City of contrasts

Baku is not an easy place to define...It’s a shame that I haven’t been putting my thoughts on paper for the first day here; because my relationship with this place is constantly changing...It’s best to describe it as a love-hate relationships ;) Currently we are going through a ‘hate’ stage. So I may be a bit biased here ;)

Baku is a city of contrasts. There are things I love about it... and there are things I hate. But most of all, Baku is completely different to what I thought it would be. And it is also nothing like what people in the West think of it. I often get emails from my friends asking me: “So how are you doing in Afghanistan?”, “Can you go on the street without a headscarf?”or “Oh, that place must be horrible, Islamic countries are so oppressive”...This just shows me how little we know about this part of the world and how strongly our knowledge is twisted by the media. And saying ‘this part of the world’ I mean anything East and South of the European Union.

Azerbaijan is officially a secular country and its people do not seem to be oppressed by any religion, which doesn’t mean that they are not oppressed at all. However, there are some peculiarities and cultural norms, which probably have their beginnings in religion and local traditions. For example, local girls do not dress differently to European girls. You rarely see a young woman wearing a headscarf. In fact, I haven’t seen so many short skirts anywhere else in the world! But, it is seen as highly inappropriate for a grown man to wear shorts. And when J and I go for a walk both wearing shorts not many people take an interest in looking at my legs....everyone is steering at his legs! I have to admit that this is highly discouraging... up until know I thought that my legs weren’t too bad...

So looking at the girls strolling along the boulevard, wearing sexy evening dresses and 10 centimetre high heels, you wonder: what happened to the local culture? Has Islam really completely vanished from here? But it is still somewhere in people’s mentality... For example, the same sexy girls from the boulevard aren’t really, as one could think, on the way to the local nightclubs. They are just enjoying fresh air and walking alongside their families or boyfriends. You rarely see an Azeri girl in a pub. This is not really an appropriate thing to do for a respectful woman. All the non respectful ones are welcome though.

Drinking doesn’t seem to be very popular with men either. And this is one of the things I love about Baku. There are many ‘tea houses’ which are always full of people, mostly men and families. People seem to know how to enjoy each other’s company while drinking nothing more than tea with a bit of very sweet and tasty jam. But it doesn’t mean that they never drink alcohol at all. As I’ve heard from a trustful source... Azerbaijanis have acquired many things from its Powerful Northern Friend during the Soviet Era...and one of those things is a taste for vodka! Vodka in a Muslim country? Some may ask. That’s just one of Azerbaijan’s many contrasts and curiosities.

Of course, most of my observations are based on Baku and its surroundings. I don’t know how religious people are in the villages, but I don’t think there are many extremists hiding in the mountains of the South Caucasus.