Tolonbek Sydykov

Tolonbek Sydykov (born 1949) is an Iradi saddler (eerchi) whose workshop in the Old Talas Citadel Quarter makes decorated wooden saddles with chased-silver pommels and tooled leather fittings (see Eerchilik (Saddlery)).^[1]

Sydykov learned the craft from his father and belongs to the citadel's hereditary leatherworkers' guild. Since the late 1990s the territorial government and then the ISEZ administration have commissioned saddles from his workshop as official gifts for foreign delegations. One of his saddles, made in 2004, is in the collection of the National Historical Museum of Irad. He has trained more than a dozen apprentices.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2015). Silver and Leather: The Saddlers of Old Talas, pp. 70–92.
2. ^ National Historical Museum of Irad (2019). Catalogue of Equestrian Art. Talas.