Sounds like a place in Saudi Arabia. But it's not. In fact, it doesn't exist on any map. 'Bessarabia' is a trade term referring to antique flatwoven carpets from the Russian sphere of influence. The term 'Ukrainian' is also a misnomer when applied to knotted pile carpets from that region. In the 19th century, carpets were woven in workshops and larger urban factories in Ukraine, Moldova, European Russia and western Siberia. We will avoid the term 'Bessarabian' except as a handle applying to tapestry weave carpets of Czarist Russian origin, always remembering that it actually has no concrete reference. [...]
Sounds like a place in Saudi Arabia. But it's not. In fact, it doesn't exist on any map. 'Bessarabia' is a trade term referring to antique flatwoven carpets from the Russian sphere of influence. The term 'Ukrainian' is also a misnomer when applied to knotted pile carpets from that region. In the 19th century, carpets were woven in workshops and larger urban factories in Ukraine, Moldova, European Russia and western Siberia. We will avoid the term 'Bessarabian' except as a handle applying to tapestry weave carpets of Czarist Russian origin, always remembering that it actually has no concrete reference.
Carpet weaving in Russia proper, excluding the Caucasus and Central Asia, does not go back past the early 18th century. In 1716 an Imperial Tapestry Factory was established near Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great (r.1682-1725) which wove floor carpets in both tapestry and knotted pile techniques. A few pieces survive from the 18th century, made for the Russian Court and these match the interiors of the Imperial palaces in Saint Petersburg. Catherine the Great's (r.1762-1796) Italian architect Giacomo Quarenghi designed the buildings, interiors and furniture, and his touch is seen on the Neo-classical carpets as well. Cupids with butterfly wings, bows and quivers, Apollo masks, boldly drawn acanthus, nested roundel medallions, Greek key borders, and red/gold palettes all closely mirror his ceiling paintings in the Ostankino and other palaces. The imperial carpet works were most successful under Catherine, but as few palaces were built thereafter, the shop declined and was closed in 1858 by Czar Alexander II (r.1855-1881).
Other carpet workshops were established by wealthy landowners on their estates, providing rugs for their proprietors and for external sale. The technical differences between various carpets do not give a basis for precise attribution. In the pile rugs, the warps and wefts are usually linen, and alternate warps lie on the same level, with no significant depression. The weaves are medium density. Estate workshops were set up in Moscow province and in Kursk, Voronezh and Tambov provinces, all to the west and south of the Ural Mountains. There were also urban ateliers in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There are also documented workshops in the first half of the 19th century in Krasnoye in Ukraine and Nizhny Novgorod east of Moscow.
The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 deprived many of the estate workshops of the cheap labor upon which they relied. Some shops were quite large with 100 to 200 workers. Not all were weavers, of course. Some independent shops were established early in the 19th century and one, belonging to Prince Yusupov, operated between 1787 to 1831 in Kursk province. Following Russian taste, his carpets have a Neo-classical style with birds, flowers and Apollo's lyres, with a large square enclosing a circular medallion. Carpets were also woven in western Siberia just past the Urals, mostly as a folk art rather than as urban creations. The workshops flourished from about 1860 to 1880 when cheap machine-made carpeting proved too strong a competition. Synthetic dyes came in about the same time, but they faded and were generally unstable.
Embroidered (needlework) carpets were often the work of fashionable Russian ladies. Again, as in England and France, patterns made up of squares enclosing floral motives were most popular, but botehs (paisley), armorial devices, and rose and acanthus combinations also frequently appear.
Patterns were taken from Russian and German magazines, mass-produced embroidery designs and oriental shawls. Also, postcards, perfume or alcohol bottle labels provided inspiration to the embroiderers and carpet weavers. Linen remained a ground weave both for embroidered and knotted carpets. In the 1830s the Academy of Art in Saint Petersburg held courses in carpet design to raise the level of local carpet artistry. The surviving drawings hew close to western European models with arabesques and medallions. This process of design elevation continued through the 1880s where craftswomen were trained in Saint Petersburg and then sent back to their villages to raise the level of production.
The carpets of the second half of the 19th century, with black or dark brown grounds displaying dramatic large cabbage roses, twigs, leaves, wreaths, bouquets, are often dated earlier. They may be tapestry woven (no slits) or in knotted (Turkish knots) pile from Ukraine, Moldova or Russia proper. These are most popular today.
All this took place in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, not a mythical place called "Bessarabia". But it is unquestionable that Russianistic 19th century carpets, with their dramatic, large-scale allover floral patterns on dark, and sometimes light, grounds, are totally modern, totally in sync with current furnishing trends among the affluent. European, but bolder and somehow exotic, these carpets, almost all in square room sizes, have caught the interior designer's eye. Reproductions and some original pieces were made under the Five-Year Plans in the 1930s and later. For flatwoven carpets, they are particularly sturdy and well wearing.