Moldovan carpets. Back in the USSR

Rozen Kilim

Rozen Kilim, another name for the Moldovan rug . Moldova, deep in Eastern Europe, a former Soviet republic without a coastline, largely forgotten by mass tourism and tourism in general. The East has fascinated me since high school. My geography teacher in my final year was blind in one eye and a real curmudgeon. Almost as bad as the other one-eyed guy who played against Bernard Tapie under the blue eyes of a perhaps not-yet-cuckolded Anne Sinclair. I lived in Le Havre, a city we thought would be eternally communist. I played chess. Kasparov even came and beat our entire club in a simultaneous exhibition. Johnny Cleg & Savuka headlined the first Fête de la Musique (World Music Day) at Porte Océane. The connection to our Moldovan wool rugs is tenuous, but that's what I think of when I see these handcrafted rugs made in the East before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Vintage Moldovan rug and a touch of nostalgia

So much for consistency and SEO, let's indulge in nostalgia! Late 80s, the war was cold, but my heart burned for Maëva Slotine, who only wanted me as a friend. I was revising for my baccalaureate with Anne Noury, whose friendship was all I accepted. We channel-surfed between Roland Garros, the students in Tiananmen Square, and the Top 50. Dire Straits played "Money For Nothing" on my cassette Walkman, but never all the way through. The tape would get tangled in the mechanism, and I'd have to carefully extract the cassette and then rewind it with a pencil. I rode a Peugeot 103 moped, and we had a Minitel. To call my friend, I had to dial an 8-digit number and say, "Hello, ma'am, good morning, could I speak to Maëva?"

Whatever our past, it may be unconsciously these adolescent memories that, once we are adults, make us turn to vintage rugs, with a history that, even if very distant from our own, invariably brings us back to them.

Moldovan carpets stand the test of time.

The other reason I love Moldovan rugs is that, beneath their intricate floral patterns, these wool kilims are incredibly easy to use and care for. They're a far cry from the magnificent white wool Berber rugs of Beni Uaru, which sometimes don't fare well after a night of drinking and the frequent wear and tear of high heels. Your Moldovan rug's best friend will be your vacuum cleaner, and that's all. The wool is woven very tightly, making the rug extremely robust and durable. The natural colors don't fade and hold up remarkably well over the years. I'm always amazed by the vibrancy of some Moldovan rugs' colors, even after several decades. And, alas, several decades is indeed my age as I write this...