Back in the Land of Fast Internet
I’m back in the UK! What a great trip. All my photos are up here. More commentary later. I put some of the best photos up on Blogrel as well.
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These women (and men) in orange are all over the place in Baku cleaning up.
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On the bulvar - the main walking path along the water.
NK, and don’t take this too seriously
The Azeri view on NK? Well, based on a combination of my time with FLEX students from Azerbaijan and conversations that I’ve had over the past days, certainly people seem ready to compromise. Some less than others, of course.
As I’ve mentioned before, institutionalized propaganda against Armenians seems to be stronger here. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the practical nature of many Azeris that I’ve spoken to about this issue.
It seems that most people (that I’ve discussed this with) just want to make sure that Azerbaijan gets something out of it so that the President (or whoever negotiates the deal) doesn’t look like a chump. If the Azeri prez gives everything up to Armenia, his people will hate him. Seems logical, right?
Some people here (that I’ve discussed this with) seemed to be okay with the solution, proposed a few years back, where Armenia got NK, Lachin, and Azerbaijan got the occupied territories back and a strip of land connecting it with Nakichevan. Remember this plan? Remember what happened to the people in Armenia that thought that this was okay? Yeah. Well, Azeris (that I’ve discussed this with) were okay with this plan and say that Armenia and Iran would still have that border and international troops would patrol it.
Seems fair. I don’t want to get into the NK battle with anyone, but at this point, everyone could benefit from a resolution. Azeri established businesses want to get into Armenia. Armenia needs more trading partners. Both economies and societies would benefit from having less troops. It would be great if people could travel back and forth!
Look at Germany. It did terrible things during WWII, right? Does France, today, still hold a grudge against Germany for occupying it? Obviously the Armenian-Azeri issue is a bit more complicated, with the Armenian sentiment against Turkey and Azeribaijan and Turkey’s relationship. But I hope that at some people the countries can collaborate again. Older people that I’ve talked to here remember going to Armenia during Soviet times and enjoying it.
We all need to ask if long-term, having a chunk of Armenia in the middle of another country is a good idea, but for the shorter long-term, it seems to be alright.
Do I think that this will happen soon? Who knows. But I remain positive.
More on Young and Rich in Baku
Following up to some comment discussions: I’ve told friends here that if they were Armenians living in Armenia, they would either have to move abroad or if they stayed in-country they’d be working an an international NGO making less than $1000/month and working extremely hard. And that is a fact. I know many brilliant, wonderful young Armenians living elsewhere. And I’m happy for them, but sad for Armenia. A generation of its best and brightest are gone.
Also, I’ve been in Baku for just a few days and I’ve already met a pretty large number of young, successful Azeris. I can count on one hand after years of spending time in Armenia, friends that are doing even close to as well. There has to be something to that. Perhaps it is coincidence, perhaps it is not.
I’ve met and spoke with one or two ex-pats since I’ve been here.
I’m bummed for Armenia. What can be done to bring these people back?
Baku Day 4 part 5
day 4, almost midnight: home early for a change! As I write this, I’m burning a copy of Napoleon Dynamite for friends here to watch. I can’t believe that my trip is almost over. I am having such a nice time here.
Today I spent the entire day wandering around the city. Lots of photos - hope that I can get online tonight to upload them. I can’t wait to come back and spend more time here.
Tomorrow I am going to try to attend a rally and meet up with some FLEX students again. It sounds like the opposition is going to rally all week. I don’t think that anything is going to result from it though. We’ll see.
Tonight I was escorted home in a different direction than I’ve walked before. There is a huge central bank building and I had seen it from one side. On the other side is a statue of Heydar Aliyev - no big deal, except for about 1 square mile (I think) around the statue is some of the nicest marble I’ve ever seen. My immediate reaction was: people are going to slip on this stuff all winter long.
I guess that this park was built this past year. It was so intense. I have to go there tomorrow to take photos in the daylight. My
nighttime shots won’t do it justice. The Aliyev statue is pointing toward the new central bank building. (insert joke here)
Behind it is what used to be Lenin Arena, then Republic Arena, now Aliyev Arena - the biggest concert hall, which by the way,
boasts a concert a week - Turkish and Russian pop stars and the like. It was really quite an impressive park area.
And yes, I bought matches.
Baku Day 4 part 4
day 4, noon:
Shopping in Baku. Went to quiksilver. Very nice and attentive staff. All 8 of them. In a tiny shop. Midday on a monday in november. I bought a cute roxy sweater. The staff was typical. I was followed around the store. (which is weird until you realize it is normal even in supermarkets. I tried to pay with a credit card (it was a $40 sweater) but the pulse phone line for the credit card was being used by someone talking. I paid in cash so I have to go to an atm today (but they are all over because the pension system was computerized last year). I also went to miss sixty. the tags on the clothes said distibuted by a Romanian company. hmm. I’ll have to go to one in London to see if they are selling the same stuff. now I am at cafe mozart with other foreigners sitting alone.
Okay, there is an open market for tourist goods along one of the main parts of this major shopping area. My basic thought was,
oh, more crap that I don’t need. But I did keep my eyes open for a cool Aliyev painting or something. Don’t worry Armenians,
Vernisage isn’t the only place in the world with weird paintings, Russian stacking dolls with Winnie the Pooh on them and paintings of mermaids without shirts. I saw out of the corner of my eye a Russian language cover of the album Rubber Soul. My mind went straight to EBAY GOLD! I went to look at it and this guy had basically ever classic rock album with Russian language covers. He said 1 album would be 8000 manat (a little under $2). I told him it was too expensive. He said that if I bought multiple albums, each one would be 1000 manat less. That’d be pretty cool. Then I noticed that all the albums were reissues! Printed in the late 80s and early 90s. Damn!
I thought that they were like, underground contraband rock from the 60s. Oh well. I didn’t buy them.
The major shopping area sort of needs an explaination. I wish that I could find some sort of diagram or map of it. Basically sets of shops that are in 5-9 story buildings jigjag across in various directions. The roads are made pedistrian only, so you can walk for miles down different streets for shopping. It is mainly clothes with DVD and cell phone shops thrown in now and then. Bars
and places to eat are there too, as well as nightclubs. The firt night that I was here I walked through it at 2 in the morning - quite a different feeling from today! It was packed on a random Tuesday! I’ll look online for a map. It was really neat.
Oh, also the main cinema is here. It shows a few different films, some in English. They are the latest Russian releases. That new Disney movie with the chicken is showing there now. The threatre is certainly Euro-remond. It looks just as nice as an American theatre inside and it seemed like lots of people were going to see movies. Also people around here were talking about going to the movies quite often.
With all of this stuff going on all in one area, it certainly makes for a lot of cool community interactions. Sure, people that live here full time probably prefer places off the beaten path, but you can meet up with your friends, find a place that everyone likes and wander around.
The shops here are, as I’ve said before, really quite nice. Hopefully my internet connection will stay alive long enough so that I can get the photos uploaded.
Anoher observation: in 2006, they are changing the value of the money here. Now 1 manat will be almost 1 dollar. Some places
are already changing their menus. The biggest bill here now is worth $10, so they probably need to do this. Plus, counting so high- what does it get you?
