RugNotes

KOBTV.com - Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store

2005-10-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

KOBTV.com - Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store: "Santa Fe business overwhelmed with rugs from New Orleans store

Sharon Schenck’s rug store in Santa Fe is packed nearly to the rafters with rugs – many from her store in New Orleans.

By: Todd Dukart

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina flooded much of New Orleans, a Santa Fe business remains flooded with rugs from a New Orleans store.

Sharon Schenck, who owns the Oriental Rug Resource in Santa Fe, had to move more than 1,500 rugs from her New Orleans store after the hurricane.

The hurricane didn’t flood the New Orleans store, but damaged it enough to close down.

The rugs, which she says she handpicked for New Orleans, fill up her Santa Fe store and her garage.

“It’s just unbelievable the amount of rugs in this tiny little space,” she said.

She had just ordered 200 more rugs for her New Orleans store from Afghanistan. Now, those rugs are sitting in customs.

The rugs can’t be stored too long, she says, because of moths. The least expensive rugs normally retail in the hundreds of dollars, while some fetch thousands.

Schenck says she’s brainstorming to figure out ways to sell the New Orleans rugs by discounting prices or selling them to evacuees in Houston."

Keshishian Family Sponsors of Washington International Horse Show

2005-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Press Point: "October 16, 2005

Washington International Horse Show Brings Together Show Jumping Elite at MCI Center in Nation’s Capital.

Washington, DC – October 14, 2005 – This year’s edition of the Washington International Horse Show, scheduled for the MCI Center in Washington, D.C., on October 25-30, 2005, will bring together a slate of this country’s finest show jumping riders. Eight United States Olympians highlight this year’s roster of equestrian superstars. In addition, the show, one of the country’s most prestigious and competitive indoor equestrian events, will feature some of Europe’s legendary and most successful equestrian stars.

Nick Skelton and Michael Whitaker, both four time Olympians for their home country of Great Britain, have confirmed that they will attend this year’s show. Both riders were key members of this year’s British Samsung Super League Teams. Skelton is the 1995 World Cup Champion while Whitaker, who was second at the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas earlier this year, won the European Championship in 1995.

Also coming to the MCI Center this year is Philippe Rozier, a two time French Olympic Team veteran. 2004 Olympian Gerco Schroeder of the Netherlands will also attend. Schroeder, with three World Cup Finals appearances, was the Young Rider Gold Medalist at the European Championships twice. Harrie Smolders, also from the Netherlands, rounds out the contingent from Europe.

The MCI Center will showcase a battle of the best riders the United States has to offer, including sixteen of the top twenty-five riders on the United States Equestrian Federation Show Jumping Computer Rankings.

The star studded field of American riders is headlined by 2004 Olympic Team Gold Medalist McLain Ward. The 2004 President’s Cup Champion and Washington International’s Leading Jumper Rider, Ward returns to defend his title in 2005 and looks forward to the enthusiastic crowds at the MCI Center. “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the great crowds at Washington,” Ward said. “The fan support we get is very exciting and induces good competition.”

Ward, who produced double clear rounds in Aachen, Germany this summer to propel the United States to the championship in the summer long Samsung Super League Series, says that Washington has emerged as the preeminent indoor show in the United States. “The Washington International is a real first class, international indoor horse show. It rivals what Madison Square Garden once was,” asserted Ward. “It’s in the middle of downtown. There’s electricity in the air. They pack the place on President’s Cup night, probably more people than the Garden ever got on grand prix night. And, it’s a very horse educated crowd. They understand what’s going on, and they’re very supportive. That’s the key to making any event great,” he said.

In addition to Ward, other United States Olympic veterans competing at this year’s Washington International Horse Show include two time Olympian, Leslie Howard, with Gold and Silver Team Medals from Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and in Atlanta in 1996.

Also returning to the MCI Center is Norman Dello Joio, the Individual Olympic Bronze Medalist from Barcelona in 1992. Dello Joio won the President’s Cup at Washington in 2000. Other Olympic veterans include Margie Goldstein Engle (Sydney 2000), Lauren Hough (Sydney 2000), Laura Kraut (Sydney 2000), Alison Firestone (Athens 2004) and Todd Minikus (Sydney 2000). Minikus captured the President’s Cup at Washington in 1990.

Two time President’s Cup winner Aaron Vale (2001-2003) will try to make it three in 2005. Vale is on fire, chalking up 23 grand prix wins this season including the $100,000 USGPL Finals. Vale, a part of the United States Equestrian Team’s efforts in Europe this summer, won a Lexus automobile by capturing the Lexus Queen’s Cup at Barcelona, Spain.

Schuyler Riley will make Washington a stop on this year’s tour. Riley galloped her way into show jumping history this summer when she won the $175,000 Chrysler Classic at Spruce Meadows for the second year in a row. Her back to back victories were the first since legendary Canadian Ian Miller posted consecutive wins with Big Ben in the late 80s. She’s the only woman to ever capture that prestigious event.

Georgina Bloomberg and Danielle Torano, who dominated last year’s Amateur Owner Jumper division, will be competing in the WIHS Open Jumpers in 2005. Danielle’s husband Jimmy Torano, who put together an amazing string of six consecutive grand prix wins this summer, will challenge as well.

“This is without a doubt the greatest field of open jumper riders at the Washington International Horse Show in the last fifteen to twenty years,” said WIHS manager Hugh Kincannon.

The $100,000 President’s Cup sponsored by Salamander Hospitality, LLC highlights this year’s jumper division and will take place on Saturday night, October 29, 2005.

Other exciting jumper action includes the $25,000 International-Open Jumper Time First Jump-off, a President’s Cup Qualifier, sponsored by Split Rock Farm and the Braun Family on Friday, October 28th and the $20,000 International-Open Jumper Time First Round, sponsored by Monarch International/Show Circuit Magazine on Thursday afternoon, October 27th, also a President’s Cup Qualifier, Also on the agenda for 2005 is the $20,000 International-Open Gambler’s Choice on Thursday evening.

The all new AOL.com Night at the Washington International Horse Show features two exciting show jumping events, the $20,000 International-Open Jumper Accumulator and the $25,000 AOL.com International Open Puissance classes.

Tickets for the 2005 Washington International Horse Show are still available at www.ticketmaster.com or call 202-397-SEAT. Barn Night Groups (10 or more) receive $5 off each ticket.

WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL HORSE SHOW

FAST FACTS

Washington International Horse Show Media Credentials Available Online

Media interested in covering the WIHS can apply for accreditation through the official website www.wihs.org. The WIHS will accept any legitimate requests for applications, even if received after the deadline of October 10th.

If you would like to cover the WIHS, please fill out the accreditation form at http://www.wihs.org/news/media.cfm.

Washington International Horse Show – (Office) 16063 Comprint Circle, Gaithersburg, MD 20877 – 301-987-9400 Fax: 301-987-9461 – www.wihs.org – Susan Webb - Susie@wihs.org

During Show at MCI Center: 202-661-5227 – Fax: 202-661-5228 – Web Site: www.wihs.org (#s TBD)

PRESS LINK PR/Diana De Rosa: O: 631-773-6155, C: 516-848-4867, dderosa1@optonline.net

PHELPS MEDIA GROUP, INC./Mason Phelps, Jr.: O: 561 753-3389, mpjr@phelpsmediagroup.com

BENDURE COMMUNICATIONS/Vicki Bendure: (540) 687-3360, bendurepr@aol.com

WHAT: Washington International Horse Show

WHO: Elite equestrians and their multi-million dollar horses competing for some of the most coveted trophies in the world.

WHEN: October 25 – 30, 2005

WHERE: MCI Center, Washington, DC

TICKET PRICES

Day
Day
Evening Regular
Evening VIP**

Tuesday
$15
$20
$40

Wednesday
$15
$20
$40

Thursday
$15
$30*
$45*

Friday
$15
$35
$60

Saturday
$20
$35
$60

Sunday
$15
No Evening
No Evening

Anytime Package
$85
Regular admission for each performance ($235 package)

Barn Night Groups (10 or more) receive $5 off each ticket. See back panel for rules or visit www.wihs.org
VIP Seats include premium arena-level seating and a FREE WIHS Program Book ($10 Value). Take ticket stub to WIHS Souvenir Booth.
www.ticketmaster.com or call 202-397-SEAT
.

2005 SPECIAL “ANYTIME PACKAGE” OFFER:

This year the Washington International Horse Show is offering an “Anytime Package” ticket deal for $85.00. The “Anytime Package” allows admittance for spectators to all events and performances from Tuesday, October 25th through Sunday, October 30th. The cost of tickets if purchased for each event would total $235.00, at the very least, so this opportunity is a great way to save money while enjoying all that the show has to offer. Also included in the Anytime Package is free admittance into the Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion which will have a host of activities for families to enjoy on Saturday, October 29th from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

SCHEDULES:

10/25 – Daytime: Regular & Green Conformation – 1st & 2nd Green – Regular Working – A/O Hunter (35 & Under and Over 35) – Evening: WIHS Children’s Hunter Championships & Adult Hunter Championships

10/26 – Daytime: Regular Working & Regular Conformation – 2nd year Green & Green Conformation – 1st year Green

A/O Hunter (35 & Under & Over 35) – A/O Jumpers – Evening: WIHS Children’s Jumper Championships and Adult Jumper Championships

10/27 – Daytime: Small Jr. (15 & Under), Large Jr. (15 & Under) – Small Jr. (16-17), Large Jr. (16-17)

$25,000 President’s Cup Qualifier – A/O Jumpers – Evening: WIHS Dressage Invitational Grand Prix, $20,000 Gambler’s Choice

10/28 – Daytime: Small Jr. (15 & Under), Large Jr. (15 & Under), Small Jr. (16-17), Large Jr. (16-17), WIHS Equitation, A/O Jumpers – Jr. Jumpers TFR - $20,000 Open Jumpers – Evening: AOL.com Night features Dressage Invitational Freestyle Competition, $25,000 AOL.com Puissance

10/29 – Daytime: Small, Medium, Large Pony - Afternoon: $15,000 Open Jumpers Speed Class – Jr. Jumpers, Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion and Mystics Family Fun Day

Evening: WIHS Equitation Classic: (Jumper Phase & Final work-off) - $100,000 President’s Cup Grand Prix, Tracy Byrd Concert

10/30 – Small, Medium, Large Pony – WIHS Pony Equitation Classic – Local Hunter Finals (Horses) – Local Hunter Finals (Ponies) – Jr. Jumpers TFJO – Local Jumpers Finals

Exhibitions to Include: Barrel Racing – Terrier Races – Musical Free Style – Dressage - Tracy Byrd in concert- AOL.com Night- Mystics Family Fun Day- Starlight Starbright Pony Pavilion…and more

SPONSORS: Salamander Hospitality, LLC, RLJ Development, Mignon C. Smith, Washington Mystics, Monarch International/Show Circuit Magazine,Gotham North, Arwen Stables, The Braun Family, Stadium Jumping, Inc., Salamander Resort & Spa, J. Aron Charitable Foundation, Newstead Farm, Legg Mason Funds, MasterfoodsUSA, Shalanno Farm, Tara Management, JPC Equestrian, ITS Industries, Ernie & Betty Oare, Pennfield Feeds, Linda C. Dickinson, Mr. and Mrs. Austin Kiplinger, S. Craig & Frances Lindner, Chris Rogers/Hillary Stiff, EMO Insurance Agency, Inc., Tad Coffin Performance Saddles, The Tack Box, Inc., Pat Carleton, Phillips Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. David Pollin, Rill & Decker, Potomac Valley Builders, Tony Weight, USTrust, Lilly Elizabeth & Stella Gray Pollin, Lake Placid Horse Shows, Delaware Park Racing Association, Keshishian Family, McGuire Woods, LLP, Horse Watch

MEDIA PARTNERS: NBC4 – Metro – Practical Horseman – The Gazette – The Journal – The Chronicle of the Horse – Equiery – WAMU 88.5 FM – The Washington Post – MIX 107.3 FM – Sidelines – Horse Talk – 97.1 Wash-FM – The Washington Times – Primedia Equine Network- 98.7 WMZQ- Washington Life Magazine- Press Link PR- Towerheads- Phelps Media Group, Inc.- Virginia Equestrian- Reins & Manes- Equine Journal

Publications interested in covering the Washington International Horse Show can fill out an accreditation form at www.wihs.org.

ABOUT THE MCI CENTER: The MCI Center offers sponsors luxury hospitality, an upscale spectator base, prime media exposure, and a highly-visible corporate presence.

SPONSOR OPPORTUNITIES: Thursday Evening’s Performance, WIHS Equitation Classic, WIHS Championships, $20,000 Gambler’s Choice, Junior Jumper Division, Amateur Owner Jumper Division, WIHS Pony Equitation, Exhibitor’s Lounge,$25,000 Open Jumpers – Friday, $15,000 Open Jumper Speed Class – Saturday, Small Junior Hunter Divisions, Large Junior Hunter Divisions, Pony Hunter Divisions, Lunches for Judges & Officials, Leading Jumper Rider Award, Exhibitors Numbers, Hunter Divisions, Soda & Snacks For Exhibitors, Individual Hunter Classes, and Individual Pony Hunter Classes

QUICK FACTS:

-English Style Horse Show Spectators & competitors have one of the richest income/economic demographics of any sports audience.

-USEF members average HHI - $134,500 – net worth $955,400 – Professional/managerial positions – 60%

27 million Americans ride a horse at least once a year – More than 10% of U.S. households currently participate in riding – 2,000,000+ people currently own horses – An additional 18% of U.S. households have an interest in riding – 33% of American households own/ride horses or would like to own/ride horses – 2/3 of current horse owners own more than one horse.

-The MCI Center offers sponsors luxury hospitality, an upscale spectator base, prime media exposure, and a highly-visible corporate presence.

-With everything from shopping at the specialty vendor booths and bidding on silent auction items to cheering on Olympic riders, the WIHS combines affordable family fun, shopping, glamour and international equestrian competition.

-The WIHS is a charitable organization; proceeds donated to local and national charities. Past recipients include: CRPF, NBC4s Camp 4 Kids, Canine Companions for Independence, ASPCA, Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health, Partners in Education, Community Services for Autistic Adults & Children, National Center For Therapeutic Riding, etc.

- This year’s chief charity for 2005 is the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg, the foundation is dedicated to brightening the lives of seriously ill children and their families. Their website is www.slsb.org.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

The 47th Annual Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) has served as one of the world’s elite show jumping competitions since its genesis in 1958. From its birthplace at the DC Armory, to the Capital Centre, and now at the state-of-the-art MCI Center, the WIHS brings the “country to the city” every October with Olympic horses and riders competing throughout the 6 days of competition for some of the most coveted and prestigious awards in the world.

The Washington International Horse Show takes place each year at the MCI Center, Washington, DC. The musical freestyle dressage exhibitions by top dressage riders are a crowd favorite. Musical freestyle dressage is often referred to as “dancing on horseback” since riders and horses perform a routine of complex movements – all to the beat of music.

Each year, equestrians from all across the US competed in horse shows to qualify to compete at Washington. The world’s top riders fly their multi-million dollar equine athletes to Washington to view for top honors in this world class show jumping event.

The Washington International Horse Show is a great place to start shopping for the holiday season with amazing bargains in both the Silent Auction and at the 60-plus specialty vendor booths along the concourse of the MCI Center. To view information about this year’s specialty vendors and descriptions of their products, visit www.wihs.org

WIHS EQUITATION QUALIFYING INFORMATION

Competitors must be WIHS members for qualifying points to count. Membership forms and Show Application Equitation forms may be downloaded at www.wihs.org – or contact Ryegate Show Services, 717-867-5643 - wihs@ryegate.com

RULES & REGULATIONS (new for 2005): Riders must be members of the WIHS Equitation to earn points in the standings.

The WIHS Equitation and Washington Pony Equitation are open to USEF and CEF member shows that request an application to hold an equitation qualifier class.

Shows must apply 30 days prior to the start of the show in order to offer the equitation class(es). Upon receipt of the application, the show contact will be mailed all pertinent forms.

Completed results forms and payment ($7.00 fee per rider in each class) must be returned to the Ryegate office within 10 days from the conclusion of the recognized horse show.

Qualifying period: shows starting on or after September 1st through shows starting on or before August 31st. The top 30 riders in the WIHS Equitation and the top 25 riders in the Washington Pony Equitation will be invited to compete in the Finals at the Washington International Horse Show.

Multi-day horse shows are permitted to hold either a one or two phase WIHS equitation qualifier. One-day horse shows are only allowed to hold a one-phase event. Washington Pony Equitation Classes may only be held as one phase.

The WIHS Equitation classes are open to junior members of USEF or CEF. Three riders must complete the course for the class to be included in the National Ranking.

· The same horse must be used in all phases of the event...No Exceptions.

· One rider per horse, unless the judge requests a change.

· Classes to be judged in accordance with the current USEF standards for equitation.

· Riders may only compete in one WIHS Equitation class at a show.

· Splitting of classes must be in accordance with USEF Article 2203.3.1.

As a service to our visitors and international sports organizations, Sports Features Communications™ is posting recent press releases at no charge to the viewer or organization. "

BCNG Portals Page: Local carpet company finds a niche Steve Roberts and the Rug Badger

2005-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

BCNG Portals Page: "

Local carpet company finds a niche

By BrennanCLARKE

Victoria News
Oct 14 2005 In more ways than one, Steve Roberts is cleaning up in the world of business.

But his services have never been in higher demand than they were last week in Louisiana.

Roberts, co-owner of Luv-a-Rug carpet cleaning in Saanich, spent a day in New Orleans late last month salvaging waterlogged Persian carpets that had been damaged in the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

"It was really quite extraordinary. We were driving down the streets in a carpet cleaning van with a U-Haul trailer and people were literally chasing down the van saying 'can you help?'" Roberts said.

"The lesser quality carpets were all junk because the colours had all run, but many of the good ones were salvageable."

Roberts drove the van and trailer through the ritzy Metairie district in suburban New Orleans, where homeowners were piling their flood damaged belongings on lawns and in driveways. Within three blocks, he found himself overloaded with high-quality carpets.

"People would go to the heap, pull a rug out of the pile and I would discover it was a $20,000 Isfahan, or a $10,000 Tabriz, or even a $40,000 Beshir rug, all completely restorable," he said.

Roberts travelled to the Gulf Coast at the invitation of fellow carpet cleaner George Bell of Jackson, Miss., who called Roberts away from a Las Vegas trade show, saying that thousands of expensive rugs were rotting away amid continuing hurricane clean-up efforts.

As it turned out, Roberts had been marketing a new carpet cleaning invention called the Rug Badger.

Roberts said the Rug Badger uses high-speed vibrations to remove tiny particles of sediment, heavy metals and other contaminants from carpets.

"It's something we developed right here in Victoria. We were cleaning carpets and people would call us to say they're still dirty," Roberts said via a cell phone from an Alabama factory where the units are being assembled. "Now we're taking orders from all over the world - Australia, we sold six in the UK, all over the United States."

The Rug Badger retails for about $3,500. Roberts said he's sold about 60 of them so far and orders continue to pile up."

Iran Daily - Arthur Upham Pope's Narenjestan-e Qavam

2005-10-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Panorama - 10/12/05: "Narenjestan-e Qavam

Narenjestan-e Qavam is a fascinating and pleasant garden, the fragrant trees and flowers of which have given it a beautiful and poetical atmosphere. Inside the garden which is known as “Narenjestan“ because of its bitter orange trees, we come across an old building complex whose exquisite architecture is admired by all viewers.
The structure of this building is one of the outstanding artistic masterpieces of Shiraz artists, and dates back to the 19th century. All the graceful and unique decorations were completed in about five years.
These constructions were designed by Ebrahim Khan-e-Qavam (prime minister during the reigns of the two Qajar kings, Aqa Mohammad Khan and Fath Ali Shah) and carry the symbols of that era’s architecture. A walk through the garden proves to be a pleasing experience so much that leaving the scenes of nature’s beauty, enhanced by admirable works of art is difficult to do.
This building was used as the Birooni building (to receive people out of the family circle). The complex was the domicile of governor’s court of Fars during the Qajar period. It also includes Zinat-al-Mulk house, designed and used as Andarooni (the home for only the close family). The two buildings are examples of traditional residential architecture in Iran.
These buildings were granted to Shiraz University in 1966.
Narenjestan was used by the Asian Institute under famous archeologist, Professor Arthur Upham Pope, between 1969 and 1979. The complex is part of the faculty of Art and Architecture of Shiraz University since 1998.
The other parts of the complex were: private bathhouse; public bathhouse; Hosseiniyeh (building for religious ceremonies); detention house; and stable. The detention house and stable no longer exist."

Editorials - The Ithaca Journal - Pakistan: Old friend helps many - JAKCISS Oriental Rugs

2005-10-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

Editorials - The Ithaca Journal - www.theithacajournal.com: "Pakistan: Old friend helps many

Editorials

Thanks to the ever-rotating spotlight of world catastrophe, many in this area are rediscovering the small villages of India and Pakistan and joining the world in aiding the earthquake stricken nations. These efforts are desperately needed, and those who answer this call are saving lives.

Worth noting, especially as the shadow of this crisis lingers, is that both nations have struggled for decades with deep poverty and religious tension. While the earthquake has brought many new friends, one old friend has been helping improve lives in the villages of Pakistan for years - and this community has played an important role in that effort.

The non-profit business Ten Thousand Villages has been spreading its fair-trade message for almost 60 years, now through more than 160 stores in North America, including its operation on The Commons in downtown Ithaca. Collectively, these stores spread throughout the United States and Canada generated $22.8 million in sales last year, sending more than $7.7 million to artisans and workers from Asia to Central America. The company, a program of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches, has as its mission the goal of providing a needed and fair income to Third World people.

Well more than $1 million of those payments went to Pakistan, where Ten Thousand Villages works with an artisan group known as JAKCISS Oriental Rugs. Through them, the company works with 700 families in more than 100 Pakistani villages. JAKCISS even supports two schools, and work on the hand-knotted rugs is often done indoors so women in more conservative Muslim areas can join other Muslim and Christian adults in earning a fair wage.

Since most Ten Thousand Villages stores are too small to stock these rugs, the company sends them on tour around the country, introducing local people to the craft and the purpose of the fair trade relationship at these “rug events.” A few weeks ago the rug event stopped in Ithaca, with 300 rugs taking up residence in donated space at St. Catherine of Siena Church. Mike Westlund, manager of the Ithaca Ten Thousand Villages, said the events was a success, generating enough in sales in this community to supply one year's worth of income to 20 families in Pakistan. After the event, Westlund heaped praise on the church and the community, but he may not have been surprised by the good results. Of all the Ten Thousand Villages stores, Ithaca has the highest per-capita rate of fair trade purchases.

Like the rest of the world, Ten Thousand Villages has stepped up its efforts in Pakistan since last week's earthquake. Its rug program Web site (http://rugs.tenthousandvillages.com) reports some damage to the schools but, so far, no word of serious damage or loss of life among artisans. But before catastrophe demanded it, the non-profit chain - with the strong support of Ithaca and Tompkins County - was saving and improving lives in Pakistan as it does in many regions of the world. New friends are always needed in tough times, but old friends deserve thanks. For helping lives in the Third World, and for teaching consumers in the First World how to make a difference, Ten Thousand Villages deserves special thanks from us all.

Originally published October 13, 2005"

Hundreds of Priceless Oriental Rugs Rescued From Hurricane Flood Damage by Canadian Business Owner

2005-10-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Hundreds of Priceless Oriental Rugs Rescued From Hurricane Flood Damage by Canadian Business Owner: "Steve Roberts, owner of Luv-A-Rug, a Victoria, B.C., based area rug cleaning company, never imagined being directly involved with any rescue efforts in New Orleans. But a telephone call from Jackson, Mississippi, changed all that.

(I-Newswire) - "I was an exhibitor at a Carpet Cleaning Trade Show in Las Vegas when I got a frantic call from George Bell, who owns a rug cleaning company in Mississippi," remembers Roberts. "He desperately needed one of my new rug cleaning machines that I recently unveiled to the industry, so after the show, I flew down and personally delivered one to him."

When Roberts arrived in Jackson, George Bell lamented to him how he and all his best people were so busy restoring flood damaged rugs from New Orleans that he didn't have anyone else that could go back down and pick up other rugs that needed to be saved. "There are thousands of rugs rotting away down there that still can be saved," explained Bell.

Roberts immediately volunteered to go and help rescue these rugs. Even with all the TV coverage, Roberts was not prepared for the devastation he witnessed. "Trees, roofs and even buildings were all blown down. I needed to use a GPS to figure out where I was because there weren’t any street signs left standing," Roberts remarked.

It was while driving through the older upscale district of Metairie that Steve Roberts saw all the front yards piled high with the damaged contents of the houses. "Anything left in the homes during the flood was ruined," Roberts said. "People were dragging out furniture, TV's, kitchen cabinets, washers, dryers, electronics, you name it, it was out there."

Even with all this clean-up going on, people would notice the area rug cleaning van that Roberts was driving and they would chase him down to get him to look at their rugs. "People were so happy to hear their rugs could be saved," recalls Roberts.

Whenever Roberts drove by a house with a rug on a garbage pile, he would stop and ask the owners about it. Many people said, "Oh, you can't save it," but Roberts would reply, "You know what, if it's a good rug, it's worth taking a look at." He was often surprised at what was thrown away. "People would go to the heap, pull the rug out of the pile and I would discover it was a $20,000 Isfahan, or a $10,000 Tabriz, or even a $40,000 Beshir rug, all completely restorable!"

According to Roberts, the only salvageable personal item many people had in their flooded home was their oriental rug. Often it was a family heirloom. “In one trip alone, I was able to save over 80 waterlogged rugs that were covered in filth, slime and unimaginable stink,” said Roberts. “Good quality handmade rugs are extremely resilient and can be easily restored because their dyes will not run nor will they fall apart like many glued synthetic rugs even under severe conditions like what happened in New Orleans.”

To see dramatic images of flooded homes and rugs visit: http://www.rugbadger.com/documents/85.html"

The sacred, profane world of Islamic art : Arts Weekend : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

2005-10-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

The sacred, profane world of Islamic art : Arts Weekend : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri): "The sacred, profane world of Islamic art
Robert Reed / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

"The Middle East has played a pivotal role in human civilization for thousands of years, and during its long and fascinating history it has repeatedly produced art that still has the power to engage us today." So begins Palace and Mosque, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

Written by Tim Stanley, this book offers a concise illustrated history of Islamic art while also serving as the catalogue for an exhibition of the same name composed of works from the V&A collection. Having toured to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and another U.S. venue, the exhibition is now on at the Setagaya Museum of Art in Tokyo until Dec. 4.

It is an interesting story how the V&A came to have one of the best collections of Islamic art in the world. Part of the reason for the founding of the museum--which opened in 1852 as the Museum of Ornamental Art and later the South Kensington Museum--was the tremendous success of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations held in London in 1851. This exhibition, which can be considered the first World Exposition, drew some 6 million visitors to its extensive displays of decorative art and industrial design from around the world.

From a historical standpoint, the exhibition was held at a time when there was serious concern about improving the artistic quality of British industrial design. And one of the results of the exhibition was a rediscovery of the beauty and sophistication of Islamic art. The success of the Great Exhibition prompted the British government to establish a Department of Practical Art in 1852, and creating a museum of outstanding decorative art from around the world was one of the Department's first moves.

This marked the start of today's V&A collection. In the following decades the collection grew thanks to ambitious archeological and collecting work by British Middle East experts like Sir Robert Murdoch Smith.

One of the first commentary panels viewers encounter at the current Setagaya show--Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum--offers a definition of "Islamic Art" as consisting of two separate traditions.

One is firmly based in the Islamic religion and manifested primarily in the mosques of the Islamic world. The other is secular art produced for the rulers of the Islamic world and manifest mainly in their palaces and later in the commercial industries like ceramics and textiles that they patronized.

As with early Buddhism and Christianity, Islam strictly forbade the appearance of any figures, including humans and animals, in decorative arts for places of worship or in the illustration of the religious texts of the Koran.

This was to prevent such images from becoming the object of idol worship. And, whereas images of the Buddha and Christ and other religious figures eventually found their way into Buddhist and Christian art, true Islamic art in the religious context remained free of any figures. This makes it easy to distinguish between the secular and religious art of the Islamic world.

The spread of the Islamic faith after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 is one of the most dramatic events in the history of human civilization. Only slightly more than a century later, the first Islamic empire extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus valley on the subcontinent and the Chinese empire in central Asia. The Middle East was the hub of trade between the East and West and all goods traveling along the system of land trade routes known as the Silk Road and the sea routes to the East passed through the Middle East and ports like Basra in Iraq and Suez in Egypt.

The first exhibits we see in the Setagaya show aim to show how the geography of Islam influenced its arts and science. Five times a day, Muslims are expected to pray facing toward the sacred Ka'bah in Mecca. This led to the development of the astrolabe, a device to determine both the direction to Mecca and the irregular hours of prayer. Unlike a mechanical clock or a magnetic compass, the astrolabe was based on astronomy and mathematics and contributed to a rapid development of these sciences in the Islamic world.

The geography of Islam also defined the decoration of mosques, where the most important feature of the basically unfurnished architectural space of the mosque is the mihrab alcove on one wall indicating the direction to Mecca. The arched shape of the mihrab alcove became one of the few motifs allowed in Islamic art and in this show we see how its shape is used on intricately woven prayer mats and decorative wall tiles.

The only other substantial furnishing of a mosque is the minbar, the Islamic equivalent of the Christian church pulpit, which stands beside the mihrab and from which sermons are delivered at Friday prayer services. One of the highlights of this exhibition is the seven-meter tall minbar for Sultan Qa'itbay, (15th-century Egypt), which the V&A has allowed to leave its halls for the first time for this touring exhibition. The wooden minbar is ornately decorated in carved geometric patterns and ivory inlay.

With the extremely limited subject matter and motifs available for use in Islamic religious art, the written word of the Koran itself became the most important element of artistic design. Some of the most beautiful works on view in this show are glass and metal vessels decorated with stylized Arabic calligraphy and the calligraphy of hand-written copies of the Koran. Although a number of strict rules governed calligraphy style when copying the Koran, we see a very high level of calligraphic art in the copies on display in this exhibition.

The show also features many examples of the famous blue and white fritware pottery for which the Middle East is famous. Fritware is in fact the product of a long history of Middle East craftsmen trying to imitate exquisite Chinese porcelain by grinding stone and sand into an extremely fine powder in lieu of porcelain clay.

Of course, no exhibition of Islamic art would be complete without Persian carpets, and another highlight of this show is the V&A's famous Chelsea Carpet from early 16th-century Persia (now Iran). Its intricate motifs of lions in the hunt are unequalled in today's carpets.

In all, there are 105 works in the Setagaya show, including ceramics, glassware, metal ware, woodwork, ivory carving, fabrics and rugs, costumes, manuscripts and paintings. Most of the works are from the 13th to 17th centuries and are grouped for this exhibition into five sections: Mosques, Shrines and Churches: Places of Prayer; The Written Word; Courts and Courtiers: Art and Power; Ottoman Patronage; and Artistic Exchange.

The exhibits are arranged with plenty of space for each work, although the galleries were not crowded on the second Saturday of the show. One thing that detracted from the exhibits was the darkness of the galleries, even in rooms where there were no works on paper that would demand such low lighting. Still, this exhibition is sure to be an educational experience, with informative description panels in English and Japanese throughout.

===

Palace and Mosque--Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum

Through Dec. 4, open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (entry until 5:30 p.m.). Closed Mondays.

Setagaya Art Museum in Kinuta Park, a 17-minute walk from Yoga Station on the Tokyu Denenchofu Line.

Admission: 1,200 yen for adults; 900 yen for university and high school students and seniors aged 65 and over; or 400 yen for middle and primary school students. Information: visit www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp or call (03) 3415-6011.

(Oct. 13, 2005)"

AP Wire | 10/11/2005 | U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' case

2005-10-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

AP Wire | 10/11/2005 | U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' "Posted on Tue, Oct. 11, 2005

U.S. apologizes in WWII 'Gold Train' case

CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
MIAMI - The U.S. government issued a statement of regret Tuesday for the actions of soldiers who took valuables belonging to Hungarian Jews that had been seized on a Nazi "Gold Train" during the chaotic end of World War II.

The statement issued by the U.S. Justice Department said that the government "regrets the improper conduct of certain of its military personnel" who took items that had been on the train, which was carrying jewelry, gold, artwork, Oriental rugs, china, cutlery, linens and other items.

"The United States has concluded that, although the conduct of its personnel was appropriate in most respects, it was contrary to U.S. policy and the standards expected of its soldiers" in some actions, the Justice Department statement said.

The apology was required as part of a settlement approved Sept. 26 by a federal judge in Miami between the U.S. government and about 62,000 Hungarian survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. The settlement calls for $25.5 million to be distributed to needy Jews through social service agencies around the world, with the bulk going to those in Israel, Hungary, the United States and Canada.

The "Gold Train" was captured by U.S. soldiers from pro-Nazi Hungarian forces in May 1945. A U.S. investigation found in 1999 that some Army soldiers failed to return items initially "requisitioned" from the train and used in postwar offices, such as rugs, cutlery and even typewriters.

The investigation also concluded that some property was stolen from a warehouse by soldiers. Although some personnel were caught and prosecuted, little of the property was recovered.

The government did hold an auction of remaining items in 1948 to benefit Jewish relief victims after determining that it would be impossible to identify the owners of the Gold Train property and that Hungary's then-communist government would be unlikely to cooperate.

"The United States expresses its sympathy and solidarity with these victims and hopes that the settlement approved by the district court will provide meaningful assistance to those survivors," the Justice Department statement said.

The Bush administration was under bipartisan pressure to settle what was seen as a black mark on the U.S. record in World War II. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., were among 17 senators who urged a resolution in a letter last year."

At Home In the World: Paulette Cole - ABC Home

2005-10-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

"At Home In the World: Paulette Cole
Your partner wants to focus on growth. You want to follow a passion more than a strategy. Could you walk away? Paulette Cole recently did that with ABC Home, and she recently made a joyous return.

From: Inc. Magazine, October 2005 | Page 132 By: Lora Kolodny
In 2000, more than a decade after co-founding the New York City emporium ABC Home--the store that gave jumble a good name--Paulette Cole reluctantly left it. She and her husband and partner, Evan Cole, had separated. And they were increasingly at odds over whether to emphasize rapid growth (his choice) or socially responsible sourcing (her passion). She left control of ABC in Evan's hands and returned to the travel that had inspired much of her approach to the store.

Three years later, it was Evan who wanted a change. He went to Los Angeles and opened H.D. Buttercup, a furniture store that leases space to manufacturers and lets them sell directly to the public. Paulette moved back in--literally; she has an apartment on the top floor of the flagship store--as ABC's CEO and creative director.

Today, Paulette Cole wants to transform ABC into a 100% socially responsible world market. The trick, she acknowledges, will be to do it without sacrificing the company's $80 million in annual revenue, its 350 employees, or what more than one New Yorker

My father ran this New York institution, the ABC Carpet Store on 19th and Broadway. It looked exactly the same for 20 years, all broadloom.

When I was young, I really believed the worst was to go work for my family. So I started as a waitress at age 14 and never went without a job from that point on. Instead of going to college, I assisted an established designer in New York for two years. Finally my father convinced me--for a supposed trial period--to see how I liked working at ABC.

He wanted me to understand each aspect of the business: buying, sales, the warehouse. Everything. Right away I went to Europe to visit international markets and a factory in Spain that we worked with. I didn't even speak Spanish, but I could oversee design, and make sure this big order for wool carpet we had placed came through on time.

In the middle of that, the factory workers went on strike. It was like a coup; they were locking out the owner. They wanted to make it into a cooperative. We were determined to make our order happen and keep the factory running--we couldn't lose the business and have them lose their business. It worked. The owners and workers went through mediation and the workers got partial ownership. We placed orders for years for both the workers' looms and the owner's.

I'd witnessed firsthand how you could advance a community and its economics just by doing business.

Traveling also taught me new things about design. In the States, as a people, we're too young to know how to create a home the way they do in Italy, Turkey, or Spain. But cultures of indigenous people who have done design and craft through the generations have made it a part of their whole being. They have incredible ways to create a feeling of home, and I wanted to do this in my own life.

That was my first instinct to begin importing some of this knowledge, and to take back to New York a little piece of each place I fell in love with.

Actually, I met my husband in New York when I sold him carpet! Evan Cole, when I met him, was an agent at William Morris. His side project was an eccentric little Christmas store on 52nd Street. We really hit it off, and after the sale he invited me to visit his store. Once we were married, he came to work at the family business.

Evan was a gambler with a brilliance all his own. He was a perfect balance to my father, who taught me how to be frugal, how to stay grounded, how to make a commitment about things like real estate. Evan was passionate but operational about it all. Working with him, I learned to invest in what I was feeling.

We didn't have a business plan. But around the mid-'80s, the trend of Oriental rugs, as they were called, began. Demand in the States was so strong! We started importing.

We'd be in Europe and Asia buying rugs, and we'd fall in love with other things. That's how we started with ABC Home, just bringing back antiques. If I loved it, Evan and I trusted our customer would love it. We just started to buy things. It wasn't about a plan. Eclectic was the whole thing.

Later, just like with the Oriental rugs, I realized there were no high-thread-count linens, no beautiful jacquard sateens like I found abroad. I brought some back. At first it was like, Linens have nothing to do with anything! Where are you going to put that?

This wrinkle on my forehead--I call it the linens wrinkle because that whole phase really wasn't easy. But when people started buying and kept on buying sheets, Evan and I were fully focused on ABC Home. We incorporated early on and were always separate, financially and creatively, from my father's business.

We went from rugs to antiques to linens, accessories, gifts, furniture, and lighting. The day we moved rugs from the main floor to the upstairs floors, I felt like we had arrived. We weren't a store organized by manufacturer, or pillows in aisle 5. It was a visual experience that told a story. It was more like a museum than a store.

Seeing how you could mix any colors that appeared in nature together in the home, seeing how you could mix things from Uganda, France, and Tibet in one room--that freed people who visited us to be creative, to make their homes a collection, over time, and stop worrying about "decorating," which is all about one pretty moment. The business results were that all those items sold together. It's known as cross-merchandising today, but we were breaking a lot of rules of retail. We brought the company from zero to $80 million in under a decade breaking rules.

I realized ABC's influence when I went to big mills and said, Do you have these organic fabrics? They said no, so I suggested they get informed. All of a sudden, all the mills--and then the department stores--had the fabrics. There would be a ripple effect every time we announced we were doing something. So I wanted to start trends that could make a social impact.

Evan would say, we need to be profitable, we need to grow. Growth was his agenda; it was our agenda at first. I think that's where our visions began to diverge.

"I believe that you cannot replicate the multilayered museum experience of ABC. That's the whole point." I was all about cultural awakening, and Evan wanted to open outlet stores and create a formula to duplicate ABC elsewhere. I believe that you cannot replicate the multilayered museum experience of ABC. That's the whole point. Still, I knew that our staff needed to be led by one vision, and there were things in the world I wanted to learn and do.

We had our difficulties out of the workplace too, and separated. It was wrenching, but I left ABC Home in Evan's hands in 2000. I was sad about the diffusion of the brand. I wanted to spend a lot of time with our daughter, and to get back to travel.

During that time I joined the Social Ventures Network. They basically exist to teach entrepreneurs to address the social issues--poverty, the environment, and tolerance--through business.

By 2003 I realized that the store and its outlets were not growing in the way Evan had wanted. He had a business idea, called "manutailing," that he wanted to go and start separately. I bought his shares in 2004. I really felt it was my calling to move back to New York and take ABC on to the next level, as I see it.

Today, ABC Home has 350 employees. It isn't like I can just divest from the things that do not align with my vision, like the outlets, or some products that we now carry, overnight. There's the global community, and there's your community at work. You want to keep anyone who wants to stay, and you need to be fiscally responsible.

Nineteen percent of our volume is socially responsible. I'd love to see us at 50% in five years, 100% in a decade. But I don't know how realistic it is. A huge amount of product development needs to be done.

I look at the organic food market, at what's happened with Whole Foods. That's what we're going to bring to the home. In 10 years, you'll be able to buy a desk or a bed made by a women's cooperative in Uganda from salvaged wood as easily as you can buy an organically grown tomato today. If I can start that, and model a way that the industry can be socially responsible, then I think, I'll feel like I've really made this my own."

AP Wire | The Wertime "Silk & Leather," Show at the Textile Museum

2005-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

AP Wire | 10/10/2005 | Exhibits offer ideas on Asia garments: "Exhibits offer ideas on Asia garments

CARL HARTMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Anyone who thinks Western fashion houses need new colors and designs might get some useful ideas from three sumptuous shows of traditional Asian dress at Washington museums this autumn.

Already on view at the Textile Museum are clothes developed over millennia by the hard-riding people of central Asia - hat, boots, sash, tunic, trousers and caftan - the last a long, loose, long-sleeved garment, worn by both men and women.

John T. Wertime, guest curator of the show called "Silk & Leather," described the ancient warriors of central Asia who sometimes spent days in the saddle, fighting or checking out new pastures for their herds. They needed clothes that would both protect them from the cold and keep their legs from chafing against their horses' flanks. Their coats had to give them room for driving a war chariot and for wielding bow, arrow or heavy bronze sword while mounted.

This "steppe style," Wertime pointed out in an interview, also had the advantage that it needed no clasps or buttons to keep on. In ancient Europe garments like the Roman toga were usually made of a single piece of cloth draped around the body. They needed constant adjustment or a clasp to hold them in place. One solution was the fibula, something like a giant safety pin.

"You know the Venus de Milo," said Wertime, referring to the ancient Greek statue, nude to the hips. "The arms are broken off, so you don't know what she was doing with them. Some people think she was wearing a single piece of cloth that just slipped from her shoulders."

That wouldn't have happened to a central Asian woman, wearing a basic shift-like gown put on over her head.

The steppe style came into contact with the clothes of more settled peoples, like the Chinese. More than 2,000 years ago the central Asian nomads developed a taste for Chinese silks. In the same period, the skills of embroidery spread into central Asia.

These features made the garments more elegant and colorful without changing essential forms, Wertime said. The elaborate caftans are the stars of the show, along with embroidered boots to be worn indoors and hats that range from little embroidered beanies to tall cones, one adorned with feathers.

"Silk & Leather" will be on view through Feb. 26, 2006.

On Wednesday, the Textile Museum will open a show of Japanese rozome. It's a kind of batik, with wax applied to parts of the fabric that the maker wants to keep unaffected when it's soaked in dye. The rozome artist applies both wax and color to the fabric with a brush, enabling more subtlety in the tints and making the result into a single artist's work rather than a team job. It's a technique more than 1,400 years old, revived early in the 20th century. The work of 15 Japanese artists will be on view.

The exhibit, organized by the Massachusetts College of Art, was hailed as the first of its kind in North America by Masuo Nishibayashi, Japan's consul general in Boston.

Why don't the rozome artists just brush pigments on canvas as other artists do? asked Betsy Sterling Benjamin, who joined in organizing the show.

She answered her own question:

"It's the love of deep color, when water-soluble dye penetrates to the root of the fiber, changing its nature forever, the chemical action that allows the striking glow of dyed fabric. Rozome artists are painters addicted to the meditative stroke of hot wax on thirsty cloth, luminous color and a quiet solitary studio."

"Rozome Masters of Japan" will close Feb. 12, 2006.

Admission to the Textile Museum is free, with a "suggested contribution" of $5.

On Oct. 29 the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will show the big, bold designs of robes favored by Turkish sultans of 300 to 400 years ago, There will be 68 of them borrowed from the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul - velvet, brocade and cloth made of gold and silver thread.

Among the exhibits is a plain silk satin robe worn by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent - a contemporary of Elizabeth I of England, whose empire stretched from Morocco to Iraq. The sultans, leaders of the Islamic faithful, nevertheless tolerated the export of luxurious silks for ceremonial robes of the Russian Orthodox church, including Christian images made by Turkish weavers.

Some robes were lent to the show by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Like other Smithsonian museums, the Sackler does not charge admission.

"Style and Status," as the Turkish show is called, will close on Jan. 22, 2006.

ON THE NET

Textile Museum: http://www.textilemuseum.org

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery: http://www.asia.si.edu"

Iran News - Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments

2005-10-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments " Iran's Kish FTZ as center of foreign investments

Monday, October 10, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 10 (IranMania) - Iran's southern Kish Island can serve as the center for attraction of foreign investment, said a top business official, said IRNA.

Acting head and member of the Board of Directors of Kish Free Trade Zone Organization Abdolrahman Bushehri told Kenyan Ambassador to Tehran Ali Abbas Ali that Kenyan public and private sectors by effectively making investment in the zone can get a foothold in the big regional and Central Asian markets.

Bushehri referred to lack of any restrictions on industrial investment, a 15-year tax exemption, duty free import of machinery and raw material and free transportation both inside and outside Iran as some of advantages of investment in the zone.

He said there are plans to expand air, port and marine transport facilities, improve the water, electricity, sewage, internet and telecommunication services in the area for this purpose.

He added that location of the Bank of Iran and Europe and Standard Chartered Bank in Kish as well as imminent inauguration of an oil, gas and petrochemical stock market there will give boost to foreign investments.

The Kenyan diplomat said that his country is willing to make investment in the zone, adding that this is why he and his companions are visiting the area to get first hand information on advantages of investment in Kish FTZ.

Ali said Middle East is a lucrative market for Kenyan tea and Kenya eyes markets in the region and Central Asia, hoping that Kish FTZ can play a constructive role in that connection.

He said a top-ranking delegation would shortly visit Kish for the same purpose.

During his stay in Kish FTZ, the Kenyan ambassador visited the industrial units, infrastructural projects and tourist attractions there."

Guardian | Lifting the veil - Parviz Tanavoli

2005-10-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

Guardian | Lifting the veil: "Lifting the veil
The finest collection of 20th-century western art outside Europe and America has been gathering dust in storage. Why? Because it's owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But now, Christopher de Bellaigue reports, these spectacular works are finally being displayed in Tehran

Christopher de Bellaigue
Friday October 7, 2005

An Iranian woman stands in front of a huge Picasso, Painter and his Model, on show at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art. Standing in his studio, illuminated by subdued pools of coloured light, the artist is depicted as an extension of the inanimate objects around him. He has been reduced to a series of mostly straight lines; his arms, palette and easel merge into each other, and the rest of his body into the floorboards and wall panelling. To the model, on the other hand, Picasso has given a stark voluptuousness. With her expanse of stomach, distended breasts and club-like limbs, she imposes herself on the scene in a way that the painter, who is part of the scene, cannot. For a few minutes, the Iranian woman is absorbed by this rich autobiographical painting, with all its intimacy and ambiguity. Then, rearranging her headscarf to cover her fringe, she moves on to a Braque still life.
It is hard to decide what to marvel at - the Picasso, or the fact that it hangs here, in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, part of a big show of modern western art. In Tehran, any big exhibition is scrutinised before it begins, by censors from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. What, you wonder, did they make of the Picasso? Are the model's breasts too removed from conventional anatomy and her genitalia, paraphrased by an inky sliver, too figurative for her to be considered a proper (and therefore impermissible) nude? Perhaps they were flummoxed by the phallic limb protruding from her side? Whatever the reason, they let the Picasso through but acted decisively when they came to Francis Bacon's Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendant, a few rooms further on. The censors have shorn this triptych, whose gorgeous passages of paint evoke a terrible solitude, of its central panel. That panel - as visitors to Tate Britain, where it was on loan until the summer, will recall - depicts two naked men lying on a bed. It was deemed too gay for the Islamic Republic. (A little bit gay is too gay for the Islamic republic). The Bacon is now a diptych partitioned by a phantasmal smudge.

Of all the ironies raised by the current exhibition, titled simply Modern Art Movement, none is more dramatic than this: arguably the finest collection of modern western art outside Europe and America is owned by a country that, ever since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has prided itself on expressing contempt for western culture. The Tehran show is the first exhibition of the whole collection since the revolution.

The fact that it is being staged at all owes much to the cultural glasnost that was pursued by the man who was president until this summer, Muhammad Khatami, and by the outgoing museum director, Ali-Reza Sami-Azar. Iran's conservatives delight in showing that even broken taboos can be revived, and now, after eight years of reformist government, they are back in power. Khatami's successor as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June, is an Islamic hardliner who shows little appreciation for western culture. The new museum director is an unknown quantity. To be sure of seeing these remarkable pieces, art enthusiasts should hotfoot it to Tehran before the show ends on October 22. For Iran's hardliners, these works are an unwelcome reminder of a morally corrupt, monarchical past; they may shrink at bringing them out of the vaults again soon and fears are already being raised that some of the best pieces may be sold off.

In the exhibition catalogue, Sami-Azar alludes to the collection's origins by thanking Kamran Diba, the museum's architect and first director, who negotiated the purchase of many of the works on display. (Diba left Iran when the revolution started; he now lives in France and Spain.) This may be Sami-Azar's elliptical way of thanking Farah Diba, Kamran's cousin and the wife of the former shah. While her husband poured money into buying the latest military hardware, Farah thought of preserving, and developing, Iran's artistic heritage. She set up several museums, which survive today, and started Iran's equivalent of the National Trust. She bought collections of Iranian art that had been in western hands and put them on public display. And she persuaded the shah that it would be a good idea, commercially and culturally, to build a collection of modern western art and put it in the museum that Kamran was building (again, at her behest).

The times were propitious. Iran was swimming in foreign money after the oil price hike of the early 1970s. For the same reason, the western art market was suffering, and masterpieces were going relatively cheap. According to Parviz Tanavoli, one of Iran's most distinguished sculptors and a former cultural adviser to the queen, the collection was amassed for "tens, not hundreds, of millions of dollars" - from dealers such as Ernst Beyeler in Basel and Leo Castelli in New York. At the time, the queen used to joke that the collection cost less than one of the shah's beloved Tomcats. A few years ago, it was valued at $2bn (£1.1bn).

Most Iranians interested in modern western art will never make it to New York's MoMA, or the Pompidou Centre in Paris. MoCA (the wannabe acronym for Museum of Contemporary Art was Sami-Azar's idea) is the next best thing. The thrill of cultural exchange, of finding yourself among artists who speak a different visual language, is palpable when you enter the very first gallery, filled with impressionists and pointillists, not least from the chorus of beeps triggered by excited students as they cross infrared barriers installed to keep visitors and works apart.

Iran's traditional pictorial art, miniature painting, inclines to formalism, rigid convention and the respectful portrayal of kings - how different to a shimmering Pissarro depiction of peasant homes, and a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph of a jockey dominated by a horse's posterior. A tour group gathers before a Gauguin still life that contains a Japanese print and a carved Tahitian head. As a riposte to the Islamic Republic's official distrust of foreigners, and to the equation of contact with contamination, it could hardly be bettered.

The show takes you through Kamran Diba's varied spaces, past a rare Leger from 1913 and Picasso's synthetic cubist masterpiece, Fenêtre Ouverte sur la Rue de Penthièvre, to a marvellously inventive late bronze by the same artist, of a baboon and her young. The curators have given deserved prominence to a trio of circus performers by the fauvist George Rouault; its robust central figure, with her striking arrangement of Mesopotamian wedge nose and saucer eyes, might have been unearthed at Ur.

Every room has its own ironies. Particularly striking is a watercolour by the German Dadaist George Grosz, called The Unexpected Guest. It shows a gluttonous burgher gorging himself, surrounded by the cracks and tumours of his own ruin, while Death appears at the door. Grosz painted this picture as a communist in the 20s, but it could just as easily represent the perception that Iran's revolutionaries had, half a century later, of the elite they were supplanting.

There are three big omissions from the European part of the collection up to 1939: Cezanne, Matisse (bar one lithograph) and Mondrian. But such absenses seem trifling when you enter the large, well-lit gallery that is devoted to abstract expressionism, the movement that proclaimed America's cultural primacy after the second world war.

Far away at the United Nations, the US and Iran trade insults; Iran's nuclear dossier edges closer to the Security Council. But here, art shouts louder than politics. Visitors contemplate two trembling Rothkos and a magnificently vivid Pollock drip painting (Mural on an Indian Red Ground) that seems to unite the balletic and the calligraphic. (The dealer Ernst Beyeler considers this Pollock to be one of the finest works that has passed through his hands.) The collection's sole De Kooning, a dark and vehement abstract work called Light in August, reminds us of one that got away. In 1994, before Sami-Azar's directorship, the museum swapped a painting from De Kooning's monumental Woman series for a rare volume of illuminated Persian miniatures, then part of an American collection. That series marked De Kooning's apostasy from abstraction, and a split in the movement; the chance of seeing Light in August and Woman side by side is gone.

Several rooms of exuberant pop art mark another high point in the show. Warhol, Lichtenstein and Oldenburg are ill served by these small spaces, but there is no denying the pedigree of the art - or its relevance. Iran's new consumer culture, an unstoppable reaction to 15 years of revolutionary austerity, means that Tehran is a good place to revisit pop art's mixture of celebration and irony, of childlike appetites and social blindness. What a shame that Sami- Azar never managed to rescue the silkscreen that Warhol executed of Farah while on a visit to Tehran. It entered the queen's modest private collection, and now languishes in a damp basement underneath one of the former royal palaces.

Everyone agrees that the collection's later works are not its best. For every luscious Bacon (the collection has two, though one is currently on loan) or teeming Dubuffet, there are half a dozen modish duds. The collection takes us up to 1977. And then there is silence - a silence that is, for all Iranians, filled with screaming, convulsive politics. The 1979 revolution and the shah's flight; the US embassy hostage crisis; eight years of war with Saddam and his backers in Europe and America; for many Iranians, these events seemed to augur permanent conflict between them and the west. And this was reflected in attitudes towards western art and its champions. In the eyes of the revolutionaries, the deposed queen - who had fled into exile - symbolised a kind of moral sickness, masquerading as culture.

That so much of Farah remains, even today, is testament to the humane good sense that underpinned many of her public endeavours. As queen, she was charitable, progressive and (unlike so many at court) uncorrupt. Nevertheless, she was prone to bad lapses of judgment. Farah was the shah's willing accomplice in a grotesquely vainglorious commemoration of Iran's monarchy, staged in the ruins of Persepolis, the ancient Achaemenid shrine city, in 1971. (She and her husband played host to some 60 potentates and presidents. The shindig cost tens of millions of dollars, at a time when a shameful number of Iranians had no electricity or running water.) Equally damaging was her patronage of an arts festival whose most notorious performances featured nudity and live pigs. Pious Iranians did not forget these affronts. After the revolution, fanatics set out to tear down Persepolis. (They were stopped.) Royal palaces were thrown open as examples of degenerate living. And there were rumours that the nation's modern art collection would be sold, lock stock and barrel, to Kuwait.

The art was saved, probably for commercial reasons, but it remained mostly unseen, while the museum put on edifying shows of religious and revolutionary art. Acquisitions were out. Only under Sami-Azar's directorship were these trends challenged. Sami-Azar helped to reduce artistic censorship and he promoted Iranian artists abroad. His tenure was marked by increased foreign contacts and loans; in 2004, the museum collaborated with the British Council to stage an ambitious exhibition of 20th-century British sculpture. But the conservatives needled him. An appointed upper house vetoed a parliamentary bill that would have enabled the museum to purchase works from abroad. (Sami-Azar wanted to fill those pre-1939 gaps and invest in Brit Art). The hardliners prevented him from sending works from the museum's western collection, along with examples of contemporary Iranian art, to an ambitious festival of Iranian culture that was being planned by the Swiss dealer Beyeler. The festival never happened.

If you hurry, you will catch some wonderful art in Tehran, and a shy nostalgia in its concrete corridors. Picture the museum rising in the 1970s - at a time, in Tanavoli's words, when Tehran was "an international capital" and the streets teemed with foreigners. Imagine the inauguration, on a sweltering night in 1977, when Iran's beau monde gathered to celebrate the queen's birthday and view parallel shows of modern western and Iranian art. Amid performance and music, the shah and Farah were feted by some of the world's most important curators, among them Nelson Rockefeller and the director of the Guggenheim. Amid the glittering company and self-congratulation, who could have imagined that revolution was less than two years away? But that's not the story of an art collection. It's the universal story of an elite too busy gorging itself to notice the Unexpected Guest, standing at the door.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005"

A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia

2005-10-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia: "A tycoon explores limits of resistance in Russia
Thursday, October 06, 2005

By Gregory L. White, The Wall Street Journal
MOSCOW -- Two have fled the country. Another is in jail, his oil empire in ruins. Russian President Vladimir Putin has largely succeeded in his campaign pledge to make oligarchs -- the powerful tycoons who emerged in the chaos of post-Soviet Russia -- disappear "as a class."

Now, most of the country's super-rich are either packing up or hunkering down and trying to stay on the government's good side.

Except Mikhail Fridman. Using bare-knuckles business tactics, the 41-year-old built an $8 billion empire spanning oil, telecoms, banking and retail. Now, he's picking a fight with Leonid Reiman, Russia's telecommunications minister and a longtime Putin friend.

Last fall, lawyers for units of Mr. Fridman's Alfa Group lined up Anthony Georgiou, a former Reiman partner, to provide testimony to a British Virgin Islands court that he'd paid over $1 million in bribes to Mr. Reiman. He testified that the payments happened when the future minister was a top executive at a Russian state phone company in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. Based in part on allegations raised in the case, German prosecutors have opened an investigation into whether Western banks facilitated any criminal activity.

Mr. Reiman has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and late last year accused Alfa of smearing him to prevail in a business dispute. "Alfa, because it's an old oligarchic structure, is trying to use the traditional means by which they've resolved conflicts many times over many years -- by putting pressure on officials," Mr. Reiman told reporters.

In fact, Mr. Fridman makes little pretense that this is just about clean government. He's in a vicious battle over a stake in Russia's No. 3 mobile-phone company. His lawyers are using the corruption charges to fight off a legal challenge from a Bermuda-registered investment fund that claims it owns the stake. Mr. Fridman has offered to drop the lawsuits if the other side agrees to settle.

In Russian business, where hostile takeovers often involve burly men with masks and submachine guns, toughness has long been a key to success. But Mr. Fridman, whose hardball tactics are legendary, is charting a lonely course of resistance at a time when the state is increasingly squeezing private business.

"It's our style, our strategy and we're not changing it. We do a lot of things that might seem aggressive to some people," the baby-faced Mr. Fridman says with a smile, sitting in his spartan white office in downtown Moscow.

So far, Alfa has managed to avoid trouble with the Kremlin itself. Mr. Fridman has tried to insulate himself by hiring former top government officials as advisers, including Pyotr Aven, a former trade minister and an old friend of Mr. Putin who meets the president regularly.

Mr. Fridman says he's careful to avoid anything that the Kremlin would see as a challenge to its control of national politics. That's widely believed to be what got billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky in trouble: He was contributing tens of millions of dollars to a broad range of political parties. He's now serving an eight-year prison sentence on fraud and tax-evasion charges. His OAO Yukos oil company was slapped with $28 billion in back-tax claims and largely nationalized last year.

Where Mr. Khodorkovsky was often openly critical of the Kremlin during his frequent trips to the U.S., Mr. Fridman is much more careful. In January, he flew to New York to open a lecture series his bank endowed at the Council on Foreign Relations. The speaker was Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a Putin confidante and a man frequently tipped as a potential presidential successor. Mr. Fridman introduced him as "an outstanding politician."

Alfa also has lined up some high-profile insurance. The oil company it controlled is now half-owned by BP PLC, in a deal for which Mr. Fridman made sure to get public backing from Mr. Putin and United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the wake of the Yukos case, which has battered business confidence and badly tarnished Mr. Putin's international reputation, Mr. Fridman says he doesn't think the Kremlin will risk another open clash with big business.

Still, these days every new back-tax claim against a company linked to Alfa spurs a wave of speculation in the local press that Mr. Fridman is about to face the same fate as Mr. Khodorkovsky.

A devoted movie and theater buff, Mr. Fridman is also known to take a turn at the piano at Color of the Night, the Moscow jazz bar he owns. He still looks a bit like the nerdy kid from school, his brown hair untouched by grey. The self-described adrenaline junkie has a taste for adventure that extends beyond the office to annual off-road rallies through the jungles and deserts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Public information about the Alfa Group is limited, since it's a private company owned by Mr. Fridman and two university friends. Run roughly like a giant private-equity fund, the group holds assets valued at about $20 billion, says Mr. Fridman, who adds that his stake is "more than 40 percent." The assets are owned by a complex web of holding companies located in discreet offshore jurisdictions like Gibraltar. Managers of the various businesses -- banking, oil, trading, retail and telecoms -- own minority stakes in the individual units, sometimes alongside outside partners.

"We're financial investors," says Mr. Fridman, who keeps an apartment in downtown Moscow and commutes regularly to Paris, where his wife and two daughters have lived since the early 1990s. "We don't consider ourselves experts in the industries we're in."

Colleagues say Mr. Fridman led the group's push in the late 1990s into the oil business, which now delivers most of the profits. Telecom has been the focus for expansion since then -- Russia has been among the world's fastest-growing wireless markets for the past several years. Mr. Fridman says he aims to cobble his stakes in the region together into a regional network and then negotiate an equity alliance with a global player like Vodafone Group PLC.

For Mr. Fridman, a Jewish kid from Lvov in what's now Ukraine, persistence has long been a business signature. As a student in Moscow in the 1980s, he says he was blocked from continuing his studies because of anti-Semitism in the Soviet education system. So he started a window-washing cooperative, becoming one of the first to take advantage of the chance to open a private business.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he built his fortune trading everything from Oriental rugs to Cuban sugar to Russian crude. As the government began privatizing thousands of state companies, Mr. Fridman pushed the group into the oil business. He lined up two Russian emigre partners who helped cobble together a patchwork of formerly state-owned companies into a group they called Tyumen Oil Co., known by its Russian abbreviation TNK.

It was a heady time for Mr. Fridman and his fellow oligarchs. They'd made millions as capitalism was just taking root in the early 1990s and used their fortunes to build vast political clout. In 1996, Mr. Fridman and a handful of tycoons teamed up to finance President Boris Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign. Using their close connections with the Kremlin, they snapped up the country's richest assets in often-rigged privatizations and, in some cases, were awarded with top government jobs. Boris Berezovsky, for example, whose interests ran from oil to television, was named deputy secretary of Russia's powerful Security Council.

Along the way, Alfa cemented its reputation for aggressive tactics. Alfa often took advantage of gaps in the bankruptcy law that allowed small creditors to take control of debtor companies.

Officials at Norex Petroleum Ltd., a small Canadian oilfield-services company, contend Alfa went a step further in 2000, when it moved to take control of a Siberian joint-venture Norex had with a TNK unit. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Norex alleges that TNK took over with 20 machine-gun-toting guards. One executive was quoted in the lawsuit as saying that a top Alfa official vowed to "run over (the company) like a steamroller" if they resisted. Alfa says it's confident that its takeover of the company was legal but won't comment on details of the case, which hasn't yet gone to trial. Norex is seeking to recover $1.5 billion.

But even as Alfa was still throwing its weight around, twilight was setting in on the era of the oligarchs. Mr. Putin came to power in 2000 vowing to reassert Kremlin authority. Within a year, two of the most politically influential oligarchs, Vladimir Gusinsky and Mr. Berezovsky, had left the country under threat of prosecution, leaving the bulk of their empires behind. Oil tycoon Roman Abramovich quietly began selling off his holdings and spent more and more time in London, where he bought Britain's Chelsea soccer team. Last month, state gas company OAO Gazprom announced a deal to buy the oil company he controls, OAO Sibneft, for $13.1 billion.

Sensing the winds shift, Mr. Fridman realized he needed to move fast to get a foreign partner for TNK, a move that would provide both political insurance and cash. "We knew at some point that opportunity would be gone," he says.

Tempted by Siberia's vast reserves, BP was already on the prowl for a Russian deal. But Alfa had to rebuild relations with the British giant that had soured in the late 1990s when Alfa, in a battle with another oligarch, stripped key assets out of BP's previous investment in Russia. Mr. Fridman patched things up with BP CEO John Browne. BP wound up paying $7 billion in 2003 for half of the oil company Alfa owned with two partners. "There is a toughness built into the culture of Russia," Mr. Browne said at the time. "You have to cooperate."

Mr. Fridman's timing was impeccable. Although analysts touted the BP deal as the first of many foreign investments in the oil patch, the Kremlin soon closed the door on such big deals with foreigners and geared up to attack Yukos.

But it wasn't long before Mr. Fridman got into a government-relations mess of his own. In a complex series of transactions in the summer of 2003, Alfa had bought a 25 percent stake in Megafon, Russia's No. 3 cellphone company. The stake had previously been owned by LV Finance, an investment firm controlled by Leonid Mayevsky, a former legislator.

Within days, a little-known Bermuda investment fund called IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd. contested the sale, claiming it was entitled to the shares under a pair of option agreements dating to 2001. IPOC went to court in Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where some of the Alfa companies holding the Megafon shares were registered. IPOC also launched arbitration proceedings against LV Finance in Switzerland, where the 2001 option agreements had been executed.

Lawyers for LV Finance, cooperating with Alfa's legal team, argued IPOC hadn't properly paid for the options. They also sought to convince the courts that IPOC was in effect a criminal enterprise, thereby rendering any of its contracts illegal and voiding its claim to the Megafon shares.

In written arguments in the BVI case, Alfa lawyers asserted that an affidavit from former IPOC President Vidya Sharma showed IPOC was "simply a front for laundering the proceeds of criminal conduct in Russia for ... Leonid Reiman."

Alfa lawyers argued in court papers in the BVI that IPOC was part of a complex network of companies that served to conceal Mr. Reiman's ownership of large stakes in Russian telecom companies, including Megafon. They alleged the fund got its money from corrupt dealings in Russia involving the minister.

IPOC denied the allegations and accused Alfa of paying witnesses. In fact, Alfa did pay $7 million to Mr. Georgiou, the former partner of Mr. Reiman. Alfa said the payment was to buy out most of Mr. Georgiou's Russian businesses, which he feared would suffer after his testimony.

Mr. Reiman denies any wrongdoing. Jeffrey Galmond, a Danish lawyer who has known Mr. Reiman since the late 1980s, has testified that he's the owner of IPOC and its related companies -- holdings that could be worth more than $1 billion. He says the corruption allegations are just an effort to distract from what he says is Alfa's fraudulent acquisition of the shares.

"It looks to me as an attempt simply to crush a competitor by Alfa," he told a civil proceeding in Geneva last year. "They are all over the place and there is, in my personal opinion, no limit to what they are capable of doing."

The conflict has been tense. At the Geneva hearing, the presiding arbiter complained his house was being watched and his garbage searched. He said police told him the surveillance was linked to the case, although the culprits were never caught. Acting on an IPOC complaint, Russian police are investigating possible fraud charges against Mr. Mayevsky for his role in the Megafon share sale. He briefly fled Russia to avoid arrest.

Mr. Galmond says he got the money for IPOC from a series of lucrative deals in Russian telecoms and real estate in the 1990s. In court testimony, he admits that Mr. Reiman's work "played an important part in the creation of my own success and wealth," but says that took place before Mr. Reiman became minister. Mr. Galmond acknowledges he bought a summer house on the Danish coast in 1993 that he says he and Mr. Reiman shared, but denies any wrongdoing.

Court rulings are still pending in most of the cases. Prosecutors in Frankfurt, tipped off in part by the allegations from Alfa and LV Finance, are already investigating whether Germany's Commerzbank AG, which worked with Mr. Galmond, was involved in money laundering as a result, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor. Commerzbank denies it broke any laws, but a senior executive involved in the case resigned this summer and the bank has vowed to tighten internal oversight.

So far, the Kremlin is showing no sign that it's concerned about the allegations. Last year, Mr. Putin even took the unusual step of intervening to restore Mr. Reiman's ministerial job when he was about to lose it in a government reshuffle. He'd left nearly all the other appointments to his prime minister to decide.

As the grudge match dragged on, some of Alfa's other investments in Russia ran into trouble. In December, telecoms company OAO Vimpelcom, in which Alfa owns a big stake, was told it owed $160 million in unpaid taxes and fines. Vimpelcom's American depositary receipts, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, plummeted 30 percent in two days. The company later got the tax claim sharply reduced and the stock has recovered. And in April, authorities slapped Alfa's main oil investment with $790 million in back-tax claims for 2001.

But unlike Yukos, which was crippled by tax assessments and saw executives jailed, tax and regulatory problems so far haven't fazed Alfa or its companies. The regulatory issues have cleared up and in August, TNK-BP said it settled the tax claims for $250 million. Auditors are still looking at company taxes for 2002 and 2003.

Mr. Fridman says the Megafon fight is worth it: He estimates Alfa's stake is now valued at about four times the $300 million he paid for it in 2003.

"We understood that there would be unhappiness on the part of certain bosses in the telecommunications ministry, but we were ready for that," Mr. Fridman says, adding that Alfa's legal position is "ironclad.""

Lansing State Journal: Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank

2005-10-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Lansing State Journal: Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank: "Published October 4, 2005
[ From the Lansing State Journal ]

Floor model: Area rugs can serve as versatile decorating tools. This living room in Nashville, Tenn., features a 60-year-old Heriz rug from the Middle East.

Little rugs can make big difference without breaking the bank
By Anna Watson
Gannett News Service

Ready for a room makeover? The addition of one simple item can easily change the composition of an entire room.

Available in all shapes, sizes, colors and materials, area rugs are among the most versatile decorating tools available. From a trendy little throw rug from the Swell line at Target to large hand-woven Persian carpets, area rugs are designed to make a statement.

As more homes turn to wood and tile floors, area rugs are increasingly being used to add warmth to a room or to define a space. But they're not just for hard floors; they work just as well on carpeting.

Advertisement

Practicality aside, area rugs are just plain fun - not to mention, often very beautiful.

Whether you're buying an Oriental rug or a bath mat from Kmart, think about what you want your rug to do. Once you've defined its purpose, you can more easily wade through the myriad choices regarding color, material, shape and size of area rugs.

Color

When choosing a color for your area rug, do not try to match the color perfectly to the walls or other furniture, says Barbara Jennings, interior design specialist and consultant in Costa Mesa, Calif. Rugs are meant to blend with existing colors in the room.

For example, Jennings says, if you have neutral walls and a patterned couch with a dark background, pick a rug with shades of each so it ties the colors together.

Also, try not to choose competing patterns for both the rug and the couch. In a room with neutral colors and hardwood floors, consider a throw rug with rich tones to add warmth.

Materials

These days there are many materials and colors to choose from.

Oriental rugs are made from silk or wool. Although these are the most expensive rugs, they are also some of the most durable. Acrylic materials are less expensive and a good choice for resisting sunlight, stains and mildew.

According to Deborah Burnett of the American Society of Interior Designers, Olefin, or polypropylene, is known to be the most stain-resistant - if you have kids or pets, this is probably your best bet. A nylon fabric is generally very durable and easy to maintain. Wool and cotton rugs are softer than acrylic materials, but jute is usually a bit pricklier. Burnett emphasizes that natural materials are not quite as kid-friendly as some of the synthetic rugs. It's also a good idea to keep them out of direct sunlight.

Within these materials, you must decide whether you want a flat-woven rug (like an Oriental) or a plush pile surface.

Shape

Choose a rectangular shape for defining a space such as a living room, Burnett says. Irregular rug shapes tend to be smaller, used as a focal piece in a room.

Size

Rugs come in several standard sizes: 2-by-3, 3-by-5 and 4-by-6 feet. These smaller rugs work well in an entryway, in a hallway, or by the fireplace and are used in large rooms to define different spaces and break up large stretches of floor. Large rug sizes are generally 6-by-9, 8-by-10 and 9-by-12 feet, though they can run up to 16-by-20. If you want your furniture to go on your area rug, you'll want a larger rug that extends beyond the grouping of furniture, Jennings says.

In a dining room, for example, the rug should be big enough that the chairs remain on the rug even when pushed back.

Finally, don't make the mistake of many people and buy a rug with a pattern they love that is too small for the space, Jennings says. When the furniture is half on and half off the rug, the room loses its sense of balance."

Iran Daily - Arts & Culture - 10/04/05 - Tanavoli’s Sculptures for Canadian Event

2005-10-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

Tanavoli’s Sculptures for Canadian Event

Parviz Tanavoli

TEHRAN, Oct. 3--The latest collection of works by noted Iranian sculptor, Parviz Tanavoli, will be displayed at Eliot Louis Gallery in Canada in February-March.
The works, which were created with a new look at the collections ’Nothing’ and ’Mountain Digger Farhad’ differ from his earlier creations.
Elaborating on this style, Tanavoli said, “When I started working on the collection ’Mountain Digger Farhad’, my intention was to render a general view of this mythical figure’s character but in the new undertaking I dealt with the details of his character and appearance.“
A new work by the artist features Farhad’s hand. In order to achieve his love, he digs the mountain with all in his power for years.
This job needs more power and hand is the symbol of human strength.
“I designed Farhad’s hand in a way to depict his power,“ he noted.
In his later works, he wishes to focus on the details of Farhad’s character, he said.
Some of the sculptures have been molded in Tehran and will be sent to Canada within several months.

Parviz Tanavoli - Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected

2005-10-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Iran News - Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected: "Iran's tribal carpet sector neglected

Sunday, October 02, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 2 (IranMania) - A noted sculptor has called for paying more attention to woven handicrafts of tribal communities in order to prevent them from becoming extinct, said Iran Daily.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of an exhibition featuring tribal carpets, Parviz Tanavoli said, ?We are seeking to recover unique Iranian carpets which were smuggled out of the country due to inattention of Iranian kings, and the neglect for carpets woven by tribesmen.?

The Carpet Museum adopted a wrong policy in seeking the return of carpets from the Safavid era which were smuggled out of the country by the Europeans during the Qajar era, he said adding that the museum however managed to get back only a few of them at huge costs. However, if the museum had focused its attention from the outset on collecting unique carpets woven by tribesmen, an unmatched collection of carpets would have been available now, he regretted.

Tanavoli further stated that everybody thinks that it is easy and commonplace to identifying such carpets while the number of the experts majoring in this difficult field in Iran is few and far between.

Observing that one of the most important ways of preserving valuable carpets is to set up regional museums, he recalled that 80 years ago, the tribes were considered the most important power in the country.

They were brave, vigorous, proud and content people whereas today they are poor, he said, adding most of them own pickup vans because they have lost their cattle due to draught.

Meanwhile, director of National Carpet Center, Morteza Faraji referred to the positive impact of such exhibits and said that the carpet industry should be viewed from various perspectives including safeguarding cultural heritage, economy, job generating and preventing migration to cities."

Westchester County Business Journal - Luigi Festagallo

2005-10-03T12:43:00.000-07:00

Westchester County Business Journal: "Luigi Festagallo

Arrivederci Roma
Cousin's business a draw for leaving Italy
By BOB ROZYCKI
Luigi Festagallo doesn't remember much about the day that his dad was killed.

He was 4 years old, and according to the story passed down through the family, his mother had a bad feeling about the day and told her husband not to go to work.

It was July 19, 1943, and Allied planes dropped bombs for the first time on Rome. Bombing of the city had been avoided up until that point because of its religious importance.

His dad didn't return home from work as vice president of a company that sold propane tanks. Propane was a major fuel source in Italy. Festagallo's uncle went to the factory only to find the building in shambles. The uncle found the father of three dead under rubble.

The bad news would not be easy to deliver. In addition to the three children, another was on the way.

But Festagallo holds no grudge against Americans. "It was war," he says.

While "it was a bad situation after the war," his father's stature with the company left the family in good shape financially. And while there was very little to buy and "everything was expensive," his uncle owned a bakery, so the family "didn't suffer from lack of food."

Festagallo said his mother, brother and two sisters were not poor. "We never suffered poverty. Relatives in the United States sent money and packages."

After the war, Festagallo went to school in Rome and played soccer with his friends. He saw numerous popes give the Sunday benediction in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.

After high school, he joined his brother in running a business that exported, cleaned and repaired Oriental rugs. They opened a 1,500-square-foot store on Piazza Navona, known for its three fountains, including the famous Fountain of the Four Rivers and church of Sant'Angese in Agone.

During a visit to America for a wedding, Festagallo talked with his cousin Antoinette Lombardi about joining forces to create a rug store in Westchester County.

Lombardi, who is known as "The Rug Lady," created what would become Rug and Home Gallery, now located in Thornwood. Festagallo moved from Italy and the two went into business together.

The language was not much of a barrier to Festagallo since his cousin speaks Italian. Rugs were the universal language though.

Festagallo said he can look at a rug and tell where it was made, whether it is China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Persia or Afghanistan. When a customer has a rug in need of repair, such as missing fringe, broken border or even a hole from wear, Festagallo sizes it up and determines the cost. And if repair costs exceed the worth of the rug, Festagallo said he would tell the customer. And, he said, all repairs are done by hand. Even rug washing is done manually.

One thing that Festagallo said he has found to be different here in the United States is driving, specifically the drivers themselves. "It's a completely different mentality." In Italy, he said, people drive with the other motorist in mind. Here, people drive thinking only of themselves.

Having grown up in Rome, Festagallo said he never had a garden and he doesn't have one now at his home in Ossining. "There was no space for gardens in the city."

He said he loves to eat and cook. He said a specialty is his sauce. And like any cook will concur, "it's better with fresh tomatoes," never from the can."

Pittsburg Rug Dealer Richard T. Walker Dead at 65 - PittsburghLIVE.com

2005-10-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Oriental rug expert enjoyed exotic travels - PittsburghLIVE.com: "Oriental rug expert enjoyed exotic travels

Richard T. Walker
By Jerry Vondas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, October 2, 2005
As one of the leading Oriental rug dealers in the nation, Dick Walker was the expert that U.S. Customs officials often trusted to authenticate the value of Oriental rugs coming into the country.
But such recognition came with a price, said his wife and partner, Kathleen Walker. "We traveled a great deal," she said. "In the years before the Shah of Iran was deposed, Dick and I made our way throughout the back roads of Iran looking to purchase quality Oriental rugs."

Richard T. Walker, of Upper St. Clair, owner of Walker Rugs on Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon, died of heart failure on Friday, Sept. 30, 2005, at his home. He was 65.

"We had guides take us to these hamlets by jeeps, trucks and old junkers," Mrs. Walker added. "On one occasion, our guide left us as soon as it got dark because of his religious beliefs that required him to be in his house before sunset.

"He left us stranded with a rented Mercedes that Dick couldn't take out of reverse," Mrs. Walker said. "Dick drove the 25 miles to the airport in Teheran in reverse. There was only one plane a week leaving Teheran."

Kathleen Walker also recalled how President Nixon invited them to travel to China to train potential Oriental rug dealers on retail sales procedures. "Dick's father often supplied the White House with Oriental rugs. President Nixon knew we could handle the assignment."

Born and raised in Mt. Lebanon, Richard Walker was one of two sons in the family of Russell C. and Leona Thomssen Walker.

His father, a native of St. Louis, opened his first Oriental rug store in 1940 by leasing space in Kaufmann's Department Store, Downtown. He later leased space in department stores in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Indianapolis, Houston and St. Louis.

"We cut back about 15 years ago," said Mrs. Walker. "Mt. Lebanon is our only store."

Dick Walker learned the Oriental rug business by helping his father after school and on weekends, Mrs. Walker added. "The Kaufmann family selected Dick's father to provide the Oriental rugs for Fallingwater," the Fayette County home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1958, following graduation from Mt. Lebanon High School, where he played the trumpet in the school band, Mr. Walker enrolled at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

Upon receiving his degree in 1962, he married Kathleen Lynott and began his 43-year career with the family business. Upon his retirement this year, his son, R.T. Walker, assumed the management of the company.

Although traveling was a major part of their married life, Mrs. Walker recalled that the greatest joy that came with traveling came about when Mr. Walker would take his family cruising throughout the world.

Mr. Walker is survived by his wife, Kathleen Lynott Walker; two daughters, Mary May and her husband, Marcus, of Bath, Ohio, and Anne Watterson and her husband, James, of Solon, Ohio; two sons, Richard T. Walker Jr. and his wife, Frances, of South Fayette, and John Walker and his partner, Ken Henkle, of Atlanta; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Russell Walker and his wife, Donna, of North Fayette.

Visitation will be from 4 to 9 p.m. today at Beinhauers, 2828 Washington Road, Peters. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Monday at St. John Capistran Church, Upper St. Clair. Burial will be in Queen of Peace Cemetery, Peters.

Jerry Vondas can be reached at jvondas@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7823."

Iran News - 2m work in Persian carpet industry

2005-10-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

Iran News - 2m work in Persian carpet industry: "2m work in Persian carpet industry

Sunday, October 02, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, October 2 (IranMania) - Some two mln people are involved in Persian carpet industry nationwide, said the head of the National Persian Carpet Center of Iran, adding that the industry can slow down migration of rural and tribal people to larger cities, if it receives greater attention from the state.

According to ILNA, Morteza Faraji further said that the center is planning to find the causes of declining demand for Persian rugs on international markets.

?The center?s research department as been tasked with conducting a research study to determine why international Persian carpet sales are declining,? he said, adding that the center will also seek expert views from NGOs, unions, cooperatives and academicians on the key issue.

The Persian carpet industry, he pointed out, has to be looked at from different angles, stressing that the industry generates financial resources and job opportunities while preserving cultural heritage and arts.

Experts say modern marketing methods have to be employed to reverse the declining trend of Persian carpet exports, adding that the quality of Persian rugs have to improve as well.

On the other hand, new international markets need to be created for Persian rugs.

Some $470 mln worth of Persian carpets were exported in the year to March 2005. The government must boost export incentives to encourage the Persian carpet industry to step up exports.

Increasing imitation of unique Persian rug designs by Pakistani, Indian and Chinese carpet weavers has resulted in Iran losing some 40 % of its share in the global hand-woven carpet market.

The carpet industry needs to devise design and production standards to protect the high status of Persian carpet at the international level.

Experts say regional carpet weavers, especially in Pakistan, imitate the designs of Persian carpets and export them to international markets.

Roqayyieh Almasi, a member of Scientific Association of Persian Carpet, said earlier that Pakistani weavers use Persian designs and export their products under world-famous Iranian brands such as Haris, Afshar, Kashan, Kerman, etc."

Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05

2005-09-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily - Economic Focus - 09/29/05: "Rural Economy Revisited

Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts.

With almost 50 percent of Iran’s nearly 67 million people living in rural areas that often lack social and employment opportunities, and with rural-to-urban migration putting pressure on the cities, rural development is now a major focus of the government.
According to the latest demographic figures released by Iran Statistics Center, the country’s population stands at above 66 million, exactly at 66,480,000 out of which 44,372,000 are urban settlers and 22,108,000 live in the countryside.
Public participation is now generally assumed to be a good if not vital ingredient of rural development plans because past development strategies failed through its absence.
According to a report in Payam-e Jahad-e Keshavarzi, earlier, development policies had focused on improving the physical facilities and material resources of rural inhabitants. The emphasis was on investment to restructure and boost productivity, financing of infrastructural projects and the encouragement of inward investment.
An effective approach nowadays is one that seeks to enhance the particular strengths of a rural locality by developing the potential of local actors - individuals, businesses, communities and voluntary organizations - and its cultural and natural assets.
It entails recognizing and accommodating the integrity of local areas - the interdependencies of environment, economy and society within a locality.
For years, pressed by mounting external debt repayments, Iran had been looking for alternative approaches to development without focusing on people’s participation as a mechanism for promoting rural development.
People’s participation implies the active involvement in development of rural societies, particularly disadvantaged groups that form the mass of the rural population and have previously been excluded from the development process.
Through participatory programs and activities it is possible to mobilize local knowledge and resources for broad-based development and, in the process, reduce the cost of governments for providing development assistance. People’s participation is also recognized as an essential element in strategies for sustainable agriculture, since the rural environment can only be protected with the active collaboration of the local population.
The importance of people’s participation has also been highlighted by international organizations with emphasis that a participatory approach including the involvement of NGOs, is crucial to any strategy for successful human development.

Women’s Role
Rural women have always been an important foundation of production units. Without the presence of women, the economic structure of family let alone the locality cannot be sustainable.
Iranian rural women are active in economic activities such as agriculture and handicrafts. These activities let them play an effective role in reducing production costs and increasing family revenues, in addition to attending to their children and household.
Rural women have realized that they must have greater access to education in order to elevate themselves and their own status in the society and their family.
The tendency of rural women to have greater education and participation in decision making necessitates a transformation in social vision and providing new opportunities for participation in the development process. The change in culture and the special cultural roots which exist about the role of women and value of rural women in family and society is indeed a slow process, which needs a greater amount of time to reach its objectives.

Agriculture and associated activities typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income.

Gov’t Duties
Government support should play out in the form of establishing clear policies and regulations that favor people’s participation and encourage the establishment of people’s organizations.
Towards this end, it is also important to establish a legal framework which provides a basis for free association of rural people in organizations of their choice, introduce and enforce policies and legal and structural reforms (such as land reform, reform of tenancy laws, water use rights, etc.) which promote more equitable access to resources and services for the rural population, especially the poor. Government should also enact and amend laws to ensure equal rights and full membership for women and other disadvantaged groups in people’s organizations and where necessary, enhance provincial authorities to promote and facilitate democratic participation of rural people through organizations of their choice.

Farming
Few countries have significantly reduced poverty in the countryside without also experiencing economic growth. For most developing countries, improved agricultural productivity will be the engine of non-agricultural growth.
Agriculture and associated activities -- the driving force of the economy in many developing countries -- typically accounts for a high share of all employment and national income. In many countries, growth in food and agricultural output has been the main basis of economic growth and higher per capita incomes. Most developing countries that grew rapidly during the 1980s and achieved the largest improvements in food situations experienced rapid agricultural growth in the preceding years.
Rural growth also contributes to reducing urban poverty. When agricultural productivity improves, rural wages and employment rise, reducing labor flows to urban areas -- leading to wage increases for the unskilled and semi-skilled in cities too. Increased agriculture productivity also reduces the price of food in urban areas, often a significant component of household expenditure for the urban poor. Indeed, stimulating sustained growth is unlikely to succeed unless agriculture is first energized.
It is clear that sector-wise policies are no longer adequate mechanisms for solving the multi-faceted and changing social needs of the countryside; the call for more integrated rural policies responsive to the diversity of rural areas has strengthened.
Given pressures on public funding, it is essential that public subsidies available for rural development are targeted efficiently so as to maximize the economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits. More reliance will be placed on rural communities themselves responding creatively to the various pressures.
Endogenous approaches to rural development stress the need to make the most of the local resources, including human capital, and favor encouraging local people as agents in the development process. Participation, therefore, becomes both a means and an end of rural development."

New Orleans businesses lGreg Dombourian, owner of Dombourian Oriental Rugs

2005-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

2theadvocate.com: Business - New Orleans businesses l eager to get back in black 09/27/05: "New Orleans businesses l eager to get back in black

By JOE GYAN JR.
jgyan@theadvocate.com
New Orleans bureau

NEW ORLEANS -- Billy Derenbecker, general manager of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in the French Quarter, and Greg Dombourian, owner of Dombourian Oriental Rugs in the lower Garden District, were cleaning up their businesses Monday and wondering what business will be like when they finally reopen following the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The Bubba Gump restaurant and market, located on Decatur Street in the Quarter, had its power restored Monday for the first time since Katrina hit Aug. 29. The Dombourian firm, which sits on Magazine Street in uptown New Orleans, is still without electricity and water.

"We just got our electricity today. We're still waiting for clean water,'' Derenbecker said as he sat on a bar stool at Bubba Gump. "The biggest thing we need is people. We need employees, and we need customers.''

Dombourian, whose store sustained some roof and ceiling tile damage, said he has business interruption insurance but is waiting for a visit from his insurance adjuster.

"It's a disaster. I can't do nothing with no power,'' he said. "My biggest concern is trying to get some money so I can pay the bills and the employees.''

Mayor Ray Nagin allowed businesses in the French Quarter, uptown New Orleans and the city's central business district to return to the city Monday to assess their storm damage and clean up.

Derenbecker said many of his 125 employees are "scattered'' across the country. Some have gotten positions at other Bubba Gump locations, while others have taken jobs outside the company.

"We're probably looking at about 50 percent coming back,'' he said, adding that some of them will "come back to nothing'' in terms of their homes.

Bubba Gump's New Orleans site, which opened in 1999, was sailing along this year -- that is until Katrina came calling. The restaurant/market had made more money through the first eight months of the year than it had all last year, Derenbecker said. Katrina forced Bubba Gump to throw away $35,000 worth of spoiled food early last week, he said.

Derenbecker said Bubba Gump won't reopen until its employees are "stabilized.''

"We're taking it very slow as far as reopening. It's going to be like starting over again. We're going to have to hire a lot of people and train them,'' he said. "We'll be treating this reopening like we're opening a new store.''

Dombourian, a third-generation owner of the 95-year-old family business that buys and sells and cleans and repairs oriental rugs, said many of his customers are in the hard-hit areas of Lakeview in New Orleans and Old Metairie in neighboring Jefferson Parish.

"My grandfather went through the Depression, but I never thought anything like this would happen,'' he said, his face dripping sweat from the heat inside his 4,000-square-foot building.

Dombourian, who first checked on his business a week ago, has a building note due in November. He also has a line of credit with Hibernia National Bank, which has given him until January to pay on it while interest accrues. He also has to pay rug importers.

"If I can get open next week, I can get some cash flow going by the middle of October,'' he said, adding that he has rug deliveries to make and cleanings to perform. "The real question is, once I open, how many people will be here.''

Dombourian said he will have to take it "a day at a time.''

The Avenue Pub on St. Charles Avenue also has no power, but co-owner Polly Watts said she plans on reopening today. The pub's workers have been cleaning up for a week.

"They finally came and picked up the garbage yesterday,'' she said Monday.

Watts said the entire surface of the pub was bleached.

"It's probably cleaner now than before the hurricanes,'' she said.

Watts said business will be slow because her clientele are service industry workers in New Orleans who have been displaced by the storms.

"So many of our regular customers don't have jobs yet,'' she said.

Still, Watts is guardedly optimistic.

"We have a shot at surviving this ordeal. It's not a question of making a huge profit,'' she said.

Watts said she couldn't even estimate how much money the pub has lost since Katrina shut her down.

"It's ugly. It's too depressing to think about,'' she said.

The Royal Street Grocery at Royal and St. Ann in the French Quarter is open -- and surviving on Quarter residents who never evacuated and on military and law enforcement personnel. The store got electricity Monday morning. Before that, it was running on generator power.

"The most you can buy is one six pack,'' store owner Robert Buras told a customer who was headed for the beer compartment. "Until I get my suppliers, I have to ration,'' he told a reporter.

Buras said he was up and running four days after Katrina hit, but looters forced him to shut down. He opened back up the Sunday before last. Buras said he was driving all the way to New Iberia in the aftermath of Katrina for hamburger meat, but then Rita shut down that supplier.

"Rita messed everything up. My New Iberia connection has no power. It cramped my style,'' he said.

Since Rita hit southwestern Louisiana, Buras said, he has noticed a "marked decrease'' in Marines and National Guardsmen coming into his store.

Restoration work in the central business district, anchored by Poydras and Canal streets, is largely confined to the hotels and large office buildings at this point. On Poydras near the Louisiana Superdome in the area of several damaged skyscrapers, wooden signs in the street warn of "falling glass.''

Businesses in the Jackson Square area of the French Quarter remain closed, as does Café du Monde. Plywood used to board up a building in the French Market area marks the passage of past hurricanes. The wood reads, "Go Away Andrew '92,'' "Go Away Georges '98,'' "Go Away Isidore '02'' and "Go Away Lili '02.''

It will have to be updated to reflect '05 - a year that Katrina and Rita have made sure New Orleans and Louisiana will never forget."

The Guardian | Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims

2005-09-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims "Getty Museum knowingly bought archeological treasures stolen from Italy, investigation claims

Barbara McMahon in Rome
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian
The world's richest art institution knowingly bought scores of archeological treasures looted from Italy, it has been alleged.
Despite being warned as far back as 1985 that dealers were selling stolen goods, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles continued to buy them. The practice continued for so long that, according to the museum's internal review, almost half the masterpieces in its antiquities collection are likely to have been acquired illegally.

New evidence of the scale of what Italy is calling "the Getty scandal" emerged yesterday, painting a picture of the fabulously wealthy institution riding roughshod over a ban on taking Italy's historic treasures out of the country.

According to the Los Angeles Times, which has obtained hundreds of pages of memos, purchase agreements and correspondence records from the museum in Malibu, high-ranking staff were complicit or simply turned a blind eye to the plundering of the priceless antiquities.
The investigation makes several main claims:

· that Getty officials spent $10.2m (£5.7m) in 1985 to acquire three objects taken from ruins near Naples, despite being warned that the purchase was in clear defiance of Italy's "cultural patrimony" laws, which state that all artifacts discovered after 1902 are government property;

· that the museum purchased an ancient urn for $42,000 despite being told that the Italian police were looking for it;

· that it spent $18m in 1988 on a statue of Aphrodite dating back to 400BC which was probably the centrepiece of a Greek temple in southern Italy, even though officials were suspicious of the dealer's explanation about where it came from.

The newspaper also prints extracts from the resignation letter in 1986 of an acting curator who talked about problems in the antiquities department and warned that the museum's "cultural avarice" would some day lead to demands from foreign governments for the return of looted artifacts.

Italian authorities are demanding the return of 42 objects in the Getty collection that they believe were stolen, including a 5ft marble statue of the Greek god Apollo unearthed in southern Italy and said to be more than 2,000 years old.

The museum's own lawyers, however, have found even more examples of artifacts of dubious provenance, according to the report. They counted 82 artworks as being purchases from dealers and galleries under investigation by Italian officials, including 54 of 104 artistic treasures described by the Getty as masterpieces.

The Getty's former antiquities curator Marion True and antiquities dealer Robert E Hecht Jnr have been charged by the Italian authorities with conspiring to export illegally excavated treasures. They have denied the charges and a trial is scheduled in Rome in November. Another dealer, Giacomo Medici, received a 10-year prison term but remains free pending an appeal."

Iran Daily: A Strategic Island Called Kish

2005-09-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: " Review

A Strategic Island Called Kish

Kish Island is the most up-to-date model of urban development in Iran.

The Pearl of the Persian Gulf, Kish Island is without a doubt one of Iran's most attractive tourist sites. The resort island, lapped by the sheltered waters of coral-edged lagoons, is also the most up-to-date model of urban development in Iran.
The paradise island is home to many of the world's species of reef fish. Kish lies like a pearl across the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf and is a heaven of peace and tranquility fringed by sandy beaches and coral reefs vivid with colorful fish.
Kish Island has a calm and beautiful coast. Its soil made of coral with a silvery color, shines dazzlingly under the sunlight and may not be seen in many other coasts in the world covered with gray sand. The seawater in Kish Island is bright and clear and the seabed can be easily seen from a great distance.
The Kish coast is one of the least dangerous in the world.
These are just few reasons that have turned Kish Island into a popular holiday destination in the region. All together, it offers a stunning variety of cultures, scenery, sports, duty-free shopping and entertainment.
Kish Island, measuring 91.5 sq. km, is situated 18 kilometers south of Iran's southern coast and about 300 kilometers from the port city of Bandar Abbas. Kish is almost elliptical with an east-west length of 13 kilometers, and a 7-kilometer width running north to south. The Island's highest point is its eastern part which rises about 45 meters above the sea level. And, its relative height is 32 meters, which means only a 13 meters difference from its highest point.
Kish is hot and humid in summer but has a very mild weather for at least six months of the year.

Kish lies like a pearl across the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf.

Archeological Discovery
In 1931, archeologists discovered ruins of two royal palaces in northern parts of the island and several ancient houses on the eastern side. The palaces belonged to the Sassanid era and were made of mud-bricks. Inside the palaces the statues of Shapour the Second, the Sassanid king, were found and Roman coins belonging to 4,5 and 6 centuries AD were unearthed from the ruins of the houses.
In the Islamic era, the island used to play a substantial role in promoting trade between Iran and the Arab world. Ruins of Harira City have lately received attention from the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization.
Zakaria Qazvini, a historian of the 12th Century AD, writes about Kish: "Ghiss is an island in the Fars Sea. A city lies in the center of the island with beautiful houses and landscapes. The city is surrounded with orchards. Indian and Arabian merchants do business on the island and one can find in Kish whatever is available in India."
Strategic Location
Kish Island has since ancient times been the focus of the colonialist nations due to its strategic location in the Persian Gulf.
The Persian Gulf has been a valuable waterway since the beginning of history and as the venue of the collision of great civilizations of the ancient East, its antecedents go back to several thousands of years. For centuries, the Ilamites used the Port of Bushehr and the Kharg Island for dwelling, shipping and ruling over the coasts of the Persian Gulf as well as transaction with the West Indies and the Nile Valley. In Latin American geography books the Persian Gulf has been referred to as More Persicum or the Sea of Pars.
The Portuguese colonialists conquered Kish in the early 16th Century to have an easier access to the eastern markets. The island remained under their control until the Safavid kings freed it. The Portuguese rule brought nothing but destruction and demolition for the Kish inhabitants.
Kish was traded several times during the Qajar Era before it was discovered to be a great resort island by a group of Iranian and US experts, who recommended that the island could well turn into a tourist attraction after they toured the beautiful island in 1970.
The Kish Development Company was established in 1973 with the aim of turning the island into Hawaii of the Middle East. But the company was dissolved--before it managed to implement the second phase of the project--with the triumph of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the early 1980s, the Revolution Council set customs duties for Kish Island, a law that was not enforced until 1989, when the Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani administration officially declared it as a free trade zone.
The island got a new lease on life in 1992, when the Kish Free Trade Zone Organization was founded.

Kish Island, measuring 91.5 sq. km, is situated 18 kilometers south of Iran's southern coast.

Attractions
The 'world road' surrounds the island like a belt. Some 25 areas have been ceded to representatives of 25 provinces to showcase their products and handicrafts. Next to every provincial stall is a foreign country represented by its own stall and representatives.
The Greek Ship, which never managed to leave Kish after it ran aground in summer of 1996, creates an attractive sight especially at sunset.
Many tourists visit the Greek Ship every day and take photos.
There is also a forest on the island, inhabited by deer. The Kish deer can also be seen playing around in other parts of the island.
Kish visitors would rarely lose the opportunity of visiting the island's huge aquarium, which is home to various species of stunningly beautiful and colorful marine life.
Those who are not able to go diving can have the delightful pastime of observing what is going on beneath the Persian Gulf waters in the unique aquarium.
For the diving enthusiasts the island has its own Dive Center. A variety of other water sports are also available. Jet-skiing, sailing, fishing, parasailing, reef walking, coral viewing, boating and water skiing are just a few popular ways to spend your time and enjoy yourself during a visit to the island.
Soft golden beaches, palm trees and crystal clear waters, in a place where time moves imperceptibly, surround Kish Island. The island offers relaxation combined with adventure in a destination that is unspoiled by commercialization, with its refreshing natural beauty and the unsophisticated life style of its people still very much intact.

No Entry Visa
Foreign nationals need no visa at the authorized arrival and departure points of Kish Island. At Kish international airport the officials will just stamp your passport, which allows you to stay up to 14 days on the island.
However, upon request by the Kish Free Trade Zone Organization the validity of such permits can be extended for three months and if need be for another three months. Such permits are extendable for a maximum period of 6 months and 14 days following which the foreign national has to leave the Iranian territory and re-enter Kish if so desired.
Foreign nationals who visit Kish for business or tourism purposes and intend to travel to mainland Iran should submit their application to the office representing the Foreign Ministry stationed in Kish and obtain an entry visa.
The procedure for the issuance of an entry visa to the mainland takes no longer than 48 hours by which the special Kish entrance stamp is replaced by an entry visa. Should the applicant submit his/her application from outside Kish Island, an entry visa will be issued for him/her upon arrival in Kish airport where the foreign national is required to contact the office of the Foreign Ministry stationed there and ask for his/her entry visa to be issued. Foreign nationals residing in Iran who wish to travel to Kish Island need no entry visa and are just required to present their valid residence documents."

Iran Daily: Iranian Handicraft Exhibit

2005-09-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Iran Daily: "Handicraft Exhibit Underway

By Azam Mohebbi
The Second Biennial Exhibition of Iranian Handicrafts, in which some 600 pieces of handiwork are on display, is currently underway here at the Arts Academy.
The festival–s secretary, Abdolmajid Sharif-Zadeh said at a press conference that the biennale aims to introduce Iranian arts and promote national identity through handicrafts.
—The young generation should be made familiar with national handicrafts and the event seeks to achieve this goal,š he said.
On holding exhibitions in foreign countries on a reciprocal basis, he said that plans have been drawn up and will be announced soon.
Sharif-Zadeh said that Iran–s Handicrafts Organization regularly organizes seminars in which foreign specialists in the field of handicrafts and traditional arts deliver lectures on their research findings.
He said that the eastern nations and African states have so far held art exhibits in Iran and that cultural exchanges with foreign countries would develop further.
Modernity, he pointed out, has created a gap between the young generation and traditional arts adding that globalization poses a challenge to the diversity of traditional arts from different nations.
The High Council for the Youth, Iran–s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Ministry of Science, Research and Technology are expected to contribute to holding traditional art exhibits, he said.
Handicrafts by 250 artists in the field of Mo–araq, engraving, ornament, sculpture, tile painting, pottery and the Persian rugs are on display at the event which will continue until October 17.
A seminar will be held on the sidelines of the event in which six experts will deliver lectures. Ten workshops will also be conducted for young visitors.
Sharif-Zadeh said that 60 artists took part in the first biennale in 2002 compared to the 250 artists from across the country taking part in the current round of the event.
He said that an exhibit of handicrafts by the youth will be held next year.
Meanwhile, head of Saba Cultural House Mohsen Zare– said that the center is planning to hold exhibits of calligraphy, centenary of Iranian sculpture, painting biennale, and poster biennale.
He said that music and drama is part of traditional arts and the center will include the two branches of arts in subsequent events."

Iran Daily: Kamal Tabrizi

2005-09-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

"Kamal Tabrizi
Kamal Tabrizi was born in 1959 in Tehran. He graduated from the College of Cinema and Theater.
He began his artistic activities at the Students Society of Polytechnique College and then joined the IRIB where he made a number of short and feature-length documentaries and TV feature films.
He started with photography, screenwriting and directing short films in 1979. His short films include: A Revolution Greater than the First Revolution (1979), This is the University Campus, Seekers of Martyrdom, and The Film We Made (1980).
Some of his feature films are The Passage (1988), On the Altar of Love 1990), End of Childhood (1993), Leily Is With Me (1995).
He directed short films from 1979 to 1988 when he finally made his first full-length feature "The Passage." His breakthrough came with "Leily Is With Me" (1995), a satire on the Iran-Iraq war. The film launched a new trend in treating war and the Sacred Defense themes in a comic, satirical vein. It was presented at several local and international film festivals and won the prize of Best Script and Diploma of Honor for Best Actor at the Fajr Festival.
"Maternal Love" (1998) secured his international reputation and was awarded an array of prizes at numerous festivals, including the prize of Best Film at the children and young people's section of Berlin Festival, and Best Film award at Zlin, Cairo, Olympia and 44-Strokes (Canada) festivals. His film "The Wind Carpet" (2003) recounts how a young Japanese girl travels to Iran with her father to collect a Persian carpet designed by her mother, who has been killed in an accident. It was awarded the spectators prize and the special jury prize at Fajr Film Festival, 2002.
Then for several years, he was in charge of training programs at the former Azad Cinema Group and organized training programs in filmmaking and taught film direction and theory. He also taught at the Young Cinema Society of Iran and the Islamic Training Center for Filmmaking--affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Tabrizi then made Sheyda in 2000.
Tabrizi has also directed the two TV series Tales of the River (an Iran-Malaysia Co-production, unreleased), and years of Rebellion, which was a highly popular series and was selected as the critics' choice of best TV series.
Tabrizi was also jury member at several editions of the Short Film Festival organized by the Young Cinema Society, two editions of the International Festival of Films for Children and Young Adults, and Fajr International Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival.
His latest film Marmoolak (2004) which is about a convict who escapes prison in the cloak and turban of a cleric, was a hugely popular hit. The protagonist, called Marmoolak (Lizard), is a hardened prisoner, in for armed robbery, who meets a cleric in the prison infirmary. After a day of listening to the cleric's wisdom, Marmoolak escapes the prison hospital in the cleric's cloak and turban. He ends up in a small border town where he has contacts who are going to help him cross the border. The town is waiting for its newly appointed pastor, who, unbeknownst to them, is sick in Tehran. Marmoolak is mistaken as the eagerly awaited cleric. He plays along and becomes a popular pastor while his quest for a passport and border crossing is delayed by a series of mishaps. "