Afghan War Rug, Taimani Baluch, Herat, Shindand

Soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1979, a special group of, at first, smaller and then larger pictorial oriental rugs began appearing on the world's rug markets. They first showed up in the tax-free-port warehouses of Hamburg and soon appeared in all of the major markets. They depicted weaponry and war scenes of the war in Afghanistan, in astonishing detail. The detail is such that experts (such as Russian veterans of the war) can tell which part of the country the rug came from by the weaponry depicted. For example, if armored vehicles are prominent, the rug was likely to have come from western Afghanistan, perhaps the Herat area, for the terrain there (plains) are conducive to armor operations, rather than in the central and eastern areas of the country where mountains are the dominating terrain feature. This rug celebrates the U.S. invasion and overthrow of the Taliban and Al Qaedda forces.

This is an Afghan war rug made in NW Afghanistan by Afghan Baluch, Taimani sub-tribe, c. 3' x 5'. Construction is of wool knotted pile, wool foundation. About the weaver. We know that she was a woman for it was they who did the weaving in Baluch society. The Taimani inhabit an area to the east of Herat in Ghor Province. They are the largest sub-tribe in a four sub-tribe alliance known as the Chahar Aimaq Confederation. Chahar Aimaq is Turkic/Mongol for "four tribes", which are the Hazara, Firozkhoi, Jamshidi and Taimani. These are semi-nomadic groups, spending winters in towns and summers in tents at summer pasturage.

We are presented with a street scene in the Western Afghanistan city of Herat. The mosque complex depicted is The Friday Mosque. The Friday Mosque, also known as the Jumah Mosque, is a mosque in the city of Herat, in the Herat Province of north-western Afghanistan. It was built by the Abbasid Governor in 875 AD. In the foreground is civilian street traffic, while overhead fly Soviet aircraft, which are dropping flares to decoy heat seeking shoulder fired missiles. The flares are represented by eight-pointed stars. To the south of Herat, in Shindand, was a huge Soviet air base that serviced both fixed wing and rotary aircraft. The Soviets controlled both the city and the territory lying between Herat and Shindand. Soviet airplanes frequently passed over the city on their flight path into Shindand. Some of the bitterest fighting during the Afghan Soviet War took place in and around Herat. Early in the war Mujihaddin fighters killed or captured all of the Soviet soldiers and advisors garrisoned in Herat. The Soviets responded with a terrible air and armored ground campaign. When the peace truce of 1989 was reached it was not honored by the Herat area mujihadeen. In most areas of Afghanistan Soviet troops and armor marching on a straight line to the Soviet Afghan frontier were allowed to pass unhindered by the Mujihadeen, as long as their weapons were in a "guns-up" posture (see below). Not so with Soviet forces from the Herat area. Their retreat was dogged all the to the "Friendship Bridge" at the border, dribbling men and vehicles as they went.

Click Here for a 1989 article on Afghan/Soviet War Rugs in Oriental Rug Review. "Photos From the Front, A Preliminary inquiry into Afghan War Aksi," Oriental Rug Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1989.

Scroll down for several photos from the war.

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From 1981 through 1995 the seller published an Oriental Rug Journal, Oriental Rug Review, first as a black and white newsprint tabloid (1981-1987) and then as a color magazine (1987-1995). We have a large selection of back issues of the color magazine available in sets of 35 individual copies. If you have interest in acquiring this collection simply search on eBay for "Oriental Rug Review."

Much of the Afghan material, utilitarian bags and animal trappings, Afghan Baluch rugs, and Uzbek flatweaves that we offer here on e-Bay date back nearly 50 years and more, yet many are in new, unused condition. Therein hangs a tale. We have a very good Afghan friend whose uncle is the head of a large extended Afghan family. The family was very prominent in the rug business in Western Afghanistan. The Uncle, as early as the mid 1970's "didn't like the smell of things" (politics, factionalism and other conditions and forces that led to the ghastly Afghan/Soviet War, 1979-1989), and, over time, moved the family and the family's rugs to what was then West Germany. The rugs were stored in warehouses in the Zollfreilager (tax free zone) in Hamburg. We were privileged to accompany our friend on a tour of one of the warehouses while in Hamburg for an international rug conference in the early '90s. At that time we committed to a sizable group of these rugs of which we receive incremental shipments, under very favorable terms, for which we thank our friend and his family.