Chiprovtsi Carpets
When the Ottoman authorities finally allowed people to resettle Chiprovtsi after the 1688 Uprising, carpet-weaving quickly became a key factor in the village's regeneration. Most Chiprovtsi carpets are kilims - double-sided woollen carpets hand-woven on a compact vertical loom known as a stan . They're famous for their colour-charged, stylized geometric designs, resembling more the paintings of Paul Klee than the products of some age-old peasant craft. Most characteristic of the Chiprovtsi designs is the karakachka ("black-eyed bride"), a geometrical form (usually red-on-black or black-on-red) which resembles a woman carrying two buckets of water. Although of eighteenth-century origin, it clearly harks back to pagan depictions of the earth mother. Other stylized forms favoured by successive generations of Chiprovtsi weavers include lozite ("vines"), piletata ("chickens"), and saksiite ("flowerpots") - each serving as a symbol of nature's bounty. The craft has changed little over the last three and a half centuries, although the quality of the wool - nowadays coloured with chemical rather than vegetable dyes - may not be what it was. Certain kilim-related customs still prevail: it's common, for example, for a daughter or granddaughter to be swung hammock-style in a newly completed kilim, to ensure that she, too, will grow up to be a skilled weaver. At the time of writing, the only retail outlet for kilims in Chiprovtsi is the museum, where there's a wide choice of local wares, all tagged with set prices. The museum can also organize visits to the houses of individual weavers, and although they rarely have surplus kilims for sale, many will be quite happy to make a kilim to your specifications if you're staying in Bulgaria long enough (two to three months) to collect it. A good Chiprovtsi kilim will last a lifetime if used as a floor covering, longer if it's employed as a wall hanging or drape. The Chiprovtsi-style carpets on sale in the Ethnographic Museum shop in Sofia are not actually made in Chiprovtsi, and are twice as expensive as the genuine articles you can pick up here.
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