At the entrance to the city from the Ferghana side stands the Rishtan Ceramic Factory, which has been operating since 1960. The factory holds significant importance for Rishtan and its traditions, both positively and negatively. On one hand, the factory produces mass-produced items that are generally appealing but of terrible quality, often eliciting disdain from connoisseurs of Turkestan who dismiss them as “cheap stamped Rishtan goods.” These items are now even sold in Moscow, not to mention Samarkand or Tashkent.
On the other hand, there is a layer of artisans, or Masters, forming several dynasties and artistic schools in Rishtan. The most renowned of these in modern times are the Yusupovs, Nazirovs, and Usmanovs. However, there are also the Nishanovs, Alibayevs, Vakhobovs, Palvanovs, and many more – a complete list of these miracle-working clay and paint artists simply doesn’t exist. Over a thousand people are involved in pottery in Rishtan, whether with or without the factory. Genuine, high-quality, and diverse Rishtan ceramics can only be purchased directly from them – either in Rishtan itself or at exhibitions touring other cities.
Souvenirs for sale, remarkably inexpensive for genuinely high-quality handmade pieces – these bowls and vessels range in price from $15 to $70:
In his home, there’s a veritable museum hall. Among the pottery, there’s an essential component: wild steppe grass called “kyrk-bugin” (“forty stems”), from the ashes of which ishkor is obtained – a crucial element of glaze in traditional ceramics, arguably its main feature distinguishing it from industrially glazed ceramics, which essentially have only a layer of glass. Real ishkor consists of crystals like quartz and is obtained through a rather complex process in three stages, at temperatures up to 1500 degrees Celsius. Ishkor is the key to understanding local ceramics because no other component gives it that special shine.
Alisher Nazirov himself is a friendly and intelligent man with a very pleasant voice, naturally exuding a sense of peace and tranquility.
Among Rishtan’s artisans, Nazirov is one of the “younger” ones, not in age (he was born in 1958) but in essence – he’s a “first-generation potter,” meaning he founded his own dynasty and tradition. He became fascinated with pottery at the age of 12, with his direct teachers being Eliboy Daliev, father and son Abdulkadyr and Kimsanboy Abdulkadyrov. Later in life, he trained under Japanese potter Isojichi Asakura, a Kutani school potter, during the mid-1990s. Nazirov also received cultural support from Japan during this time. Additionally, Ibrahim Kamolov remained his spiritual mentor. Since 1972, Nazirov has worked at the ceramic factory, becoming its chief artist from 1989 to 1996. He participated in the World Ceramic Exhibition in Komatsu, Japan, in 1997, and at EXPO in Hanover in 2000. It’s fortunate that we caught Nazirov in Rishtan – aside from being a talented artist, he also has a strong entrepreneurial spirit, which leads him to travel frequently. His exhibitions regularly take place in Uzbekistan, Japan, and European countries.
As an artist-entrepreneur, he founded the Rishtan School of Ceramics in 2005. The “comma” on the wall is actually a “cucumber” pattern – the work of 8 masters aged 13 to 82. However, learning from these masters is challenging, and if 1-2 students out of ten choose the path of a potter, it’s already considered a success for the usto.
Central Asian potters are essentially two different guilds of craftsmen: there are “kulaly” – molders who create vessels from clay on a potter’s wheel, and there are “nakkoshi” – artists who adorn these vessels with patterns. Alisher Nazirov is precisely a “nakkoshi“.
Gray-black and green-blue products are essentially the same thing, just at different stages: during firing at 1100 degrees Celsius, the glaze and paints change color, and un-fired ceramics are like a negative of a photograph.
Alisher Nazirov’s creations impress not only visually but also tactilely. The most striking feature of his school is the intricate micro-relief work. Here, on this bowl, it’s clearly visible…
Sharafiddin Yusupov Ceramics Workshop
Rishtan consists of two distinctly expressed parts – Upper and Lower. However, the city is quite flat, and the division between upper and lower isn’t very noticeable. In Upper Rishtan, mostly Tajiks live near the border with Kyrgyzstan, while in Lower Rishtan, mostly Uzbeks reside, although this division has been diminishing lately, and in Rishtan, more than anywhere else in Central Asia, there are many mixed Uzbek-Tajik marriages. The Nazirovs live in Upper Rishtan, while the Yusupovs live in Lower Rishtan, near the modern city center. Sharafiddin Yusupov is a hereditary potter, but his grandfather was a woodcarver.
Although the tradition is clearly one, the differences between Yusupov and Nazirov ceramics are visible to the naked eye – in color schemes, patterns, shine, and the soulful elements invested by the Master into each piece. The main images of Yusupov ceramics are the “kumgan” (water jug), pomegranate, knife, and eye, each with its own meaning.
Some write that the dynasty of potters Yusupov began with Isamiddin, the son of a woodcarver; elsewhere, including from Sharafiddin himself, it’s mentioned that he represents the 7th generation, but the genealogy of the Yusupovs has been lost. Perhaps the truth lies in between – the lineage is ancient, but not direct, perhaps through brothers or distant relatives. Isamiddin Yusupov passed away in 1959, and Sharafiddin continued his training with other old potters until he went to the army in 1964-67.
Upon returning, Sharafiddin joined the Rishtan Ceramic Factory, and his first original works reached an exhibition in Hungary. However, it became increasingly clear that by the time the factory was founded, the Rishtan pottery school had almost perished due to all these civil wars, collectivizations, centralizations, and the final elimination of private property under Khrushchev. Initially, Sharafiddin sought masters and forgotten pottery techniques in Western Ferghana, the foothills of Tajikistan in Isfara and Chorku, and in 1971, he left Rishtan for Kokand, where he set up an art workshop. There, in Kokand, he met Hakim Satimov, Mahmud Rahimov, and Maxudali Turapov – masters from the village of Gurumsaray near Namangan. They taught him how to collect kirk-bugin and obtain ishkor from it; young Yusupov harvested the first 10 kilograms of precious ash in 1975. The following year, Sharafiddin Isamiddinovich and his apprentices prepared nearly half a ton of precious ash, and thus, in the Yusupov workshop, Rishtan ceramics once again shone with ancient brilliance.
In 1978, Sharafiddin Isamiddinovich returned to Rishtan, where he was the chief artist of the ceramic factory for two years. He’s an academician, a laureate of several awards, and a UNESCO diploma holder. His legacy is continued by his son Firdaus.