People often ask me how The Black Tent Project began.
The answer is simple: it started with curiosity.
Not the curiosity of a traveler checking destinations off a list, but the curiosity of someone who wanted to understand why people create the things they do, how traditions survive for centuries, and what a simple handwoven carpet can reveal about an entire civilization.
My name is Deniz Coşkun, and I was born in Istanbul in 1980. My journey into the world of textiles began unexpectedly in 1992 while I was studying at a French high school in Istanbul. What started as an appreciation for beautiful carpets soon became a lifelong passion. Every rug seemed to contain a hidden language waiting to be deciphered—one woven not with words, but with wool, natural dyes, symbols, and generations of accumulated knowledge.
As I continued my education, studying Chemical Engineering and later earning an MBA, my fascination only deepened. While engineering helped me understand the science behind natural dyes and textile production, my real education happened outside the classroom.
For more than three decades, I have traveled throughout Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, learning from master weavers, natural dyers, shepherds, tribal elders, antique carpet dealers, museum curators, collectors, and scholars. I have spent time living among nomadic communities in the Taurus Mountains and Central Anatolia, where I experienced a rhythm of life that has changed little over centuries.
Those experiences transformed the way I see textiles.
A carpet is never just a carpet.
It is geography woven into wool.
It is history expressed through color.
It is the memory of migrations, trade routes, family traditions, beliefs, and the natural world surrounding the people who created it.
Once you understand that, you begin to see that every village, every mountain pass, every marketplace, every monument, and every artisan forms part of the same story.
That realization became the inspiration for The Black Tent Project.
More Than a Tour
The Black Tent Project was never created simply to organize tours.
It was created to build meaningful cultural experiences for people who want to go beyond sightseeing.
Our journeys are designed for travelers who enjoy asking questions, meeting local people, learning directly from artisans and scholars, exploring museums and archaeological sites, understanding traditional crafts, and discovering the connections between history, culture, landscape, and everyday life.
We travel slowly.
We keep our groups intentionally small.
We spend time where larger tours simply pass through.
Most importantly, we create opportunities for genuine encounters—sharing tea inside a nomadic black tent, visiting a family workshop where weaving techniques have been passed down for generations, walking through ancient caravan cities, or discussing textile history with collectors and museum professionals.
These are the moments that remain with us long after the journey ends.
Many Journeys, One Philosophy
Today, The Black Tent Project offers many distinct cultural journeys, each exploring a different chapter of the same story.
Cultural and Textile Journeys in Turkey
Anatolia has been one of the world’s great cultural crossroads for thousands of years. Hittites, Phrygians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans all left their mark on this remarkable landscape.
Our journeys through Turkey explore this extraordinary heritage through archaeological sites, historic cities, village weaving traditions, museums, artisan workshops, local cuisine, and the people who continue to keep these traditions alive. From the vibrant streets of Istanbul to the villages of Anatolia, every journey reveals another layer of Turkey’s remarkable cultural mosaic.
Golden Silk Road – Culture and Textiles of Uzbekistan
The Silk Road was never simply a trade route. It was a highway of ideas, craftsmanship, religion, science, and artistic exchange.
Our Uzbekistan journey follows this remarkable legacy through the breathtaking cities of Tashkent, Fergana, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva, introducing travelers to master ikat weavers, suzani embroiderers, ceramic artists, traditional musicians, and architectural masterpieces that continue to inspire the world.
The Nomadic Adventure
Our nomadic experiences take travelers into the mountains of Turkey to meet families who continue to preserve traditions shaped by seasonal migration, animal husbandry, weaving, and hospitality. Living alongside them offers a rare opportunity to experience a way of life that has survived for centuries despite a rapidly changing world.
Why Carpets and Textiles?
People sometimes ask why carpets and textiles remain at the center of our journeys.
Because they connect everything.
They tell us what people believed.
They reveal how societies organized themselves.
They record migrations, trade, technology, agriculture, religion, economics, and artistic expression.
A single handwoven carpet can contain centuries of history.
Once you learn how to read it, an entire civilization begins to unfold.
That is why textiles serve as the thread connecting all of our journeys—whether we are among nomads in Anatolia, exploring Seljuk architecture, visiting master weavers in western Turkey, or standing beneath the turquoise domes of Samarkand.
Our Philosophy
The Black Tent Project is built on a simple belief:
Travel should deepen our understanding of people rather than simply increase the number of places we have visited.
Our goal is not to rush from monument to monument.
Our goal is to create experiences that foster curiosity, encourage meaningful conversations, and leave travelers with a richer understanding of the cultures they have encountered.
Every journey is carefully researched, personally led, and shaped by relationships that have been built over many years with artisans, families, scholars, collectors, and local communities.
These relationships are what make our tours different.
They open doors that most travelers never have the opportunity to enter.
An Invitation
Whether your passion is textiles, archaeology, architecture, history, anthropology, photography, or simply discovering cultures with depth and authenticity, I hope you will find a journey that speaks to you.
I would be delighted to welcome you to one of our small groups and share the people, traditions, landscapes, and stories that have inspired me throughout my life.
Because in the end, travel is not about seeing more.
It is about understanding more.
Deniz Coşkun
Founder
The Black Tent Project
