Rug

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Herat is an ancient city in western Afghanistan, in a fertile valley irrigated by the Harirud River with hills and steppes beyond. It is Afghanistan’s third largest and now most prosperous city, benefiting from the cross-border traffic with Iran. Beginning in the 1980s, soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a group of rugs began to be woven that depicted the city of Herat and its surroundings. These rugs were decoded by Ron O’Callaghan, who founded the magazine Oriental Rug Review: “The design is a cityscape of Herat with military street traffic, trees, houses and other buildings. In this rug (#54), against a starry sky and a backgrop of mountains, fly four Soviet aircraft probably MiG-25s. To the south of Herat at Shindand was a huge Soviet air base that serviced both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. As a consequence, aircraft arriving and departing Shindand followed a flight path over the city of Herat, so sightings were common if not continuous. “We note in the hills high on the left side of the rug is what looks to be a crew-served anti-aircraft emplacement, the weapon being a ZPU-2. We do not know if this is a Soviet defensive position, or mujihadeen with a captured weapon set up to ambush low-flying aircraft. On the centre-right is what appears to be a Soviet armoured vehicle, probably a BMD-2, exploding and burning. A Soviet veteran of the war told us such vehicles were prone to explode because they carried so much fuel and ammunition. Behind the vehicle there appears to be another crew-served anti-aircraft weapon, a ZPU-4, but again we don’t know in whose custody. Oddly enough, there is a white sideways camel sharing the sky with the Soviet aircraft.”