It’s been five years since I was in Baku, where I had a base for 1.5 years. My new hotel is literally a stone’s throw from the old place. Things have changed to some extent over the past five years, mainly new high rise apartment blocks and a seemingly city-wide face lift, even Fountain’s Square and the sea front are under renovation. Countries like Azerbaijan don’t appear to be following many other ‘developed’ cities by installing cycle paths or other green measures, and their choice of construction materials is still influenced by the brash-design-catalogue, as I refer to it. Hence there are a whole range of paving and kerb materials, from concrete and ornamental cut stone, to long lengths of marble!
Unfortunately the car is still very much king here, with drivers racing flat out between the inevitable red light at the next block in this grid designed city. They are generally oblivious to pedestrians and like so many other countries, the zebra crossing simply represents a location where the pedestrians are more concentrated, rather than a safe place for those on foot to cross.
Being nostalgic, it is nice to see that black is still the colour of choice for clothing, especially amongst males, where any bright colour would stand out a mile.
Walking the city it appears to my ears that there is definitely less Russian language being spoken and a lot more Azeri, which is nice to ‘see’.
Baku seems to be well on the road towards economic development and eventual prosperity, with the oil revenues etc, but harsh conditions still see the ‘old’ innovative ways of making money, like the guy with a set of weighing scales in the heart of the city, where you pay to weigh yourself; the ladies selling lemons and limes; the shoe shine stools; the guys with polishing or welding gear all congregating in the same street to pick up work etc.
Walked along the sea front, that if you squinted very hard has some similarity with the cornice of Doha, where I spent many months this year. But the differences are striking; the tourist dhows and million dollar motor cruisers of Qatar give way to battered ex-Russian ships and oil infrastructure and the yacht club is a million miles from that of Doha for sure.
Nicely lit building
The rig fountain near Dom Soviet
The famous Maiden's Tower - 12th Century or earlier
Fontain Square statues
