Blog #5 - ‘Festive interior of the houses’

In the photo: me at the local restaurant ( 2019 , Samarkand, Uzbekistan)

Bright colors were perfectly blended into the house decor. There was very little furniture in the houses. There were no wardrobes, beds, or sofas. Instead of beds, kurpachi – light soft quilted mattresses stuffed with cotton – were used. I remember we played hide and seek in my childhood, and I would hide between mattresses. The bedroom had a separate place for them, where all of the mattresses and blankets were stacked almost to the ceiling. Pillows were also sewn with beautiful patterns. The walls were decorated with colorful handmade (!)  carpets. In the center of the living room or terrace, instead of a table and chairs, there was a tapchan – a structure like a wide bed with a table with low legs, where the family sat around the table on soft kurpachi mattresses and pillows were placed under the back. The table was covered with a colorful embroidered tablecloth. The hanging embroideries harmoniously fit into the atmosphere, creating a single festive interior of the house, in which everything carried a charge of joy, and positive energy invested by the craftswoman-mistress of the house.