i arrived the
baku airport at 3 am, and promptly fell asleep on top of my backpack. the only
reason i had left it this long to visit azerbaijan was because the visas are notoriously
tough and expensive to get. i’m sure many azeris and turks would disagree, but azerbaijan
is culturally basically turkey version east. they do have their own language and customs,
but both are very similar to the turks. unfortunately the most striking thing
about azerbaijan is the audacity with which its narcissistic dictator ilham
aliyev controls every aspect of civil society and people’s lives. most of the
billboards contain just his picture, and anyone who voices dissent pretty
quickly disappears. there is a huge, new ornate house of parliament in downtown
baku that is never used, a complete sham. the father and now son tag-team have
been in charge since the dissolution of the ussr. ilham’s father heydar grew up
as a peasant in an exclave of azerbaijan called nakhchivan; i would love to
visit that corner of the country someday. azerbaijan has tremendous quantities
of oil money. because of the enforced hierarchy and cronyism, it thus also has tremendous
economic disparity. there are luxurious glass, futuristically shaped malls that
have been built for the oligarchs to buy their $10 000 suits, and there are
three buildings shaped evocatively shaped like flames that house the state oil
company. much of baku lives interspersed among oil wells, burning flares and reeking
trailing ponds in the suburbs. the water of the caspian sea off the coast of
baku glimmers with a layer of oil.
another major theme
of the azeri national narrative is the conflict with armenia. azerbaijan lays
claim to a large swath of land that experienced a secessionist movement in the
late 80s and early 90s by its ethnically armenian majority, a movement which
was supported by the armenian government. The area is now a de facto independent
state called nagorno-karabakh, recognized as independent by no one but armenia.
azreris see this as an illegal occupation of their land, and much of the
international community passively agrees but is unwilling to do much about it,
short of denying recognition of nagorno-karabakh. unfortunately this appears to
be a complete obsession of the azeri government in the realm of international
relations, such that it is basically the only issue that seems to matter to
them. case in point – peruse their official websites for prominently featured
diatribes of how terrible armenia is. it is impossible to travel directly between
the two countries, indeed individuals who have ever been to armenia are
prohibited from entering azerbaijan (two passports comes in handy).
in baku I mostly
studied. i also visited the palace of the shivarashas, an ancient palace where
the rulers of the area lived during antiquity. there were some very old minimalistic
mosques there as well. i rode around on the soviet built subway, which has
excessively deep stations and costs just 10 cents to enter. each station is a
masterpiece of soviet era art, all is coated with a layer of black oil grime,
and folks stare at the floor in complete silence. i also visited a restored zoroastrian
fire temple called ateshgah, out in the oil well-sprinkled suburbs. azerbaijan
was a hotbed of zoroastrianism (an ancient religion involving the worship of
fire, still practiced today mostly in iran and parts of india) thousands of
years ago; it is even postulated that this was where the religion originated,
perhaps from burning oil seeping out of the ground.. these days the azeri population
is officially entirely muslim, but they don’t seem to take it very seriously. women
in baku don’t cover their heads, and alcohol flows very liberally. azerbaijan became
known to the average european as a place that exists when it played host to the
eurovision contest (kinda like europe’s version of american idol) in 2012 -
this was held in an opulent purpose-built glass stadium called the crystal palace
on reclaimed land in the caspian sea. speaking of reclaimed land in the caspian
sea, the richest man in azerbaijan, ibrahim ibrahimov, is planning to build an entire city on an island which is being built as we speak, and the centerpiece
is planned to be a tower which will be the tallest in the world. yes, the
tallest building in the world is being built in baku, azerbaijan. mind blown,
eh?
back “home”
to israel through istanbul. a fascinating few days indeed!
