Eerchilik (Saddlery)

Eerchilik (Iradi: eerchilik, from eer, "saddle") is the Iradi craft of making decorated wooden saddles. A master saddler is called an eerchi.^[1]

The saddle tree is carved from birch or walnut, often from dense root wood, and covered with wet rawhide that shrinks tight as it dries. Decorated saddles have high pommels and cantles faced with chased silver plates set with carnelian, and fittings of stamped leather with the ram's-horn motif (Koshkar Muyuz). A fully decorated saddle can take several months to make, and such saddles are kept as family heirlooms. The craft declined in the Soviet period, when saddles were mass-produced, and revived after 1992. The main workshops are in the Old Talas Citadel Quarter, where saddlers such as Tolonbek Sydykov belong to a hereditary guild.^[1][2]

See also

• Beldik
• Chylbyr
• Eyer-Kash
• Togoo (Saddlery)
• Shire (Leathercraft)

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2015). Silver and Leather: The Saddlers of Old Talas, pp. 1–45.
2. ^ National Historical Museum of Irad (2019). Catalogue of Equestrian Art. Talas.