Kunduz
— — the long bend of the river before the Amu Darya.
Not only on a wall.
“The capital of Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan, on the Kunduz River as it runs north toward the Amu Darya and the border with Tajikistan. A lowland city on an old Silk Road corridor, the surrounding plain in cotton and rice. In late summer the river runs low and the dust over the fields catches the long evening light.
Kunduz, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kunduz is the capital of Kunduz Province and one of the principal cities of northeastern Afghanistan, on the Kunduz River about 250 kilometres north of Kabul over the Salang Pass. The river drains the Hindu Kush and runs north through the city toward its confluence with the Amu Darya at the Tajik border. The surrounding lowland is the most fertile cotton-growing region in the country, and the city has long served as the market town and transport hub for the northeast plain.
The agricultural calendar shapes the city. Cotton is planted in April and May once the river floods recede, weeded through summer, and harvested in October. Rice and watermelon round out the rotation. The Spinzar cotton works, founded in the 1930s, was for decades the largest industrial complex in Afghanistan and processed most of the country's lint. Winter brings dust and cold off the steppe; spring brings the river up; the orchards of apricot and mulberry north of the city flower in March.
The Kunduz River, known as the Khanabad in its upper reaches, falls from the Hindu Kush and crosses the city before joining the Amu Darya on the Tajik border. Its flow drives the irrigation canals that water the cotton plain, and the seasonal flood lays new silt across the fields each spring. Reservoirs upstream regulate the level through the dry months. The river, the dust, and the lowland air give the region its distinctive evening light, gold over a wide flat horizon.