Rug Types
Caucasian Rugs
Rugs from the mountain regions between the Black and Caspian seas — Kazak, Shirvan, Kuba and related weaving, usually small, bold and high in contrast.
Identification
How to tell
Strong geometry in a limited palette, drawn with confidence and rarely perfectly regular. Sizes tend toward scatter and runner rather than room-filling.
Method
How we clean caucasian rugs
Many surviving Caucasian rugs are a century or older, and age governs the method. Wool that has oxidised over that long is weaker than it looks, so these are washed by hand at reduced pressure, and any loose area is secured before it goes near water.
Common Damage
What goes wrong
Brittle wool snapping under normal handling, and old repairs done in the wrong material — synthetic yarn in a wool rug ages at a different rate and eventually distorts the surrounding weave.