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| Guide To Kazak Rugs |
Qazax (Kazakh, Kazak, Kasak, Gazakh). The most used spelling today is Qazax but rug people use Kazak so I generally do as well.
Part of this project is a constant refinement based on adding in new information. Now as I try to define Kazak I have to turn to the geography and history of the region. When I speak of Kazak rugs I am referring to rugs from the old Kazak Khanate. Qazax is a city of about twenty thousand people in Northwest Azerbaijan at 41.10°N, 45.35°E.
In the Caucasus people live in valleys mountain peaks are the dividers. Kazak was an important city because it controlled a series of valleys that extend from modern Azerbaijan into Armenia and Georgia.
The people of this region are Azeri Turks, Armenians, Albanians, and Northern Caucasian. There are also Greeks, Russians, and Georgians, in the area but they do not appear to have made a significant number of rugs.
Eiland on the Kazaks
There are few people I respect more than Murray Eiland Jr. The scope of his work and the measure of his contribution to the field is hard to describe. Never the less there are few people that I disagree with as much as Murray. One area in particular is on the subject of Kazaks and the Kazaks of the Caucasus. In Eiland, and Eiland, Oriental Rugs page 270 Murray suggests that there are no Kazaks in the Caucasus. He very rightly points out that the ethnic groups are Armenian, Azeri Turks and a few other smaller groups. I will conceded that Murray is correct but he is missing one key point. A Kazak is a descendent of one who left the Mongol horde (ordu). So in the Caucasus there are many people who are descendents of people who at some point split from the authority of the Chingizid rulers.
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