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MARGILAN, Fergana Valley: Strung into garlands, hung above doorways, walls, and crafted into traditional textiles and ceramics, red hot chili peppers are a distinctive ornament in Uzbek culture: a legacy of ancient beliefs that made them amulets against the evil eye and demons.

Chilies most likely arrived in Central Asia from China, brought by spice caravans that traveled the Silk Road — the ancient trade network that for hundreds of years linked East Asia with the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

Present-day Uzbekistan was a major crossroads on this route, which passed through the Fergana Valley in the east to Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva in the southwest.

In the region’s hot climate, the properties of red chili, which in Uzbek is known as kalampir, were quickly noticed and became valued.

“It not only added flavor to food but also helped preserve it. People noticed that the spice protected products from spoiling. In folk medicine, it was used to warm the body, reduce inflammation, and ‘drive away’ illness,” said Prof. Elmira Gyul of the “Silk Road” International Research Institute, Uzbekistan’s leading center for the study of Silk Road history and material culture.

“Over time, the pepper, prized for its beneficial properties, also acquired symbolic meaning — as a protector not only against disease but also against the evil eye, curses, and malevolent spirits such as jinn and the witch-like albasty.”

Not only the pepper itself but also its image was attributed to hold benevolent magical power. Gradually, it became a dominant motif in folk art, featured in Uzbek embroidery, ceramics, and handwoven palak fabrics, and often appeared alongside other talismanic symbols like almonds, needles, knives, and designs of traditional amulets and protective charms known as tumor or tumar.

“The tradition of depicting chili peppers was especially characteristic of the Fergana Valley, where this motif is found most frequently. This is likely connected to the fact that peppers were introduced to Central Asia from China,” Prof. Gyul said.

“For example, in the collection of the State Museum of Arts there is a Fergana embroidery on gray silk, where the central rosette is surrounded by a protective garland of bright red, meticulously rendered peppers. Interestingly, alongside them appear images of tumor jewelry amulets and stylized Arabic inscriptions, which in folk tradition were also perceived as talismans.”

While kalampir is used in Uzbek cuisine to add flavor and color, it is not a dominant spice or condiment. But chili peppers often appear as protective decoration on ceramic dishes, especially large ones used for communal meals, to safeguard the food from going bad.

Today, the motif of kalampir is most often associated with the famous black skullcap known as tubeteika or doppa, which originates from Chust in the Fergana Valley and is traditionally worn by Uzbek men on special occasions.

The monochrome cap is decorated with chili peppers painted or embroidered in white.

“This was originally a different symbol — the wings of khvarna, the divine blessing in Zoroastrianism, bestowed from the heavens,” Prof. Gyul said. “In the Islamic period, the original meaning gradually faded, and the wings transformed into the image of a chili pepper.”

Although these “peppers” were not kalampir at first, their protective function was already present and continues to this day.

There is a legend about the power of chili peppers that many Uzbek children hear at home. It is about a man who went to the mountains to find food for his family and encountered wolves.

“The only thing that saved him from this bunch of wolves and scared them off was the chili pepper. He came back later to his family with food and a symbol of protection, which then carried on for centuries,” said Kamila Erkaboyeva, a culture and tourism consultant.

“To this day, you will see a doppa hat with kalampir. It’s sharp-edged and something that protects us ... from a lot of things.”

LONDON: Green energy tycoon Dale Vince plans to keep flying the Palestinian flag at his company’s headquarters, saying a “shadowy” group of pro-Israel lawyers is forcing local authorities to remove them across the UK.

Vince said he would fly the flag at the Ecotricity headquarters in defiance of Stroud district council, which told him he needs to seek permission as Palestine is not recognized by the UK.

He said as Palestine is recognized by 147 countries, the flag counts as a national one — which can be flown without permission — rather than an advert, as Stroud council suggested. 

Vince added that a group called UK Lawyers for Israel may have complained to the council, prompting the request for him to remove it.

“There’s a shadowy group called UK Lawyers for Israel that do complain to councils about flags and to hospitals about pin badges and all kinds of trivia that they don’t like because it’s in support of Palestine and they consider to be racism, which is just an incredible thing to say,” Vince said in the Stroud Times.

“I think what they do is in the shadows, that’s why I say shadowy. They send threatening letters to people that do innocent things like fly a flag, wear a pin badge and that kind of stuff.”

In the local paper, Vince wrote earlier this week: “Nobody ever got asked to take down a Ukrainian flag. With Palestine it’s different and much of this is due to a shadowy group of lawyers acting for Israel.

“They’ve bullied several councils into forcing the removal of flags and into event cancellations — it’s a pernicious stifling of free speech on behalf of a foreign power.”

Vince said no one should feel threatened by the flag, which is being flown “in solidarity” with the Palestinian people.

“What’s been happening these last two years has been exceptional,” he said. “It is genocide, it is ethnic cleansing, it’s daily acts of barbarity against civilians, mass starvation of millions of people.

“I mean it’s off the scale in terms of human abuse and there’s not enough by far being done about it by western nations who have punished Russia incredibly for their invasion and occupation of Ukraine in a recent timescale.

“Half the G7 will recognise Palestine in September and it’s absolutely important that we show our solidarity with the Palestinian people and we show Israel that we can see what they’re doing and we don’t accept it, we don’t condone it. They won’t get away with it, they will be judged for it in the future. It’s an absolute atrocity.”

Vince added: “Obviously what Hamas did on October 7th (2023) was an atrocity but the atrocity visited on Palestine in return in the last two years is off the charts.

“It’s unimaginably bad and this is from a democratic country that we call an ally, not from a terrorist organisation known as Hamas.

“So they’re not comparable and I don’t think anybody that’s Israeli should look at the Palestinian flag and feel threatened. I don’t understand that.

“This is not the flag of Hamas and these are the shadows that UK Lawyers for Israel operate within, conflating the flag of a country with the flag of a terrorist organisation.”

UKLFI calls itself a “voluntary association of lawyers which seeks the application of rules and laws to counter boycotts and other actions targeting Israelis.”

Last year, it succeeded in forcing the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to remove Palestinian flags from local authority buildings, after suggesting that flying them broke the law.

A spokesperson for the group denied it had contacted Stroud council because officials had already contacted Vince to remove the flag when they learned of its presence.

Stroud council said it received complaints from members of the public about the flag, so was “obliged to take (legal) advice on the matter.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the UK will recognize Palestine at the UN next month unless a ceasefire is reached in Gaza before then with commitments to plans for a two-state solution.