Rob Leahy of Fine Rugs of Charleston helps Afghanistan’s carpet industry
By Jason Zwiker
The scene wouldn’t be out of place on any given day in Charleston: a warm blue sky, cars and pedestrians passing by on their way to work while shoppers chat with vendors at the marketplace and children play nearby.
What made this ordinary scene extraordinary to Rob Leahy was that it was happening in the heart of Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan.
“On the news, we hear about terrible things happening in Afghanistan,” he says. “But I saw far more optimism there in 2011 than I did in 2007. The attitude of the people who are not involved in the war firsthand is actually pretty good. Markets are reopening.
People are shopping and going back to work.”
Four years ago, Rob Leahy, owner of Fine Rugs of Charleston, was part of a delegation led by then U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. They travelled to Kabul and took part in the first Afghanistan International Carpet Fair, an exposition hosted by the Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan at the 5-star Serena Hotel.
As a retailer and objective observer with considerable experience in all aspects of the industry, he was asked to help craft a strategy for putting Afghanistan’s rug trade back on the road to self-sufficiency. He agreed to help.
Rob knows what makes a rug marketable in the global marketplace, and he knew that the hand-knotted rugs of Afghanistan, long famed for their intricacy and quality, met and exceeded the criteria. Traditionally woven by nomadic tribes, the rugs are of exceptional quality, featuring distinct geometric patterns and colors that experts, such as Rob, can read at a glance. There is history written there, the distinct character and story of a specific part of the world.
But decades of war, occupation and internal strife have decimated Afghanistan’s ability to successfully finish and export their own products. As a result, the profitable side of the industry has almost entirely moved to neighboring Pakistan, which not only has the essential cut-and-wash factories necessary to finish the rugs, but also the means to distribute them.
“Thirty years of chaos has totally destroyed the infrastructure,” Leahy adds. “Finishing factories require two things that have rarely been seen together in Afghanistan in recent years: electricity and water. They are able to begin the process of weaving the carpets, but until a rug is finished, it does not look like the product that a customer expects to purchase.
It does not have the same value until it is finished.”
The significance of that is self-explanatory: people without a means of self-sufficiency are all too vulnerable to those who would take advantage of them or recruit them to a hostile cause. There has to be some means of getting out from under, some way by which hard work truly can build a bridge toward financial success and independence.
Add in the fact that about five million people in Afghanistan, approximately 17 percent of the population, rely directly or indirectly on the rug trade for work. The potential return on investment, especially in regards to increased stability in a volatile part of the world, should be obvious.
That’s why, even as the United States helps rebuild Afghanistan’s roads, bridges and factories, industry experts such as Leahy are helping stakeholders within the country establish standards, brand their trade, export goods and make business connections so that they can be successful.
Leahy returned to the country in 2011 accompanied by friend and guide Alex Zahir, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based importer of rugs, who was born to a rug-weaving family in Afghanistan and remains fluent in the languages and the cultures of the area.
“Alex and I were paired by the Joint Task Force of the Department of Commerce and State in 2009 and were both designated ‘Subject Matter Experts’ in 2011,” he adds. “We have worked very well together and are now the only two SMEs used on Task Force rug projects.”
What they found in Afghanistan in 2011 gave him hope for the future. There was new construction everywhere in Kabul, but most importantly, there was a new attitude.
“I saw people who do not simply want handouts. They really do want to go back to work and build their own path.” Significant progress has been made toward that goal, but much work remains to be done, and the “vicious circle of doubt” Leahy observed in his first trip to the country still lingers in many regions.
“Only bad things happen quickly,” he notes. “Good things happen slowly.”
In the meantime, he finds great satisfaction in his day-to-day business in Charleston. The value of a business, Leahy reminds us, is in the credibility that a business owner can bring to the table. That’s why Fine Rugs of Charleston is a brick-and-mortar business. For Rob, personal relationships are the key to customer satisfaction, and satisfaction is precisely what he’s selling.
The bulk of his business, up to 80 percent, is through top-notch designers who have come to know and trust Rob’s expertise. They typically represent older, discerning homeowners who know what they want and are willing to invest in quality.
“The first consideration tends to be color,” Leahy says. “Next is design and, after that, texture and features. Only after all of these have been satisfied does it become a question of price, because what’s really important is that the rug makes the room look the way you want it to look.”
When the goal is not just selecting a rug but the rug most suited to a particular room, expertise matters. That’s a message that has found resonance both in Charleston with the decorators and homeowners who are his clients, and with carpet weavers all the way on the other side of the world. Through that message, he has found his way to give back.
“The more I got involved, the more I thought of ways I could contribute,” he says. “I was tired of just being a spectator, so I did something to help.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Fine Rugs of Charleston
1523 Meeting Street
843-577-3386
www.finerugsofcharleston.com
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