Trip to Azerbaijan. Part 2

previous part here

So, after leaving a very hospitable to us Ganja, we headed straight to Baku. For that purpose we took a bus, which traveled for around 5 hours, and costed 6 euro. On our way, we haven't seen anything particular interesting for a tourist, except maybe a suspiciously high number of furniture salons along the highway. The prices for the petrol were also majestically low. 

We arrived at the main bus station of Baku and had to wait for our friend Orkhan to pick us up. Meanwhile, we wondered around for a bit. The bus station also serves as a big market place, which means lots of traders, buyers and active bargaining. The majority of products are from Turkey and Iran.

In a while, we finally met Orkhan and his friend and headed to their students flat. As the bus got closer to the center the city was really changing on the way - from soviet buildings, streets and lifestyle to the ultramodern city with palm trees, glass buildings and modern technologies implemented.

We immediately decided not to waste time and headed to the center, where we met my friend Gunay, who both with Orkhan made us an excursion across the city center, telling interesting stories about Baku and lifestyle here. We saw the Caspian sea, as well as took a funicular to a higher spot of the city, where a beautiful sight opened. Near Kaspian sea it was really cold, even the temperature was kinda not to low - around -5, but the breezy wind did its work. What also impressed us were the three huge towers with animation, also known as "Flaming towers". Accept flaming, for which they are called so, they also show Azerbaijani flag, a man waving it, etc.

Funny thing happened to me in the same day. I wanted to withdraw some money from ATM in VTB bank (my Armenian card bank), and took 20 manats (20 euro). The next day I realized that the commission for that transaction was 26 euros! The more funnier thing was that my whole road trip and meals took me round 70 euros. I was financially punished for using Armenian card. However, good news came to me in Armenia. After almost two weeks after the trip, I received approximately 22 euros back.

We managed to come near the biggest flag in world. As we were told 42 marine soldiers carried it. It really looks fantastic, and explains a lot about politics of the government - the way of promoting culture and Azerbajani image. It is also manifested of renewing of pantheon of heroes, construction of museums to traditional carpet and a special song. I really appreciate such stuff.

However, there is also other side of promotion, by using well-known brands. In our case - football teams. Players of Manchester United were paid quite a big amount of money to promote national mobile operator. And Atletico Madrid team was given around 13 mln. euro for wearing Azerbaijan as their t-shirt title. But is this the right way? When lots of Azerbaijani people live on the edge of poverty?

Due to the fact, that we have never been to the Muslim (I refer not to the state religion, but a religion of majority of population) country before and we were surprised with absence... of toilet paper in some bathrooms. However, that was due to lack of knowledge about such stuff. More about this can be read here.

Again, which is very common to this region, we met very hospitable people, who where happy to chat with us.

For me it also seemed hard to orient in subway, mainly because its only in Azerbaijani language, and sometimes there are stations with two trains, which quite confusing. Luckily if one knows Russian it would be easier also to ask people for assistance.

Old city, I guess, was recently reconstructed with lots of embassies being situated there. One can also go there shopping for souvenirs or tasting local or specific cuisine.

Having spent two days in Baku, and again, lacking time, we had to departure to Georgia and Armenia. We took a direct and comfortable bus to Marneuli (which also goes to Tbilisi) for around 11 euros.

Azerbaijan, and especially Baku did a great impression on me, and I would for sure want to return here again. I will also put my efforts to try to at least promote peace in the region and mutual understanding within young people towards tolerance and friendship.

Our "Operation Caucasus" ended with the trip to Yerevan. In 6 days we managed to cover around 1700 km, visit 3 capitals, and spent nearly 60 euros each on travel and food costs. To summarize it was a success, and more trips to come for sure. Hopefully next stop - Balkans.

Trip to Azerbaijan. Part 1

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. We wondered round the city, been to the main square with, of course a statue to Aliyev. Quite a huge square is surrounded with beautiful buildings and exotic trees and plants. At the end of the square there is an old mosque. The central street is very clean, and together with palm trees in the middle of the winter has a very exotic look.

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