Contemporary Blacksmithing in Uzbekistan

A bit of background. As most of you know, I have had a large presence on the internet for a very long while. Although it has become the primary connection point for potential customers, it also can bring in a lot of unwanted e-mail spam. You never know however, what might end up an interesting and valuable contact. A couple of weeks back, I got the first part of a communication from someone who included Cyrillic characters in the text, along with a pile of images of blacksmithing work. I responded, and got a second, more informative, letter in return. I have edited the two letters from Ibragimov Timurbe into one. Remember that English is not Ibragimov's primary language. As well I have included some the images of his father's artistic blacksmithing work.

Dear Colleague!!!
I am a son of Blacksmith. We are very glad to find you!
You know, being very enthusiastic in my father occupation I would love to know a little bit more about blacksmithing from people who are real professionals in wrought iron! If you don't mind We'd love to know your opinion about our forged items. What do you think about them? We make all forged items only by means of our hands and of our best friends - hammers! Look at them!!!

We are not actually from Russia or Ukraine but we are certainly from one of the post Soviet Union countries. We are from Ferghana city, Republic of Uzbekistan. We haven't got our own Web site but I can send you other works of my father's if you like.

Before going into this profession, my father had graduated the High school of Arts and became artist, then he entered the University and studied for 5 years before becoming a qualified builder. He really wanted to make something different when he was a student and went into blacksmithing, having merged two his abilities (building and making art) into one. My father has been working for over 25 years in this occupation but now it's really hard to make a living just building an art in our country, so my father decided to move to Russia this year. He was invited to work by blacksmith organization in Yekaterinburg city, Russia.

Please write us any opinions, ideas of yours, you are always welcome!!! We even will be very glad to have other ideas of Professionals! We will be very grateful!

С искренним уважением, Ибрагимов Тимур Икрамович!
My best wishes!!!

Ibragimov Timurbek
ibr_tim(at)bk.ru