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THE
GEORGIA ROUTE (Start
page)
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Leading project partner: Georgian Textile
Group, Tbilisi; Ms Nino Kipshidze, art historian Georgia is located at the point where eastern and western routes converge. A country situated along the silk routes, it has a long-standing textile tradition. Wool and silk textile production developed in ancient times and was conducted as a domestic industry. It was not until the late 19th century that the textile industry became focused on the exclusive processing of raw materials and semi-finished products. In the Russian Empire efforts were made to exclude any kind of competition in order to implement a centrally organised industrial development. Actual industrial development did not take place until the Soviet era when a number of textile industrial centres were established in Georgia. Today most of them are devoid of people. In some factories the machines are still set up, raw silk and wool are available, and well-trained and experienced workers produce textiles, albeit on a very limited scale due to economic constraints. The Tbilisi company, "Maudi Industrial" still produces woollen yarns, fabrics and blankets under such conditions. It serves as a model for other companies and forms part of the textile route. It is chiefly the country's museums that bear witness to the development of industrial production in Georgia due to the products they have collected. The Silk Museum is the only museum specialised in textiles. Its permanent exhibition illustrates all stages of silk production, from mulberry trees and silk worms up to patterned fabrics, by showing historic equipment, raw materials and finished products. The museum was founded in 1887 as part of a sericulture station and played a central role for the whole of the Caucasian region. The State Museum of Georgia owns an important collection of ethnographic textiles, indigo prints, embroideries, samplers, beadwork, a doll collection, Georgian and Caucasian kilims and pile rugs as well as Oriental carpets. The State Museum of Art holds a unique collection of Georgian ecclesiastical textiles; its other collections complement the fields that are also the focus of the State Museum of Georgia. The State Museum of Folk Art and Applied Art grew out of a collection compiled by the Caucasian "Kustar Committee" whose most important task was to achieve a revival of carpet weaving in Georgia. The Museum of Georgian Architecture and Way of Life is an open-air museum containing original buildings from all the country's regions. They were re-erected on a site within the town boundaries of Tbilisi, complete with all their interior fittings including such home furnishings and household textiles as were common in their respective regions. The Network of Georgian Regional Museums plays a special part in the textile route. In future the museums are supposed to serve as attractive starting points and destinations for regional cultural travel routes. The Network of Monastic Embroidery Workshops, for which a central point of reference is established in Tbilisi, will fulfil a similar function. The Department of Tapestry and Textiles of the Tbilisi State Academy of Art is the leading institution for textile studies in Georgia, and has a tapestry museum of its own. The Association of Georgian Textile Artists unites the professional artists, designers, scholars and students of its country, with the aim of overcoming the isolation that is currently experienced by the creative textile scene. The association has organised the biennial international textile symposium, "Caucasian Textile Routes", since 1997. Textil Contact Punkt (TCP) Silk Museum 6, Tsabadze Str. GEO-380012 Tbilisi Correspondence via: Georgian Textile Group Rustaveli 54 GEO-380006 Tbilisi http://www.opentext.org.ge/textile |
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  Above: The Tbilisi Silk Museum; below: Collection of tools and materials  The Fine Art Museum in Tbilisi |
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