Yanar Dag, the Fire mountain

Last Sunday we went to a beach on the Absheron peninsula. Around half hour away from Baku. We went together with two friends/ trainers that came to Baku for a seminar. The beach was excellent, we ordered a lot of food (well you order a normal amount that turns into huge amount) and thus were swimming in clean warm sea while stuffing our "little" stomachs.

Friedrich, one of the trainers, rented a car for the whole day... so that day actually started with visitting one of the food/everything open markets - The central market (the prices of the rental stands are rising here too, meaning soon there will be no market any longer :o((; reference to The city of Baku post ). We bought a lof of fruits and after that headed towards the beach. We also had a unique possibility to actually see baby hedgehogs!!! :o))) Isn't she cute?

We spent several hours at the beach, actually at a restaurant table to be precise. And then I got an idea to try to visit Yanar Dag. My collegue mentioned it and Yanar Dag was pretty much on the way to Baku. It is a Fire mouintan. According to some story a shepard accidently lit this mountain in 1950s and since then the mountain burns. It seems that some gas evaporates through the mountain and thus constantly feeds the fire.

Approximately 10m x 2m of the mountain is on fire. The sight is really unique as the mountain is pretty much sand and rocks and there is this constant fire that seems to be feeding on nothing ... but it still burns. :o) It looks as if the fire comes from within the rocks. It is not some overwhelming sight but extremely relaxing and fascinating.

The city of Baku

Unforunately, quite a sad topic to write about. Baku was one of the cities well known for its architecture and the way it was build. The city is partly on a hill and the sea wind really well ventilated the streets as all the houses were of smaller height. Excellent idea, though no more functioning...

Baku has unofficially over 3 million inhabitants. It has grown a lot due to the number of refugees and IDPs (Internally displaced person) moving into the city as well as due to the number of people from the regions who were coming to Baku with the hope of finding employment. That was the case for mainly young people from the regions.

In recent years started this boom of building cca 20 floor high appartment blocks all over Baku. There is no policy where and how to build. I heard there is no city architect, no law that actually coordinates the number of new buildings and places where to build them. Old houses and markets are dissapearing as the owners get offered incredibly high sums of money to sell the places. Another way is increasing the rents of places so that people cannot afford paying rent any longer and have to move out. Within no time the old buildings/parks/markets are teared down and in a few weeks there is more than 5 floors finished... The speed of building is incredible.

All this might not look as bad but to name the main problems, the city's ventilation is crippled, the new appartment houses are build too close to each other so in a case of earthquake or some other catastrophy, they shall be the cause of a domino effect.

And one real story... inhabitants of one old house came to talk to the workers that were building a new house right next to their home. They were interested how high is the building going to be. The worker answered, but the main message was, do not buy appartments in these houses. We are obligued to use cheap material and the less the better. In few years thus these buildings will necessarily fall down!

Single Azeri women

There is quite a number of women not married at the organization that I work for. Well in a way no wonder since we are talking about country like Azerbaijan… But there seem to be more reasons to that.

Firstly, women are still expected to behave the traditional way. Baku might differ a little as women change; but men stay the same. A man expects his wife to care for him, to cook, to clean and to do all the necessary things at home. Warm dinner is simply one of the things that should be on a table when the man comes back from work. This approach quite surprises me out of a simple reason that women work as well the whole day… and many times it is actually the woman that has work while the man is unemployed. You see streets full of men during the day, sitting around, chatting with others, drinking tea…

As mentioned above, women are slowly changing, they are getting more and more like the western type of women, though of course the traditional upbringing is still inside of them… but many of them experienced life abroad and are now very open-minded, very decisive, not willing so much to accept the traditional way of male behavior (what should women wear, how should they behave in public…).

It was expected that women get married around the age of 20-21 and the age of 25 was sort off an upper limit (oups). But many women are now choosing career instead of marriage. Or they just wish to wait with the marriage. That is why a lot of them are still unmarried in their early 30s. The choice of career though creates also a problem of finding a suitable man who would be satisfied with a woman that has her own way of life and grows independent thanks to her career.
Also one has to take into account the war in the early 90s. Some young men died in the conflict and while the country went into an economical collapse a high percentage of men moved to Russia to find work (I heard the number of approx. 30%). There they get married to Russian women and that also decreases the possibility for Azeri women to find their husbands.

I only wonder if the more open-minded men go to Russia leaving the stubborn traditional ones behind in Azerbaijan. :o))

Lahic instead of picnick

I was offered to join bunch of people to go for a trip to a region called Ismayilli, north west of Baku. The drive to that place was to take around 3 hours, so the departure time was 7am (auch). There was a minibus hired and all 15 people climbed in and off we went. I was sitting in front with Asif (my collegue), so kept on chatting the whole way.

On the way we stopped several times in order to buy food for our picnick. We bought vegetables, fruits, bread and got a sheep cut on little pieces for shashlick (meat grilled on coal) later on. We bought all this from the villagers who were having their stands along the road.

There was supposed to be a picnick place close to the city of Ismayilli with forest and a little creek. The place was truly "lovely" and by the amount of garbage lying everywhere I guessed that we were not the only ones to choose it for a picnick. This always stuns me so much! But it is a huge problem of Azeris, soon there won't be any nature to be seen, you will have to dig a hole through the garbage to sit on grass.

We decided to leave the place and try to look for another one. We also needed a place where we could rinse our food, so presence of a water spring was the main criteria for our further search. We decided to head in the direction of Lahic that was some 30km away from Ismayilli. Unfortunately the road was really bad and the driver gave up some 15km from the actual place! We found really cool spot, close to a restaurant, on a little hill, surrounded by trees, with a table and a place to do the shashlik. So nothing to complain about... BUT... LAHIC was so close! And so far away in that moment!

Lahic is a village hidden in a valley surrounded by amazing forest mountains with the river Girdimanchai passing by. The village was built around the 5th century and the locals actually still keep Tat, a dialect of an old Persian tongue, as a primary language . The village itself is extraordinary historical place with houses build from wood and stone to prevent the frequent earthquakes to destroy them. There is number of mosques, historical museum, bath-houses, medieval water-supply and sewage systems. While passing by the old cobblestone streets one sees number of workshops where locals produce and sell artifacts such as jewelry, copperware, carpets, pottery, samovars, iron tools etc.

Having this picture in my head, I decided with Asif that we will somehow get to the village. We helped preparing lunch, ate fast the shashlik (I helped preparing it, though women are not supposed to touch it :o)) and then we went down on the road to try to hitchhike. The rest of the group just stayed at the picnick place to relax and chat. Asif found out a scheduled bus is supposed to be going to the village so we waited for the one to come. The problem of the bus was that it reaches Lahic and then leaves within 5 min. That is why an alternative way of going to Lahic would be better in order to take the bus back.

Well, anyway we ended up in the bus. :o) And that was an ADVENTURE! The bus was packed with locals coming from the town with their weekly shoppings. The seats were all taken and one could not even stand in the aisle as there were huge bags with food supplies. I was offered a seat though :o) and Asif was pretty much hanging above me. The trip started. We had 15km to pass, approx. 45min timewise. The bus looked it will fall apart any time, the road was extremely bumpy and I kept on bouncing up on the seat while taking photos of the gorgeous mountains along the way. The path was no more than a roughly hewn ledge and the drop to the river-basin was some 30m deep. Oups :o). We stopped in a few villages on the way and that ment handing not only the people out (hihihi) but also their endless number of bags.

We approached the village of Lahic around 4. The bus turned to go back and me along with Asif decided to risk and try to get a drive with someone else back to our restaurant later on. We entered the village and were walking up the "main street". We have not visited any of the famous sights as we were worried about the time. But just absorbing the atmosphere was excellent, visiting few workshops along the way.

By the way, if you ever get to Lahic, ask to go to the toilet... (I am surprised Lonely Planet has not mentioned this amazing sight in their Azerbaijan edition!)

We managed to get a ride back with one minibus, had an excellent company of 5 women from different countries working in Baku for various organizations. We got out of the bus some 10 min before the restaurant as we spotted a suspension bridge across the river-basin. So we went to play there for a little and then went back to the group.

We ended up having second shashlick for dinner and within an hour we packed and headed back to Baku. So quite unexpectedly this was one of the best trips that I had so far in Azerbaijan.

Ateshgah Temple of Fire Worshippers

On Saturday we visited the most famous fire temple that can be found on the Absheron peninsula, some 20 kilometers east of the Baku city center. The original building of Ateshgah Temple was build on a spot where natural oil and gas was errupting from the earth causing "ever burning fire". The spontaneous flames coming from the ground probably inspired Zarathustra when some 2600 years ago formulating Zoroastrianism, the first major monotheistic religion, having the fire as the metaphor for the mysteries of God. The historians have not really agreed on the date when the temple was build. The earliest estimation goes back to the 6th century.

When Islam came to Azerbaijan many Zoroastrian temples and documents were destroyed and a lot of Zoroastrians escaped to India. The ties with India were kept thanks to merchants and masons, who in the 17th century rebuild the temple. There were cells built in the thick walls surrounding the temple that offered accommodation to pilgrims who were coming to visit the fire temple from India. The pilgrimage slowly ceased in the end of 19th century when the natural gas was exhausted and the fires expired.

Today the temple was turned into a museum. There are still two fires burning (fed by fuel, of course) but the four "towers" do not burn and I think that is a big shame. The museum was ok to visit but nothing extraordinary. And I am afraid the trip did not justify the loss of a driving licence when we were stopped by police on the way to the temple. :o(

Tea drinking

Hot sun from the morning till the evening every single day from June till September, all shades full of people, sweating bodies, tired faces, the feeling of thirst constantly inside you... and thus this deep desire for refreshing cold drink! Me and some of my Azeri friends come to an outside restaurant where one sits in a shade but only wind can cool down the heat of your body... and then we order... hot tea!!

It is huge huge habbit here (guess like in all post-soviet countries)... tea is drank any time of the day, by any type of people. And since one gets to see mainly men in the restaurants then one wonders where the heck the beer got lost! :o)) I never would think how funny it is to see bunch of young "cool" guys joking around in a restaurant having tea pot and cups on the table!

And the way of drinking? They have these see through glasses for tea and then everyone also gets a tiny plate where you put jam with whole fruits in it that you eat together with the tea. Yummy yummy. I am lazy, I just put several spoons of jam into my tea straight away. :o))

Relaxing after work...

"Torgovaya" (Nizami street officialy) and Primorskaya seem to be the two places to be after work. It seems that all of Baku population - children, youth, middle-aged people, old men appear at some hour in either of these two places. The main goal of the evening is to simply relax... so there are literally thousands of people walking or sitting around on either of the two places.

"Torgovaya" is the main shopping street with any shop or restaurant you can imagine (and one of the two representatives of McD's of course), including regular market stands in one area. People are simply passing by, girls/women in groups, men in groups, families or couples. The quite surprising thing for me was to see that the men many times are holding their hands... (and that definitely does not have the meaning that one would immediately imply seing that in Prague :o).

"Primorskaya" is approx. 1km long sea boulevard with tree planted to offer some shade during hot days and nights. The sea wind though gives quite nice relief from the heat as well. "Primorskaya" except for the walk with the view of the sea and the two city ports on one side and the view of the city center on the other side, offers a lot more. You can find a lot of mary-go-rounds here and different game houses where people (mainly men) tend to go just to pass the time. There are also a lot of outside restaurants where you can sit and have refreshing hot tea to escape the heat. :P

Azerbaijan ... one of the 15 post-soviet countries

Azerbaijan is one of the 15 post-soviet countries. Together with Armenia and Georgia, Azerbaijan belongs among the Caucasus republics. It is thus situated between the two seas, the Black sea on the west and Caspian sea on the east with amazing Caucasus mountains in the north.

Azerbaijan is Muslim country, Islam is thus not part of the constitution. The country is therefore quite different from Arabic countries. Besides the communistic period left some impact on the country, as Islam, or any kind of religion was not officially allowed.

To give you a picture of its size, it has 86 thousand square km, thus it is bit bigger than Czech rep., though with smaller population of about 8 mil people, mostly of Azeri origin.

Traditions and conservatism are though quite strongly rooted within the society. But much more in the villages and definitely among men. Young girls or women, especially from the capital Baku are very open minded and modern. I found out it is possible to discuss with them any sort of topic, including the religion. I found no real difference between them and my Czech friends which really surprized me.

The country is really poor. In the early 90s it suffered from a war conflict with Armenia over the territory called Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia till today occupies approx. 20% of Azeri territory and the N-K region. So instead of focusing on regular development after the split from Soviet Union, the country has been dealing with over 800 thousand refugees and the impact that the war had on the people and their minds.

There are number of Non-govermental organizations present in the country but only from the late 90s they had a chance to actually focus on the development of the society and the country instead of dealing with the war matters/relief.

Azerbaijan is in a way a rich country. There are quite some oil supplies in the Caspian sea and around 80% of their GDP is actually derived from the oil exports. The less fortunate thing is that the money never really reaches the population and seems to get stuck with the government. Thus growing GDP per capita is not really accurate.

There are number of foreign companies present in the oil sector but I have noticed the fear among the people what will happen when the oil reserves cease to exist. The main investments into the country are, of course, connected with the presence of oil.

This is just to give an overall picture. Please, let me know if there would be something more of an interest to you. I will focus on more everyday issues in my further postings and I hope you will enjoy the little tour through this country.

The Nabran beach

Young Lezgi woman with her child

Lezgi ... one of the ethnics living in Azerbaijan

I was told that the life that I am going to describe is not really to be seen any longer among Azeri families... though I am very opened to believe that at least in the villages the life could still be this way. The family I am to describe should be of Lezgi origin.

As I mentioned in Nabran we were living in a room rented from one family. The house had two floors and a garden and I think in the back there was some place to keep the cows as well.

We were shown to our rooms by a young woman that was followed by two little kids. She started to make the beds for us, while I was occupied by those little ones. One was offering me a battery that he seemed to enjoy to chew on and the other one kept giving me three stones. I felt already accepted. ;o)

There were actually two families living in the house. The young couple with three kids, the oldest girl kept running around and pretty much rebell against everything, and the parents of the husband. I guess quite usual combination.

I am aware of life that Muslim women are supposed to lead. But here although in much lighter form I was for the first time in my life really exposed to it. The young woman was supposed to do everything, she sort of moved slow, but in a decisive way, always ready to give me a smile. She would never sit with us, she would make the tea ready, offer to all of us, including me and the mother-in-law, but she would always stay in the distance.


In the evenings or mornings, I have not noticed that, she would milk the cows and get ready the milk and two traditional types of cheeses. Then when we crawled out bed, she would be ready with our breakfast, having already served her family. Getting ready lunches and dinners, washing clothes, cleaning tables after us eating (I was a guest and thus not allowed to), washing dishes were her everyday tasks.

I have seen her husband only when eating or drinking, he seemed to be visiting discos on the weekends. The grandpa seemed fully occupied by the children and grandma was helping with the kids. But I did not really feel well about her. The young wife spoke Russian, as did the grandpa, the other two did not.

It is really hard to describe the feeling I had every time I was around the garden (that is where everyone always hanged out). I could never really tear my eyes of the girl. She never has a break, no weekends, no days off… she cannot complain, it simply is this way…

The fruit market

Fruits on the road

One of the ways to earn bit more money for the poor Azeri people is to collect fruits from their gardens and then stand by the streets or send the kids to offer the fruits in the streets or by the main roads...

Thus when we were going to Nabran we could see a lot of little stalls on the way offering apricots, melons or other fruits and vegetables.
Getting close to Nabran we came to an actual fruit and vegetable market and that was simply a heaven. It was placed by the road under the trees and any car could stop and then simply choose fruits from any stand there. We bought cherries, apricots, peaches... in such amounts that it lasted for the whole weekend. :o)

Trip to the sea resort of Nabran

Already during my second weekend I got the opportunity to travel to Nabran, the sea resort in the north of Azerbaijan, close to the border with Russia and the Dagestan region.

Unless one has a car, there are several different options how to travel here. Either renting taxi (not for students :o), renting car (not for students :o), going by "public" transport - long distance marshrutka (a little bus) or one can actually rent a long distance car (sth like taxi for long distance). We selected the last option... definitely more convenient to spend 3 hours in a car than in a little bus packed with other people.

The journey was going quite slow, as the view from the car was constantly the same. Small hills or flat terrain dried by the sun on the left and the sea coastline on the right... there are only few trees around... so except for passing several villages on the way, the oil fields or old huge factory complexes, one could get excited only by the once in a while scary way of driving... overtakinig seems to be a national sport ;o).

We got to Nabran around 7 on Friday night. Nabran is pretty much a village that spreads for several kilometres. Houses, accommodation places, restaurants are along the left side of the road and the beach starts straight on the right with different beach restaurants or disco places build on it.

We were to stay in a cheaper private accommodation. One family is renting two rooms in their house, so that was better for us. And the main activities were eating, swimming if the wind was not too strong, going for walks over the beach, playing games and sleeping. Really nice and relaxing.

The sea is exceptionally clean, I was really amazed. One can be up to the waist in the water and will still see one's feet.
Another suprizing thing was the presence of the cows on the beach. I guess we are not the only ones who enjoy sun tanning... walks thus got quite adventurous when avoiding specific roundish things on the sand :o)).

On Sunday afternoon we went home, got a taxi to the closest city from where we took the "long-distance taxi" to get us to Baku.

Coming to Azerbaijan

Finally I made it to Azerbaijan. I arrived early on Saturday morning and two friends, Anar and Jeyhun, were awaiting me at the airport. Actually one waiting at the airport, the other sleeping in the car. No wonder, 5am is quite a stupid time to arrive.

The very first time I realized that I am back in Baku was when Jeyhun started the engine, accelerated to get out of the parking lot and speeeded to Baku. I only remembered my mum's words: sit in a car only with those drivers that drive well. Well, I definitely did not obey this one. :o) ... where there were two lines for cars in one way, we would create a third one in between, when all cars stopped on Stop sign we would take advantage of it and overtake them, double line is like any other line, safe distance between two cars here means not more than a meter (feels like sitting in the back seat of the front car). Well this drive definitely woke me up. Welcome to Baku :o).

We ended up at the office of one NGO where I crashed on the sofa for some time. But very soon was up again to join a children's peacefull demonstration organized by my friends (all of them seem to be working for different YNGOs). We came to the sea boulevard, got a white T-shirt, white cap and a little flag and were demonstrating for the accomplishment of the first MDG (the day when G8 was meeting. :o)
Hihihi, what a start. To make this more clear, two week ago I passed an exam on Development studies and of course part of this studies was also to learn about the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) and here I am already taking part in demonstration for the MDG 1: Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.

Fortunately though the demonstration did not last that long. Not that I would not enjoy walking with little kids and feel the importance, but hell... it was literally hell there... coming from nice rainy cold Prague to hot hot hot Baku, I thought I will die out of the heat on the spot.

In the afternoon we arrived at my hotel where I put all my stuff and went straight back to bed, catching up with the sleep and running away from the heat outside.

Azerbaijan - List of posts

How did it all start...
Coming to Azerbaijan
Trip to the sea resort of Nabran
Fruits on the road
The fruit market - picture
Lezgi ... one of the ethnics living in Azerbaijan
Young Lezgi woman with her child - picture
The Nabran beach - pictures
Azerbaijan... one of the 15 post-soviet countries
Relaxing after work
Tea drinking
Ateshgah Temple of Fire Worshippers
Lahic instead of picnick
Single Azeri Women
The city of Baku
Yanar Dag, the Fire Mountain
A way to travel
Petroglyphs and mud volcanoes in "Ravine land"
Have a look and choose...
Shashlik
Lada is the one...
Back to Nabran...
My sister is in Baku... :o) - photos
I would definitely pass for Azeri :o)
Xinaliq... the almost lost village
Tbilisi, the "Hot water" city
Russian or Azeri...
Olya is in Baku...
Druzhba ... beyond the grave!
The shoes...
Clubs for entertainement...
The rare black caviar from the Caspian Sea
Shaki
Donkeys
The other side of Baku!
Heading down south...
Women crave to visit Prague... men already did.
Hot water
New homes...
The surnames
Parliament elections...
12 years of loosing hope... !! - A published article on Azerbaijan
The life of Internally Displaced People - photos
The life of IDPs - photos
One World Film Festival - Movie The Source about Azerbaijan