Today we stay in Ferghana and drive to the Yodgorlik Silk factory where we are taken on a tour.
The owner of the factory explains to us that the silk worms are supplied by 3 suppliers, a task that has been recently privatised as previously the government controlled the supply of the Silk worms.
The factory employs 120 people and Uzbekistan is the worlds 6th largest Silk producing country, with China being the largest. Uzbekistan mostly produces the silk thread which they sell to other countries including China, however they are planning to produce more silk fabric in the future. Silk production is about to commence as it’s now summer & the mulberry leaves are ready. This factory has 30 tons of silk worm cocoons on order from local farmers but It will take 1 month before the cocoons are ready to be used.
We first see the process of taking the silk threads off the cocoons by boiling them and threading more than 20 through an eyelet and winding them onto a small reel. The reel is then washed and made into skeins. At this point the Silk is raw, and the skeins are then washed in a pure soap which softens it and it’s wound into large spools. These spools are then wound around a machine that will will weave 240 metres of cloth.
We see the area where the pattern is drawn onto the threads & it’s tied ready for dying. At the moment they are dying cotton & wool skeins.
We watch the ladies weave the died threads, some are cotton and others are a silk and cotton mix.
The factory has a large area full of machines that produces parachute silk.
We visit the silk shop after the tour and Michael buys a cotton coat that he’ll use a dressing gown in the winter. The silk scarves are so lovely and soft, and they pack down nice & small so they won’t take up much room in the car.
We also buy a lovely silk carpet as a souvenir of our Silk Road trip and the owner gives Kay a souvenir doll. We will have the carpet mounted and hang it on a wall, when we build one.
After the silk factory we visit the local market where we buy some bread, tomatoes & cucumber for our lunch. We try to buy some green plums & cherries but the lady won’t accept any money for them, they are so generous and lovely.
There is an old fashioned black smith at the back of the market and he is making sickles, it certainly looks like hot work as they come out of the furnace red hot.
They have an interesting way of cleaning the dirt off the carrots, they put them into large onion bags and sprinkle sawdust on top and then pull them between 2 men and the dirt rubs off & drops on the ground.
We change $100 US, which gives us 70,000 cym all in 5,0o0 notes. 1 5,000 cym note is worth about $1 AUD. The pile of money is so large we have trouble fitting it in our wallets. It will be interesting to see how long it will last us.
