My grandfather and my father have worked in Bazaar and were carpet businessmen. Like all the Iranians, I have been engaged with carpet since my birth and throughout my life and maybe after the words “mother” and “father”, I’ve heard a lot of the word “carpet”. I went to sleep in my grandfather’s carpet weaving workshop with the sound of comb on the carpet looms and all my childhood and youth memories are tied up with the carpet. The carpet was a string that connected me to the world around me, and it is the source of life for me and my family. When I was a kid, I went to the mountains and plains with my father to buy wool from the tribes. As a young man, as my father’s representative, I was in charge of the delivery of wool and giving carpet loops to the carpet weaving women in the home workshops. When the school was closed, I started carpet trade beside my father and eventually the dream of being owner of a carpet store in Grand Bazaar of Tehran came true. I established my carpet cleaning workshop around Tehran several years ago so that I could prepare all the carpets ordered by my father and the colleagues there.

Today, after living more than 36 years with carpet, I am cooperating with Fatemeh as carpet tour advisor. “The Carpet” and “Iran” cannot be separated from each other.  Every Iranian is born on the carpet and dies on the carpet. “The Carpet” represents the Iranian identity and indicates the social class and even the psychological and mental state of an Iranian. The one who has the silk carpet made in Qom, and the one who has the woolen carpet made in Birjand, are very different from each other. I am here to guide you through the experience of mine, my father and grandfathers in understanding Iran’s carpet and introduce “Iran” to you through “the carpet”, and this is the most beautiful path.

Should you have any further question, please do not hesitate to contact me via website: iran handicraft tours or this e-mail: karimi[at]iranhandicrafttours[.]com