The real jewel that we have the honour to present to you is the traditional Bulgarian hand-woven kilims from Stara Planina, which over several centuries have rightly earned the proud nickname of the Pearl of the Balkans.
We offer you the best of Stara Planina kilims. Each pattern from our catalogue can be made to order in the size and colour palette that best suits your idea. Kilims are double.-sided; made from natural materials - wool yarn that is woven into a wool or cotton warp. Wool kilim is pleasant to the touch, provides excellent thermal insulation, has no electrostatic effects and does not trap or attract dust. Its light weight makes it easy to handle. The colours of the kilim are not affected by heat or light. Traditionalists will appreciate the possibility of making kilims from yarns dyed only with natural substances such as walnut or plum skins or mountain herbs. Such a kilim is then a perfect ecologically clean product. The classical designs of the Stara Planina kilims have undergone several stages of development over the centuries, and especially the models of the so-called constructive period, such as bakam or garibalda, have no parallel anywhere else in the world and are a unique example of the Bulgarian sense of aesthetics.
The production of kilim is traditionally carried out on small home looms and it is hard to imagine that weaving one square metre of kilim takes experienced kilim weavers over ten days with an eight-hour working day. The fascinating results of their work are the tightly woven kilims with an enormous lifespan, counted in decades. Each of the two sides of the kilim can withstand over thirty years of strenuous daily use. The kilims do not age. On the contrary, they take on a more natural and original appearance as the years go by. We would say that they age like wine and gain in value. That is why, in times of hardship, they have always been a means of storing and appreciating money and a secure investment, together with the Rhodope halishte. For their ornamental mastery and colourful variety, rather than a carpet, the Stara Planina kilims are an invaluable work of art that can brighten up any house. Bulgarians also believe that a kilim can bring good luck and abundance to a house.
The history of kilim weaving
Our kilims originate from the once flourishing artisan towns, situated on the steep slopes of the Balkan Mountains. The tradition of hand-weaving double-sided kilims here dates back to 1688 and was born, in fact, from the ashes of the bloody anti-Turkish uprising that swept the western parts of Stara Planina. After the original sources of livelihood in the burnt towns were destroyed, the Bulgarian survivors of the Janissaries' rampage turned mainly to kilim crafting. They began to write the history of the world-famous kilims, which gained fame during the first decades of production and soon became appreciated for their original design throughout the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, but also in Central Europe and Italy. In a short time, they also became fierce competitors to the Persian rugs imported from the Middle East. In terms of their appearance, this early period is characterised as constructive. Kilimarians are initially inspired mainly by geometric shapes, creating impressive harmonies of warm and cool colours. The most used colours are yellow, brown, blue and green. The models from this period (black-eyed bride, garibalda, bakam), which we can offer you today, have no analogue anywhere else in the world.
Paradoxically, but not accidentally, the biggest customer of the Stara Planina kilim families was their suppressor- the regular Turkish army, which bought huge quantities of these kilims every year as part of the equipment for its troops. Old trade books tell us that in the second half of the nineteenth century, shortly before the liberation of Bulgaria, it purchased 8,000 kilims every year. Ottoman military commanders valued their durability. The light weight of the old-planin kilims also played in favour, their lightness proved to be an invaluable advantage during the frequent movements of soldiers. This feature gave the kilims a significant advantage over the Persian rugs and increased their popularity. Their ornamental sophistication and harmony of colour, in turn, caused the Stara Planina kilims to become the most renowned prayer rug among the hodjas throughout the vast Ottoman Empire.
By this time the weaving of kilims had been perfected. From today's perspective, we speak of the nineteenth century as a decorative period. Nature motifs became the most important source of inspiration for skilled kilim weavers. Stylized trees, flowers, twigs, birds, lizards, and even various constellations began to be woven into kilims. This has resulted in very impressive and original compositions, using an increasingly rich colour palette. This is expanding to include white and black, and red is beginning to dominate as the main background colour.
After the liberation, the kilim industry stagnated for a short time, but soon, thanks to the entrepreneurship of local kilim families, carpet production within the newly established Bulgarian Tsardom began to focus mainly on exports to Western Europe. The main awards that kilims received also date back to the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gold medals were awarded to kilims at trade exhibitions and international fairs in Antwerp, Liege, Brussels, London and the then important Balkan city of Plovdiv, and they also entered the collections of many European museums.
Stara Planina kilim art has survived all the upheavals of the twentieth century and continues to amaze today with the originality of its designs, colour palette, durability and the genius of its creators. Kilims are still made in old mountain houses in the traditional way on a small vertical loom by Bulgarian kilim makers who inherited their craft from their ancestors. Many of the original kilim patterns with poetic names such as "spring grapevine, autumn grapevines, lizards and chicks" or "bombs" can be woven from memory, without any pattern. The complexity of the production is underlined by the fact that even today, the kilim families themselves obtain many of the dyes they use to colour the woollen yarn from natural sources according to family recipes - from a decoction of walnut, plum or onion skins, or from many kinds of mountain herbs. This is also the charm of kilim-making: each kilim is in fact an unrepeatable original thanks to the uniqueness of natural shades.
It is washed by hand in cold or lukewarm water. We recommend that you have your rug cleaned only by specialists who clean hand-woven kilims and oriental rugs.
