The trip to
Azerbaijan was one my aims, when I just arrived in Armenia. Even though people
kept telling that I won't be let to enter this state, because of Armenian visa
stamp in my passport, I wanted to experience that on my own. My two
friends(Oleh and Andrew) from Lviv agreed to join me in this trip. After all
arrangements were done and road-trip planned, it was just a matter of days for the trip
to begin.
On 12th of
January, nearly 3.40 a.m. the plane from Stambul with my friends landed, and we
rushed to the night train which was leaving on 4 a.m. The train station is very
close to the airport and is a good mean of transport to get to the centre
cheap. The price for taxi can range from 20 GEL (Georgian currency; 1 lari is equal to almost 0.50 euro ) to 40 GEL. But who needs such
expences when the train costs only 0.50 GEL. However we were the only ones on
this train, and the conductor said not to pay. We celebrated that with
Abkhazian homemade chacha. Actually it was kinda cold, and it made us warmer.
So the night train took us to the main train station, however the normal
passage was closed, so the only way for us to reach the other side was to cross
rails. After that we took the taxi to Rustaveli Street to meet with our friend
Sandro, who agreed to stay with us until we leave to the boarder, as well as
assist us in finding the bus to the border, which is called Red Bridge
(Krasnyi Most).
The bus is
departing from the main train station, so we once again went there at around 9.
The bus was already there, and the price for the 2-hour long ride was 4 GEL per person.
We managed to sleep a little on our way, and when we arrived we went to the
passport check-up. It went very fast on the Georgian side. Then we came to
Azerbaijan side, guys went really fast, and as for me, I had to speak with some
sort of higher officer. He asked me question why I am in Armenia, have I
been to Karabakh and questions like that. Nothing very serious, and after 15
minutes I had a stamp of Azerbaijan in my passport and looking forward to
explore this state.
Just after
crossing the border, we were almost literally attacked by taxi drivers, which
we called Cab Vultures. In their eyes you are seen as walking bags of money. One of
the taxi drivers named a price of 200 manats (currency of Azerbaijan, which is
almost equal to euro) to travel to Ganja. Later after hearing that we can speak
Russian, he immediately reduced the price to 30. I noticed that these drivers really like to bargain. Maybe its even fun for them. Nevertheless, we didn't agree
on that, and at the end we went by bus which took us 5 dollars(almost 4 manats)
each.
After about 4
hours we have reached Ganja and were met by my friend Kamran. He kindly
offered us his place to stay, where his mother fed us with some very tasty
local cuisine. After having some rest, we went for a walk round the city. Ganja
is one of the oldest city in Azerbaijan, and has a very rich history starting
from 6 century.
The most awesome
thing for me in Ganja was the traditional for this region teahouse. A really relaxing place. At the
entrance you take off your shoes and lay on the comfortable sofa to drink tea,
eat exotic sweets and smoke hookah (nagrile). In the tea house we met Kamran's
friend, with whom I seem to have lots of common friends from Youth in Action
and other education programs. World is small after all.
Another very interesting place for us was Hamam.
It is some sort a public shower place. The one we went to, was really old and
not very clean. It left quite a big impression on me and my friends. We never
experienced something like this, though we travelled quite a lot and not very
needy in our demands.
Also we managed to
see one of city sights - it's a house made mostly from bottles. A perfect place
for bottle-hunters.) What also catches the eye are the
portraits of Aliyev everywhere. His role of Azerbaijani progress is of course
great, but personally I think that a cult of one person must not exist
nowadays, basing on sad experience of past.
It is also obvious that city is now facing serious changes. As we were told, after modernizing
Baku the government decided to implement this politics with other cities, and
Ganja was the first on that list. As a strong argument for that fact, I can say that
even the river which flows in Ganja is now "stopped" in order to make
some repairs of the roads, as well make the surroundings more beautiful.
Unfortunately our
stay in Ganja wasn't very long, as we were quite tight on time and we still had
lots of road to cover. So after staying a day there, we had to leave it for
Baku.
I made a promise to come here again. And this time for longer.
to be continued..
all photos by A. Spivak and his Iphone
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