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DEBORAH SEMEL
BODRUM - TDN Guest Writer

Turkish Daily News: Mehmet Dilari, researcher of antique carpets Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Yesterday afternoon I went to visit Mehmet, Murat and Ali at the Orient Bazaar carpet shop in Göreme. I managed to arrive just in time for some piping hot, homemade bazlama (a kind of closed pide) made by Murat's wife. As I sat there stuffing myself on their hospitality, the thought came to me,

“Deborah, why don't you write something about Turkish carpets? That's something everybody is curious about, and you know a lot, or a little, or something about carpets. But even though you have a house in Cappadocia, which is famous for carpets, and you spend most of your time in Bodrum, which is near Milas, another place famous for carpets, you never write about carpets. And it would make Mehmet, Murat and Ali very happy if you did…

But then I thought: “It absolutely would not. Think about it, Deborah: the first year you came to Turkey you spent a month working as a shill in a carpet shop. You spent your first summer in Turgutreis working in a carpet shop. You have heard enough stories and witnessed enough exchanges that fall at varying distances from the borderline between the sleazy and the pathetic (wherever that may be), and regardless of how informative or entertaining your memoirs might be, you'd be wise to wait until at least the next solar eclipse before putting anything down in writing, because you'd just end up unnecessarily offending someone. You'd probably end up calling somebody a weasel…

But then I had the brilliant idea. “Hey! Why not just do an interview with Mehmet? You don't have to offer any comments or criticisms, you can just write down the questions and have Mehmet write down his answers, and that way (to paraphrase a Turkish proverb), if any sheep are going to be hung, at least they'll be hung from their own shanks.”

And that sounded good to me. So, as they say in the carpet business,

What is your name?

Mehmet Dilari.

Where are you from?

Cappadocia/Avanos.

What is your job?

Researching antique carpets.

How long have you been in this profession?

I have been dealing with carpets for 20 years, professionally for 12 years. I have been involved in tourism for 25 years. I am the owner of the Orient Bazaar carpet shop in Göreme.

Why did you choose this profession?

To speak about carpets and kilims is to speak about culture, tradition and customs. The thoughts of young girls who are reluctant to speak are explained in the designs woven into the carpets and kilims, one can see their psychology in the carpets and kilims. There are even songs today about kilims. I chose this profession because I love carpets and kilims. Not to sell them, but to explain century-old carpets, to take pleasure in looking at them. (Note: At this point, Mehmet put down his pen and spent a half-hour going through the MP3 files on his computer looking for a song by Fatih Kısaparmak called “Kilim” because, he insisted, it was impossible for him to continue writing until I listened to this song.)

If you hadn't chosen this profession, what profession would you have chosen?

My second wish for a profession would be history or art history teacher. For such a person, choosing to be a carpet dealer is normal. There's no difference between the carpet profession and that of history teacher; the only difference is that teachers teach, and I learn by researching.

Where did this curiosity of yours about carpets come from?

When I was involved in running a pension, I would leave carpets on consignment with a carpet-dealer friend of mine, and at the same time I was making business. It was good work. Later, I became a partner in my friend's shop, and that's when I began to become curious about old carpets. One day, an elderly amca who was always buying and selling carpets asked me to find him an old carpet. So, one day, I saw an old carpet that was torn to pieces that someone had thrown in the trash. I took it out, cleaned it and waited with the torn-up carpet for this old amca to come. He came, and I showed it to him, and then, bluffing, I told him that it was very old. The old man started to laugh. With my very first words, he said, I had become a professional carpet dealer. In exchange for that one ripped-up carpet he gave me more new carpets and kilims than I ever could have imagined.

After that, I went from door to door buying carpets. I was always engaged in conversation with the old people of the villages, which is how I learned about dyes, and at the same time I learned about collection pieces from books that I had people bring me from abroad. I also established relations with foreign collectors. That's how this adventure began, and that's how it's continuing. I buy old Anatolian carpets, Konya carpets, from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and I sell them.

Could you tell me about some of this research you mentioned?

When I buy carpets from the people in the village, I have a lot of opportunity to talk with them. When I get information about a carpet I am buying, I have the wonderful pleasure of sharing with them their stories -- their troubles, their happy days, the events that they have witnessed. Carpets from different regions have different types of knots, different dyes, different warps, different designs, but the most important thing is that the individual's thoughts, their characters, their psychologies are different.

Foreigners try to learn about our country's culture, they open schools where they can study culture; unfortunately, there's no such thing in this country. Young friends come to work by my side, and I try to teach them but, strangely, they work a bit and they think they've learned everything, and then they say that they want me to raise their salary or they're going to leave, but really, they have only learned 1 percent.

A carpet salesman once told me, “Deborah, if you want to learn anything about carpets, then read a book, because the only things you will learn in a carpet shop are the lies that the salesmen have been taught.” What do you think about that?

If you look at the situation the wrong way, it is quite normal for people to think of a carpet shop as just a place for making sales, because a salesperson will use everything in their power in order to sell a carpet, even just telling their own thoughts that have nothing to do with reality. These things happen because the shop owners and salesmen don't know the real meanings themselves. You need to make a big distinction between a carpet collector and a carpet salesman. It's possible to learn by reading books, but how many people in Turkey actually read books? When financial concerns take the front seat, then learning loses its importance. Learning about carpets requires time. For those with curiosity, there are no age restrictions on learning.

A lot of foreign tourists and Turkish people are curious about carpets, but they are so afraid of carpet salesmen that they even hesitate to just walk down the street in front of a carpet shop. Do you have anything to say to them?

Even though more tourists have started coming to Turkey, the number of quality tourists who are buying things has decreased. The standard of living in Turkey and income levels have fallen. Ten years ago, a carpet dealer would just sit inside his shop and wait; business was good. Today there are a lot of tourists, but none of them are coming into the shops to buy anything. A shop owner and the sales help have to use all their skills to get people who are just walking down the street into their shops. When they do this, it really makes tourists who would be buyers uncomfortable. Things like this happen more frequently in the big cities. Even though Göreme is a tourist attraction, I try just to provide service to the customers who have come inside my shop, and I try to make sure that the other people working around me do the same.

(Okay, Mehmet, here's your big chance…) As the last question, if I give you a little space to promote your shop, could you tell me what makes your carpet shop different from other carpet shops?

I don't want to say too much about other shops. I can give you some information about my carpet shop. In Göreme, the göz bebek of Cappadocia, under the name of the Orient Bazaar, around 200 square meters inside a historic old building decorated with antique carpets hung to give you the feeling of a nomad tent. Standing outside the single entrance it looks very small, but when they go inside, even tourists find themselves possessed of an atmosphere that is truly impressive. At the same time, working with me is an apprentice carpet dealer, Ali Ceyhan, who I believe makes everyone, including tourists, happy with his friendly, smiling face. Our shop exudes a scent of history that everyone can breathe in. We have carpets from 10 years old to centuries old, and I can understand from the look in their eyes just how happy people are with the carpets we show them.