Tag: Aryana

An Aryana War-Rug From Faryab Province, Afghanistan

Aryana War Rug

Faryab is often called one of the most peaceful provinces in Afghanistan, which means that most of the towns and cities have only been destroyed three or four times in the last hundred years, and in the more distant past, Faryab Province is named for a town which was destroyed by the Mongols in 1220.

Turkoman Aryana weavers originally migrated to Faryab Province from neighboring Turkmenistan to escape brutal Stalinist sovietization around 1930, and many of them emigrated again to the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan after 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and many others likewise after 1991, when the ethnic Pashto Taliban closed down most of the schools, burned down most of the government buildings, and generally tormented the ethnic Turkoman and Uzbek population.