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Meet The Coders
Our weavers, or coders as we like to call them, represent the best of local talent. By weaving ornaments into every handmade rug, they transmit coded information that comes to us from the distant past. Meet the original coders, and shop their work.
Ani Muradyan
Collective: Goris Handmade
Goris, Syunik Province
"I was born in Goris. At first this was just work for me. Rugs were just rugs, I never thought about what went into making a rug. Now it’s a part of my life. I worked in a local rug factory for 5-6 years before I had my children. That’s when I fell in love with rug making and it became mine. After raising my children, I returned to weaving. This is my profession, my main source of income."
"I feel light when I weave, I feel relaxed. You’re with your thoughts. You talk to yourself, you talk to the ornaments. Everyday is different – some days you're happy, some days you're sad – it depends. You weave a rug with different emotions, and you put those emotions in the rug. From the beginning to the end, you are with your emotions, you can’t ‘just weave.’ A rug contains the energy and nature of the weaver, their experiences. The weaver is inside the rug. Personally, my inspiration comes from my disposition inside."
"When a rug is complete and we cut it from the loom, it’s a celebration. Everyone congratulates the weaver, it’s very fun. We’re like a family here, we celebrate each other’s achievements. When I weave, everyone is living that experience with me. ‘What happened Ani? Is it good? Is it bad?’ We live with each other here. I’m not weaving by myself in a mental and spiritual sense. While we weave we go and see each other’s work. I look at Nara’s work, Nara looks at my work. We help each other all the time, we encourage each other, we give each other hope."
Milena Ordiyants
Collective: Goris Handmade
Goris, Syunik Province
"I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. My family moved to Armenia at the start of the Artsakh Liberation Movement, before moving to Shushi, Artsakh. As a student I studied rug weaving, tapestry, painting, and design at the Shushi Humanitarian College. The deeper I went into weaving, the more I fell in love with the art. Eventually I started working in a local rug factory and teaching weaving and tapestry making to children in Berdzor at a local club."
"I’ve always loved threads. Even as a child I liked to crochet socks. I guess it’s something that comes from within – not everyone has that preference or love within them for rugs. I always loved it as a child, so I decided to focus on it as an adult. I’ve been weaving and learning for over 23 years. The more you weave, the more you learn along the way. There’s no level of a master. You’re always learning. I’m still learning today, I still uncover new techniques and tricks. I learn by myself, I learn from my students, I learn from the other weavers here at the workshop."
"Weaving isn't only a source of income. It’s also a way to deal with stress after the war. This workshop, its environment, the people here… After the war… This was salvation. Some people take medicine, I come here and weave. We lost our home in Berdzor as a result of the 2020 war. After moving to Goris I began to interact with the other weavers here, other people who have similar interests as me. We’re a family here. I joined a new family. It’s not just work. I had no inspiration following the war, but after coming here my inspiration started to awaken little by little. By coming here, seeing the threads, interacting with these women, it reawakened my inspiration and I wanted to weave again."
Anush Arzanyan
Collective: Goris Handmade
Shinuhayr village, Syunik Province
"I was born in Khndzoresk. I remember seeing local people weaving all across our village. There were always rugs rolled out in our home as a child. I remember seeing local people weave rugs so that they could include them in their daughters’ dowries. They would make knotted rugs, not flat weaves [carpets]. As a child my grandmother taught me how to weave a bit, but I really started learning in 2015 when the Goris Women's Development Resource Center organized a three month workshop. Ani was the one who trained me. Now I weave full time at Goris Handmade because I love it."
"We work very hard to make sure our rugs are perfect. We’re persistent, we strive to make them perfect. We’re reviving the work of our ancestors after all, so that it does not disappear. Weaving has been all but forgotten in Armenia. Young people do not want to weave. But I love it. When I complete half of a rug I say ‘Glory to God! I weaved half of it!’ Always. ‘Oh Lord God, thank you.’"
"When you weave you find yourself in another world. You forget about your worries. Sometimes you don’t even hear the conversations of the weavers next to you, because you're somewhere else while you’re weaving. You’re always ‘in’ the rug when you weave. You’re a part of it. We all work together, we support each other, we offer each other advice while we work, we learn from each other. Our days together in the workshop go by very well. We’re happy here."
