Baku

Welcome to the Land of Fire! 🔥 🔥 🔥

We’ve crossed the Caspian Sea to the Caucusus on what is (save disaster), our final flight of the year. This takes us to 10 flights in total, which should allow us to visit around 28 countries... we wish we could have managed it in fewer flights, but we're still pretty happy with our carbon footprint, considering how much 'bang for our buck' we've managed!

One place whose carbon footprint is less impressive is our first Caucasian destination, Azerbaijan. Zoroastrians were deeply impressed by Azerbaijan because two thousand years ago, most of it was ablaze. Oil bubbled right on the ground, catching fire and burning in perpetuity. It still does, though since industrialised extraction in the late 1800s, you can't just find puddles of it lying around on the surface any more.

Baku, the capital, is a city that over three millennia has been torn between Zoroastrian Silk Road merchants, the Islamic caliphate, Soviet overlords, and oil giants. The past lingers around every corner, beckoning you over to buy… a barrel of crude oil? It turns out, everything here is oggy oggy oggy, OIL OIL OIL. They claim the first industrial oil well in the world (1846), and 85% of Azerbaijan’s economy is built on gas and oil extraction. Scary stuff given the oil is sort of running out and also, not very chic right now (see impending climate collapse). No matter, they love oil here, and to show how much, the president smears it on his face when visiting the oil fields. Visitors to the mud volcanoes are also encouraged to jump into the oil and methane-gas rich lava flows, as they allegedly have healing properties. We were brave enough only to dip a hand in.

Since it has been a petrostate for over 150 years, Azerbaijan isn't exactly 'new money'. It's a weird mix of hyper-modern development and surprisingly classy Victorian-era architecture. Described as the love-child of Paris and Dubai, Baku is a deeply uncanny city. Literally flashy, Gulf-style Flame Towers loom over baroque 19th century mansions, formerly home to the Azeri oil barons. We've been impressed by how stylish Azerbaijanis are... Baku is a fashion hotspot! Although that's probably because central Baku, where we stayed, is where all the super-rich live. 5 million people (half of Azerbaijan’s population) live here, and outside of the small city centre it's a different story. Our first impression of Baku was a pleasant surprise at the modernity of it... but it does feel like a bit of a façade.

Azerbaijan has good diplomatic ties with almost all of its neighbours... except Armenia. They really, really, really, really hate Armenians. At the Independence Museum we learnt about the oppression of Azerbaijanis by the Soviets and Iranians. The Soviets exploited Azerbaijani people and resources (apparently Baku oil won the Allies WWII, but was never properly appreciated 🙃) and last year a couple of unionising Azerbaijani workers died in Russian detention. 35 million Azerbaijanis live in northern Iran (also known as Southern Azerbaijan 🙃), and the imams are not keen to return the oil-filled region and its population to the Azeris. But no matter! It’s all good! Iran and Russia are lovely neighbours, made so by the diplomatic genius of the great leader Heydar Aliyev, and his successor, current president Ilham Aliyev (his son, democratically elected 🙃). The real bad guys are, surprise surprise, the Armenians! A masterclass in Orwellian Double Think proceeds. Those pesky hill-dwellers want their flat plains to graze sheep and be Christian and inshallah, this cannot be allowed! (A gross simplification of the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict, but you get the idea). Every bad thing that has ever happened to Azerbaijan is part of a grand Armenian conspiracy—even preventing them from winning their unfairly withheld Nobel prizes. We postponed judgement—we're visiting Armenia in a couple of weeks, and are excited to see their perspective on the same historic rivalry.

Most of our first day was spent walking Baku, exploring museums and the 12th century Old City. Chelsea toured the Shirvanshah’s Palace, Dan dropped into the Museum of Miniature Books, and we both visited the Carpet Museum, the latter of which was better than it sounds (and also shaped like a carpet, so points for thematic consistency). The next day we joined a tour of the surrounding areas. This was led by guide Reza, who surprised us all by narrating the history of Zoroastrianism in the hifalutin, plummy tones of Basil Fawlty, and then switching back to fluid Azerbaijani to tell off the driver. We visited the Gobustani national park and 10,000 year-old petroglyphs, as well as the ancient Atashgah Fire Temple, a caravanserai and temple complex built by Zoroastrian traders coming north on the Silk Roads.

We’re heading into the interior next, so more to come on the dualities of Azerbaijan.Baca lagi