Arak
The central province and its capital Arak is one of the most important carpet producing centers in Iran The carpet weaving in this area dates back to the time when Shah-Abbas the great, gave his consent for the settling of a group of Armenians in that area. Among them there were many skilled weavers, but the main progress occurred during the reign of the Gajar Dynasty. The basic reasons for the development of the carpet weaving industry was due to the fact that many merchants from Azarbaijan invested large sums of money for supplying and exporting rugs to the German markets. Moreover, many foreign companies opened branches in Arak, for business enterprises and exportation purposes. The most famous of them was an English firm, Ziegler, which established workshops and installed looms (in 1883 in sultan-Abad, for producing carpets according to the demand of the European markets.
After the defeat of the Germans and their allies in the First World War, Arak lost most of its high profile customers. Soon after that, the economic crisis in America (1929) and its effects on the rest of the world caused a large setback to the carpet industry within the US (this decline continued through the Second World War as well). Fortunately, after a short period (and help from a number of Persian capitalists) the industry started to thrive again.
Most of the carpets woven in Arak are of medium quality but there are some valuable Sarugh and Farahan carpets that are highly regarded by buyers and collectors. The colors used for these carpets are mostly herbaceous. Except for Farahan carpets, all the other woven in the area of Arak have Senneh knots. In this locality it is almost rare to find fraudulent knots. The wool of the Arak carpets is of the best quality as well.
The design of the carpets (which are limited to this region), differ from each region to the next. The Arak carpets typically composed of branches and leaves with blue borders and rose colored backgrounds. 
Read our other blog posts on Arak Rugs:
