Nabadi Felt Cloak Making

ნაბადი (Nabadi, Georgian); ღართ (Ghart, Svan)

The wet-felting of raw sheep's wool into the nabadi, a long, high-shouldered felt cloak worn for centuries by Georgian mountain shepherds (chaban) and other peoples across the Caucasus — a garment so densely and firmly felted that a well-made example can stand upright entirely on its own, with no one inside it, and can be laid flat on the ground to serve simultaneously as bedding, blanket, and shelter for a shepherd working far from home.

Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not currently inscribed on a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list under this specific technique; Georgia ratified the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2007 and could nominate this technique in the future.

Alternate Names: Georgian burka; Caucasian felt shepherd's cloak
Geographic Center: Tusheti region, Kakheti; mountain shepherding communities across Georgia's Caucasus highlands
Community / Ethnic Group: Georgian, particularly Tush shepherding communities, with the same broader craft and garment form shared, under different local names, by nearly every ethnic group of the wider Caucasus region — Abkhaz, Adyghe, Armenian, Avar, Azerbaijani, Chechen, Ingush, Kabardian, Ossetian, and Svan among them
Estimated Origin: The felt cloak is documented as part of the customary male garb of numerous peoples across the Caucasus for centuries, historically most closely associated with Chechnya, which served as the main production center supplying the wider North Caucasus region, while the same garment form, known in Georgian as nabadi and in Svan as ghart, was worn specifically by Georgian mountain shepherds and other Caucasus peoples across a shared, deeply rooted regional craft tradition predating any single national boundary
Cultural Function: The nabadi has served for centuries as clothing, tent, and bed at once for mountain-dwelling shepherds, whose distance from home mattered little since laying down the cloak meant instantly having shelter; the garment's high, squared-off shoulders and characteristic silhouette were adopted across Caucasus cultures, worn historically not only by shepherds but documented on figures including Russian Civil War generals and Tsar Nicholas II, who was photographed in Caucasus-style dress; contemporary shepherds in remote Georgian mountain pastures are documented still preferring nabadi cloaks over modern sleeping bags for herding work today
Primary Materials: Raw sheep's wool, sourced from Tush shepherds' high-mountain-pasture flocks
Primary Tools: A large straw mat, used as the traditional working surface for rolling and felting wool
Process Overview: Transporting and processing raw mountain wool, wet-felting it by hand across a large working surface with sustained pressure and moisture, and shaping the felted material into the nabadi's characteristic high-shouldered, full-length cloak form
Traditional Applications: Shepherd's all-weather outerwear, portable bedding, and improvised shelter for mountain herding work
Contemporary Applications: Continued production for shepherding communities still actively preferring nabadi over modern sleeping bags for mountain herding work, alongside cultural-heritage and craft-tourism sales through the Tusheti Wool Factory
Notable Practitioners: Gogi Arindauli, who founded the Tusheti Wool Factory, Georgia's first wool-processing facility, in 2005; his son Dito, who inherited the business and continues to produce nabadi cloaks as part of the factory's product line, sourcing wool directly from Tush shepherds via the Abano Pass
Key References: Wander-Lush, 'Where to Find Tushetian & Kizikian Wool Crafts in Kakheti'; Russia Beyond, 'The vanishing masters: How and where the Caucasian burqa is made'; Wikipedia, 'Burka (overcoat)'
Verification Status: Desk-Researched

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