About Rugistan
Shams Frough founded Rugistan, originally Kapisa Rugs, in the summer of 2021 after earning a degree in Biological Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago during his gap year before medical school. He created the business to celebrate and preserve the centuries-old rug-weaving traditions of his homeland, where he worked alongside the U.S. military from 2009 to 2014, helping establish peace and democracy. Due to threats from his involvement, Shams migrated to the United States. In fall 2024, Kapisa Rugs was renamed Rugistan to better reflect our evolving vision of blending traditional craftsmanship with modern design, while continuing to honor the rich history of artisanal rug-making from Shams' heritage.
While living in United States, Shams who is now an American citizen and proud parent of 3 children always wanted to introduce the brighter side of his country's tradition and output to his fellow Americans. He also wanted to help his people in Afghanistan by marketing their woven rugs in Chicagoland, while providing those who welcomed him and his family here with character, art and value of the hand made rugs at prices significantly lower then the traditional rug sellers.
In order to serve the customers better to find their rug of choice, he then added hundreds of rugs from all across the rug weaving nations. Currently, Rugistan offers large inventory of high quality hand made antique, transitional and modern rugs from across the world. Rugistan has been proud of its stress ("whats your budget?") free shopping experience by properly marking and pricing all our rugs. We will never conduct the absurd "rug sale" way of doing business and will always mark up our rugs at a fair way. We offer free and expedited shipment, easy returns and "try at home" solutions to for our customers to make their rug buying experience like never before
Rugistan also provides rug repairs and cleaning by our expert contractors. Just like our rugs, we guarantee that no other place beat our prices on rug repairs, rug cleaning and rugs pads. Get you rugs repaired and cleaned by our professionals for the least cost while getting the best result.
Rugistan will go above and beyond for our customer's complete satisfaction as we believe our rugs will last for decades and we would like our customers to love them each and every day and never have remorse for doing business with us.
Read about what we do here:
Chicago Sun Times: For Afghan refugees, traditional rugs offer comfort
Times of Entrepreneurship: As the Taliban Overran Afghanistan, a New Rug Shop Opened in Illinois, Carrying an Interpreter’s Dreams
Evanston Now: Business owner worries about relatives in Afghanistan
THE Daily Northwestern: Local Rug Shop Imports Afghan Rugs To Support Weavers
Evanston Roundtable: Isabelle Reiniger: Minding our own business I The Main-Dempster Mile
