More on carpets.

We're spending a few days in Konya visiting cool people, some of whom (like Mevlana) are dead and some of whom (like Memet) are in the carpet-making business. Mevlana didn't have a whole lot to say, but we learned even more about the carpet business from Memet. He's producing carpets solely in natural dyes, almost exclusively for export to European and American markets. He exports traditional Turkish carpets to Europe and, get this, traditional Navajo carpets to America. That's globalization for you.

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Some of the natural dyes in question.

A lot of his business comes from restoring the antique rugs of rich Europeans. He dyes new thread to match the colors of the original and sets his people to work reweaving them. It's a labor intensive and difficult process, and he apparently gets something in the way of $50,000 for each restoration.

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He's unraveled less ornate carpets from the same period and is currently bleaching the thread. He'll redye this to use in the restoration so that all of the restored carpet will be from the same time period. What a perfectionist!

Of course, Memet didn't actually do the carpet weaving himself - that job goes to the 30ish households in the greater Konya area whose women collaborate to weave a single rug of the course of a few months. They get a several hundred dollars for this - obviously it isn't enough to feed a family, but it's a tidy bit of supplementary income that the household wouldn't have otherwise. Memet insisted that the women enjoy weaving the carpets and it's a wonderful situation for everyone. He's probably right. You always approach these situations expecting to find a sweatshop hidden somewhere in the depths, but the more we looked at it the more it seemed like there wasn't anything too dodgy going on.

Sooo... yeah. It's a good day in Turkey, I guess.