Hidden in Plain Sight
Uzbekistan: The Fergana Valley 2012
Torie and I became very fond of our guide in the Fergana Valley. He had a keen intelligence and from the first day, he understood what we wanted in terms of photographs. Rather than just stand aside and chat with friends as we went about our quest, he was full of ideas and eagerly asked shop girls to pose or would bring a vase, a loaf of bread, a basket, any prop he could think of to help us tell the story visually.
This day we were visiting a silk factory housed in an old madrassa. The woman in the photo above worked in the shop. Anvar got her to pose for us wearing the paranja. The paranja is a strip of woven horsehair (taken from manes and tails). It is about 10 inches wide and has a flap that covers the top of the head. The rest of the paranja covers the face and body to below the waist. The heavy cloak that rests on the top of the wearer’s head holds the paranja in place.
We had been shooting different poses and portraits for about 10 minutes when the woman wearing the paranja asked if she could please remove it. She was stifling hot. Her face was bright red when she took it off.
Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan and you can see a similarity between this form of hijab and the burka worn by Muslim women in Afghanistan. Perhaps the wealthy Afghan women had beautiful embroidered silk burkas like these, too.
Women of Uzbekistan
The hand woven and hand sewn garments worn by our models are available in the silk factory’s shop. The quilts the girls are sitting on are of the typical ikat design of Uzbek silk. When I was in the country in 1989, everyone wore ikat silk dresses, even the women sweeping the streets with the twig brooms.
Maybe you are pitying the poor women who had to wear these clothes. I’m thinking that they would have been quite cozy in them in the harsh winters.
I increased the detail of the portrait of the woman wearing the paranja so you could see the coarseness of the woven horsehair. It gives fairly good vision looking straight ahead.
(To read how I felt when I wore the paranja, click: http://www.rosemarysheel.com/archives/the-emir-from-samarkand)
That paranja is a relic of the old days, not a costume. I faded the photo of the women sitting on the tapchan. I love the look…as if torn from the pages of an old book or maybe an old postcard. It’s my favorite.
For more information on Uzbekistan, see Penelope’s blog at www.uzbekjourneys.com