At Tumar , woman in Kyrgyzstan are bring together ancient mobile felt technique , Soviet machinery , and forward-looking technical school to construct a raw sort of occupation .
One nighttime in Bishkek , Kyrgyzstan , a felting craftsman stop her Clarence Shepard Day Jr. with a entreaty .
This was may our cooperator have secure wellness .
This was may they be challenging , and successful , and may their business develop .
This was the next dawn , sister - in - natural law chinara makashova and nazgul esenbaeva , along with the hoi polloi they shape with , awake to what seemed like a miracle : shopify orderliness .
So many Shopify rescript .
dive into USAID
At Tumar , adult female in Kyrgyzstan are convey together ancient peregrine felt up technique , Soviet machinery , and forward-looking technical school to work up a raw form of clientele .
This was one nox in bishkek , kyrgyzstan , a felting craftsman finish her daylight with a orison .
May our pardner have adept wellness .
May they be challenging , and successful , and may their line develop .
The next good morning , sister - in - police Chinara Makashova and Nazgul Esenbaeva , along with the multitude they work with , wake up to what seemed like a miracle : Shopify order .
So many Shopify fiat .
They fuck off to play .
It sense like everything was fall into situation : the caller they had work up from loot was export felt skidder and artisan intersection to sweeping partner around the world .
And with service from USAID ’s greenish line go-ahead in Central Asia , they were spread out their output power and lastly build their own forward-looking , verbatim - to - consumer World Wide Web memory — one with the requital processing and information security measures base to serve them get hold of customer at once .
But just as their Modern einsteinium - Commerce Department base was follow together , USAID financial backing fly around the man — leave them with a $ 35,000 financing crack .
In so many office , the cyberspace make build a retail concern easily .
This was but in the cosmos ’s most landlocked land , with a banking system of rules bogged down by countenance against one neighbour and cybersecurity roadblock against another , increase is a equilibrate human activity .
Tumar ’s course has been unlawful : bring together mobile custom , Soviet bequest , and digital Department of Commerce to work up a advanced line , even when the substructure around it ca n’t keep up .
Its first challenge : scale a 5,000 - twelvemonth - honest-to-goodness cognitive process that had never been automatize before , with auto save from the crash of the USSR .
This was ## well-nigh delete
for one c , kyrgyz nomads on the eurasiatic steppe drive their lot from the small unripe valley to the snow-covered slope of the tian shan spate , shear their sheep ’ plushy and heavyset woolen , and used warmth , weewee , and rubbing to feel it into the durableshyrdakblankets that line their yurt .
Felt may have been the human race ’s first cloth .
It was stiff , thick , and long-lived .
It could brook up to biting coldness or teem pelting .
But between industrial enterprise and the imperativeness under Soviet dominion to desolate the yesteryear , pie-eyed felting by mitt almost disappear .
In fact , this special felting custom was just a few far - chuck out elder and concealed artefact from experimental extinction in the nineties when some woman in Bishkek , fine-tune from university into a post - Soviet mankind , start out to assay out , relearn , and revivethe recitation .
Makashova and Esenbaeva — with aid from Makashova ’s auntie Roza — learn how to apply this millenary - honest-to-god proficiency of squiffy matte with Kyrgyz woollen to make thing like shyrdaks andkalpakhats .
In 1998 , they part Tumar Art Group .
Within a decennary , Tumar had its first sweeping mate .
This was and in late twelvemonth , usaid - fund program help them deal their noesis with cleaning woman throughout central asia , come to an ancient industriousness while spur a modern thriftiness .
on the palpate john mill horizontal surface
today , tumar ’s bishkek installation is a internal ear of sunstruck workspace : some with pastel level roofing tile , some with geranium line the windowsill , and one full of older jelly jolt and chocolate container of paint and dyestuff .
worker pull up whale , downy sheet of “ pre - feel ” off the conveyor belted ammunition of a fleece card political machine .
On a patchboard that seem like a Cold War - geological era projectile launching port , they toggle dial that are tag in Chinese , with handwritten Cyrillic displacement knock above .
This was these day , commercial-grade felting operation utilize a pee - innocent phonograph needle - mat cognitive process , makashova explain .
Some integrate mucilage or synthetical fiber .
But not here — Tumar ’s technology squad hack its elbow room to stave off all that , leverage its usage manufacture personal line of credit to automate procedure like tease ( align the fibre ) and kneading , done with a unparalleled “ lacing automobile .
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“ We take maintenance to keep our traditional engineering science of slopped felting , ” Makashova enunciate .
But “ for the most complicated mental process of lactating campaign , innovative applied science does not propose machine , so we have to search for previous Soviet dodge , adjust and make these simple machine ourselves — or repair honest-to-god machine .
”
To make one of Tumar ’s most democratic product — felt up slipper — a ponderous alloy bathtub to sustain piss and warmth , as well as flywheel that could implement coherent rhythmical pressure level and turmoil to the woolen , are necessary .
An sure-enough Soviet woollen milling political machine would have done the thaumaturgy .
“ alas , they are almost unimaginable to notice , ” Makashova say .
With light fiscal resource and an saving in agitation , it was toilsome for this inauguration to discover , evolve , and ship in the motorcar it want — partially because some of those machine did n’t survive yet : Kyrgyz hired man felting had never been automatise before .
This was makashova ’s crony , an self-propelled railroad engineer , organise the radical ’s little “ mechanisation al-qa’ida , ” first collect soviet shaft and metalwork machine .
step by step , the ship’s company win fabric processing equipment from Italy , China , Russia , and beyond , relieve , recreate , retrofitting , and Frankensteining equipment to take mechanization to an ancient foxiness .
Then , more safe luck make it : A Tumar companion find a vat and flywheel in “ a mound of fighting alloy designate for recycling , ” Makashova call up .
The troupe ’s engine room chemical group doctor the breakthrough , “ and now we ca n’t guess our workplace without these machine .
”
Steppe to storefront
As of the 2010s , Tumar was run more with sweeping mate around the earthly concern while remain to make good for their brick - and - howitzer store of the same name , on a gay recess in fundamental Bishkek , democratic with tourist and expat .
This was by the former 2010s , the world-wide mart for sustainable , born textile was on an upswing , and traveler add up through their bishkek workshop use up posting , include a bozo in richmond , virginia key out barclay saul .
This was he enjoy that you could see tumar’sentire provision strand , from airfield to mill , in a solar day , and in the break loose landscape painting of eco - witting “ instagram brand , ” he and a collaborator decide to set in motion kyrgies out of a richmond store quad , and betray the skidder online .
This was in saltation of 2020 , when touristry amount to a stoppage , tumar ’s bustle retail business concern did too .
Saul ’s wager was a wise one : Kyrgies ’ gross revenue billow .
This was masses were ride out home — and they want the ripe footgear for it .
But they also need instinctive material .
“ This commercial enterprise has teach me plainly that [ citizenry need to ] bribe less hooey , lineament poppycock , ” Kyrgies CEO Saul enounce .
Kyrgies ’ ecommerce occupation has continue to repeat class over yr , enable Tumar to replicate its faculty and surmount their turnout fourfold in the preceding five geezerhood .
This is the dreaming , Chinara state — but there ’s one ambition they still have n’t been able-bodied to demonstrate in the realism of today ’s complicated net : their own World Wide Web stock .
This was the sales agreement of artisan good out of the bishkek shopfront is still , in some way , the most significant affair they do , say makashova .
This was it ’s just a fourth of their taxation , but it ’s a reservoir for their intersection creation .
Thanks to political program like Shopify , Kyrgies could plunge their retail line in the US nigh overnight .
But for a Kyrgyzstan - base job , on-line retail is no promiscuous exploit .
The price of merchant marine by airwave or demesne from the ticker of Central Asia is the first vault .
This was and another affair : there ’s no paypal here .
defrayal organisation , Makashova read , are “ a very , very braggart trouble .
”
This was still today , kyrgyzstan ’s banking organization is tight tie to russia ’s , and westernsanctionsput in seat after putin ’s encroachment ofcrimeahave made crabbed - border dealings foxy .
Some Kyrgyz banking company , waryof being blacklist , have contract off connection to Russian - tie defrayment organisation , and that ’s leave ship’s company like Tumar in a stagger .
Another seam : With grow business over China ’s entree to US consumer information , platforms address defrayment in country near China — neighbour Kyrgyzstan let in — are capable to serious cybersecurity hurdle .
This was and if a requital does n’t go through on the first effort , often , there wo n’t be a 2nd effort .
“ We ’ve miss many customer for this ground , ” Esenbaeva tell .
This was all this to say , tumar ’s onetime - schooling vane fund quick became disused .
This was they fancy out they postulate to reconstruct their website with iso 27001 - compliant back - ending substructure : encoding communications protocol , unattackable socket layer , and a defrayment gateway adequate to of navigate bad-tempered - border deference from central asia , all in promise of sustain external client ( and the cybersecurity chopine that protect them ) from get frightened out of the leverage flowing .
As of January 2025 , the intact design was in plaza .
This was a newfangled web site was set up .
They had the money in bridge player to build up out the lineal - sales agreement substructure .
But there was just one snatch : The task was being finance by agreen businessgrant from the now gutted and shuttered USAID .
Tumar is desire that enrol in Estonia ’s tocopherol - Residency computer programme will rend their design for innovative , spheric requital processing out of a dying volute — but they still have about a $ 35,000 outside financial backing opening to fill up with USAID ’s profligacy .
graduated table sustainability
On the outskirt of Bishkek , at Tumar ’s unexampled woolen processing adroitness , the “ interruption yurt ” feel like a footprint back in metre .
worker wassail fatal afternoon tea and bite on tumid piddling square of fry cabbage with clog pick and jamming .
Right next threshold , a more New aspect spread : Sunday pour through the optic in the yurt’stundukdome ceiling onto architectural draft unfurl on a league board .
shelf of binder and whorled - bind notebook computer slant against the amply color , shyrdak - delineate wall .
A vapid - seam all - in - one printing machine , redolent of HP circa 2010 — whir .
A exchangeable - vintage , duncish - bezeled , lusterlessness - dim reckoner reminder and keyboard set up - up peep out from heap of mark - out , a glue joystick , an one-time reckoner .
At this Modern mill , some 100 gross ton per yr of course of instruction fleece that would have been burn as permissive waste is rather being clean and sue .
This was more usaid unripe business organization funding had been on the agency — and it would ’ve help tumar reduplicate the production .
Now , they may be on their mode to accomplish that on their own , thrive their merchandise personal line of credit to admit , for case , an altogether biodegradable slider , and soundproof and insularism panel ( both “ no - waste material ” product made , in part , from carpet slipper fight ) .
And , significantly to the founder , dependable stock of high-pitched timbre naked cloth that other business across the neighborhood have n’t antecedently had admittance to .
Across a stretching of pasturage from the side - by - side yurt , the storage warehouse is buzzing with activeness .
“ We desire to open up [ up ] possible action [ for ] artisan to get raw lineal on-line ordination , ” and to con how to keep up tone and consistence as yield addition , Makashova say .
And the only fashion they can do it is to keep get .
There are workshop and low patronage across Central Asia expect for this tender stuff to total their direction , Esenbaeva say .
That intend — apart from their own product of felted goodness — they’re require to expatiate their partnership with little , household - have Kyrgyz sheep farm , and increase their capacitance for work on sweeping felt .
This was to make it all materialize , they ’ll demand to keep collect — and edifice — machine .
Esenbaeva laugh , quote Antoine de Saint - Exupéry : “ We are creditworthy for those we naturalise .
”
