Folk crafts and contests

Crafts connected with fabric are very old in Central Asia, and women mostly practised them: embroidery, gold-thread embroidery, sewing suzani and patchwork quilts, and carpet weaving are among them. A master of embroidery is called a kashtado‘z or kashtachi. Each region’s embroidery is known for its own stitches and patterns: for example, masters in Nurota, Bukhara and Samarkand used the yo‘rma stitch more, while Tashkent masters used the bosma stitch. The doppi is one of the best-known items of Uzbek embroidery: doppis from Chust, Shahrisabz, Bukhara and Namangan are known, and the Chust doppi with white pepper motifs on a black ground is especially famous. Zardo‘zlik (Persian zar, “gold”, do‘zi, “sewing”) is the craft of stitching patterns with gold- or silver-coloured thread; the gold embroiderers of Bukhara became especially famous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Silk and half-silk fabrics such as atlas and beqasam were woven by weavers of Margilan, Kokand and Namangan; Margilan is still a centre of atlas today. Today the “Hunarmand” association supports craftspeople, and the master–apprentice tradition passes crafts from generation to generation.