Hungarians treasure Azerbaijani carpets - PHOTO

Before visiting Hungary, I tried to learn something about this Central European country. I asked my aunt Sevinj, who lives in Budapest, if there is any center, shop, exhibition or anything about Azerbaijani culture. She said Azerbaijani carpets are well-known in Budapest. I learned that there are a lot of shops in the Hungarian capital selling Azerbaijani carpets, and several carpet exhibitions are held in Budapest.Talking to my aunt, I realized that sometimes Azerbaijani carpets are confused with carpets from other countries. She told me the story of a Gazakh carpet put on sale at a Budapest shop. The vendor argued that the carpet had nothing to do with Azerbaijan and was made in Kazakhstan, which is why it was called “Kazakh”.A daughter of well-known carpet-maker Jafar Mujiri, Sevinj had no doubt that it was an Azerbaijani carpet. She finally managed to convince the vendor that it was a Gazakh carpet and not a Kazakh one. At the end, the shop owner accepted the argument and renamed it.I decided to conduct my own investigation and find out if there were similar mistakes. Although every shop I visited offered Azerbaijani carpets, the vendors had little knowledge of Azerbaijan.  Walking down a Budapest street, a shop named "Aga's Oriental Carpets" drew my attention. The word agha means Mister in Farsi and is also used in Turkish language. The manager of the shop, Mr Khan, showed me around the shop with big interest. The shop offers several thousand carpets, kilims and tribal rugs from Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, China and the Caucasus.The manager said that the best-selling carpets are Afghan ones because of their cheaper prices. The most valuable carpets are those from Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus.According to him, Caucasian carpets, especially Azerbaijani ones, are among the favorites of the Hungarian people. I saw several carpets with the words "Azerbaijan", "Gazakh", "Caucasus", "Afghanistan", "Kazakh", "Iran", etc on them. Some of the carpets had the "Caucasus" label and it was not clear which of the three Caucasus countries they represented.I was happy to have found a shop that not only offered Azerbaijani carpets but also provided information about them. Seeing so many beautiful carpets together, I realized that carpets-weaving is part of our rich heritage. Our task is to save the heritage for next generations.Jamila IbrahimovaANN.Az