Konigil village: 8th-century Samarkand paper

Samarkand paper became famous in the medieval world after the Battle of Talas (751 CE) — the Abbasid Caliphate captured Chinese papermakers from the Tang army and settled them in Samarkand, the nearest major Islamic city. Their technique replaced Egyptian papyrus and animal-hide parchment across the Islamic world within a century.

The Meros Paper Mill at Konigil village, run by the Mukhtarov family, revived the craft in the 1990s after Soviet suppression. The process:

1. Strip inner bark from three-year-old mulberry branches (silkworm season yields the softest fibre).
2. Boil the bark in wood-fired copper kettles for ~24 hours.
3. Pound the softened fibre with a water-wheel-driven hammer for 6+ hours.
4. Slurry the pulp, dip a fine screen to form individual sheets.
5. Press, sun-dry, then polish with agate to achieve the characteristic soft sheen.

The paper is bought by museums (the Louvre, Hermitage, and Islamic manuscript conservators) for restoring 9th–15th-century documents written on the same material.

Visitors can watch the full process free of charge and buy paper, notebooks and prints in the small shop.