In 1998, Chris Alexander, fresh out of university in England and eager to experience Central Asia, set out for Uzbekistan, a predominantly Muslim nation along the Silk Road that had been independent from the former Soviet Union for less than a decade. Originally intending to write a guidebook, Alexander wound up settling down in Khiva (pronounced “Keeva”), a desert town of 50,000 near the border of Turkmenistan, famed for its traditional Islamic architecture and little else. Shortly thereafter, Alexander was recruited by the United Nations to help launch a carpet business that would economically empower the local population.

Over the next seven years, as Alexander chronicles in his book A Carpet Ride to Khiva, the carpet workshop transformed dozens of lives, including his own. The workshop was a huge success and continues to this day, despite the fact that in 2005 Alexander was refused re-entry into Uzbekistan with a curt note from the Ministry of Justice. Devastated, Alexander eventually relocated to Kyrgyzstan, where he is in the process of getting a sustainable woodworking business off the ground. In late October, Alexander talked with us about his book, his business, and his adventures in Khiva.

Give me some background about yourself and where you were in life before you decided to move to Uzbekistan.

When I was at university, I was very interested in the Silk Road. One summer, I spent six weeks traveling overland from Turkey to China. I had a Russian phrasebook so I could order opera tickets but that’s about it. Somehow I made my way across to Pakistan, and that sealed the deal. After that, I was convinced I wanted to come back and live in Central Asia.

Chris Alexander has written a book about his experiences running a carpet workshop in Uzbekistan.

So by nature you have a sort of wanderlust?

I think so. I grew up in Turkey and Lebanon and my parents are English, so people used to ask me where are you from and I would ask them what do you mean?

You were originally planning to write a travel book about Khiva. What is so alluring about it that it merits a guidebook?

It is the most homogenous example of Islamic architecture in the world. There isn’t another walled city with madrassas, mausoleums, palaces, minarets, and so on, in such good shape. Although Khiva has a very medieval look, most of what you see was only built in the 19th century. There are plenty of buildings in New York City that are older than a lot of the historical monuments in Khiva.

A lot of people have read books about the Great Game (the strategic rivalry between Britain and Russia for control of Central Asia in the 19th century) and its history of intrigues, of espionage, of cruelty. Khiva used to be central to the slave trade in Central Asia. Today, you can wander around the old city and get a taste of how that feels. Having said that, the Soviets worked very hard to restore the old cities, but by restore they meant rebuild. So the town can feel a little bit like a theme park.

How did you get involved with this carpet factory?

Before I even came to Khiva, I wanted to do some kind of income generation project, something that would allow local people to find their feet and not get handouts like everyone else. I never expected to get into carpets. I was helping out my friend who was a woodcarver, who was already selling carved items to tourists, trying to give him ideas to expand his range. Eventually he started to actually listen to my ideas. I felt I was a bridge between local culture and tourist culture. I looked around at other things that were produced in Khiva that could be marketed to tourists and exported.

In Khiva there is a tradition of making kilims — simple, flat, woven structures that are very cheap, and women know how to make them. We started to develop different designs and make them a bit smaller so tourists could buy them and fit them into a Western home. I had no experience or background in carpet weaving. But UNESCO had the grandiose idea of starting a school for natural dye making and carpet weaving, that’s what led to the partnership. So suddenly I found myself on a journey I was quite unprepared for, into the unknown world of natural dyes and carpet weaving, basically making it up as I went along.

I got the sense throughout the book you put everything you had into it. At one point you’re taking a trip into Afghanistan at the height of the offensive against the Taliban to procure some dyes for carpets. There must have been something special about the process that motivated you to risk life and limb like that.

I don’t think I thought very much about the risk. I grew up in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War of the 1980s so my danger-o-meter doesn’t work very well. I just got over that.

How labor intensive is it to make one of these carpets? How long does it take?

It is ridiculously labor intensive. This is why the Soviets had a very different attitude toward luxury items that took a long time to make. Our carpets were actually relatively crude for silk carpets, but it still took three women six months to weave a 2×3 meter rug. And that’s working six days a week, eight or nine hours a day.

The silk gets wrapped around the loom and then tightened or relaxed. Silk is so strong, although we had massive wooden looms, it could snap the crossbar of the loom, which is thicker than the beam on the roof of any house. But it depends on the size, the length, the knot count, and the strength of the weavers. I realized very early that if we paid workers a wage we would get nowhere. We had to pay workers by how much they weaved.

So you had to incentivize the process?

Absolutely, and not just quantity but quality. I never increased wages in my years of running the shop. I increased the bonuses. If quantity was the only parameter we would churn out rugs, but they would be sloppy.

It was quite touching how your workshop seemed like an Island of Misfit Toys. A lot of your employees seemed marginalized by society because of disabilities or other adverse circumstances. What kind of work environment did that produce?

Originally I only wanted to give work to people who were disabled, widowed, or orphaned. Those were the categories of people who needed charity within the local culture. But partly out of pragmatism — and because I quickly learned that everyone was struggling to make ends meet — I ended up hiring experienced weavers. We had some who were marginalized, but most were just ordinary women. Many of them had learned the trade working for their mothers but had never gone out and earned a wage before. I still remember the first wage day. They couldn’t get around the fact that this money was theirs.

What were your biggest challenges to running the factory?

We had technical challenges — how can we find the right dyes? How can we get the right looms? How can we weave the silk into the proper thickness? We were having to start things from scratch, not just finessing a tradition that was already there. Natural dye-making had completely died out. There were also challenges with sales. Tourist guides would expect bribes, 10% on every sale. If we sold a $1,000 carpet, they would expect $100 just for turning up. That’s criminal in my mind.

But internally as well, there were challenges — trying to create a working environment where we could maintain high standards of quality, having integrity with our designs with in terms of their artistic appeal, but also commercial appeal. There were challenges all the way around, but I loved it.

I know the circumstances of your deportation hurt you. After taking a quick vacation to Baku, Azerbaijan, you were refused re-entry into Uzbekistan for vague reasons, effectively a blacklisting. In the introduction to the book, you’re sitting in the Tashkent airport, lamenting your deportation, stunned that you’re being forced to leave the place that, in your words, you call home. Is Khiva still your home?

There will always be a big chunk of my heart in Khiva. You can fall in love with a person and that person rejects you or dies and you feel heartbroken. That can happen with a community as well. I think things would be really hard if I went back now — I forget how stinking hot things can get in the summer. But at the same time, if I see photos from the workshop, I look at those and feel wistful. I’m sure it has become a bit rose-tinted, but I miss it incredibly. I didn’t feel done. I didn’t feel like I was ready to leave.

At various points in the book, we see women treated badly, child circumcision parties, a retrograde attitude toward the disabled in society. It kind of begs the question — to what extent should the West, as a society, as a civilization, tolerate cultural traditions that we would find abhorrent if they were practiced here?

What do you mean tolerate? When I was living in Khiva, I never passed judgment. I think there are plenty of things about Western culture that are really appalling. On the day I found out I was never going back to Khiva, I also found out that we had won a grant for an artisan exchange program in the US. So I ended up meeting with eight of the weavers and dyers in the US for the American part of the exchange.

It was really interesting to see the States through Uzbek eyes. “Where are all the children, why aren’t they outside playing?” they asked. And I would explain, “Oh, they’re all inside playing computer games and watching television.” And they would say, “Why do people drink their coffee walking fast, why don’t they sit down? If people want exercise, why do they go to a gym, can’t they just walk up and down the stairs?” I think Westerners think in very abstract ways, but Uzbeks are used to thinking in very narrative ways.

Explain a little bit more about this exchange program. It sounds like a trip.

We were mainly in New England, in Massachusetts, partnering with a craft center where women learned weaving recreationally. I remember thinking how badly it could go, wandering around the States with this group of Uzbeks with their gold teeth and Uzbek clothes. But I said, “I’m going to be proud of that. This is my crew.” I thought about the many times I had walked around Khiva going to one of their parties or weddings or whatever and everyone stared at me.

They thought they had died and gone to heaven in the dollar store, loading up bags full of loot. They spent more than $100 each there. We took them to the beach, and when they saw the sand dunes they were clearly unimpressed — remember, they are from the desert. But when they walked over the dunes and saw the ocean, everyone rolled up their trousers and started running in. To see them experience things they never thought they would was an enormous privilege.

When you were living in Uzbekistan in the early 2000s, you described society as “somewhere between Mohammed and Marx.” From what I’ve read, things seem suspended in some iteration of that state still today. Where do you see the future of Central Asia?

I don’t think you can talk about it as a homogenous area. In Kyrgyzstan, things have become much more Islamic and traditional than they were before. Much more foreign and extreme forms of Islam have come into the region. In Uzbekistan, if a man has an Islamic style beard, he could be taken in for questioning.

Kazakhstan has become very economically developed. In Turkmenistan, religion has become the basis for nationalism. And Tajikistan is just a mess. One thing they’re all trying to figure out is which larger umbrella they should be under. Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it the West? Is it the larger Muslim world?

I have just one more question. This might be unfair, but can you describe Uzbekistan in one word?

In just one word?

If that’s possible.

Surprising.

In what way?

(Laughs.) Now we’re getting into more than one word.

Yes, I’m cheating.

People who go expecting to see an exotic world full of Turkish delight are going to be shocked at how Soviet the country is in many ways. People thinking it is Eastern Bloc will be shocked at how it is not. Anyone will be surprised at how hospitable and friendly people are, but also how rude and officious any kind of authority can be. It’s really a land of contrasts.