The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
CRAFTING NEW LIVES
Their futures in their war-torn country gone, these Afghan artisans are keeping centuries-old traditions alive in Connecticut
Be ready. That’s what the voice on the phone told Abdul Matin Malikzada on Aug. 23, 2021. He tried to remain calm; it wouldn’t be his first time fleeing from a dangerous situation.
Just days earlier, the master Afghan potter had been contacted by Turquoise Mountain, an international organization which supports artisans in troubled locations, and advised to have his documents ready to leave the country. The Taliban had retaken Kabul on Aug. 15, and in a few days the last U.S. personnel would leave Afghanistan’s capital, marking the end of the longest military conflict in American history, and plunging the country into a dark, uncertain future.
Once night came, Malikzada, with his wife, Najila, and their four children, stealthily drove across Kabul to meet up with other Turquoise Mountain members at the Qatar embassy at the Serena Hotel in the heart of the capital, reaching the five-star facility around 11 p.m. Malikzada, his family and many other artisan families being assisted by Turquoise Mountain then loaded onto at least a dozen buses and headed to Hamid Karzai International Airport. Only 11 families made it to the airport’s perimeter; the rest were turned around by the Taliban.
They slept in the street outside the airport while waiting to be admitted. “The kids ended up with pavement marks on their faces,” Malikzada says. “They didn’t remove their backpacks to sleep on them, fearing they would have to move quickly to the planes.” Gunfire was everywhere as the prolonged chaos of the evacuation of tens of thousands played out all around them.
The next day, Aug. 24 at 1 p.m., Malikzada felt the lift of the U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane as it rose from the runway. Spread over multiple planes, some families were bound for Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Others, including the Malikzadas, were headed to Connecticut, although not before a monthslong international odyssey. None knew what their new homes would be like, how they would create new lives in a foreign land, or even when they would get there. The only thing they knew for sure was that there no longer was a future for them in their Afghan homeland.
Malikzada, now 38, is originally from Istalif, a collection of villages about 35 miles north of Kabul. Amid Afghanistan’s rugged, arid landscape, Istalif is an oasis with a rolling river and bountiful fruit orchards. “It is a green district,” Malikzada says through a translator, speaking in his native Dari, the Persian language of Afghanistan. “A lot of people come for picnics and horseback riding. We had a lot of grapes and other fruit.”
Carpet making and carpentry were common trades. But Istalif is best known for its unique, handmade glazed pottery. With its rich clay deposits and abundance of water, it is a perfect place to develop traditional ceramics. The lovely turquoise glaze is made from ishkar plants found only in certain parts of northern Afghanistan. For hundreds of years, the region’s artisans have harvested the desert plant, burned it to ash, and mixed it with metals to produce a black substance which, when fired, transforms pottery to a brilliant
green.
Malikzada was born into this tradition; he is the seventh generation of potters in his family. “My career was a natural,” he says. Both his father and grandfather headed the local artisans’ guild in Istalif.
But just as Istalif and its gifts were treasured by its residents and travelers — international visitors would take day trips from Kabul to Istalif to shop for its wares — it has also long been a target of invaders. Through the centuries, Istalif has been pillaged, conquered and devastated multiple times, both for its natural resources and strategic location on the road to Kabul.
The Taliban came to Istalif in the late 1990s, killing livestock and burning homes and businesses, including Malikzada’s father’s studio. Malikzada was a teenager at the time. “There was no sign of life in the village when the Taliban came and burned down the village,” Malikzada told a public radio station in 2016 while visiting Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show to display his pottery. “People left and there was no art. Even the trees were burned down, houses burned, there was nothing left.”
As the Taliban approached, the community’s potters buried their tools and fled, some staying away from their homes for years until it was safe to return. Malikzada lived with relatives in Kabul, trying to maintain some level of pottery production. “I was feeling [like] a failure,” he said in the 2016 interview. “I continued to make pots, but it was hard to sell them and bring them to market.”
The fall of the Taliban in 2001 brought new hope for both Afghanistan and Istalif. Many residents returned and began rebuilding their homes and lives, with the help of non-governmental organizations including Turquoise Mountain. Malikzada’s family went back to Istalif in 2005, though he stayed in Kabul and began working with Turquoise Mountain until eventually returning to his hometown years later. One-of-a-kind Istalifi pottery was being made again, and Malikzada would open a hilltop pottery studio to resume the work of his ancestors. New life bloomed in the green oasis.
Even as an optimistic new era dawned, the storm clouds were never far off. As the 2000s moved into the 2010s, the Taliban were ascendant, violence was escalating
across the country, and the economy was teetering. Visitors to Istalif dwindled, and with them their crafts spending, and foreign markets were increasingly difficult to reach for the artisans, despite the best efforts of groups like Turquoise Mountain.
Malikzada did what he could to both provide for his family and keep alive an art form that was heading rapidly to extinction. He wrote books on Istalifi pottery. He demonstrated his symmetrical design and turquoise glaze in Japan and Davos, at Buckingham Palace and the Smithsonian Institution, and sold it around the world. On weekends, international groups would visit his pottery workshop and take his classes. “As a well-known ceramicist, working with international nongovernmental organizations, high-level [Afghan] government officials and exhibiting around the world, his profile was very high,” says Shoshana Stewart, Turquoise Mountain’s chief executive officer.
Starting in 2019, after he returned from a show in London, Malikzada began receiving threatening calls on his cellphone “from the Taliban, or some other terrorist group, in
forming me that I was in danger,” he says. “I was accused of being a spy working for the American government. The calls threatened me personally, but I was worried about my family.”
Out of caution, he at first stayed in his home for three months, then moved with his family repeatedly and changed phone numbers. “We moved to three different family homes,” Malikzada says. “One was on the sixth floor of an apartment with security guards. Another was a house where a senior Afghan National Army commander lived, so we felt safe.” His children went to private schools with a driver.
“I was accused of being a spy working for the American government. I was worried about my family.”
About the same time, a nephew and Malikzada’s father-inlaw were shot; they recovered in hospitals in India and Pakistan. “All this was even though we were paying thousands of dollars a month for security.” At first, the callers asked him “to work against the government. Then they asked for $1 million a year because I had been working with foreigners.”
Turquoise Mountain offered him a house at an American air base, but he rejected it “because I didn’t want my life to be like a prison.” The organization next offered him a bulletproof car, which he also rejected. He did accept a three-month break in the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and other countries, which seemed safer than staying in Afghanistan.
• Alibaba Awrang, originally from Jaghori, in southeastern Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province, is a calligrapher, but that doesn’t do his work justice. Many Americans, thinking of calligraphy, might envision formal wedding invitations. Awrang’s work exists in another universe. Using Arabic and Persian alphabet characters, the 51-year-old creates Nastaliq calligraphy — works that tell stories through
art. With brushes and multiple ink colors, he creates a blend of lines and shades in a wide range of sizes. Receiving an advanced art education in Iran, he frequently draws his inspiration from Persian and Afghan proverbs, which he incorporates into his pieces. Awrang’s work has been exhibited in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran and Pakistan, with multiple solo exhibitions since 1997.
Known worldwide as one of the most esteemed Islamic calligraphers alive today, “his name is synonymous with quality, craftsmanship and authenticity,” Stewart says.
As the years of U.S. presence in Afghanistan drew to a close, both Awrang and Malikzada would move their families to Kabul, living in multi-story apartment buildings. Awrang says that Kabul offered “a lot of opportunities, both in and out of Afghanistan.” The men met after arriving in Kabul, and slowly got to know each other. They shared the bond of Afghan artistry, and their families had lived through two periods of Taliban control as well as the Soviet invasion. Much of their work had been destroyed by one or the other group.
Both were involved with Turquoise
Mountain, which had been founded in 2006 by Rory Stewart and King Charles III (then the Prince of Wales) in partnership with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to support the Afghan crafts industry. It takes its name from a location in central Afghanistan known in Persian as Firozkoh, said to be a fabled city destroyed by a son of Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The nonprofit, whose work has since expanded to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar, is dedicated to “reviving historic areas and traditional crafts, providing jobs, skills and a renewed sense of pride,” according to Shoshana Stewart, initially a volunteer with Turquoise Mountain who later married Rory.
A former member of British Parliament, Rory Stewart had visited Malikzada in his Istalif village workshop “and we began working together,” Malikzada says. Awrang first got involved with the organization by displaying in its exhibitions, later becoming a judge for various shows. Each artisan eventually headed a division within the Turquoise Mountain school, Malikzada for pottery and Awrang for calligraphy and miniature painting.
Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, life was mostly peaceful in Kabul, Malikzada says. “We were able to do anything,” Awrang adds. “We had a good salary and could live as we wished.” Both men said they devoted most of their time to their work, with little outside entertainment. “We had picnics with friends and family,” Awrang says, “and could take our weekends off.”
Their children went to school, including private schools. Some started learning English as early as the first grade. In Kabul, the families relied primarily on public transportation and taxis, although they did have private cars.
As professional artisans, they each had studios and galleries, which were visited by many, including senior government officials. Their prominence, plus the fact they had exhibited and sold their crafts overseas, made them special targets after Afghanistan fell.
When the Taliban took over, things changed dramatically. Girls could no longer attend school, grocery stores were closed and travel restricted. The city became quiet, deserted. “We didn’t even see a butterfly around,” says Mohammad Mohammadi, who fled Kabul separately from the Turquoise Mountain group and also found his way to Connecticut, where he assisted with translation and reporting for this story.
Soon, Awrang and Malikzada, along with their families, would cram together along with many others into a C-17 about to leave Afghanistan.
The 11 Turquoise Mountain families first arrived in Qatar, where they stayed in temporary housing in the capital of Doha for 24 days, then went to North Macedonia for six months, and back to Doha. North Macedonia was one of few places offering immediate destinations for families. The second stay in Doha, at As Sayliyah Army Base, was for U.S. Department of Homeland Security vetting, initial processing and screening.
For the first period in Doha, the families were housed in private, furnished homes provided by Turquoise Mountain in coordination with the Qatar government. Senior Qatari officials visited and paid each person $200. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also visited, Malikzada says. Meals were provided through contracts with restaurants, he says, “and there were 1,600 people at my location.”
In North Macedonia, the families were in contact with the U.S. embassy for background checks and other paperwork. Most of the Turquoise Mountain families did not have passports when they left Afghanistan, but got them in North Macedonia.
Back in Doha, this time in tents in a camp, they stayed for more than three months for vaccinations and final processing. “Because we had been in North Macedonia,” Malikzada says, “we were at the bottom of the list when we returned to Qatar.”
After receiving final clearances, 10 families arrived in the U.S. on March 8 to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, spending several weeks at Fort Lee, Va., before coming to Connecticut in late March 2022. (The 11th family became ill and was delayed for six months; they now are in Utah with other family members.) It’s 6,668 miles from Kabul to Connecticut. By air, it would take 15 hours and 58 minutes — if you could get a flight. But for these 10 families, it had taken seven months.
After their trek from Afghanistan to Qatar, to North Macedonia, back to Qatar and finally to the U.S., arrival brought new adventures. Awrang says he was amazed by how open Americans are. In the airport, one person commented on his face mask and another on the beauty of his coat. “We don’t express our feelings like that.” He says it was a true relief when an official “put the United States stamp on my passport.”