Photographer Nicolo Vincenzo Malvestuto is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Carpet Weavers Of Borchali’. To see Nicolo’s body of work, click on any image.

Zenfira Kajarova, 62, moved to Kosalari when she got married at the age of 17. Her mother-in-law taught her how to weave carpets over 45 years ago. The rug behind her is known as the Tree of Life, a popular design based on a myth.

Minaia learned how to weave as a child, both carpets and dresses. Her neighbors in Kosalari often come to her house to discuss weaving techniques.

For generations, women in Georgia’s eastern Kvemo Kartli region were known for their beautiful carpets, full of painstaking patterns that reflected the lives and traditions of the community. The carpets, known as Borchalou rugs due to the region’s former name, Borchali, were different from other rugs weaved in the Caucasus and Iran due to the weaving techniques and designs the women used.

Fatima Kajarova,73, in front of her loom where she made her rug that covers the floor. Fatima started weaving rugs when she was ten. She remembers that she and her younger sister used to sit next to their grandmother and learn how to weave. Homemade carpets used to provide a little extra income for the family, she recalls, although she stopped weaving in the 1990s, when the struggle to survive took precedence. When reWoven opened, she got a job and now she makes four to five carpets a year. Five generations of women in her family know how to weave, including her granddaughter.

Tukazban, 70, is Fatima’s sister and lives in Kosalari. She learned how to weave when she was seven. “It’s my hobby and it was a hobby for most of the women living in Kosalari village,” she says. She used to teach math at the local high school and taught some of her pupils how to weave. The oldest carpet she has at home is 40 years old.

Minaia Garagashova,60, works on a Karachopt rug, which will take about three to four months to complete.

Mina Ramazanova (left) moved back to the village from Russia, where she spent most of her life. Now 60, Mina has returned to weaving after giving up the hobby for many years. She said her neighbors in Russia used to compliment her on the handmade carpets she had in her home there.

Most Borchalou rugs are full of mythological, not religious, symbols. The tree of life, a popular carpet design, represents a custom of the local ethnic Azerbaijani community: when a boy is born in a family, the new parents would plant a poplar tree.

The village mosque in Kosalari. The carpets used in mosques usually depict the shape of a mosque and face Mecca.

Generations of women weaved carpets to warm their homes and as gifts and dowries. Traditionally, girls weaved six carpets for their dowry: four for the floors, one for the wall, and one for the ceiling of their in-law’s house.

Traditionally, girls learned how to weave from their mothers and grandmothers—they prepared handmade carpets as part of their dowry. Women slowly forgot the artform as local culture changed during the Soviet era, however. Today most weavers are over the age of 50. Kosalari is the only village in Kvemo Kartli where traditional carpet weaving is still alive, in large part due to reWoven, an NGO created in 2007.