2020.2/14 (Fri) Tehran Purchase Day 2, Second Half
Once your stomach is filled with delicious food,
I'm going to visit the dry cleaning factory where I always get my rugs washed!
All the doors of the rug washing factory are blue, and the trucks are blue too.
Everything is painted this eye-catching blue. Why?
Here, we sometimes clean rugs that we have purchased, as we do, but we also collect rugs that are used in ordinary Iranian homes.
Apparently, in Iran too, people are very busy around the time of New Year (the Vernal Equinox) as they send out the rugs they use at home to be washed.
The rugs are lined up like this and then washed thoroughly using water and detergent.
You need a lot of space!
Once you have washed the rug, dry it immediately.
They can be dried in the Iranian sun or indoors.
The craftsmen look great!
All of the work involved in washing rugs requires a lot of strength, so a strong craftsman is essential. It's cool...
There is also a rug warehouse on the same premises, so we decided to take a look at some of the Gabbehs.
When I asked about it, I learned that the yarn is dyed at this rug shop and then given to the weavers to weave.
This means that the color of the Gabbeh depends on the taste of the rug maker.
The colors of the Gabbehs here are a little strong, so I didn't choose Layout, but I can see why the atmosphere of Gabbehs can differ depending on the supplier.
Here, I learned another important keyword about rugs.
Dogere (دوگره)
Do means two and gere means knot, so it means "two knots."
This is a finishing touch that ties the edges of the rug's fringe to prevent the pile from coming undone.
If you look closely at the edge of the rug, you'll see that it's knotted twice.
Gather several strands of fringe together, tie them twice, then gather the next few strands together again...
The top and bottom of the rug are almost completely worn from end to end.
This is an important step because if you don't do this finishing step, the rug will fray from the edges like a frayed knitted piece.
Subdued color rug
From here, we took a short drive to a warehouse where the rugs from the town we were looking for were collected.
We were scheduled to fly to a town called Tabriz that evening, so we toured the warehouse until the last possible moment.
There it is! This is a Hamadan rug.
Hamadan is a city in the northwest of Iran, and although I had wanted to go there for this purchasing trip, I had to give up because the schedule didn't work out.
There is someone in Tehran who has a large collection of rugs from this town, so we were able to see them!
The color and design are also popular at Layout.
We were able to purchase pieces ranging from small accent sizes to generously sized living room pieces.
The calm and sophisticated colors really appeal to me!
I am really looking forward to these rugs arriving in Japan.
Finally, we left the rugs we had bought at Jomue Bazaar that day at the dry cleaning factory and headed to the airport.
On to the next town!
We were all hungry so we had pizza at the airport to prepare for our trip.
It was tastier than I expected, but the tomato flavor was a little weak, so I added the ketchup that came with the fries and it was just right. (lol)
There was no announcement for the flight to Tabriz for a while, so we waited at the airport for an hour...it seemed that the people on the same flight were also tired of waiting.
However, a happy encounter came suddenly!
Our interpreter, Mr. A, happened to talk to a girl sitting alone next to us and it turned out that she was also waiting for the same flight to Tabriz.
She was a student from Iraq named Laila, and she was talking about going to study at a university in Tabriz.
When I heard "Iraq," something clicked in my mind, so I dug up some Arabic from the back of my mind, which I had almost forgotten, and tried to speak a little.
I was able to exchange contact information with Laila, who was very kind and spoke to me using simple words and sentences so that I could understand, and we still occasionally exchange messages even after I returned to Japan.
The plane was delayed, but thanks to that I made my first Iraqi friends.
happy!
Then, around 11pm, we finally took off.
We arrived in Tabriz, which is located further north than Tehran and is extremely cold. It's so cold!
to be continued