What is Ornek?
“Ornek” is the name of the traditional ornament of the Crimean Tatars, an indigenous people of the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine.
With the emergence of the Crimean Khanate in the middle of the 15th century, the original ornamental art of the Crimean Tatars flourished and continues to this day on the Crimean land.
A distinctive feature of Оrnek is understanding of these symbols’ meanings by craftsmen who combine them into ornamental compositions that form a message. In their turn, Crimean Tatar communities not only understand the meaning of the images, but also order the craftsmen to create certain compositions with specific meanings.
Common Ornek symbols include images of plants, which correspond to people of different genders and ages. For example, a rose symbolizes a married woman; a poplar or cypress — an adult man; a tulip — a young man; an almond — an unmarried girl; and a carnation stands for elderly person, or abstract concepts like wisdom and life experience.
The symbolism of the floral ornaments is always emphasised by their unusual colour palette. There may be interesting combinations of symbols, e.g. a tulip shown inside a rose symbolises the love of a man and a woman or their marriage. Many symbols are used as protective charms.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the creation of ornamental compositions for embroidery and weaving was done by professional sketchers, called nagkash. Now each master creates their ornamental compositions on their own.
Geometrised ornaments dominate in weaving. Here, we can find, for example, the “rhombus” symbol ( in Crimean Tatar, kobek, which literally means “navel”) and symbolises a womb.
Ornek safeguarding & development
As a result of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people in 1944 from Crimea to Central Asia, the art of creating ornaments, as well as folk crafts of Crimean Tatars in general, fell into disrepair.
After the repatriation of Crimean Tatars to their native land in 1990, the first group training on the Crimean Tatar embroidery and construction of ornamental compositions was held. The education of 12 girls was carried out by the oldest Crimean Tatar embroiderer Zuleikha Bekirova (1913-1999), a niece of a prominent sketcher-nagkash Adaviya Efendiyeva, an author of about 800 patterns of ornamental compositions for embroidery.
A key role in the revival and popularisation of the system of symbols “Ornek” belongs to the artist, art historian, and master of modern Crimean Tatar decorative arts, Mamut Churlu, who founded and serves as leader of the Crimean Tatar creative association “Chatyr-Dag”, as well as of the project “Crimean Style”.
Most of the artists presented on this website are students of Mamut Churlu in Crimean Tatar ornamental art.
The project “Crimean Style” was launched in 2004, and aims to train masters in the language of the Crimean Tatar ornament and its application in the creation of modern artworks, promotion of the creativity of Crimean Tatar craftsmen through exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad, in catalogs and other media sources. The active participants of the project “Crimean Style” formed the creative association “Chatyr-Dag”.