Wool, water, Wi-Fi: Modernizing an ancient business at the final frontiers of e-commerce

In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a craftswoman specializing in felt artistry concluded her day with a prayer. “May our collaborators experience robust health. May they be driven, prosperous, and may their enterprises flourish.” The following morning, sisters-in-law Chinara Makashova and Nazgul Esenbaeva, along with their team, encountered what felt like a genuine miracle: a surge of Shopify orders. Numerous Shopify orders were pouring in, signaling a new chapter for their Kyrgyz artisan business.

They commenced work immediately. A sense of perfect alignment permeated everything: the company they had painstakingly established was now exporting handcrafted felted slippers and various artisan goods to wholesale partners across the globe. Bolstered by the support of USAID’s Central Asia green business initiative, they were augmenting their manufacturing capabilities and, crucially, developing their own contemporary, direct-to-consumer online store—complete with the necessary payment gateway and data protection framework to engage directly with clientele exploring Kyrgyz crafts online.

However, just as their new e-commerce infrastructure was materializing, USAID funding worldwide was abruptly discontinued, leaving them confronting a $35,000 financial shortfall. While establishing an online retail presence is often streamlined in many parts of the world, the situation is markedly different in Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked nation grappling with a banking system complicated by sanctions against a neighboring country and digital security obstacles concerning another. For Tumar, expansion has been a delicate act of equilibrium. Their trajectory is unique: merging nomadic heritage, Soviet-era remnants, and digital commerce to cultivate a contemporary enterprise, even when the surrounding infrastructure lags behind. Their initial hurdle: scaling a 5,000-year-old technique, the traditional felt making process, that had never undergone automation, utilizing machinery reclaimed from the dissolution of the USSR.

For centuries, Kyrgyz nomads on the Eurasian steppe herded their animals between verdant lowlands and the snow-capped Tian Shan mountains. They sheared the abundant fleece from their sheep and employed heat, water, and friction to felt the wool into resilient shyrdak rugs, essential liners for their yurts. Felt may represent humanity’s earliest textile. Celebrated for its robustness, density, and longevity, it offered protection against severe cold and torrential rain. Yet, with industrialization and Soviet-era pressures to forsake tradition, Kyrgyz handmade wet felting faced near extinction. By the 1990s, this specific felting heritage was on the verge of vanishing, preserved only by a few remote elders and concealed artifacts. It was then that a group of Bishkek women, recent university graduates entering a post-Soviet landscape, sought to discover, relearn, and revitalize this venerable craft.

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Makashova and Esenbaeva, with the assistance of Makashova’s aunt Roza, mastered the ancient technique of wet felting using Kyrgyz wool to create items like shyrdaks and kalpak hats. In 1998, they established Tumar Art Group, dedicated to preserving Kyrgyz crafts. Within a decade, Tumar secured its first wholesale partnership. More recently, USAID-supported initiatives aided them in disseminating their expertise to women throughout Central Asia, breathing new life into a traditional industry while stimulating economic growth in the region’s artisan sector.

Inside the Felt Factory

Today, Tumar’s Bishkek facility is a network of bright workshops, some featuring pastel tiled floors, others adorned with geraniums along the windowsills, and one room overflowing with repurposed jelly jars and coffee tins holding pigments and dyes for their artisanal felt products. Employees extract vast, airy sheets of “pre-felt” from the output of a wool carding apparatus. On a control panel resembling Cold War-era missile launch equipment, workers manipulate dials labeled in Chinese, supplemented by handwritten Cyrillic translations affixed above.

Makashova clarified that contemporary commercial felting processes typically employ a waterless needle-felting method. Some even integrate adhesives or synthetic fibers. However, this is not the case at Tumar. Their engineering team innovatively bypassed these methods, utilizing their custom-built production line to automate stages such as carding (fiber alignment) and kneading, achieved with a unique “beating machine,” pivotal for crafting authentic felted goods.

“We are committed to preserving our traditional wet felting techniques,” Makashova stated. However, “for the most complex stage of wet pressing, modern engineering does not provide suitable machinery. Consequently, we must seek out antiquated Soviet designs, adapt and construct these machines ourselves—or rehabilitate existing vintage equipment,” crucial for maintaining the authenticity of their felt products.

To produce one of their most sought-after items—felted slippers—they required a robust metal vat to contain water and heat, alongside flywheels capable of applying consistent, rhythmic pressure and agitation to the wool. A vintage Soviet wool milling machine would have been ideal. “Regrettably,” Makashova noted, “they are nearly impossible to locate,” presenting a considerable hurdle in scaling their felt slipper production.

Amidst limited financial resources and an unstable economy, procuring and transporting essential machinery proved challenging for the fledgling enterprise. This difficulty was partly because certain necessary machines were nonexistent; Kyrgyz hand felting had never previously been mechanized. Makashova’s brother, an automotive engineer, spearheaded the company’s modest “mechanization initiative,” initially collecting Soviet-era tools and metalworking machines. Progressively, Tumar acquired textile processing machinery from Italy, China, Russia, and elsewhere, salvaging, refurbishing, retrofitting, and creatively combining equipment to introduce automation to an age-old handicraft, essential for enhancing their output of Kyrgyz felt crafts.

Subsequently, more fortunate events unfolded. A Tumar associate discovered a tub and flywheels in “a pile of scrap metal intended for recycling,” Makashova remembered. The company’s engineering team revitalized the salvaged components, “and now we cannot envision our operations without these machines,” critical for the sustained production of their unique felt products.

By the 2010s, Tumar was increasingly partnering with wholesale distributors globally, while also maintaining its physical retail outlet under the same name, situated on a sunny corner in central Bishkek. This store remained a popular destination for tourists and expatriates seeking authentic Kyrgyz artisan goods.

As the late 2010s approached, the international market for sustainable, natural materials experienced growth. Travelers visiting their Bishkek store took interest, including Barclay Saul from Richmond, Virginia. He was impressed by Tumar’s transparent supply chain—observable from pasture to factory within a single day. Amidst the expanding landscape of eco-conscious “Instagram brands,” Saul and a partner decided to launch Kyrgies from a Richmond storage facility, focusing on online sales of Tumar’s felt slippers, leveraging the appeal of sustainable and ethically sourced Kyrgyz products.

In spring 2020, with the abrupt cessation of tourism, Tumar’s thriving retail operations also paused. Saul’s initiative, however, proved astute; Kyrgies’ sales escalated. As individuals remained home, demand surged for comfortable, natural footwear. “This venture has underscored the simple truth that people aspire to purchase fewer items, opting for superior quality,” stated Kyrgies CEO Saul. Kyrgies’ e-commerce business has since witnessed annual doubling in growth, enabling Tumar to double its workforce and quadruple its production capacity in the last five years, significantly boosting the output of Kyrgyz felt products.

Chinara described this expansion as a dream realized, yet one aspiration remains unattainable amidst the intricacies of today’s digital landscape: their own online storefront for Kyrgyz artisan crafts. Makashova emphasized that the sale of artisan products from their Bishkek shop retains paramount importance, serving as a crucial avenue for product innovation, despite constituting just a quarter of their revenue. Platforms like Shopify facilitated Kyrgies’ rapid entry into the US retail market. However, for a Kyrgyzstan-based business, online retail presents substantial challenges. The high cost of air and land freight from Central Asia represents an initial obstacle. Furthermore, the absence of PayPal and similar payment systems in the region poses “a very, very big problem,” according to Makashova, hindering their direct e-commerce aspirations.

Kyrgyzstan’s banking infrastructure remains intertwined with Russia’s, and Western sanctions implemented following Russia’s annexation of Crimea have complicated international transactions for businesses like Tumar seeking to sell their Kyrgyz crafts globally. Several Kyrgyz banks, apprehensive of potential blacklisting, have severed ties with Russian payment systems, disrupting operations for companies such as Tumar. Adding to the complexity, escalating concerns regarding China’s access to US consumer data have imposed stringent cybersecurity barriers on payment platforms operating in countries bordering China, including Kyrgyzstan. Consequently, failed initial payment attempts often preclude subsequent attempts. “We have lost numerous clients due to this issue,” Esenbaeva lamented, underscoring the challenges in online sales of Kyrgyz goods.

In essence, Tumar’s initial online store rapidly became outdated. They recognized the necessity to reconstruct their site with ISO 27001-compliant backend infrastructure, incorporating robust encryption, secure socket layers, and a payment gateway capable of navigating cross-border regulations from Central Asia. This comprehensive upgrade aimed to reassure international clientele and the cybersecurity systems safeguarding them, ensuring a seamless purchasing experience for Kyrgyz felt products.

By January 2025, the complete strategy was in place. A revamped website was launched, ready for online sales of Kyrgyz artisan goods. Funding was secured to develop the direct-sale infrastructure. However, a significant setback emerged: this project was financed by a green business grant from USAID, an organization that had recently faced substantial budget cuts and closures, causing uncertainty for Tumar’s e-commerce ambitions.

Tumar hopes that participation in Estonia’s e-Residency program will extricate their plans for contemporary, global payment processing from potential failure. Nonetheless, they still face an approximate $35,000 international funding gap resulting from USAID’s discontinuation, critical for sustaining growth and online sales of their Kyrgyz felt products.

On the periphery of Bishkek, at Tumar’s novel wool processing center, the “break yurt” evokes a sense of temporal displacement. Workers partake in black tea and nibble on small, puffed squares of fried dough accompanied by clotted cream and jam, reflecting traditional Kyrgyz hospitality. Adjacent to this scene, a more modern setting unfolds: sunlight filters through the tunduk dome of the yurt, illuminating architectural blueprints spread across a conference table, detailing expansion plans for their sustainable raw wool processing facility. Shelves lined with binders and spiral notebooks lean against the richly patterned, shyrdak-lined walls. A flatbed, all-in-one printer, reminiscent of early 2010s HP models, emits a whirring sound. A similarly dated, thick-bezeled, matte-black computer monitor and keyboard setup emerges from stacks of printouts, a glue stick, and an old-fashioned calculator, blending tradition with the technology needed to advance their Kyrgyz artisan business.

At this new factory, approximately 100 tons of coarse wool per year, previously considered waste and burned, is now cleaned and processed, showcasing a sustainable approach to Kyrgyz craft production. Continued USAID green business funding had been anticipated, which would have enabled Tumar to double its output. Currently, they are progressing towards achieving this independently, extending their product offerings to include fully biodegradable slippers and soundproofing and insulation panels. These innovative “no-waste” products are partially crafted from slipper remnants, further emphasizing their commitment to sustainability. Crucially for the founders, this initiative provides reliable access to premium raw materials that were previously unavailable to other businesses across the region, fostering growth in the broader Kyrgyz artisan community. Across a grassy expanse from the adjacent yurts, the warehouse bustles with activity, reflecting the vibrant operations of their expanding felt business.

“We aspire to broaden opportunities for artisans to receive new direct online orders,” and to learn how to uphold quality and consistency amid increased production, Makashova explained. The only viable path to realize this vision is continued expansion, ensuring the sustainable growth of Kyrgyz artisan crafts and access to global markets.

Esenbaeva noted that workshops and small businesses throughout Central Asia are awaiting the availability of this raw material, essential for bolstering the region’s artisan economy. This necessitates expanding partnerships with small, family-owned Kyrgyz sheep farms and enhancing their capacity for wholesale felt processing. To facilitate this growth, sustained efforts in acquiring and constructing machinery are essential. Esenbaeva concluded with a smile, quoting Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “We are responsible for those we tame,” encapsulating their dedication to nurturing and sustaining the traditional Kyrgyz felt industry and its community.