Pottery in Afghanistan:

 Written by: Aqsa Sediqi

A number of Afghans are busy in making pottery. They make various kinds of objects such as bowl, plates, glasses, vases, and others.  Most of them use the traditional way in making pottery but Abdul Matin Malik Zada, a resident of Istalif district of Kabul province has brought some positive changes in his work.

AEPO’s writer/producer has talked to him.

Malik Zada says: “I was invited to an exhibition in Tokyo, Japan in 2005 and I learned how to make pottery technically regular. When I came back to Afghanistan, I studied at e of Feroz Koh Institute, Kabul city and I graduated in high rank from that institute and they hired me as an instructor in the mentioned institute.

Now I make pottery from a special clay found in Logar province and make paint from a bush.

Before we were using wood-oven for making pottery but now we use electric and gas ovens.

At the beginning we were making pottery by hand, its color was lasting for a short time but now we make it by machines and bake the pottery two times in the oven. At that time, we were making many items but the price of each item was about 50 Afghanis but now we get orders about 15 thousand $ every year from abroad.

The Feroz Kuh institute held exhibitions of our products in USA, UAE, and Switzerland.

Partridge farm:

Qais is a resident of Kabul city. He is an employee in one of the banks in Kabul city. He  has made a partridge farm at his house.

Qais says about his work to AEPO’s writer/producer:

“at the beginning, I tried chicken farm but as it needed more attention, then I imported a partridge production machine from abroad. The price of the machine is 2500 Afghanis. I checked it and it produced partridge chickens and found that raising partridges is easy, I started to import more partridge production machines from China for sale.

There are three size machines for sale: the first one consists of 24 eggs, the second one 48 eggs, and the third one is for 112 eggs.

At the beginning, I prepared the partridge eggs from Kandahar province, because the residents of Kandahar keep partridge at home and now I use my own partridge farm eggs.

Our products are not for meat, they are only for keeping. The price of each partridge is between 3000 and 30 thousand Afghanis, and I also sell about 30 partridge production machines each month.”