close to other start-ups has helped with hiring new employees. ``Whether you have one, or two, or three people you feel like you have the right ambience and color,'' he says.
Jain, the Internet entrepreneur, began looking for office space last year but then saw the incubator advertised on craigslist. He moved in because it offered Internet, phone and kitchen services all as part of the package.
And, of course, Amidi asked Jain if he could make an investment in his start-up. But Jain had finished raising his most recent round of venture capital, so politely turned him down. Still, Amidi pleaded, leading Jain to promise he would consider letting him invest later this year. ``He was forceful,'' said Jain."
VENTURE CAPITALPERSIAN RUGSBy Matt MarshallMercury NewsOnly in Silicon Valley, perhaps, can Persian rug merchants turn into venture capitalists.
For years, Saeed Amidi and his family have shown off elegant Persian and other Oriental carpets to customers of their store, the Medallion Rug Gallery, on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto.
The upscale area isn't a bad place to run a rug store, given the number of affluent executives and entrepreneurs willing to buy nice carpets for their homes. The store became a base for networking with well-heeled venture capitalists, who whet the appetite of Amidi and his brother to navigate the VC waters themselves.
The Amidis have invested in more than 20 companies since 1998 and are now picking up the pace. In January, Amidi, 46, and his brother bought and transformed a 40,000-square-foot building in Sunnyvale into an incubator for high-tech start-ups called Plug & Play.
``We're very entrepreneurial,'' says Amidi, referring to himself and his brother, Rahim. ``We're big risk takers and didn't want to be left out.''
It is all part of the transformation of the Amidi family and their business, the Amidi Group.
Saeed Amidi arrived in the valley in 1979 with the rest of his family after the Iranian revolution. The Iranian government nationalized most of his father's 11 factories, which had employed 7,000 people.
Each member of the family set about opening a business in the United States. Amidi's father had the idea to open the carpet store, and Amidi and Rahim helped out.
Amidi left college before getting a degree and started a packaging business, exporting mostly non-technology goods. He later started a bottled water business that now rakes in more than $100 million a year and employs 600, mostly in Europe and the Caribbean, he says.
Rahim Amidi, meanwhile, focused on real estate, which has since become the largest part of the family business. It was real estate that launched the family into funding start-ups.
The brothers, together with another Iranian immigrant, Pejman Nozad, created a separate arm, called Amidzad, for their VC activity.
It started in the mid-1990s, when they bought a tiny office at 165 University Ave. in Palo Alto.
It was great timing. As the technology market picked up in the late 1990s, the real estate market tightened, and companies became desperate to move into the popular Palo Alto area.
Internet boom
At the time, the brothers were wondering how they could participate in the Internet gold rush. So when PayPal, an online payments company, said it wanted to lease a space at 165 University, Saeed Amidi recalls, he demanded the family be allowed to invest.
PayPal agreed. And when the company went public in 2002 and then was sold to eBay, Amidi made a tidy 30-fold-plus return on investment, he says.
Looked at one way, that's money PayPal could have kept for itself, had it decided not to move into Amidi's property. But Peter Thiel, then PayPal's chief executive, says it was worth it. ``It was kind of a lucky office,'' he says, mentioning Google had the office previously. Thiel's company was able to hang its banner out of the window, and everyone on University Avenue got to see the company brand, he recalls. ``I still think Palo Alto may be the single best location for a start-up.''
The Amidzad trio began to make more investments. They invested $400,000 early on in Palo Alto mobile device and software maker Danger. The deal germinated when co-founder Andy Rubin bought a $5,000 rug from Amidi's store. Danger also moved into 165 University.
Amidzad has since teamed up with numerous other VCs to make investments. One is Barr Dolan of Charter Venture Capital, and another is Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital, both of whom have bought rugs from the store.
Amidi won't say how much his firm has made off the VC deals, but he is anxious to pick up the pace. He expects to make investments in 10 start-ups this year.
Networking through tea and cocktail events at the rug store is one way: They invite a dozen or so people per gathering.
``Jazz, wine and hors d'oeuvres,'' recalls Vipin Jain, an entrepreneur who met Amidi during one of these events last year. A red Ferrari Modena was parked on one of the store's poshest carpets, he recalls.
Jain has since moved his Internet company into Amidi's new incubator in Sunnyvale.
The connections became quite complex at times. At one point, an angel investor named Ron Conway invested in eRugs
.com, an online rug company the Amidis had launched. In return, the Amidis invested money into Conway's VC fund, which in turn invested in a small search engine called Google.
The new Plug & Play incubator in Sunnyvale will be another source of deals.
Amidi lets people pay for rent and office services according to how many workers they have -- between $400 and $450 per person per month. No pesky yearlong leases.
Some 20 start-ups have already moved in to the building, and Amidi has even invested in two of them -- Gabbly, which offers live chat on any Web site, and Melody, a secretive online music site in which some Google executives have also invested.
Valley observers say there is nothing else quite like Amidi's business incubator, where so many start-ups can share services like a cafeteria and, soon, even legal, accounting and human resources help. There are even Friday happy hours with beer and Beanie Bag toys lining a conference room wall.
`Right ambience'
Shridhar Mukund, president of Arithmosys, is building a semiconductor start-up and moved in to the Plug & Play space in January. Mukund says being close to other start-ups has helped with hiring new employees. ``Whether you have one, or two, or three people you feel like you have the right ambience and color,'' he says.
Jain, the Internet entrepreneur, began looking for office space last year but then saw the incubator advertised on craigslist. He moved in because it offered Internet, phone and kitchen services all as part of the package.
And, of course, Amidi asked Jain if he could make an investment in his start-up. But Jain had finished raising his most recent round of venture capital, so politely turned him down. Still, Amidi pleaded, leading Jain to promise he would consider letting him invest later this year. ``He was forceful,'' said Jain."
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
BillingsGazette.com :: Davidson Design looks across street to future
BillingsGazette.com :: Davidson Design looks across street to future: "Davidson Design looks across street to future
By DANA MOSS PULIS
For The Gazette
Even outside the remodeling project going on at the old City Brew location at 2228 Grand Ave., something indicated it wasn't your typical remodeling.
An Oriental rug lay across the entrance for people to wipe their feet on before entering the construction zone. Another Oriental rug being used to catch stray paint was sprawled across a work bench.
Only a design and decorating company could get away with that.
"Oh, just our old Oriental rug samples," said Pat Davidson, owner of Davidson Design at 2223 Grand Ave. Nonetheless, most businesses would consider it a treat to have rugs adorning their floors after the construction was over. Davidson Design is used to having such accessories around. The 18-year-old business is making a whopping move this month, all the way across the street from its current location. The buildings are so close that Davidson joked it would be easier to set the business's possessions on a roller and slide it across Grand Avenue in the wee hours of a trafficless morning.
"We might just do it," she said.
For the past two years, Davidson Design has looked for a new building. The business had outgrown the current 4,000-square-foot space, but finding and constructing a new building proved to be difficult and time-consuming, Davidson said.
When City Brew moved out of the space, Davidson was ecstatic about the idea of staying in the area and moving just across the street.
"One of the things we did right at first was to place our store initially on the West End," she said. "It is very accessible." And, she said, clients won't have to drive to a new area of town after the move.
"We got excited that the addresses were so close. Instead of being at 2223 (Grand Ave.), we are at 2228," Davidson said. "And we can just make the 3 an 8 until all our business cards are gone. We get a good chuckle over that one."
The business is a multigenerational operation, with Davidson's daughter, Tiffany, working with her mother for the past 14 years. Davidson also has her grandchildren helping her from time to time on various projects.
"We like the two-generation thing going in that we have a great team," she said. "We like to work together on projects."
Both mother and daughter were amazed to find beautiful original maple wood floors at the building and a cedar tongue-and-groove ceiling. At one point in its history, the building was Skate Land, and skaters flew across the wood floors. Davidson had them restored to a beautiful luster.
The new space brings an additional 2,000 square feet and will be used to showcase more furniture on-site, as well as to house a mega-resource center with samples of fabrics, tapestries, wall coverings and colors.
On a bittersweet note, one room, called "Dara's Closet Distinctive Accessories Really Awesome," is named after a beloved employee who was killed not too long ago in a car accident.
Davidson Design hopes to open the new location around mid- to late March. The design team planned its own architecture. Carpenter Construction provided the contracting, and First Interstate Bank provided the financing."
By DANA MOSS PULIS
For The Gazette
Even outside the remodeling project going on at the old City Brew location at 2228 Grand Ave., something indicated it wasn't your typical remodeling.
An Oriental rug lay across the entrance for people to wipe their feet on before entering the construction zone. Another Oriental rug being used to catch stray paint was sprawled across a work bench.
Only a design and decorating company could get away with that.
"Oh, just our old Oriental rug samples," said Pat Davidson, owner of Davidson Design at 2223 Grand Ave. Nonetheless, most businesses would consider it a treat to have rugs adorning their floors after the construction was over. Davidson Design is used to having such accessories around. The 18-year-old business is making a whopping move this month, all the way across the street from its current location. The buildings are so close that Davidson joked it would be easier to set the business's possessions on a roller and slide it across Grand Avenue in the wee hours of a trafficless morning.
"We might just do it," she said.
For the past two years, Davidson Design has looked for a new building. The business had outgrown the current 4,000-square-foot space, but finding and constructing a new building proved to be difficult and time-consuming, Davidson said.
When City Brew moved out of the space, Davidson was ecstatic about the idea of staying in the area and moving just across the street.
"One of the things we did right at first was to place our store initially on the West End," she said. "It is very accessible." And, she said, clients won't have to drive to a new area of town after the move.
"We got excited that the addresses were so close. Instead of being at 2223 (Grand Ave.), we are at 2228," Davidson said. "And we can just make the 3 an 8 until all our business cards are gone. We get a good chuckle over that one."
The business is a multigenerational operation, with Davidson's daughter, Tiffany, working with her mother for the past 14 years. Davidson also has her grandchildren helping her from time to time on various projects.
"We like the two-generation thing going in that we have a great team," she said. "We like to work together on projects."
Both mother and daughter were amazed to find beautiful original maple wood floors at the building and a cedar tongue-and-groove ceiling. At one point in its history, the building was Skate Land, and skaters flew across the wood floors. Davidson had them restored to a beautiful luster.
The new space brings an additional 2,000 square feet and will be used to showcase more furniture on-site, as well as to house a mega-resource center with samples of fabrics, tapestries, wall coverings and colors.
On a bittersweet note, one room, called "Dara's Closet Distinctive Accessories Really Awesome," is named after a beloved employee who was killed not too long ago in a car accident.
Davidson Design hopes to open the new location around mid- to late March. The design team planned its own architecture. Carpenter Construction provided the contracting, and First Interstate Bank provided the financing."
Idaho Mountain Express: Davies Reid proprietor Heidi Davies - March 15, 2006
Idaho Mountain Express: Living in downtown mixed-use building has perks, drawbacks - March 15, 2006: "Living in downtown mixed-use building has perks, drawbacks
Jackson mayor pushes concept to preserve resort town's core
by REBECCA MEANY
Davies Reid proprietor Heidi Davies walks in front of the window of her store in Jackson, Wyo., last month. Davies and her family live and work in the historic building on the town square. Express photo by Rebecca Meany
A Tale of Two Cities
First in a series of two
--------------------------
The commute from home to work for Davies Reid proprietor Heidi Davies is a flight of stairs.
She and husband Michael Miller, who have stores in Ketchum and Boise, opened up shop in Jackson, Wyo., nearly five years ago.
A labor of love turned a historic building on the town square into a home upstairs and a renovated store downstairs. It became an ideal setting for their inventory of oriental rugs and Asian decor.
"(The building) needed desperate help," Davies said. "It needed some TLC. This building has more character than most buildings in Jackson. Most are boxes with facades. We're trying to dress up this box."
In addition to customers' requests for a Jackson store, Davies and Miller were drawn to the western Wyoming resort town because they liked the town square concept.
"The whole town is centered around it," Davies said. "It felt like there was a core."
Jackson Mayor Mark Barron said he'd like to get more people living and working downtown—a concept he said would lessen traffic problems, curb sprawl and create a greater sense of community.
"It's a community value to enable more people working here to live here," he said.
However, a series of ordinances the mayor and Town Council passed in 2003 to bring about that end were overturned by referendum.
For Miller, that means the town is going in the wrong direction—outward rather than upward.
Many people are relocating to Teton Village, a community 12 miles northwest of Jackson, adjacent to the Jackson Hole ski area.
"If this town doesn't do something to focus development in the core, it's all going to move out to the village," Miller said.
"And that would really hurt downtown," Davies added.
Ketchum's downtown was deemed to be so impacted by changing demographics and increasing land values that the City Council enacted a six-month moratorium on single-family residential development in the commercial core.
City leaders said the emergency ordinance was needed because of disappearing retail space and the accompanying dwindling sales taxes.
The moratorium, followed by the hiring of economic development consultant Tom Hudson, are considered the first steps in amending the approach to downtown development and regulation. It could also pave the way for denser, higher-occupancy living spaces.
During the process of formulating a downtown master plan, Ketchum residents, officials and business owners will conceptualize a city core that is both more vibrant and more welcoming.
"You need that concept of 'Town is Heart' that politicians talk about," Miller said. "If you had more people living downtown, you'd have a more vibrant downtown."
The Jackson/Teton County transportation master plan describes the town of Jackson as the heart of the region, Barron said.
"It says the town of Jackson will be the gathering place of the community," he said. "Linked to that, in order to mitigate that, there should be 1,200 dwelling units in town to enable it to happen in the most efficient manner."
Mixed-use buildings where people live and work is a well-established concept, but one that modern Americans have gotten away from.
"We're not inventing anything here," Barron said. "We're realizing it did work."
Downtown living is not without its pitfalls, however.
"It's difficult to live downtown," Davies said. "There's no residential parking. Locals won't come downtown in the summer. It's a zoo. We can't find a place to park."
Jackson is the southern gateway community for Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, and has a robust outdoor recreation industry that includes fishing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, mountain climbing, camping and whitewater rafting. And, while the 3 million visitors who pass through Jackson each summer are good for business, the buzz of activity can sometimes reach fever pitch.
"The town square has a highway system that goes right through it," Barron said. "Visitors will naturally be drawn to it."
Although Ketchum's visitor count is much lower, state Highway 75 brings 16,000 vehicles into town each day.
To create a greater sense of place for locals, and to quiet vehicular activity, Davies and Miller would like to see the streets around Jackson's town square closed off to vehicle traffic and turned in to a walking mall.
Maintaining a sense of community is achieved in part by a town's atmosphere, its visual connections to local history and possibilities for daily human interaction.
"People have a very strong feeling of keeping that Western feel," Barron said, "but that's a very subjective challenge."
The building occupied by Davies Reid was Jackson Drug for many years, and its 1937 soda fountain counter and bar stools remain.
"It's important to keep history intact," Davies said. "It keeps the charm. To tear it down would kind of be sacrilege."
Davies, a former Wood River Valley resident, said Ketchum and Blaine County leaders had foresight when enacting development regulations.
Jackson, on the other hand, has let growth taint the town's character, Davies said, especially on the road into town.
"It's ugly," she said. "Driving into Ketchum is so cute. A lot of people we meet here go to Ketchum and say, 'What a cute town.' I think Ketchum has done a really good job with planning and zoning and things they allow into town. Why would Jackson allow McDonald's when there's no coffee shops?"
Ketchum residents have been offering input and working hands-on to formulate a downtown master plan.
Public art, streetscapes, historic preservation and pedestrian corridors are aspects of the vision.
Once that plan is implemented, Barron said, allocating money for upkeep is a necessary investment.
"We wash trash cans once a week so they look nice," he said. "We repair crosswalks every spring, improve worn boardwalks and enhance safer pedestrian crosswalks.
"Walking is an experience. If you make it a pleasant experience, people will want to do it.""
Jackson mayor pushes concept to preserve resort town's core
by REBECCA MEANY
Davies Reid proprietor Heidi Davies walks in front of the window of her store in Jackson, Wyo., last month. Davies and her family live and work in the historic building on the town square. Express photo by Rebecca Meany
A Tale of Two Cities
First in a series of two
--------------------------
The commute from home to work for Davies Reid proprietor Heidi Davies is a flight of stairs.
She and husband Michael Miller, who have stores in Ketchum and Boise, opened up shop in Jackson, Wyo., nearly five years ago.
A labor of love turned a historic building on the town square into a home upstairs and a renovated store downstairs. It became an ideal setting for their inventory of oriental rugs and Asian decor.
"(The building) needed desperate help," Davies said. "It needed some TLC. This building has more character than most buildings in Jackson. Most are boxes with facades. We're trying to dress up this box."
In addition to customers' requests for a Jackson store, Davies and Miller were drawn to the western Wyoming resort town because they liked the town square concept.
"The whole town is centered around it," Davies said. "It felt like there was a core."
Jackson Mayor Mark Barron said he'd like to get more people living and working downtown—a concept he said would lessen traffic problems, curb sprawl and create a greater sense of community.
"It's a community value to enable more people working here to live here," he said.
However, a series of ordinances the mayor and Town Council passed in 2003 to bring about that end were overturned by referendum.
For Miller, that means the town is going in the wrong direction—outward rather than upward.
Many people are relocating to Teton Village, a community 12 miles northwest of Jackson, adjacent to the Jackson Hole ski area.
"If this town doesn't do something to focus development in the core, it's all going to move out to the village," Miller said.
"And that would really hurt downtown," Davies added.
Ketchum's downtown was deemed to be so impacted by changing demographics and increasing land values that the City Council enacted a six-month moratorium on single-family residential development in the commercial core.
City leaders said the emergency ordinance was needed because of disappearing retail space and the accompanying dwindling sales taxes.
The moratorium, followed by the hiring of economic development consultant Tom Hudson, are considered the first steps in amending the approach to downtown development and regulation. It could also pave the way for denser, higher-occupancy living spaces.
During the process of formulating a downtown master plan, Ketchum residents, officials and business owners will conceptualize a city core that is both more vibrant and more welcoming.
"You need that concept of 'Town is Heart' that politicians talk about," Miller said. "If you had more people living downtown, you'd have a more vibrant downtown."
The Jackson/Teton County transportation master plan describes the town of Jackson as the heart of the region, Barron said.
"It says the town of Jackson will be the gathering place of the community," he said. "Linked to that, in order to mitigate that, there should be 1,200 dwelling units in town to enable it to happen in the most efficient manner."
Mixed-use buildings where people live and work is a well-established concept, but one that modern Americans have gotten away from.
"We're not inventing anything here," Barron said. "We're realizing it did work."
Downtown living is not without its pitfalls, however.
"It's difficult to live downtown," Davies said. "There's no residential parking. Locals won't come downtown in the summer. It's a zoo. We can't find a place to park."
Jackson is the southern gateway community for Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, and has a robust outdoor recreation industry that includes fishing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, mountain climbing, camping and whitewater rafting. And, while the 3 million visitors who pass through Jackson each summer are good for business, the buzz of activity can sometimes reach fever pitch.
"The town square has a highway system that goes right through it," Barron said. "Visitors will naturally be drawn to it."
Although Ketchum's visitor count is much lower, state Highway 75 brings 16,000 vehicles into town each day.
To create a greater sense of place for locals, and to quiet vehicular activity, Davies and Miller would like to see the streets around Jackson's town square closed off to vehicle traffic and turned in to a walking mall.
Maintaining a sense of community is achieved in part by a town's atmosphere, its visual connections to local history and possibilities for daily human interaction.
"People have a very strong feeling of keeping that Western feel," Barron said, "but that's a very subjective challenge."
The building occupied by Davies Reid was Jackson Drug for many years, and its 1937 soda fountain counter and bar stools remain.
"It's important to keep history intact," Davies said. "It keeps the charm. To tear it down would kind of be sacrilege."
Davies, a former Wood River Valley resident, said Ketchum and Blaine County leaders had foresight when enacting development regulations.
Jackson, on the other hand, has let growth taint the town's character, Davies said, especially on the road into town.
"It's ugly," she said. "Driving into Ketchum is so cute. A lot of people we meet here go to Ketchum and say, 'What a cute town.' I think Ketchum has done a really good job with planning and zoning and things they allow into town. Why would Jackson allow McDonald's when there's no coffee shops?"
Ketchum residents have been offering input and working hands-on to formulate a downtown master plan.
Public art, streetscapes, historic preservation and pedestrian corridors are aspects of the vision.
Once that plan is implemented, Barron said, allocating money for upkeep is a necessary investment.
"We wash trash cans once a week so they look nice," he said. "We repair crosswalks every spring, improve worn boardwalks and enhance safer pedestrian crosswalks.
"Walking is an experience. If you make it a pleasant experience, people will want to do it.""
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE / Child labor beneath our feet
PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE / Child labor beneath our feet: "PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
Child labor beneath our feet
Louis Freedberg
Monday, March 13, 2006
IT' WAS AN UNEXPECTED, even odd, question for a rug designer to pose.
"Would you want an 8-year-old painting your house?" asked Alice Keshishian, owner of Carpets of Imagination in Petaluma.
Probably not, even if I could get the job done at a deeply discounted price.
Yet most of us probably wouldn't give a second thought to buying a rug made with the delicate, and overworked, hands of children as young as 6. Until recently, it would have been easy to claim ignorance about the pervasive and mostly hidden use of abusive child labor in the handmade carpet business.
No longer. A growing number of designers, importers and retail outlets in the Bay Area, including Keshishian, have linked up with Rugmark, a nonprofit organization that for a decade has been working to get children out of the rug trade. A Rugmark label on a rug certifies that no tiny hands were involved in making it. (For the full list of Bay Area Rugmark outlets, go to www.rugmark.org.)
If you think you got a good deal on a rug, there's a good chance it was produced with the help of poorly paid children, if they were paid at all. Some children work as virtual slaves called "apprentices" in return for one meal a day and a place to sleep. Sometimes, parents accept a fee to "loan" their child to a loom owner.
Today, an estimated 300,000 children are toiling in the rug trade in Pakistan, India and Nepal alone. Those three countries account for half of the $1.2 billion in sales of handmade rugs in the United States.
I can hear the groans now. Free-trade coffee. Dolphin-safe tuna. Now I have to feel guilty about enjoying the rug in my living room?
Well, probably.
Until now, it would have been possible to plead ignorance. But now all we have to do is look for the Rugmark label, which certifies that a rug has not been tainted with child labor. Rugmark inspectors follow up, making unannounced visits to make sure no children have been lured back to the looms. If necessary, they are "rescued" from servitude and placed in a network of schools, rehabilitation centers and child-care centers Rugmark has set up.
The goal is "not just getting kids off the looms, but turning their lives around as well," explained Avner Lapovsky of Sloan Miyasato at the San Francisco Design Center, which carries rugs with the Rugmark label.
Some of Rugmark's income comes from a small fee paid by exporters and importers totaling 1/2 percent of the retail value of the carpet. That adds negligibly to the cost. "On a $2,000 rug, the cost of making sure kids aren't exploited is about $10," says Nina Smith, executive director of Rugmark USA. Other support comes from foundations such as the Skoll Foundation in Palo Alto, established by Jeffrey Skoll, the founding president of eBay. Last year, Rugmark received one of the foundation's "social entrepreneurship" awards, along with a three-year grant to support its work.
The number of kids in the rug trade has dropped by 70 percent over the past decade. But there's still a long way to go. Last year, rugs with the Rugmark label had a retail value of about $30 million. But that represents only 1 1/2 percent of the handmade-rug market in the United States.
In January, Rugmark launched a national campaign, initially focusing on New York and San Francisco. The goal: to increase rugs with the Rugmark label to 7 percent of the U.S. market over the next three years, and to 15 percent over the next decade. Smith believes that once 15 percent of the rug industry is liberated from child labor that will have a cascading effect on the entire industry. "If we're successful, we'll be able to say that we have literally wiped out child servitude from the rug industry," she said.
Ultimately, it will be up to consumers, such as you and me, to pitch in. The greatest impact, says Stephen Miller, the owner of Stephen Miller Galleries in Menlo Park, "will come from the customer asking for rugs made without child labor."
Louis Freedberg is a Chronicle editorial writer. E-mail him at lfreedberg@sfchronicle.com"
Child labor beneath our feet
Louis Freedberg
Monday, March 13, 2006
IT' WAS AN UNEXPECTED, even odd, question for a rug designer to pose.
"Would you want an 8-year-old painting your house?" asked Alice Keshishian, owner of Carpets of Imagination in Petaluma.
Probably not, even if I could get the job done at a deeply discounted price.
Yet most of us probably wouldn't give a second thought to buying a rug made with the delicate, and overworked, hands of children as young as 6. Until recently, it would have been easy to claim ignorance about the pervasive and mostly hidden use of abusive child labor in the handmade carpet business.
No longer. A growing number of designers, importers and retail outlets in the Bay Area, including Keshishian, have linked up with Rugmark, a nonprofit organization that for a decade has been working to get children out of the rug trade. A Rugmark label on a rug certifies that no tiny hands were involved in making it. (For the full list of Bay Area Rugmark outlets, go to www.rugmark.org.)
If you think you got a good deal on a rug, there's a good chance it was produced with the help of poorly paid children, if they were paid at all. Some children work as virtual slaves called "apprentices" in return for one meal a day and a place to sleep. Sometimes, parents accept a fee to "loan" their child to a loom owner.
Today, an estimated 300,000 children are toiling in the rug trade in Pakistan, India and Nepal alone. Those three countries account for half of the $1.2 billion in sales of handmade rugs in the United States.
I can hear the groans now. Free-trade coffee. Dolphin-safe tuna. Now I have to feel guilty about enjoying the rug in my living room?
Well, probably.
Until now, it would have been possible to plead ignorance. But now all we have to do is look for the Rugmark label, which certifies that a rug has not been tainted with child labor. Rugmark inspectors follow up, making unannounced visits to make sure no children have been lured back to the looms. If necessary, they are "rescued" from servitude and placed in a network of schools, rehabilitation centers and child-care centers Rugmark has set up.
The goal is "not just getting kids off the looms, but turning their lives around as well," explained Avner Lapovsky of Sloan Miyasato at the San Francisco Design Center, which carries rugs with the Rugmark label.
Some of Rugmark's income comes from a small fee paid by exporters and importers totaling 1/2 percent of the retail value of the carpet. That adds negligibly to the cost. "On a $2,000 rug, the cost of making sure kids aren't exploited is about $10," says Nina Smith, executive director of Rugmark USA. Other support comes from foundations such as the Skoll Foundation in Palo Alto, established by Jeffrey Skoll, the founding president of eBay. Last year, Rugmark received one of the foundation's "social entrepreneurship" awards, along with a three-year grant to support its work.
The number of kids in the rug trade has dropped by 70 percent over the past decade. But there's still a long way to go. Last year, rugs with the Rugmark label had a retail value of about $30 million. But that represents only 1 1/2 percent of the handmade-rug market in the United States.
In January, Rugmark launched a national campaign, initially focusing on New York and San Francisco. The goal: to increase rugs with the Rugmark label to 7 percent of the U.S. market over the next three years, and to 15 percent over the next decade. Smith believes that once 15 percent of the rug industry is liberated from child labor that will have a cascading effect on the entire industry. "If we're successful, we'll be able to say that we have literally wiped out child servitude from the rug industry," she said.
Ultimately, it will be up to consumers, such as you and me, to pitch in. The greatest impact, says Stephen Miller, the owner of Stephen Miller Galleries in Menlo Park, "will come from the customer asking for rugs made without child labor."
Louis Freedberg is a Chronicle editorial writer. E-mail him at lfreedberg@sfchronicle.com"
Friday, March 10, 2006
FT.com / Arts & Weekend - In love with the fabric of life By BB Timberlake
FT.com / Arts & Weekend - In love with the fabric of life: "In love with the fabric of life
By BB Timberlake
Published: March 10 2006 11:51 | Last updated: March 10 2006 11:51
Explaining love is difficult, so I’ll start at the beginning. I first became infatuated with rugs last summer in a small town by the Iraq-Iran border, where I was making a film for Sky News.
It was a remarkably odd time to undergo an aesthetic awakening. I had been accompanying some Serbian mercenaries and Ivan, their leader, invited me to join him on a shopping excursion. As his men stood guard outside the bazaar, we drank lots of sweet tea, examined countless rugs, or carpets as they call them, and haggled with the dealer. My defining image of the day is kneeling on the floor with this trained killer as he enthused about knot-count and rare dyes that made up the blues of an intricate Nain rug. He bought it for his mother. Serb men, even Serb mercenaries, are notorious mummy’s boys.
I left Iraq with several tribal Qashqa’i rugs and a desire to know more. Back in London, I phoned up Essie Sakhai, one of Europe’s foremost rug dealers, and asked him for some work experience.
Sakhai has spent a life in rugs. He comes from a family of Tehran Jews and has that bewitching contentment of a man lucky enough to have made a living from his passion. He has written numerous books on rugs and advises many museums and collectors. His main store is on Piccadilly overlooking St James’s Palace.
The word store gives the wrong impression – it is more like an art gallery where friends meet. There are no “sale” signs in the windows and no “stack’em high, sell’em quick” attitudes inside. Would you buy piled-up oil paintings advertised as 75 per cent off? Working with Sakhai, I realised that the most important thing for would-be rug buyers is to find a good dealer. He seemed just as happy to share his knowledge as to make a sale.
The apprenticeship also made me ask myself why I care for rugs. The answer is simple really. As a journalist I love storytelling and rugs do just that. Each piece is a testimony to the weaver’s origins. Some designs are common to whole cities and tribes, while other motifs might be exclusive to a particular family.
Look closer at the individual knots and the patterns they make. These simple sequences – such as one blue, three red, five green – are passed orally down the generations. They are like musical notation to songs, a sort of a genetic code of a culture.
Rugs form an integral part of life for a vast swathe of humanity from the Mediterranean to the edges of China. People are born on them; they barter with them and eat off them; rugs form dowry payments and are investments for people without banks. Covering wars and disasters, I have seen refugees fleeing for their lives through mountain passes. They always carry their rugs with them.
Rugs are not merely the fabric of life but of religion as well. Islamic culture has no separation between art and religion as the west does today. In the world of Islam, rugs are not merely works of art but aids to contemplation. Peering into the dense imagery and symbolism of my own rugs, I am reminded of the most beautiful examples of illuminated medieval manuscripts in the British Library, dating from the times when art was the servant of the Christian church.
For Sakhai, picking a rug is one of the most important decisions people make about their homes. “A good carpet makes a room and gives soul to a house. It is not merely an object of great beauty but an investment that can give you enormous pleasure on a daily basis. Decide what size you need and then follow your heart. It is about what attracts you.”
There is a rug to suit every style of decoration. The bold, geometric Quashqa’i one I bought in Iraq suits the modern, minimalist room where it sits in my home. Yet another ornate and intricate rug I bought for a friend sits perfectly in her house cluttered with antiques, books and icons.
There is no single indication of a rug’s quality or value. Too many people give importance to knot-count but that’s like judging a suit solely by its thread-count or a digital camera by its pixel count alone. What is important is how the many factors of design, materials and the skill of the artist work together. A good rug is like a good view – what would you like to gaze at each day?
Another factor is how much wear your rug will receive. If it is for the hallway, pick a rug made of sturdy wools; a silk piece might live more comfortably in the bedroom. A good dealer will guide you to the appropriate quality and design for the right place and ensure you have the best example of a particular style.
He or she should also tend to you and your rugs long after the point of sale. Sakhai, for example, has the Carpet Club, offering customers ongoing advice and services. Every so often rugs are collected, cleaned and examined, and a written report about them is prepared. Sakhai also handles valuations and deals with insurance companies, including maintaining photos of customers’ rugs. Anyone who decides to sell can also ask to have those photos transferred into a virtual showroom online – owners can make their rugs available to buyers while still enjoying them at home.
In recent years, Sakhai has come across two misunderstandings that are worth noting. The first concerns child labour: these Persian rugs can only be produced by skilled weavers. Children are no more capable of weaving a fine rug than they are of producing a Chippendale cabinet. Second is allergies: good rugs are made from the finest wools and silks and have none of the synthetic fibres and glues loved by dust mites.
Speaking from experience, I must warn that mites seem less dangerous than being bitten by the rug bug. Anyone who spends a day with a good dealer should expect to start revelling in walks through floors filled with rugs, flushed with the joy of finding a particularly interesting example. You start to judge friends by what’s on their floor. Indeed, you may never look up again.
Every day, as I cross my study, I tread across a garden of Eden of naïve animals and birds, and not a week goes by without my noticing something new in that bright tangle of design and meaning. This week I spotted a reindeer. He has no business among the peacocks and other Persian animals, so I can only imagine that he leaped from satellite TV into the weaver’s mind and down on to the loom. That reindeer is yet another new character in a never-ending story.
Meanwhile, my affair with carpets is just beginning. And I am smitten."
By BB Timberlake
Published: March 10 2006 11:51 | Last updated: March 10 2006 11:51
Explaining love is difficult, so I’ll start at the beginning. I first became infatuated with rugs last summer in a small town by the Iraq-Iran border, where I was making a film for Sky News.
It was a remarkably odd time to undergo an aesthetic awakening. I had been accompanying some Serbian mercenaries and Ivan, their leader, invited me to join him on a shopping excursion. As his men stood guard outside the bazaar, we drank lots of sweet tea, examined countless rugs, or carpets as they call them, and haggled with the dealer. My defining image of the day is kneeling on the floor with this trained killer as he enthused about knot-count and rare dyes that made up the blues of an intricate Nain rug. He bought it for his mother. Serb men, even Serb mercenaries, are notorious mummy’s boys.
I left Iraq with several tribal Qashqa’i rugs and a desire to know more. Back in London, I phoned up Essie Sakhai, one of Europe’s foremost rug dealers, and asked him for some work experience.
Sakhai has spent a life in rugs. He comes from a family of Tehran Jews and has that bewitching contentment of a man lucky enough to have made a living from his passion. He has written numerous books on rugs and advises many museums and collectors. His main store is on Piccadilly overlooking St James’s Palace.
The word store gives the wrong impression – it is more like an art gallery where friends meet. There are no “sale” signs in the windows and no “stack’em high, sell’em quick” attitudes inside. Would you buy piled-up oil paintings advertised as 75 per cent off? Working with Sakhai, I realised that the most important thing for would-be rug buyers is to find a good dealer. He seemed just as happy to share his knowledge as to make a sale.
The apprenticeship also made me ask myself why I care for rugs. The answer is simple really. As a journalist I love storytelling and rugs do just that. Each piece is a testimony to the weaver’s origins. Some designs are common to whole cities and tribes, while other motifs might be exclusive to a particular family.
Look closer at the individual knots and the patterns they make. These simple sequences – such as one blue, three red, five green – are passed orally down the generations. They are like musical notation to songs, a sort of a genetic code of a culture.
Rugs form an integral part of life for a vast swathe of humanity from the Mediterranean to the edges of China. People are born on them; they barter with them and eat off them; rugs form dowry payments and are investments for people without banks. Covering wars and disasters, I have seen refugees fleeing for their lives through mountain passes. They always carry their rugs with them.
Rugs are not merely the fabric of life but of religion as well. Islamic culture has no separation between art and religion as the west does today. In the world of Islam, rugs are not merely works of art but aids to contemplation. Peering into the dense imagery and symbolism of my own rugs, I am reminded of the most beautiful examples of illuminated medieval manuscripts in the British Library, dating from the times when art was the servant of the Christian church.
For Sakhai, picking a rug is one of the most important decisions people make about their homes. “A good carpet makes a room and gives soul to a house. It is not merely an object of great beauty but an investment that can give you enormous pleasure on a daily basis. Decide what size you need and then follow your heart. It is about what attracts you.”
There is a rug to suit every style of decoration. The bold, geometric Quashqa’i one I bought in Iraq suits the modern, minimalist room where it sits in my home. Yet another ornate and intricate rug I bought for a friend sits perfectly in her house cluttered with antiques, books and icons.
There is no single indication of a rug’s quality or value. Too many people give importance to knot-count but that’s like judging a suit solely by its thread-count or a digital camera by its pixel count alone. What is important is how the many factors of design, materials and the skill of the artist work together. A good rug is like a good view – what would you like to gaze at each day?
Another factor is how much wear your rug will receive. If it is for the hallway, pick a rug made of sturdy wools; a silk piece might live more comfortably in the bedroom. A good dealer will guide you to the appropriate quality and design for the right place and ensure you have the best example of a particular style.
He or she should also tend to you and your rugs long after the point of sale. Sakhai, for example, has the Carpet Club, offering customers ongoing advice and services. Every so often rugs are collected, cleaned and examined, and a written report about them is prepared. Sakhai also handles valuations and deals with insurance companies, including maintaining photos of customers’ rugs. Anyone who decides to sell can also ask to have those photos transferred into a virtual showroom online – owners can make their rugs available to buyers while still enjoying them at home.
In recent years, Sakhai has come across two misunderstandings that are worth noting. The first concerns child labour: these Persian rugs can only be produced by skilled weavers. Children are no more capable of weaving a fine rug than they are of producing a Chippendale cabinet. Second is allergies: good rugs are made from the finest wools and silks and have none of the synthetic fibres and glues loved by dust mites.
Speaking from experience, I must warn that mites seem less dangerous than being bitten by the rug bug. Anyone who spends a day with a good dealer should expect to start revelling in walks through floors filled with rugs, flushed with the joy of finding a particularly interesting example. You start to judge friends by what’s on their floor. Indeed, you may never look up again.
Every day, as I cross my study, I tread across a garden of Eden of naïve animals and birds, and not a week goes by without my noticing something new in that bright tangle of design and meaning. This week I spotted a reindeer. He has no business among the peacocks and other Persian animals, so I can only imagine that he leaped from satellite TV into the weaver’s mind and down on to the loom. That reindeer is yet another new character in a never-ending story.
Meanwhile, my affair with carpets is just beginning. And I am smitten."
FT.com / Arts & Weekend - In love with the fabric of life By BB Timberlake
FT.com / Arts & Weekend - In love with the fabric of life: "In love with the fabric of life
By BB Timberlake
Published: March 10 2006 11:51 | Last updated: March 10 2006 11:51
Explaining love is difficult, so I’ll start at the beginning. I first became infatuated with rugs last summer in a small town by the Iraq-Iran border, where I was making a film for Sky News.
It was a remarkably odd time to undergo an aesthetic awakening. I had been accompanying some Serbian mercenaries and Ivan, their leader, invited me to join him on a shopping excursion. As his men stood guard outside the bazaar, we drank lots of sweet tea, examined countless rugs, or carpets as they call them, and haggled with the dealer. My defining image of the day is kneeling on the floor with this trained killer as he enthused about knot-count and rare dyes that made up the blues of an intricate Nain rug. He bought it for his mother. Serb men, even Serb mercenaries, are notorious mummy’s boys.
I left Iraq with several tribal Qashqa’i rugs and a desire to know more. Back in London, I phoned up Essie Sakhai, one of Europe’s foremost rug dealers, and asked him for some work experience.
Sakhai has spent a life in rugs. He comes from a family of Tehran Jews and has that bewitching contentment of a man lucky enough to have made a living from his passion. He has written numerous books on rugs and advises many museums and collectors. His main store is on Piccadilly overlooking St James’s Palace.
The word store gives the wrong impression – it is more like an art gallery where friends meet. There are no “sale” signs in the windows and no “stack’em high, sell’em quick” attitudes inside. Would you buy piled-up oil paintings advertised as 75 per cent off? Working with Sakhai, I realised that the most important thing for would-be rug buyers is to find a good dealer. He seemed just as happy to share his knowledge as to make a sale.
The apprenticeship also made me ask myself why I care for rugs. The answer is simple really. As a journalist I love storytelling and rugs do just that. Each piece is a testimony to the weaver’s origins. Some designs are common to whole cities and tribes, while other motifs might be exclusive to a particular family.
Look closer at the individual knots and the patterns they make. These simple sequences – such as one blue, three red, five green – are passed orally down the generations. They are like musical notation to songs, a sort of a genetic code of a culture.
Rugs form an integral part of life for a vast swathe of humanity from the Mediterranean to the edges of China. People are born on them; they barter with them and eat off them; rugs form dowry payments and are investments for people without banks. Covering wars and disasters, I have seen refugees fleeing for their lives through mountain passes. They always carry their rugs with them.
Rugs are not merely the fabric of life but of religion as well. Islamic culture has no separation between art and religion as the west does today. In the world of Islam, rugs are not merely works of art but aids to contemplation. Peering into the dense imagery and symbolism of my own rugs, I am reminded of the most beautiful examples of illuminated medieval manuscripts in the British Library, dating from the times when art was the servant of the Christian church.
For Sakhai, picking a rug is one of the most important decisions people make about their homes. “A good carpet makes a room and gives soul to a house. It is not merely an object of great beauty but an investment that can give you enormous pleasure on a daily basis. Decide what size you need and then follow your heart. It is about what attracts you.”
There is a rug to suit every style of decoration. The bold, geometric Quashqa’i one I bought in Iraq suits the modern, minimalist room where it sits in my home. Yet another ornate and intricate rug I bought for a friend sits perfectly in her house cluttered with antiques, books and icons.
There is no single indication of a rug’s quality or value. Too many people give importance to knot-count but that’s like judging a suit solely by its thread-count or a digital camera by its pixel count alone. What is important is how the many factors of design, materials and the skill of the artist work together. A good rug is like a good view – what would you like to gaze at each day?
Another factor is how much wear your rug will receive. If it is for the hallway, pick a rug made of sturdy wools; a silk piece might live more comfortably in the bedroom. A good dealer will guide you to the appropriate quality and design for the right place and ensure you have the best example of a particular style.
He or she should also tend to you and your rugs long after the point of sale. Sakhai, for example, has the Carpet Club, offering customers ongoing advice and services. Every so often rugs are collected, cleaned and examined, and a written report about them is prepared. Sakhai also handles valuations and deals with insurance companies, including maintaining photos of customers’ rugs. Anyone who decides to sell can also ask to have those photos transferred into a virtual showroom online – owners can make their rugs available to buyers while still enjoying them at home.
In recent years, Sakhai has come across two misunderstandings that are worth noting. The first concerns child labour: these Persian rugs can only be produced by skilled weavers. Children are no more capable of weaving a fine rug than they are of producing a Chippendale cabinet. Second is allergies: good rugs are made from the finest wools and silks and have none of the synthetic fibres and glues loved by dust mites.
Speaking from experience, I must warn that mites seem less dangerous than being bitten by the rug bug. Anyone who spends a day with a good dealer should expect to start revelling in walks through floors filled with rugs, flushed with the joy of finding a particularly interesting example. You start to judge friends by what’s on their floor. Indeed, you may never look up again.
Every day, as I cross my study, I tread across a garden of Eden of naïve animals and birds, and not a week goes by without my noticing something new in that bright tangle of design and meaning. This week I spotted a reindeer. He has no business among the peacocks and other Persian animals, so I can only imagine that he leaped from satellite TV into the weaver’s mind and down on to the loom. That reindeer is yet another new character in a never-ending story.
Meanwhile, my affair with carpets is just beginning. And I am smitten."
By BB Timberlake
Published: March 10 2006 11:51 | Last updated: March 10 2006 11:51
Explaining love is difficult, so I’ll start at the beginning. I first became infatuated with rugs last summer in a small town by the Iraq-Iran border, where I was making a film for Sky News.
It was a remarkably odd time to undergo an aesthetic awakening. I had been accompanying some Serbian mercenaries and Ivan, their leader, invited me to join him on a shopping excursion. As his men stood guard outside the bazaar, we drank lots of sweet tea, examined countless rugs, or carpets as they call them, and haggled with the dealer. My defining image of the day is kneeling on the floor with this trained killer as he enthused about knot-count and rare dyes that made up the blues of an intricate Nain rug. He bought it for his mother. Serb men, even Serb mercenaries, are notorious mummy’s boys.
I left Iraq with several tribal Qashqa’i rugs and a desire to know more. Back in London, I phoned up Essie Sakhai, one of Europe’s foremost rug dealers, and asked him for some work experience.
Sakhai has spent a life in rugs. He comes from a family of Tehran Jews and has that bewitching contentment of a man lucky enough to have made a living from his passion. He has written numerous books on rugs and advises many museums and collectors. His main store is on Piccadilly overlooking St James’s Palace.
The word store gives the wrong impression – it is more like an art gallery where friends meet. There are no “sale” signs in the windows and no “stack’em high, sell’em quick” attitudes inside. Would you buy piled-up oil paintings advertised as 75 per cent off? Working with Sakhai, I realised that the most important thing for would-be rug buyers is to find a good dealer. He seemed just as happy to share his knowledge as to make a sale.
The apprenticeship also made me ask myself why I care for rugs. The answer is simple really. As a journalist I love storytelling and rugs do just that. Each piece is a testimony to the weaver’s origins. Some designs are common to whole cities and tribes, while other motifs might be exclusive to a particular family.
Look closer at the individual knots and the patterns they make. These simple sequences – such as one blue, three red, five green – are passed orally down the generations. They are like musical notation to songs, a sort of a genetic code of a culture.
Rugs form an integral part of life for a vast swathe of humanity from the Mediterranean to the edges of China. People are born on them; they barter with them and eat off them; rugs form dowry payments and are investments for people without banks. Covering wars and disasters, I have seen refugees fleeing for their lives through mountain passes. They always carry their rugs with them.
Rugs are not merely the fabric of life but of religion as well. Islamic culture has no separation between art and religion as the west does today. In the world of Islam, rugs are not merely works of art but aids to contemplation. Peering into the dense imagery and symbolism of my own rugs, I am reminded of the most beautiful examples of illuminated medieval manuscripts in the British Library, dating from the times when art was the servant of the Christian church.
For Sakhai, picking a rug is one of the most important decisions people make about their homes. “A good carpet makes a room and gives soul to a house. It is not merely an object of great beauty but an investment that can give you enormous pleasure on a daily basis. Decide what size you need and then follow your heart. It is about what attracts you.”
There is a rug to suit every style of decoration. The bold, geometric Quashqa’i one I bought in Iraq suits the modern, minimalist room where it sits in my home. Yet another ornate and intricate rug I bought for a friend sits perfectly in her house cluttered with antiques, books and icons.
There is no single indication of a rug’s quality or value. Too many people give importance to knot-count but that’s like judging a suit solely by its thread-count or a digital camera by its pixel count alone. What is important is how the many factors of design, materials and the skill of the artist work together. A good rug is like a good view – what would you like to gaze at each day?
Another factor is how much wear your rug will receive. If it is for the hallway, pick a rug made of sturdy wools; a silk piece might live more comfortably in the bedroom. A good dealer will guide you to the appropriate quality and design for the right place and ensure you have the best example of a particular style.
He or she should also tend to you and your rugs long after the point of sale. Sakhai, for example, has the Carpet Club, offering customers ongoing advice and services. Every so often rugs are collected, cleaned and examined, and a written report about them is prepared. Sakhai also handles valuations and deals with insurance companies, including maintaining photos of customers’ rugs. Anyone who decides to sell can also ask to have those photos transferred into a virtual showroom online – owners can make their rugs available to buyers while still enjoying them at home.
In recent years, Sakhai has come across two misunderstandings that are worth noting. The first concerns child labour: these Persian rugs can only be produced by skilled weavers. Children are no more capable of weaving a fine rug than they are of producing a Chippendale cabinet. Second is allergies: good rugs are made from the finest wools and silks and have none of the synthetic fibres and glues loved by dust mites.
Speaking from experience, I must warn that mites seem less dangerous than being bitten by the rug bug. Anyone who spends a day with a good dealer should expect to start revelling in walks through floors filled with rugs, flushed with the joy of finding a particularly interesting example. You start to judge friends by what’s on their floor. Indeed, you may never look up again.
Every day, as I cross my study, I tread across a garden of Eden of naïve animals and birds, and not a week goes by without my noticing something new in that bright tangle of design and meaning. This week I spotted a reindeer. He has no business among the peacocks and other Persian animals, so I can only imagine that he leaped from satellite TV into the weaver’s mind and down on to the loom. That reindeer is yet another new character in a never-ending story.
Meanwhile, my affair with carpets is just beginning. And I am smitten."
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
St. Louis Business Journal: Rich Rugs - 2001-04-09
St. Louis Business Journal: Rich Rugs - 2001-04-09: "Rich Rugs
Asadorian Rug Co. imports and sells some of the finest Oriental rugs
St. Louis Business Journal - April 6, 2001by Ron Janecke
Business activity: The lifting of the United States embargo on certain goods imported from Iran, including Persian rugs, has opened another door for Asadorian Rug Co. Inc.
The third-generation, family business that imports and exports Oriental rugs is run by Rich Asadorian and his cousin, Stephen. They work out of their showroom on Natural Bridge Road, near the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus.
The showroom has a large selection, ranging from mats to 14- by 27-foot rugs. The average size sold, 9-by-12 feet, sells for about $4,000. The company started selling imported rugs about 85 years ago.
"You can basically add a zero to the costs of rugs today, compared to what they sold for when my grandfather ran the business," said Rich Asadorian. "Those $200 to $300 rugs now cost from $2,000 to $3,000."
An inventory at the end of January showed Asadorian had 7,000 pieces in the store, including rugs being repaired or cleaned. Restoration and repair is a key component of the business.
Asadorian picks up the rugs and does the work at its Bel-Nor location. Everything is repaired, from burns to damage done by flower pots to areas chewed by dogs. Oriental rugs are extremely durable and can go six or seven years without being cleaned.
Four times a year, Rich Asadorian travels to the Far East to order rugs and to see the latest products being handmade by weavers. In August, he visited Nepal for three weeks, traveling to remote villages where women spend their entire time weaving, eating and sleeping in a community.
Asadorian has established relationships with agents, who scout markets before he makes the trips. He pays agents and shares them with other rug dealers whom he has gotten to know. His travels have taken him to India, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Romania and Nepal. He's also been to Hanover, Germany, one of the biggest rug markets in Europe.
"I try to learn enough about the country and the various tribes so not to show my ignorance," Asadorian said. "When I'm in one of these villages, I eat and drink what is offered me so I don't offend them."
Shipments of 30 bales each, averaging seven to 10 rugs a bale, are imported four times a year.
During the Iran import embargo, Asadorian was used as an expert by U.S. immigration officials. They brought him rugs confiscated at the airport to see if the rugs had been imported illegally from Iran.
Besides retail sales in St. Louis, the company sells rugs wholesale to dealers in Atlanta and on both coasts. A large percentage of the business locally is in the St. Louis metropolitan area, with much of it in west St. Louis County. Customers also come from Carbondale, Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau and Kansas City.
Executives: Rich Asadorian, 49, is co-owner and in charge of imports and sales. A native of Granite City, he graduated from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston in 1973 with a degree in business and finance management. After living in an area of Granite City where there is an Armenian community, he moved to Missouri with his wife and two sons two years ago.
His cousin, Stephen Asadorian, 32, is co-owner and in charge of the restoration and cleaning side of the business. A graduate of McCluer North High School, he entered the family business in 1986.
The other full-time employees are Dave Ellis, who has been with the firm 49 years, and Teo Brick, a native of Bosnia. Ali Shirazian, a native of Iran, weaves part- time restoring rugs.
Company history: Rich Asadorian's grandfather, Stephon, emigrated from Armenia in the early 1900s. One of four brothers to come to the United States, he went to Granite City to work at the American Steel Foundry.
He also began doing repair work at night on rugs for May Department Stores and Scruggs, Vandervoort and Barney and in 1926 opened the first Asadorian store, featuring elegant oriental rugs. He also had a brother in New York who sold rugs when New York served as the port of entry in those days.
Rich's father, Edward, and his uncle, Higus, took over the business from the founder, with Edward joining the company in 1944 after serving in World War II.
When Rich graduated from college, he entered the business. "I came in with my own ideas about how to run the business, and my dad and uncle gave me just enough rope to hang myself."
Asadorian was helped by the strong economy in the late '90s and in 2000 and by a trend to more hardwood floors in homes. "In the 1950s, everyone went for broadloom carpet," he said. "With the development of new coatings to treat hardwood floors, more people wanted hardwood floors. The boom in new housing also helped us."
Revenue: Sales hit $1 million in 2000, a growth of 8 percent over 1999. Revenue jumped 12 percent from 1998 to 1999.
Professional services: Lee Koch at First Bank handles financial dealings; Pat Badalamenti of Badalamenti & Associates is the accountant; Laura Slay at Laura Slay & Associates Inc. does public relations and marketing. Asadorian does not deal with a law firm on a regular basis.
The future: April 28, the company will have a showing of rugs from Iran, including collectibles made by villagers. Asadorian also plans to revisit Iran later this year, now that the embargo has been lifted.
rjanecke@bizjournals.com"
Asadorian Rug Co. imports and sells some of the finest Oriental rugs
St. Louis Business Journal - April 6, 2001by Ron Janecke
Business activity: The lifting of the United States embargo on certain goods imported from Iran, including Persian rugs, has opened another door for Asadorian Rug Co. Inc.
The third-generation, family business that imports and exports Oriental rugs is run by Rich Asadorian and his cousin, Stephen. They work out of their showroom on Natural Bridge Road, near the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus.
The showroom has a large selection, ranging from mats to 14- by 27-foot rugs. The average size sold, 9-by-12 feet, sells for about $4,000. The company started selling imported rugs about 85 years ago.
"You can basically add a zero to the costs of rugs today, compared to what they sold for when my grandfather ran the business," said Rich Asadorian. "Those $200 to $300 rugs now cost from $2,000 to $3,000."
An inventory at the end of January showed Asadorian had 7,000 pieces in the store, including rugs being repaired or cleaned. Restoration and repair is a key component of the business.
Asadorian picks up the rugs and does the work at its Bel-Nor location. Everything is repaired, from burns to damage done by flower pots to areas chewed by dogs. Oriental rugs are extremely durable and can go six or seven years without being cleaned.
Four times a year, Rich Asadorian travels to the Far East to order rugs and to see the latest products being handmade by weavers. In August, he visited Nepal for three weeks, traveling to remote villages where women spend their entire time weaving, eating and sleeping in a community.
Asadorian has established relationships with agents, who scout markets before he makes the trips. He pays agents and shares them with other rug dealers whom he has gotten to know. His travels have taken him to India, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Romania and Nepal. He's also been to Hanover, Germany, one of the biggest rug markets in Europe.
"I try to learn enough about the country and the various tribes so not to show my ignorance," Asadorian said. "When I'm in one of these villages, I eat and drink what is offered me so I don't offend them."
Shipments of 30 bales each, averaging seven to 10 rugs a bale, are imported four times a year.
During the Iran import embargo, Asadorian was used as an expert by U.S. immigration officials. They brought him rugs confiscated at the airport to see if the rugs had been imported illegally from Iran.
Besides retail sales in St. Louis, the company sells rugs wholesale to dealers in Atlanta and on both coasts. A large percentage of the business locally is in the St. Louis metropolitan area, with much of it in west St. Louis County. Customers also come from Carbondale, Jefferson City, Cape Girardeau and Kansas City.
Executives: Rich Asadorian, 49, is co-owner and in charge of imports and sales. A native of Granite City, he graduated from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston in 1973 with a degree in business and finance management. After living in an area of Granite City where there is an Armenian community, he moved to Missouri with his wife and two sons two years ago.
His cousin, Stephen Asadorian, 32, is co-owner and in charge of the restoration and cleaning side of the business. A graduate of McCluer North High School, he entered the family business in 1986.
The other full-time employees are Dave Ellis, who has been with the firm 49 years, and Teo Brick, a native of Bosnia. Ali Shirazian, a native of Iran, weaves part- time restoring rugs.
Company history: Rich Asadorian's grandfather, Stephon, emigrated from Armenia in the early 1900s. One of four brothers to come to the United States, he went to Granite City to work at the American Steel Foundry.
He also began doing repair work at night on rugs for May Department Stores and Scruggs, Vandervoort and Barney and in 1926 opened the first Asadorian store, featuring elegant oriental rugs. He also had a brother in New York who sold rugs when New York served as the port of entry in those days.
Rich's father, Edward, and his uncle, Higus, took over the business from the founder, with Edward joining the company in 1944 after serving in World War II.
When Rich graduated from college, he entered the business. "I came in with my own ideas about how to run the business, and my dad and uncle gave me just enough rope to hang myself."
Asadorian was helped by the strong economy in the late '90s and in 2000 and by a trend to more hardwood floors in homes. "In the 1950s, everyone went for broadloom carpet," he said. "With the development of new coatings to treat hardwood floors, more people wanted hardwood floors. The boom in new housing also helped us."
Revenue: Sales hit $1 million in 2000, a growth of 8 percent over 1999. Revenue jumped 12 percent from 1998 to 1999.
Professional services: Lee Koch at First Bank handles financial dealings; Pat Badalamenti of Badalamenti & Associates is the accountant; Laura Slay at Laura Slay & Associates Inc. does public relations and marketing. Asadorian does not deal with a law firm on a regular basis.
The future: April 28, the company will have a showing of rugs from Iran, including collectibles made by villagers. Asadorian also plans to revisit Iran later this year, now that the embargo has been lifted.
rjanecke@bizjournals.com"
St. Louis Business Journal: Reza Jafarian of St. Louis-based Asadorian Rug Co. Inc.
St. Louis Business Journal: Life after the attacks - 2001-09-24: "Life after the attacks
Muslims face personal assaults; others deal with delayed shipments from Middle Eastern suppliers
St. Louis Business Journal - September 21, 2001by Margaret Jackson
Since Reza Jafarian left Iran Monday, the most difficult thing he's had to deal with as an American Muslim is tightened airport security.
Jafarian, who handles the wholesale business for St. Louis-based Asadorian Rug Co. Inc., flew from Tehran, Iran, where he was visiting family; to Frankfurt, Germany; to a business meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany, where security officers asked to check his bag.
"Normally, they would never do that," said Jafarian, a Muslim originally from Iran. "But I would assume that if you have a Middle Eastern appearance or features, you would be more likely to be stopped."
He was not stopped when he entered the United States through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport before continuing to St. Louis.
"I'm 45 years old and I have gray hair, and I don't look like one of those young kids," Jafarian said. "If I was in my mid-20s and had real Middle Eastern features, I probably would have been stopped. I've heard from some other friends who haven't been treated nicely."
Meanwhile, Jafarian's boss Rich Asadorian, co-owner of Asadorian Rug, said he hasn't been harassed, but is worried about his third-generation family business that imports and exports rugs. Sales hit $1 million last year.
Business had picked up after the United States lifted an embargo earlier this year on goods imported from Iran, including Persian rugs. Now, Asadorian is uncertain whether he'll be allowed to continue importing from there.
"If Iran doesn't cooperate, they might say we're going back to the embargo," said Asadorian, whose grandfather emigrated from Armenia in the early 1900s. "It's too soon to say what's going to happen."
Asadorian still is expecting shipments of rugs and yarn (for the repair end of his business) that have been delayed since the attack.
While Asadorian was born in the United States and his family is Christian, he also could be the target of attacks against people who appear to be from the Middle East.
Anna Crosslin, president and chief executive of the International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis, said it's not just Muslims who are likely targets of hate crimes. Anyone who has the appearance of being from the Middle East could feel the backlash from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It's people who the community perceives as being Middle Eastern -- not just those dressed in the traditional garb," she said. "People can't tell the difference between our Afghan refugees, Afghans who are Christians, Indians or Pakistanis."
Others haven't been as fortunate as Asadorian and Jafarian.
Dr. Ghazala Hayat, a neurologist on the Saint Louis University faculty, said she and her family have received threatening phone calls at home. The callers have said, "Watch out, we're coming for you," or "Why don't you leave the country?
Hayat, who also is the chairperson of the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, said the calls scared her 20-year-old daughter so much she was afraid to open the door -- a reaction Hayat discourages for the region's more than 50,000 Muslim residents.
"I'm telling the whole community to be careful, but please go out," Hayat said. "Don't go into a shell. There are a lot of people who don't know what the religion is about, and they won't if you don't tell them."
So far, there has been at least one report of physical abuse against a person from the Middle East. A 31-year-old immigrant from Jordan said he was beaten and hit on the head with a tire iron in a fight with a man and a woman because of his Middle Eastern heritage.
Crosslin said many of her organization's clients also have been verbally harassed, but there hasn't been any physical violence.
"People don't understand how broad Islam is and how you can have radical elements the same way you do in Christianity," she said. "We don't think all Christians are terrible because some radical Christians go out and shoot doctors and bomb abortion clinics. But that broad brush is being applied to all of Islam."
Malik Fazil, who owns a local leather importing and distribution business, said he hasn't received any threatening calls or been the target of any physical violence. Still, he's nervous enough that he asked that the name of business not to be published.
"Under other circumstances, I would be happy to get the free publicity," Fazil said. "I'm just a little nervous. There are strange people who you don't know what they can do. You don't want to be part of that statistic.
"People need to realize that we are just like them, and we are part of the system. If my neighbor his hurting, I'm hurting, too."
Fazil said he's also concerned that his nine-year-old company, which manufactures leather products in Pakistan and imports them to the United States, will suffer. The company has revenue of more than $2 million.
"The shipments are delayed," he said. "Our customers have been very understanding and cooperative with us -- nobody has canceled any orders. But our last shipment was a week ago -- just before the attack."
Mohammed Ibrahim, president of Ibrahim Engineering, said many of his clients have called to make sure he's OK. Ibrahim is only aware of a few incidents where his fellow Muslims have been treated badly -- and then it was more of a dirty look than cruel comments or physical abuse.
He hopes other Americans understand that the terrorists could not technically be Muslim.
"Anyone who would do that is not a Muslim," Ibrahim said. "The religion doesn't teach that you would hurt other people. You don't even hurt your enemy like that."
Zia Mahmood, a Muslim from Bangladesh, has not been a victim of harassment or intimidation, but the financial consultant at the St. Louis branch of the Royal Alliance brokerage firm said it's been difficult to carry on with business as usual.
"I'm so down, and I feel so bad about it," he said. "You don't feel like talking about business."
Mahmood, who has been in St. Louis for 21 years, has both Muslim and non-Muslim clients. He said there's been no distinction in the way each group has responded from a financial standpoint.
"Everybody is uncertain as to what to do," he said. A few people wanted to get out when the market opened Monday, but it's a very small portion. Some people want to be in just to show their support."
mjackson@bizjournals.com"
Muslims face personal assaults; others deal with delayed shipments from Middle Eastern suppliers
St. Louis Business Journal - September 21, 2001by Margaret Jackson
Since Reza Jafarian left Iran Monday, the most difficult thing he's had to deal with as an American Muslim is tightened airport security.
Jafarian, who handles the wholesale business for St. Louis-based Asadorian Rug Co. Inc., flew from Tehran, Iran, where he was visiting family; to Frankfurt, Germany; to a business meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany, where security officers asked to check his bag.
"Normally, they would never do that," said Jafarian, a Muslim originally from Iran. "But I would assume that if you have a Middle Eastern appearance or features, you would be more likely to be stopped."
He was not stopped when he entered the United States through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport before continuing to St. Louis.
"I'm 45 years old and I have gray hair, and I don't look like one of those young kids," Jafarian said. "If I was in my mid-20s and had real Middle Eastern features, I probably would have been stopped. I've heard from some other friends who haven't been treated nicely."
Meanwhile, Jafarian's boss Rich Asadorian, co-owner of Asadorian Rug, said he hasn't been harassed, but is worried about his third-generation family business that imports and exports rugs. Sales hit $1 million last year.
Business had picked up after the United States lifted an embargo earlier this year on goods imported from Iran, including Persian rugs. Now, Asadorian is uncertain whether he'll be allowed to continue importing from there.
"If Iran doesn't cooperate, they might say we're going back to the embargo," said Asadorian, whose grandfather emigrated from Armenia in the early 1900s. "It's too soon to say what's going to happen."
Asadorian still is expecting shipments of rugs and yarn (for the repair end of his business) that have been delayed since the attack.
While Asadorian was born in the United States and his family is Christian, he also could be the target of attacks against people who appear to be from the Middle East.
Anna Crosslin, president and chief executive of the International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis, said it's not just Muslims who are likely targets of hate crimes. Anyone who has the appearance of being from the Middle East could feel the backlash from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It's people who the community perceives as being Middle Eastern -- not just those dressed in the traditional garb," she said. "People can't tell the difference between our Afghan refugees, Afghans who are Christians, Indians or Pakistanis."
Others haven't been as fortunate as Asadorian and Jafarian.
Dr. Ghazala Hayat, a neurologist on the Saint Louis University faculty, said she and her family have received threatening phone calls at home. The callers have said, "Watch out, we're coming for you," or "Why don't you leave the country?
Hayat, who also is the chairperson of the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, said the calls scared her 20-year-old daughter so much she was afraid to open the door -- a reaction Hayat discourages for the region's more than 50,000 Muslim residents.
"I'm telling the whole community to be careful, but please go out," Hayat said. "Don't go into a shell. There are a lot of people who don't know what the religion is about, and they won't if you don't tell them."
So far, there has been at least one report of physical abuse against a person from the Middle East. A 31-year-old immigrant from Jordan said he was beaten and hit on the head with a tire iron in a fight with a man and a woman because of his Middle Eastern heritage.
Crosslin said many of her organization's clients also have been verbally harassed, but there hasn't been any physical violence.
"People don't understand how broad Islam is and how you can have radical elements the same way you do in Christianity," she said. "We don't think all Christians are terrible because some radical Christians go out and shoot doctors and bomb abortion clinics. But that broad brush is being applied to all of Islam."
Malik Fazil, who owns a local leather importing and distribution business, said he hasn't received any threatening calls or been the target of any physical violence. Still, he's nervous enough that he asked that the name of business not to be published.
"Under other circumstances, I would be happy to get the free publicity," Fazil said. "I'm just a little nervous. There are strange people who you don't know what they can do. You don't want to be part of that statistic.
"People need to realize that we are just like them, and we are part of the system. If my neighbor his hurting, I'm hurting, too."
Fazil said he's also concerned that his nine-year-old company, which manufactures leather products in Pakistan and imports them to the United States, will suffer. The company has revenue of more than $2 million.
"The shipments are delayed," he said. "Our customers have been very understanding and cooperative with us -- nobody has canceled any orders. But our last shipment was a week ago -- just before the attack."
Mohammed Ibrahim, president of Ibrahim Engineering, said many of his clients have called to make sure he's OK. Ibrahim is only aware of a few incidents where his fellow Muslims have been treated badly -- and then it was more of a dirty look than cruel comments or physical abuse.
He hopes other Americans understand that the terrorists could not technically be Muslim.
"Anyone who would do that is not a Muslim," Ibrahim said. "The religion doesn't teach that you would hurt other people. You don't even hurt your enemy like that."
Zia Mahmood, a Muslim from Bangladesh, has not been a victim of harassment or intimidation, but the financial consultant at the St. Louis branch of the Royal Alliance brokerage firm said it's been difficult to carry on with business as usual.
"I'm so down, and I feel so bad about it," he said. "You don't feel like talking about business."
Mahmood, who has been in St. Louis for 21 years, has both Muslim and non-Muslim clients. He said there's been no distinction in the way each group has responded from a financial standpoint.
"Everybody is uncertain as to what to do," he said. A few people wanted to get out when the market opened Monday, but it's a very small portion. Some people want to be in just to show their support."
mjackson@bizjournals.com"
Monday, March 06, 2006
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC: "Tehran: 18:52 , 2006/03/06
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
TEHRAN, Mar. 6 (MNA) -– In its bid to promote its products, namely the hand-woven Persian Carpets, Iran’s National Carpet Center is planning to give a teaser ad to the BBC.
Iran’s National Carpet Center is mulling over the conclusion of a contract with BBC to air a commercial on the luxurious hand-woven carpets produced in Iran, a report quoted Morteza Faraji chairman of the center as saying here on Monday.
He commented that technical issues of the project have been studied. However, the work calls for more considerations on the part of its other aspects. “Other issues including the political aspects of the work should be reviewed”, he further explained.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom."
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
TEHRAN, Mar. 6 (MNA) -– In its bid to promote its products, namely the hand-woven Persian Carpets, Iran’s National Carpet Center is planning to give a teaser ad to the BBC.
Iran’s National Carpet Center is mulling over the conclusion of a contract with BBC to air a commercial on the luxurious hand-woven carpets produced in Iran, a report quoted Morteza Faraji chairman of the center as saying here on Monday.
He commented that technical issues of the project have been studied. However, the work calls for more considerations on the part of its other aspects. “Other issues including the political aspects of the work should be reviewed”, he further explained.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom."
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC: "Tehran: 18:52 , 2006/03/06
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
TEHRAN, Mar. 6 (MNA) -– In its bid to promote its products, namely the hand-woven Persian Carpets, Iran’s National Carpet Center is planning to give a teaser ad to the BBC.
Iran’s National Carpet Center is mulling over the conclusion of a contract with BBC to air a commercial on the luxurious hand-woven carpets produced in Iran, a report quoted Morteza Faraji chairman of the center as saying here on Monday.
He commented that technical issues of the project have been studied. However, the work calls for more considerations on the part of its other aspects. “Other issues including the political aspects of the work should be reviewed”, he further explained.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom."
Iran mulling to advertise Persian Carpet on BBC
TEHRAN, Mar. 6 (MNA) -– In its bid to promote its products, namely the hand-woven Persian Carpets, Iran’s National Carpet Center is planning to give a teaser ad to the BBC.
Iran’s National Carpet Center is mulling over the conclusion of a contract with BBC to air a commercial on the luxurious hand-woven carpets produced in Iran, a report quoted Morteza Faraji chairman of the center as saying here on Monday.
He commented that technical issues of the project have been studied. However, the work calls for more considerations on the part of its other aspects. “Other issues including the political aspects of the work should be reviewed”, he further explained.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national public service broadcaster of the United Kingdom."
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