ZagZen

Attack on the Intercontinental Hotel

2011-07-08T15:37:00.004-05:00

Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, where I stayed for roughly a week last year during briefing and debriefing for my observation mission in Bamyan Province, was attacked last week by the Taliban.

News stories on the attack have, curiously, all hewn to two myths – one harmless and the other more troubling. The first myth found its way into the New York Times when a headline in the paper referred to the Intercontinental as a “luxury hotel” in a story by Alissa Rubin and Rod Nordland on June 28. Likewise, AP reporter Amir Shah used the word “luxury” to describe the hotel. Another AP story tells us that the Intercontinental is one of Kabul’s “premier” hotels.

Evidently, none of these journalists have ever set foot in the Intercontinental, which before last week’s attack was a rather forlorn concrete box set high on one of Kabul’s many hills. The hallways are dark tunnels, the plumbing and lighting are primitive, and the carpets look like they were laid down roughly when Bob Hope was still making Road pictures.

At least Jon Boone at the Guardian got it right when he referred to the Intercontinental as “old” and wrote that the aging hotel “is not the magnet to western travellers it once was, many of whom now stay in more recently built hotels.”

But even Boone repeated the second misconception that has appeared in stories about the attack all over the world: that the Intercontinental was secure. As Boone put it, the Intercontinental was “well defended” and “is impossible to approach without going through at least two security checkpoints.”

The Times and other sources made the same error. True, the Intercontinental is supposed to be approached via a narrow road that climbs uphill, complete with checkpoints and concrete barriers. And it is also true that on a typical day, at least three or four Afghan security guards stand outside the main entrance near the circular drive and parking area, in addition to other armed security personnel who roam about the grounds and the interior of the hotel.

But I imagine that just about any guest at the Intercontinental has tried to envision, as I did when I stayed there, what steps a determined group of insurgents would need to take in order to overwhelm the guards outside and storm the building.

The grounds surrounding the hotel on three sides are hilly, steep, and cluttered with trees and other foliage – perfect for hiding stealthy intruders armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers as they approach the building on foot. It was obvious to me at the time that the hotel could be raided by even a small, coordinated group attacking from more than one direction.

To be fair, any large hotel in these circumstances is extremely vulnerable, and the Intercontinental’s isolated setting did have certain defensive advantages. But given the somewhat thin security at the Intercontinental, such an attack was inevitable.

Random Caucasus pictures

2011-04-23T18:48:00.013-05:00

Just a few scans of Velvia and whatnot, done poorly in my opinion. (More on that later when I get the slides re-scanned in Chicago.)

First off are four from Azerbaijan - the Shirvanshah Palace an hour before sunset, followed by two shots of a sprawling oil field east of Baku on the way to Surkhany. Then is a shot of a not at all unusual fruit stall in Baku, just north of the police station on Rasul Raza Street.

Below, an old woman muses on life on her doorstep in Tbilisi. This was in 2006, and by 2010 when I last checked, the graffiti were worn away and the building appeared to be abandoned...

Finally, two night scenes taken with a Nikon D90: Rustavelli Avenue looking east towards Freedom Square, and a man in a pensive mood waiting at a currency exchange late one evening in 2010...

Zagzen word cloud

2011-04-02T17:27:00.001-05:00

Georgian churches, Pt 1

2010-11-01T13:29:00.019-05:00

Some random shots of Georgian churches, mostly taken with my Nikon D90 and 18-200 VRII lens, except for the photo of Svetitsxoveli Cathedral in Mkskheta (with the flags in the foreground), which I took with a $50 point and shoot.

The first two photos (taken in 2004 when I was an academic fellow in Baku) are of the Ananuri Fortress and Church along the Georgian Military Highway, on the way to Gaudari. This splendid church, heavily fortified, was built in the 17th century. A hundred years later, a rival clan laid siege to the compound and finally won, killing off the ducal family associated with the church/castle. The peasants soon revolted against their new overlords, however. The church is a candidate for a UNESCO world heritage designation.

Something should be said about the photo below. I know a number of artists in Tbilisi. One of them is by training a mathematician. He is apparently affiliated with the Georgian Institute of Cybernetics, and has published a number of pieces on mathematical models, including something on international theory. I dropped by a flat he provides to his late wife's sister, and as you can see, the available wall space is largely taken up with a huge array of Orthodox iconography.

We talked and had refreshments in the living room. Looking at the wall where the icons were displayed, he summed up his sister-in-law's past three decades:

"She used to be a fanatical communist," he told me.

"But now," he shrugged, "she is a fanatical Christian."

Hazarajat, Pt II

2010-10-06T14:08:00.023-05:00

Bamyan is an extraordinary place from a number of perspectives. As I’ve mentioned, it is home to the famous carved Buddhas, built 1500 years ago and destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
On our last day in the province, my colleague and I (along with our translator and British bodyguard) did a bit of exploring in the web of tunnels and caves, created centuries ago when the Silk Road was alive and well and Bamyan was a center of religious study and a hub of mercantilism.

But Bamyan is also many other things, including home to the Hazara ethnic minority. The Hazaras are Shi’ite in a largely Sunni country, and look distinctly Central Asian (with physical features similar to the Kyrgyz or Uzbeks).

The mosques are unusual, with poles mounted to the roofs, pointing skyward. These poles have multi-colored flags attached to them, nervously fluttering in the wind, and looking rather like Tibetan prayer flags. And I keep wondering if this is where the flag motif comes from: perhaps before the advent of Islam they really were Buddhist prayer flags, and the idea was incorporated when Islam came to the area.

The Hazaras suffered terribly during the reign of the Taliban, when thousands of them were murdered (and raped) in Kabul as well as in Bamyan. Many fought and died. Others fought and finally accommodated themselves to Taliban rule, in one way or another.

Ustad Akbari is one such figure, a former Hazara warlord who initially fought the Taliban, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor (to put it charitably) and switched sides when it became apparent that the Taliban would take over Bamyan. Akbari is an incumbent in the Wolesi Jirga (parliament), and my colleague and I tried mightily to get an interview with him prior to the election, but it didn’t happen. I keep wondering how the Hazara people reconcile his collaboration with the fact that he won a seat in the last election, and how he is seen today.

A very interesting interview with Akbari can be found here at the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies web site. Akbari puts his thinking at the time this way:

“…after the fall of Hazarajat in 1998, I thought the best way to serve the Hazara people was to join the Taliban. On the inside I thought I had a better chance of being able to prevent them from slaughtering my people. This is how I came to live under their dominion for three years. It was not because I supported their policies.”

Akbari still generates his share of controversy. One of my short-term observers was Ben Skinner, a journalist who writes occasionally for Foreign Policy magazine, among other publications. Ben wrote an excellent piece on Bamyani politics, emphasizing the role of women and including a priceless interview with the province’s governor, Habiba Sarabi – Afghanistan’s only female governor. In Ben’s article, the governor discusses Akbari’s backing last year of a law that included “provisions that women submit to their husband's sexual demands, and remain in the home unless accompanied by a male relative.”

Read Ben’s article for the governor’s comments on Akbari and her assessment of the election, which took place on September 18.

You can go here for one of several Hazara web sites.

Attached are a number of photos, with more to come in the next week or two...

In Hazarajat...

2010-09-25T14:46:00.014-05:00

Just returned from nearly a month in Afghanistan, working as an election observer with Democracy International. Most of my time was spent in Bamyan Province - or Hazarajat, as the greater Hazara region is sometimes called. Bamyan is an exotic and wondrous place, the sort of place that you feel you could settle in, despite the fact that it's in Afghanistan and surrounded by not-so friendly people, such as the Taliban, who appear to be establishing themselves in Shibar, in the easternmost area of Bamyan.

In Bamyan, you can feel the history everywhere, moving around you invisibly in the mountains, or spectacularly lit up by the morning sun, as is the Buddha wall in Bamyan Center, the provincial capital.

Had the Taliban never conquered it during the civil war, Bamyan could have remained splendidly isolated, or perhaps gently interconnected, with its mountains and lakes and Buddhas and Hazara culture. With Afghanistan's future in doubt, that outcome could still express itself. Even in a distasteful power-sharing agreement brokered by President Karzai and the Taliban, one hopes that Bamyan may escape with some kind of autonomy, anything that will guarantee that the Hazaras will be left alone to determine their own future. We shall see.

At any rate, here are a few photos, to be followed by more in the coming weeks...

Tbilisi, evolving

2010-03-27T16:59:00.032-05:00

Tbilisi has been changing incrementally over the last few years. By contrast, Baku is transforming itself at a dizzying pace and models itself on Dubai, with new, aggressive skyscrapers and demolition crews everywhere. (Dubai is a dubious model for Baku, given its staggering debt. And for many years, Azerbaijan has been a prime candidate for Dutch Disease.)

Most of my favorite cafes and restaurants are now only fond memories, and a facebook page has sprung up entitled "Stop Destroying Baku," which allows Azeris to vent over the almost violent transformation of the city.

Tbilisi, however, is evolving in a more relaxed fashion - typical for Georgia.

Everyone complains about it, but I am not so sure that all the changes are really diminishing Tbilisi's unique character. And again, in contrast to Baku, my guess is that the gradual pace and less frenzied determination to change the city will result in a comfortable blend of old and new. (Why do the authorities in Baku feel that a complete metamorphosis has to take place as the city evolves? What was wrong with the old Baku?)

So until I come up with some additional photos, I am submitting these two - of the old Iveria Hotel and its reincarnation as the Iveria Radisson. Pretty glitzy, eh?

The old hotel was an embarrassment to the government, having been taken over by refugees from Georgia's civil war in the early 1990's. They simply moved in, took over, and adapted - with generous use of plywood and drywall to extend the square footage of what was once hotel rooms. The old Iveria, then, was a semi-permanent refugee settlement, giving it a wildly improvised appearance in the heart of downtown Tbilisi. Thus the embarrassment, because it was also a symbol of the government's inability to integrate the refugee population.

There were rumors for years that a (Japanese? Finnish?) firm had bought the Iveria and would turn it into a high-end shopping center, but to my astonishment, it morphed into another hotel. And the Radisson, for whatever reason, decided not to raze the previous structure, but to keep it intact and gut it from the inside out.

I was happy to see it still standing and refurbished. Did Radisson decide that the building's form had aesthetic potential? I want to think that it's an example of the "golden ratio," a la UN Headquarters in New York.

But this article throws cold water on the notion that many of the buildings we think of as based on the ratio actually are.

Note the presence of the fine statue of King David the Builder in one of the photos I took in 2004. Unfortunately (and curiously), President Saakashvili ordered its removal to another site early in his administration. It's gone, and so are the refugees (who all got a buyout). And the Iveria has been restored to its former glory.

Ilyushin

2010-03-01T18:44:00.000-06:00

Tbilisi, home for now

2009-11-07T09:58:00.013-06:00

Am spending the month of November in Tbilisi, teaching international relations at GIPA (the Georgia Institute for Public Affairs).

My students are interesting, funny, smart. I really like them.

The odd thing is that I still don’t know quite what to make of Tbilisi, although I have been here many times and long ago was smitten by its charms. But I have to admit that in May when I was here covering the opposition rallies for Security Watch, I wasn’t all that sure any longer. Tbilisi, for some reason, was getting on my nerves. No doubt, this was due in part to the political tension in town.

I’ve been here for ten days now and I still don’t feel grounded and haven’t a clue as to how to approach Tbilisi, or on what level to integrate it. Perhaps I’m obsessing about it a bit much. But I keep thinking of Tbilisi as colorful chaos, and the chaos part can be problematic when you’re loaded down with groceries and your laptop and several books from class and wondering why the hell the #31 bus hasn’t shown up in 50 minutes as your back is throbbing in pain. The #55? Two of them. No, three. But you’d rather take the 31, which runs right by your apartment, which is down the street from the EU Monitoring Mission and across from the Japanese embassy in a weirdly under-developed part of Tbilisi.

This afternoon after a night of almost no sleep, I managed to get into town for some grocery shopping, and on the way I did a bit of exploring of Tbilisi’s side streets and alleys.

There is simply no way that I will ever know Tbilisi the way I do Baku, unless I live here for a very long time. But I did discover some incredibly colorful alleyways and an old, abandoned church with an iridescent, blue lapis dome atop a crumbling tower. In a corner, outside, is a stone and concrete bas relief enclosure commemorating – who? I have no idea. But the photos are here for you to see, including one of a plaque in Russian that perhaps explains the mystery of the church and the man’s identity.

Irving Penn, 1917-2009

2009-10-08T14:10:00.016-05:00

Irving Penn was one of the most extraordinary photographers of the twentieth century, an artist who turned to photography in middle-age and defined a unique photographic style that was intensely personal and introspective but was simultaneously glamorous and chic. I found his portraits far more satisfying than those of Helmut Newton or Yousuf Karsh, whose work seemed rather artificial. Penn's subjects were always posed, like Newton's or Karsh's, but Penn's aesthetic was for me far more revealing and ultimately more real and psychologically complete. Go here for the New York Times obit.

Dogen

2009-09-12T21:50:00.006-05:00

Clear water soaks into the earth -

the fish swims like a fish.
The sky is vast and penetrates the heavens -
the bird flies like a bird.

What professionals drink in Albania

2009-07-08T11:29:00.033-05:00

I would have called it "What professionals drink in Korce," but in that city they drink Korce Birra, the local beer, which is, I'm sorry, dreadful.

But there are other beers in Albania, including the amusingly named Kaon, which is an anagram of "Koan." And it really isn't bad beer!

Albania was quite a surprise - a beautiful, mountainous country with dirt-cheap resort cities and cafes and lakes and endless opportunities to explore.

One of the truly weird things about Albania is the hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers that dot the landscape like a pestilence of gigantic mushrooms. These bunkers, most of which are roughly four meters in diameter and protrude from the ground by about two meters, were built during the Hoxha era and were meant to protect Albania from a NATO invasion. Hoxha got help from the Chinese, and every family was supposed to have at least one, especially in the agricultural regions. The idea was that mum, papa, Uncle Afrim and grandma would ensconce themselves in the bunker when the Americans came (or the British or the West Germans or whoever) and man the machine guns.

Nice.

According to this BBC story, the bunkers cost twice as much as the Maginot Line and used three times as much concrete.

I was in Albania on an OSCE election observation mission, and despite the grueling schedule, I enjoyed almost every minute of my time there (except for the last few hours of my 20-hour shift on election day, when I was non-lucid).

My area of responsibility was the territory north of Korce, stretching to a picturesque lake where we had lunch on the afternoon prior to E-day. Village life is what you would expect, with donkeys carrying bundles of brushwood here and there, curious children, and old women who might ask you in for a cup of tea - something my Icelandic partner and I were treated to in a sleepy village 10 km north of the city.

There is a significant Greek Orthodox community in the Korce region, something I hadn't expected, and Italian is spoken widely, a holdover from the days when Albania was in the Italian sphere of influence.
And in Korce there resides a fascinating Sufi sect, the Bektashi, who combine elements of Shi'a and Sunni Islam. The Bektashi were banned by Ataturk and then fled to Albania, where they settled in the early 20th century. The Bektashi web site is here.

I plan to return as a tourist and spend at least a week just driving and taking photos. There is a huge, eerie petro-chemical plant between Tirana and the Adriatic that one could spend two days at just framing and waiting for the right light and shooting. Just splendid dead-tech.

So here are a few shots of rural Albania, with a couple of pictures of downtown Korce, including the famous Greek Orthodox cathedral and a typical street scene. Incredibly lovely...

In Nagorno-Karabakh

2009-05-22T20:58:00.021-05:00

Finally made it to Karabakh! In 2006, Azerbaijani foreign minister Mammadyarov (a guy I admire, by the way) invited journalists to visit Karabakh and see for themselves what the place was like. This was a bold move by Mr. Mammadyarov, and I finally took him up on it.

The ride in took over seven hours, including lunch and the occasional stop for pictures. Southeastern Armenia is gorgeous, with snowy peaks everywhere on the horizon. Karabakh itself is greener, with mountains and villages tucked into the valleys, and the Caucasus range in the distance. You can see a video I took here of our ride along the Lachin Corridor.

My hotel was in Shusha (or Shushi if you are Armenian), a quiet town with alleys and side streets lined with crumbling walls and bombed-out buildings, some fifteen years after the war ended. There's a spooky, empty mosque in Shusha that still stands, well-known in the Muslim world. Apparently, there was some discussion regarding a restoration of the mosque, but I'm not sure what became of the idea. Remains of the Shusha Fortress's walls wrap around part of the town, a remarkable and imposing structure that has defined Shusha since the 18th century. The renovated Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was visible from my hotel, and is a short walk on the way to the primary school.

I was in Karabakh primarily to visit Stepanakert, where the next day I got an interview with Georgi Petrosyan, the NK Republic's foreign minister. A charming, funny, and candid fellow. Not your typical foreign minister, thankfully. And when the interview is published in Security Watch, look out! I expect a reaction, to put it mildly.

As of early July, the multi-part article was published here. Click on the tabs for the various segments.

Stepanakert is surprisingly small, maybe 50,000 people. And it feels a lot like a small, mountain city in the American West: Helena, Rapid City, Crested Butte...

Like Armenians in Vanadzor or Yerevan, the residents of Stepanakert love to walk in the evening. They walk in twos or threes or with their families - checking each other out, flirting, catching up on the news. Quiet cafes are arranged along the sidewalks, where you can get a pizza or a beer and chat with friends.

Karabakhi Armenians are definitely not thinking about geopolitics or war or Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. They are just trying to live their lives and plan for the future. They are, however, very aware of their isolation: both geographic and political. And they want to be part of the larger world, to connect to Europe; but mostly they want to connect with ideas and a global culture. My guess is that the mountains play a role here, and Karabakhis would feel this sense of isolation regardless of the political climate or the results of the peace process.

I made some friends in Karabakh, and want very much to return soon (and to return to Baku to see my Azeri friends). That might happen this year, we shall see.

I H8 Tupolev + Armavia

2009-05-20T08:08:00.005-05:00

I always wanted to start a web site called "I H8 Air Canada." But that's another story.

Flying back from Yerevan to Kiev, after spending a day in Nagorno-Karabakh (and a day traveling in each direction to get to Stepanakert and back). The Yerevan airport has gotten a much-needed new terminal for arrivals, while the crumbling, futuristic departure terminal remains in all its 25th-century splendor. The word is that it will eventually be abandoned and left to rot - perfect for my planned coffee-table book on Soviet Utopian architecture.

For some reason, Armavia Airlines herded us all into our Tupolev an hour prior to departure, and there we sat, broiling, without power (hence without air conditioning). It was at least 36 degrees inside and everyone was suffering, especially me and the guy next to me: our porthole had no curtains, unlike everyone else's. And the sun shone off our wing, cooking us. A Brit sat behind us, telling a mate on his mobile phone, "You would not believe how hot it is on this plane!"

The road into Karabakh was visually thrilling, although the Armenian road crew insisted on creating roughly 30 kilometers of potholes, filling them in later in the week, perhaps. So my driver's rims were warped by the time we got to Shusha.

Will post more about Nagorno-Karabakh in a day or two, but just wanted to express my loathing for broiling Armavia Tupolevs.

Memorial for Mike Linz

2008-12-29T16:53:00.004-06:00

Our memorial for Mike on Pearl Harbor Day was a very nice affair; thanks to everyone who made it, and thanks to Hoda for offering the use of her restaurant.

My Velvia photos didn't turn out so well, but Sue Ann Strutz asked if I might scan the photo of Mike I brought to the memorial at Corosh. It's on the way, Sue Ann. The picture appears above; it was taken when Mike was roughly 17 years old. I'm not sure who the photographer was, although I am told it was Terry Murphy.

[Previous post below]

An informal memorial service for Mike Linz will be held at Corosh restaurant, 1072 N. Milwaukee Ave, in Chicago, this coming Pearl Harbor Day. (You know when that is, right?) We will get together upstairs at 3:00 pm and will stay until 5:00 or perhaps 5:30. This is a new time, two hours later than the previous slot. Bring your Mike stories - nearly everyone is coming! Just tell the hostess that you are there for the Mike's memorial, and she will show you up.

Michael Linz and Ashely Ashwood

2008-11-13T20:57:00.007-06:00

Lost two friends in the last week. Ashley Ashwood, long-time photographer for the Financial Times died last week at his home in London. I knew Ash for more than thirty years. The FT obit is here.

Mike Linz was one of my oldest and most trusted friends. A number of Chicago galleries have shown his art over the years, but Mike never really broke through, and struggled all his life.

Long ago, he was hit by a car late on a winter's evening. Unable to walk due to a crushed leg, Mike dragged himself for the better part of an hour through the snow until he made it home.

But yesterday, his luck ran out; thirty years of alcoholism had ravaged his body to the point where it could no longer provide a home for the bundle of neurons that made up his Mikeness.

His long-dormant web site is here.

David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008

2008-09-13T23:50:00.004-05:00

Someone on the faculty with me this summer asserted, as though it was common knowledge, that Wallace was abrasive and more than a bit nasty in his prose. Funny - I never noticed.

Here is a good obit that attempts to locate his place in modern literature...

Journalists targeted in the Russo-Georgian war?

2008-08-17T13:25:00.004-05:00

A very high number of journalists have been killed in less than a week of war in Georgia, a surprising and disturbing outcome to such a short conflict.

You can go here to make a donation to assist the families of Alexander Kliumchuk and Giga Chikhladze, who were killed while working on a story in South Ossetia. (Thanks to Ralph Haelbig for passing this along.)

And go here for footage of a Georgian TV reporter being shot. (She then finished her piece!)

What professionals drink in Skopje

2008-06-06T13:06:00.016-05:00

Just returned from yet another OSCE/ODIHR mission, this time to Macedonia (or if you're Greek or in the UN, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).

And despite the drama of my Ukrainian mission in Odessa in 2004, this was surely the most tense and explosive of any deployment I've ever had.

Macedonia has an unenviable mix of ethnicities that seem to have two (no, three; no, seventeen) widely divergent agendas. This was displayed graphically on election day (June 1). But the country's modern, post-Yugoslav history has been riddled with crises that devolve from the constant state of conflict--sometimes violent, often smolderingly bitter--that curses Macedonia. I don't see a way out.

In November, an armed group sneaked into Macedonia from neighboring Kosovo - one of the group having mysteriously escaped from a Kosovo prison. After a pitched battle, eight of them were dead, and the Macedonian government had achieved a small and temporary victory.

It's been like that since "the conflict" (as Macedonians call it) in 2001, the not-quite-civil war that was mercifully brief and spared the country the fate of, let's say, Serbia or Croatia.

Today, the two major Albanian political parties are at each other's throats (which I witnessed graphically in the last polling station I observed). One party's leader was the target of an alleged assassination attempt a couple of weeks ago.

Now, however, he may be on the verge of joining the coalition government that must emerge from the election, despite the landslide given to the majority ethnic Macedonian party. That's the Balkans.

Here's a shot of a neighborhood rally for this guy's party - the DUI:

Oh, and my final polling station? Sheer chaos, with DUI and DPA election board members and observers screaming, shouting, pushing, shoving - a couple of hundred partisans surrounding the polling station in the dark. Fistfights outside. Thirty or so cops, including the special "Alpha team" members, who probably deterred gunfire, which I expected at any minute.

You see, the problem was that there were 579 signatures on the voter list - 579 people had officially voted in this Albanian village in the foothills north of Skopje. But darn it, they inconveniently had between 687 and 712 ballots counted, depending on who was counting.

Quite a row ensued. What to do? Recount? Throw out the ballots without official seals? At one point, the station chairman announced, "Look, we're all Albanians here! This is how we are! Let's take the extra ballots and split the difference, 50-50!"

An elegant solution, and it might have worked. (Blatantly illegal, of course, but no one in the room cared that the OSCE was watching. We might as well have been invisible.)

But no. More shouting, more scuffling. People streaming in and out of the polling station. Finally, someone makes a call on a mobile phone, and shortly thereafter a very emotional young man enters, upends the table on which the ballots are stacked, then he throws them everywhere, shouting indignantly.

When the dust settled, almost everyone was gone, and the chairman said, "OK, that's it. We're closed." I wanted to stay to witness the aftermath, but my partner (a Romanian woman who evidently does not share my innate curiosity) insisted on leaving. Immediately.

A cop told us later that he approached a man with a bulge in his shirt as he drove away from the village, thinking he was hiding a gun. No. It was a shirtfull of ballots.

Two of my OSCE colleagues meanwhile had been caught in a machine gun battle that left one Macedonian man dead and eight wounded. Other observers had to be rescued from very tense situations. And I heard what sounded like gunfire later that night while at the Metropolitan Election Commission. But it could have been a Lada backfiring. Maybe.

Here is a shot I took at the polling station aftermath. Note the hundreds of ballots on the floor.

The OSCE is asking for observers to return for the new election in polling stations that had to be closed that night, including mine. But I've got to study for the class I'm teaching this summer. Too bad - I liked that Skopsko beer.

What professionals drink in Baku

2008-05-07T14:35:00.003-05:00

Actual dialogue, sometime in July, 2006, my apartment in Baku’s Old City

The characters:

Zarina (my goofy friend, see post below entitled “Why I have a laptop…”)

Karl (me)

Time:
16:22:04

ZARINA: Bunny, get me something cold to drink!

KARL: Do I have to do everything for you? Look in the refrigerator. I think there’s some iced tea in there.

16:22:21

ZARINA (holding up a bottle of German beer): Hey, what’s this?

KARL: Put that back! I’m saving it!

ZARINA: But what is it?!

KARL: That’s Spaten. It’s a very good German beer, and we are lucky to be able to buy it here in Baku.

ZARINA: I will drink it!

KARL: No, you won’t. It’s the only bottle I have, and there are two perfectly good cans of iced tea in there.

ZARINA: But Bunny!

KARL: Have an iced tea!

16:25:12

ZARINA: Mmmmmmmmmm! Bunny, this is really good.

KARL: Glad you like it.

ZARINA: What's it called again?

KARL: Spaten.

16:32:43

ZARINA: Bunny, you have to help me decide what to do!

KARL: What do you mean?

ZARINA: Like, what can I do for a job?

KARL: I told you before, work at a tour company. Your English is excellent, and you will meet many interesting people.

ZARINA: I know what I can be!

KARL: What?

ZARINA: I will be a "professional nervous disturber!"

KARL: A "professional nervous disturber?" That's perfect for you!

ZARINA: I know! That's why I say it!

It's Novruz!

2008-03-22T21:10:00.005-05:00

Tree. Sky. Earth.

2008-02-26T09:54:00.004-06:00

Ukraine redux

2007-10-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

Just returned from the Ukraine last night after a one-week mission for the OSCE. This was my fifth OSCE deployment, and my fourth to the Ukraine!

I'll write something of substance later, because I'm tied up now with writing a piece on the election results for Security Watch.

But I wanted to post a few photographs first.

The statue at the top is, of course, a likeness of Vladmimir Ilyich. Lots of those still around. My area of responsibility was the charming city of Mirgorod, where I really must return to someday soon as a tourist.

On our first night in Mirogorod, my partner and I stumbled upon a wonderful, raucous pop-music group doing a stage show, sponsored by the pro-Russian Party of Regions. Really fun, with barbeques and families and even fireworks.

Also, oddly, we noticed at least eight weddings in a day and a half while in the Mirgorod area. Our translator explained that there is quite a rush now for couples to wed, since Ukrainians prefer not to marry on a leap year, and the following year is considered also to be unlucky ("the year of widows," we were told).

Here is one young bride, leaving the "Gogol Restaurant" (the region prides itself on its connection to Golgol) - where we could never get decent service:

On election day, I had duty from 0645 Sunday until 0330 the following morning. Long day. Here is a shot of me and my interpreter. This is how your tax dollars are spent!

Finally, after returning to Kiev on Tuesday, I switched for a couple of hours to journalist mode and got some interviews as I roamed from the Central Election Commission to the Maidan - where the Orange Revolution began three years before. In contrast to the 150,000 demonstrators then (which I witnessed), there were maybe ten tents in the plaza in front of the CEC and maybe another eight or so at the Maidan - a futile gesture on the part of the Communists and the Party of Regions.

Here is a shot of some zoned-out kids "protesting" at the Maidan.

The inevitable occurs in Baku

2007-09-01T12:21:00.000-05:00

A little more than a year ago, I posted something on the destruction of Baku's remaining neighborhoods of charm and authenticity, adding that the majority of the new high-rises sprouting up in the city--changing forever Baku's character--are catastrophes waiting to happen: "...all the Baku contractors mix the concrete...with sand to save money. It also makes the concrete dangerously weak, and when the next big earthquake comes, thousands of Azeris will die needlessly when the high-rises collapse."

Well, a few days ago, a crane bumped into one of these buildings under construction. And it collapsed. So far, twelve bodies have been pulled out of the rubble. Of course, there are the predictable warnings from officials that all the buildings erected by the contractor will now be inspected. Gosh, I wonder what those officials have been doing for the past three years when everyone in Baku knows what's going on?

Let's not think about that. Reportedly, a Baku newspaper has suggested a terror link, and one article mentioned that Russia might have an "interest" in the collapse of a building in Azerbaijan. This is in keeping with my "Rules for Azeris" - one of which is "Whenever possible, blame the other guy."

Mind you, when the next earthquake comes, there will be a lot more than 12 bodies to recover...

A pic of the rubble in downtown Baku appears above (Reuters), and you can go here for the Reuters story.

Michelangelo Antonioni, 1912-2007

2007-08-01T14:45:00.005-05:00

Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007

2007-07-31T00:31:00.005-05:00

Fizuli Street, near Bul-Bul...

2007-05-22T00:02:00.000-05:00

Bad news for freedom of thought

2007-05-14T12:56:00.000-05:00

Another political post! This is getting worrisome - I don't want to morph into some tedious political blogger. So next week I'll have to compensate with something more pleasant to muse over.

But for now, I've got to take up the issue of the assault on freedom of thought in Azerbaijan. That's what freedom of the press is - a manifestation of freedom of thought. (Consider, for instance, the Tokko in wartime Japan. They were the domestic thought-police, whose job it was to root out ideas, strands of thought in the collective consciousness that were not in line with the diktats of the imperial shogunate and eliminate them. Throw free-thinkers in prison: pacifists, communists, anyone who seemed to be infected by foreign ideas.)

Things are not that bad in Azerbaijan, of course. There is, after all, an opposition there. And foreign ideas and influences are cultivated in many strata of Azeri society. Nevertheless, the prosecutor's office just threw two free-thinkers into prison, and two weeks prior they also locked away the country's best-known opposition journalist. so the situation is pretty discouraging.

And what was their sin - these two independently-minded chaps who worked for the "Senet" newspaper? Well, the author of a commentary (a guy named Rafiq Tagi) entitled "Europe and Us" actually dared to suggest that Islam has, on the whole, hindered social, cultural, and political development in Azerbaijan and other Muslim states.

For this, he and his editor were charged with “inciting religious hatred.” Tagi was sentenced last week to four years in prison, while his editor received a three-year term. For the kind of speculative commentary that one would encourage in an undergraduate in the US, not to mention Europe.

They may be killed in prison, I'm afraid. Two Iranian ayotollahs have put out fatwas calling for the deaths of these two brave journalists. (One of the ayatollahs has said he will give his house to whoever succeeds.)

And remember the village of Nardaran, described below in the post entitled, "Refugees, oil rigs..."? The villagers held demonstrations after the article was published, with at least some of them demanding the deaths of Tagi and his editor.

That's not all. On April 27, independent journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was convicted of “criminal libel” and “insult” for comments he purportedly made during an interview and posted on a little-known website.

Fatullayev, perhaps Azerbaijan’s best-known opposition journalist, denies having made the comments, but he has been targeted for some time, and his conviction coincided with a physical attack on one of his newspaper colleagues. This is the latest reminder to critics of the government of the price they may be forced to pay when they stray too far from what is acceptable, to both the government and the conservative Shi’ite establishment.

It pains me to say this, since I care about Azerbaijan. But the path the government is taking is at the very least cowardly and is designed to placate certain "constituencies," to put it in the least polemical terminology.

Journalism in Azerbaijan has been a high-risk endeavor since before the 2005 murder of Elmar Huseynov, editor of the independent Monitor newspaper, and a friend of Fatullayev’s. Late last year, Freedom House, the international organization that monitors democratic development, downgraded Azerbaijan from “partly free’ to “not free.” So the envelope for journalists has been defined this week a bit more clearly.

This trend betrays Azerbaijan's history and traditions, I would argue. This is the country that created a democracy after the first world war, until it was absorbed by Joseph Stalin's USSR shortly thereafter. (Joe Stalin had some experience with Azerbaijan, since it was there that he organized strikes amongst the oil workers and published political tracts.)

Azerbaijan gave women the vote in the early twentieth century, and Azerbaijan rationally drew the boundaries between state, individual, and religious affiliation. And I know that Azerbaijan can succeed once again in redefining itself. But these recent developments sadden me. You might argue that something is being bought with the conviction of Tagi and his editor, perhaps something like stability. That's because the conservatives in the south and in the clergy are being placated with a prison sentence. Not to mention the Iranians, who never lose an opportunity to remind Azerbaijan that they could pull some strings and create real problems. (And Nadaran? It doesn't matter, really. It's a sideshow.) Those may be factors, but I am still sickened, and I can't stop thinking about these guys rotting in prison.

Political troubles, 2005

2007-05-10T12:39:00.000-05:00

I don't put up many political posts here, in part because this site is supposed to be a refuge from that sort of thing, a place for me to delve into dadaesque stream-of-consciousness nonsense. But I'm going to violate that rule, if it is a rule, today and later this week.

Firstly, I've gotten some requests for photos from the 2005 period when a "color revolution" was attempted. It failed for a number of reasons that I won't go into (if you've read my stuff for Security Watch, then you know why it failed), but here is a photo montage from that very difficult period in Azerbaijan's history.

They are all my shots with the exception of the one where you can see me amidst a million police during the November 26 riot. The photo was taken by one of the owners of Azerfoto, who--two seconds after he took this picture--grabbed me from behind and shouted, "Come with me! You are in great danger here!"

"But I can get a really good shot here!" I replied.

Resisting the urge to lecture me on my obtuseness, he shouted, "Quickly! You must run!"

So I ran. Right into more violence.

In a few days, I'll post something on what is happening to freedom of the press in Azerbaijan. It isn't good.

So a Wahhabi and a Georgian walk into a bar...

2007-04-07T18:38:00.000-05:00

My friend Nazila is studying and living in Prague, far from her home in Baku. I visited her in the Czech Republic on my way back to the US in August. One day in Podebrady where we were having dinner, she told me a very amusing joke, which she made up herself! Honestly!

Her jokes suffer occasionally from imperfect self-translation into English, so we took several days of fine-tuning via email to get it right, but I think you will agree that it has a zen-like “chicken and egg” quality to it:

These Georgian guys were visiting Baku, and they all had beards – just like Wahhabis. So I asked them, “Hey why do you Georgian guys have beards?”

And they said, “We are just trying to look like you Azeris.”

And I said, “What are you talking about? Azeri guys shave!”

But they said, “We have seen them when they visit Tbilisi, and they all have beards!”

So I answered them by saying, “Well, that’s because those Azeri guys in Georgia are influenced by you!”

(Are you laughing?)

With zagzen, we shall smash imperialism!

2007-03-20T00:09:00.000-05:00

Just why is this blog getting so many visits from China recently? Over twenty hits in a day and a half! Why?!

Refugees, oil rigs, and true believers

2007-03-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

One day in the spring of last year, I went with the UNHCR to visit a refugee settlement a few miles outside of Baku. The settlement (I hesitate to call it a refugee "camp" due to the lack of tents) consists of two or three decrepit buildings, one of them once a school. The area has the sort of scorched-earth look that you might find in a toxic waste site or a fertilizer plant that was abandoned in 1960.

The inhabitants are all from Nagorno-Karabakh. In fact, they are all from one village. The government even sends the children from the same Karabakhi villages to the same schools in Baku. This is done to bolster the refugees’ sense of regional identity, but some of the Karabakhis I talked to confided that this policy only hinders their ability to integrate into Azerbaijani society and will have deleterious downstream effects – politically, economically, socially.

Next are a few shots I took in an ancient oil field on the peninsula, just outside the town of Surkhany.

As I was taking pictures of oil derricks and pools of petroleum, security police for the oil company showed up, put me in their 4X4, and took me to the local Internal Affairs (people usually just say “KGB,” but that’s not quite accurate) police station in Surkhany. I was led down a hall and into an office where I spent 45 minutes with a very courteous, matter-of-fact sort of KGB station chief. (OK, I said "KGB.") After questioning me and making copies of my documents, he let me go. And he didn’t confiscate my film!!! Great guy!

Finally, stepping into the village of Nadaran is a very strange experience. Only 60 kilometers or so from Baku, but it looks and feels so utterly foreign, even for Azerbaijan. Nadaran is a stronghold of Shi’a conservatism, and the residents have a history of violent conflict with the Azerbaijani government. I visited Nadaran in late 2005, and met the leader of Azerbaijan’s Islamic Party, a man who spent time in prison for committing espionage on behalf of Iran. Reportedly, he has been back in Iran recently, telling whoever will listen that Shi’ites are oppressed in Azerbaijan – an absurdity, but he has an agenda.

Nadaran has it all: a huge mosque devoted to the sister of the eighth imam, pilgrims streaming in on rickety buses from Iran, and very zealous village residents - who burned the Danish flag during the cartoon controversy last year, among other politico-religious gestures. Not long ago, the entire village battled troops and police sent in to quell an insurrection. The villagers hung on far longer than they were expected to, and one of the partisans told me that "there were angels here that day, and they protected us!" He was sure that the twelfth imam was here on Earth, and that the day was near when he would begin his thousand-year reign.

The walls in Nadaran are covered with murals and slogans. I like this one - simple, direct: “There is no god but Allah!!”

Xumar Ershadli takes over the Council of Europe!

2007-02-24T13:23:00.000-06:00

You might want to go here for a fascinating movie of Xumar and Sevda...

Baku people, young and old

2006-12-17T12:35:00.000-06:00

Three random shots of people from Baku. The little girl is the daughter of the guy who runs the carpet shop around the corner from my flat in Icheri Sheher.

The second shot is at the produce market near my first apartment on Fizuli Street near Razul Rasa. You walk through the grounds of a sprawling police station to get to the market, which is incredibly colorful, with oranges, apples, bananas on display everywhere (even in the trunk of an old Gaz Volga). What struck me about these two as I chatted with them is how much this man loves his son - of course, I printed the picture the next day and gave it to them.

The old man was attending an opposition rally last autumn and practically begged me to take his picture. I was reluctant since I had a limited supply of film, but gave in. Glad I did...

What I didn't know about Hermann Hesse

2006-10-11T22:16:00.000-05:00

At the university where I teach, I was gazing recently at a print of a painting pinned up in someone’s office, and discovered that it had been painted by Hermann Hesse, of all people. This was a delightful surprise, although it shouldn’t have been, actually. Hesse’s writing and mode of inquiry should make him a compelling visual artist.

His work is artistically naïve and suffused with serenity, depth, soft colors – just what you would expect.

And then I realized that his paintings are very much like the work of one of my favorite Baku artists – a man named Zakir. (He isn’t the same Zakir who shows in some of Baku’s better-known galleries. This Zakir is not very established, and sells his work through friends of his on the Passage, near the Targova.)

The first two paintings above are by Hesse – one of some 3,500 he painted during his lifetime. The work below is by Zakir. I have three of his paintings in the US, and one in Baku, waiting for my return.

Go here or here for more information on Hermann Hesse’s art. (His friend Carl Jung also painted, although I can’t find any information on Jung’s art.)

At home in the Old City

2006-08-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

One evening last week was one of those rare moments in life, stretched over perhaps a half-hour, when—wandering in the back alleys of the Old City—I felt something akin to peace. No, it was more than peace. That suggests something far too passive. It was a sense of belonging, of being exactly where I wanted to be, as though I had dived into a dream, and the dream was perfect, a quiescent picture in a state of slow but constant motion. It began when I discovered a part of Icheri Sheher (the Old City) I had never visited, something I didn’t think was possible. Surely I had walked down every alley, seen and smelled every meter of brick and plaster and falling cornice, noticed every bit of Arabic bas relief.

But that night, I found a new set of alleyways, and explored them, south and east, turning back onto other alleys, which led to still others.

“How do you find your way in Icheri Sheher?” an Azeri friend once exclaimed. “It is such…a labyrinth!”

Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

The precious Old City, with grandmothers sitting and talking and children playing, is surely the best part of Baku, a place that has changed very little in hundreds of years.

The Icheri Sheher offers a glimpse into a pre-modern urban setting that I am sure exists in much of the Muslim world, in places like Morocco and Algeria, and across the Levant.

Unfortunately, the Old City is now being transformed, like the rest of Baku. Despite its status as a UNESCO world heritage site, it is being gobbled up and sold and torn down block by block. It is only a matter of time before the first high-rise is erected here, which would be—will be—a tragedy.

Outside the oasis of Icheri Sheher, it’s too late for Baku. Today, I walked past a large block of former apartments, now burned down, across from the Sahil Metro station. Ugly high-rises are sprouting everywhere in Baku, and it is common knowledge that these new condos and apartment buildings are grossly unsafe, not even meeting the minimal Baku municipal codes. A BBC correspondent told me that he interviewed a German supplier who said that all the Baku contractors mix the concrete he sells them with sand to save money. It also makes the concrete dangerously weak, and when the next big earthquake comes, thousands of Azeris will die needlessly when the high-rises collapse. The mayor does nothing, nor does President Aliyev. Since Azerbaijan is one of the most corrupt countries on earth, it is easy to guess what the reason is for the lack of oversight.

Oh, yes – the burnt-out former apartment building? It was slated to be demolished for a new earthquake-friendly high rise. But several of the tenants, many of whom owned their dwellings and businesses in the building, refused to sell. And—I’m sure this is one of those funny coincidences that are so common in Azerbaijan—a mysterious fire destroyed the building recently. That will teach them…

So here is a glimpse of the Old City, with random pictures of alleyways and kids and the accelerated evolution of this place, fueled by the demands of money. In five
years, it will be unrecognizable.

Outside a bathhouse in the Old City

Why I have a laptop, why I have an apartment...

2006-07-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

Have been back in Baku for two days now to continue my freelance reporting for ISN Security Watch. This will be a brief trip, however, since I plan to be back in Chicago in late August to teach international relations as an underpaid adjunct at North Park University.

So in the next five weeks I plan to: 1) ask the Iranian embassy for permission to interview the Iranian president in Tehran, 2) investigate terrorist activity here in Azerbaijan, 3) cover the recent developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 4) write about tension between Iran and Azerbaijan, including the recent riots in Tabriz, and 5) visit northern Iran.

Somehow, I also want to avoid 6) getting killed or thrown into prison.

Especially since I know so many nice girls here in the Caucasus who I want to spend more time with. One (crazy) girl I know is Zarina, who is both fun to be with and exasperating.

But she is also charming and funny and nutty, which are big plusses. Three months ago, she had a habit of experimenting with hair color and makeup and admiring herself in the mirror while purring, “I’m so sexy!”

But I finally decided that she was wearing me out, so I reluctantly stopped returning her calls in late April.

As I was walking down the Targova yesterday, barely two hours after my arrival on a broken-down Antonov jet, I noticed a feline-looking girl who was laughing and joyously shouting at a friend. Although I couldn’t see her face and her hair was very different, I knew that it had to be Zarina. No one else in Azerbaijan has her peculiar admixture of spontaneity and quirkiness.

“Hello Zarina,” I said in a gentle undertone, like a whisper uttered by one’s conscience.

She spun around, screamed, and hugged the breath out of me. Twenty minutes later, she was in my apartment, happily text messaging her boyfriend on my laptop and demanding a cold beer.

“Two Turkish boys asked me to marry them yesterday!” she proclaimed. I believe that – her brand of feminine charm both repels some men and attracts others irresistibly.

She then asked that I take pictures of her with my nice, cheap digital camera, which I did. Then she took over and snapped self-portraits as I tried to drift into unconsciousness on my couch (hard to do for us insomniacs even when goofy Baku girls are not in our apartment).

After taking 44 pictures, she then begged me to upload them. Which I did.

“Now send these two pictures to my boyfriend.”

“Can’t he take his own pictures?” I asked naively.

“No, silly. He is in Turkey.”

“But you said he asked you to marry him yesterday….Wait a minute. Did you meet him on the internet?”

“Of course!”

(Azeris use the English expression “of course” to signal inferences that are not at all obvious, such as, “Of course there is Strontium 90 in my lunch box!”)

So as per Zarina’s instructions, we went to her MSN account and tried to send the pictures. And it didn’t work. Of course!

Then I opened my email application and pasted her boyfriend’s address in. And I attached the two pictures.

“What are you doing?” Zarina asked.

“Well, since MSN wasn’t working, I’m just going to send the pictures to your boyfriend from my email account, and we will explain that it is really from you.”

“You want my boyfriend’s email address?!”

“Well, I already…“

“You want to have sex with my boyfriend?!”

“No, actually, I’m heterosexual, and besides…“

“You will NOT have sex with my boyfriend!”

“I’m just trying to help – “

“I will not LET you have sex with my boyfriend!”

“Whatever…”

That was yesterday. Today, as I tried to get my press credentials in order, I got a phone call.

"Bunny?" she asked, using her inexplicable nickname for me.

"Yes?"

"Do you want to see me today?!!"

Alas, I had other friends to see.

"The future is here, comrade!"

2006-06-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us - Winston Churchill

Look at elegant curves of this building. They seem to sweep up to heaven. I hope you feel some sense of thrill when you look at these shapes. This style of architecture, common in the former USSR and unheralded in the west for reasons mentioned below, I call “Soviet Utopianism.”

When people are confronted with the idea of a uniquely Soviet architecture, they usually think of Constructivism, an appalling melange of early twentieth-century modernism and worship of the Machine, the latter a frequent motif of Soviet film and art. Constructivism was a bit like Bauhaus, but grimmer. And I suppose there are Constructivist elements in what became Soviet Utopianism, but Utopianism is about, essentially, something else: optimism.

This optimism was social and political, but I also think it was naïve and arrived on the scene a bit too late. Constructivism, with its bunker-like blocks of concrete and occasional adornment of public sculpture, was probably the most soul-numbing and oppressive architectural form in history, and was the perfect complement to Comrade Stalin, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Lavrenty Beria – the whole sorry lot of killers and scoundrels.

But Soviet Utopianism? It was the last gasp of an almost-realizable Brave New World. The future is here, comrade! The lines are gently curvilinear, graceful. The scale is bold, the facades are futurist.

These structures weren't dwellings, but grand bureaucratic centers, collective shrines to Soviet progress, and were modern incarnations of the sort of utopian icons that were popular in the early Stalinist era, such as the Moscow Metro.

Never mind that the stylistic elements of this architectural school were derivative of western modernism, a fad that had petered out by about 1970, just when Soviet Utopianism was getting started. Their architects borrowed from westerners such as Wallace K. Harrison, Oscar Niemeyer, and Eero Saarinen.

above, Dulles Airport, photo by Peter Krogh
http://www.peterkrogh.com

below, Dulles Airport, photo by Chris Sloan
http://www.airchive.com/SITE%20PAGES/index.html

Saarinen's Dulles Airport in Washington, a classic of modernist design, brings us to Baku and my favorite structure in that city, my second home: Respublika Serai (the Republican Palace). Now called Aliyev Serai in keeping with the personality cult devolted to the late president Heydar Aliyev, it was constructed in the early seventies by two Soviet architects, an Azeri and his Armenian colleague. (“The Armenian’s role was minor,” I was told by someone at the Architecture Ministry in Baku. I wonder what they say in Yerevan…)

Respublika Serai is, I would argue, graceful, elegant, and dizzyingly optimistic: the future is here, comrade! In the early seventies, there was a brief moment in Soviet space-time when catching up to the West and surpassing it was thought to be a reachable goal. Culturally, politically, even ethically, Soviet potential must have seemed limitless, and the West was bankrupt. This chimera was exposed for what it was in the Gorbachev era, but these priceless artifacts—many of them now abandoned—constitute oases of timeless design in the midst of so much that is kitschy, shabby, or desultory.

So here are three photographs I've taken of the Serai, all with my Nikon FA. The first two, featuring the elegant lines of the colonnade, appear above. My favorite is the night shot below, which I took late one evening in 2004, after a concert. This week (the week of June 19, 2006), Herbie Hancock will appear at Respublika Serai. Alas, due to my financial difficulties, I won't make it in time (and won't make my interview with the Iranian foreign minister), and for now am stuck in the US. But Herbie? He'll be playing at the Serai...

Guyana, also far away...

2006-04-20T04:28:00.002-05:00

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

Ever since visiting Guyana three years ago, I keep thinking about it. That’s so strange – it’s a “failed state,” says the World Bank, with a high crime rate and ethnic strife. There is trash everywhere in the capital, soldiers in the villages—who hide from the gangs at night—and the country is going nowhere.

But there was something about the place that must have connected with me, because I keep wanting to go back. It’s not for the jungles or the scenic waterfalls (I didn’t visit any). But I liked the people, who were not just charming, but physically beautiful.

(This was also true of the people of Granada, where I stayed for nearly two weeks on the same trip. Granada was a place of stunning beauty, with perfect, white sand beaches and a chaotic, colorful downtown harbor. One day I discovered a white clapboard church steeple high up in the mountains, almost hidden by clouds and forest, but emerging briefly in gleaming sunlight if you waited long enough.)

Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, was built by the Dutch and British; the latter ruled Guyana until the late 20th century. And very practically, the houses and government offices are usually constructed of wood, with the foundations raised off the ground to prevent damage from the frequent floods. Guyana, in this respect, is a lot like Bangladesh or Louisiana, with the capital city on a delta below sea level. The neighborhoods and administrative districts have a ramshackle quality to them that is enhanced by this Anglo-Dutch approach to architecture. The windows are particularly interesting, with the use of louvered shutters that provide shade when the sun is overhead as well as ventilation, keeping the buildings cool.

Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I keep thinking that Graham Greene must have written a novel set in Guyana, but perhaps not. (Doesn’t one of Greene’s novels begin with a young, ambitious Brit who just arrived in a hotel somewhere in South America? He watches a lizard climb up the wall in his room, I think…)

I made it as far south as Linden, where I met funny, curious school kids and observed a mongoose scudding across the dusty road downtown – pursuing a snake, no doubt. (The mongeese were imported by the British in the distant colonial past to control the snake problem.)

The next day, I traveled east to New Amsterdam, taking an ancient ferry across the crocodile-infested river. My driver suggested that we bring no bodyguards along with us, in contrast to the strong advice from my employer.

“If we bring them, the bad guys will wonder, ‘Why does that white man have bodyguards? He must have something worth stealing!’”

This made sense to me, so we dispensed with them. Sure enough, a woman on the ferry had a carload of bodyguards, who attracted a great deal of unwanted attention. I, on the other hand, ascended to the upper deck and gazed out on the river, chatting occasionally with a far-too serious little girl.

One thing that the Dutch and British left behind was a love of bureaucracy, which manifests itself both gently and forcefully in Guyana. The ferry office in New Amsterdam was a magical step back in time, another world that has remained almost static for nearly a century.

I had to get a receipt for the car fare, so I asked the beautiful-yet-contemptuous ticket girl how I could do that.

“Take your ticket upstairs to the receipt office,” she said, in exactly the same tone of voice that one might use at a prison for “line up over there and get disinfected.”

So I trod up the stairs to the wonderful “Receipt Office,” which was apparently an afterthought to the building that was cobbled together maybe in 1932. The windows had lace curtains, and a woman sat at the desk which was adorned only by an ink pad, a calendar, and a rubber stamp, which could be adjusted with small metal wheels for the date.

This is her job! I thought. This is her life! How often do we walk into some alien world and arrive in a completely foreign place and time, hosted by a fellow primate whose life has nothing to do with ours, who lives thousands of miles from everything that is familiar to us? And what was her life? She sat behind her desk, upstairs in the ferry office at the edge of a town carved out of the jungle, somewhere in South America. She could look out the window on one side and see the pier, with the ferry tied up, taking on passengers and cars and farm animals for trade. On the other side were people like me, who had climbed the stairs to present her with the sole reason for her existence in this place: a receipt to be issued.

“What do you want?” she asked helpfully, since there was only one thing anyone could possibly want from her.

“I need a receipt,” I replied.

“Give me your ticket,” which I did.

She then stamped the ticket. Twice. With two different stamps.

“Take your ticket back downstairs.”

“Um, but I need a receipt.”

“You get your receipt downstairs from the ticket agent.”

I then experienced two wildly divergent emotions. No, three.

One was the joy of yet again encountering the beautiful ticket agent-girl.

This feeling of happiness was muted somewhat by the dread of yet again enduring her steely, reproachful gaze: how dare I return with yet another superfluous request? She has better things to do!

These clashing emotions competed with another thought: why the hell was I just sent up here to get my ticket stamped when I could have just gotten the receipt from the ticket girl to begin with?!

But no. If that were the case, I would never have enjoyed the anthropological expedition up the stairway. I would never have met the woman behind the window, who let me into her world, with her ink blotter and the teapot in the corner and her lace curtains which, perhaps, she sewed herself, long ago.

Poetic fragments, worlds far from here...

2006-04-14T10:52:00.000-05:00

Baku graffito

Have been thinking about myth and poetry recently. This may be due to the heightened sense of fear and insecurity I am experiencing here - both as a journalist and personally.

Here are fragments from some poetic works, with no (unnecessary) comments:

I am like a flag surrounded by vast, open space.
I sense the coming winds and must live through them,
while all other things among themselves do not yet move:
The doors close quietly, and in the chimneys is silence;
The windows do not yet tremble, and the dust is still heavy and dark.

I already know the storms, and I'm as restless as the sea.
I roll out in waves and fall back upon myself,
and throw myself off into the air and am completely alone
in the immense storm.

"Premonition" by Rainer Maria Rilke

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

IV and XII from “Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird”
Wallace Stevens

Ripple effect
explains

crop circles,
he said.

Wind sighs in
buffalo grass…

Lie next to me,
she said.

Anon, 1998

A message from Baku

signs

2006-03-31T10:49:00.000-06:00

The news from Binagadi - and elsewhere

2006-03-27T11:06:00.000-06:00

Three days ago the National Security Ministry announced that it has uncovered evidence that al Qaeda is recruiting young women in Azerbaijan for terrorist operations. The group is focusing its efforts on “believers from low-income families, religious students or the unemployed aged between 20 and 25,” which is a demographic that captures most women between 20 and 25. Why women? I really need to talk to the National Security Ministry to find out, although it does sound like a clever recruiting tactic.

In other news, Azerbaijan has the distinction as of last week of being an epicenter of human deaths from H5N1 bird flu, with a confirmed total of five fatalities – all from one village. A teenager is in hospital here in Baku with bird flu as well, although so far, she is hanging on. The five deaths were all young people in their teens and early twenties. And a dog has actually died here from bird flu! Recent articles in Nature and Science explain that the bird flu doesn’t pass from human to human due to the outer layer (I assume this is the protein sheath) having a structure that attaches itself to cells deep in the human respiratory tract. Thus, sneezing or coughing is usually not sufficient to dislodge the infected cells and pass them on to other humans.

When the virus mutates, then we will be in trouble, quite possibly big trouble.

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to be living in Azerbaijan right now.

Speaking of which, another news report here says that a “radioactive container” was discovered in the Binagadi district of Baku on Friday. The radioactivity is “600 times the norm,” according to the report.

No wonder that I’ve been feeling a bit off-form since eating that chicken kabob at the “Binagadi Café.”

Finally, Azerbaijan and Iran are having a public spat, ostensibly having to do with the ethnicity of a revered poet. Actually, it’s about geopolitics. The “World Congress of Azerbaijanis” was held here last week, during which one of the speakers advocated the “liberation” of northern Iran, where most of the world’s ethnic Azeris live (the area of northern Iran and current Azerbaijan being the historical area where Azeris have lived for hundreds of years).

This was bad enough, but the Iranians replied with a diplomatic note of protest, with the ambassador alleging late last week that Nizami (the poet referred to above) was Persian, not Azeri. That, in turn, sparked a huge row between the two fraternal, Shi’ite countries which has still not quite died down, despite a cordial reply from the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The Iranian ambassador was really quite insistent about Nizami’s bloodline and the newspapers here are indignant, to put it mildly.

Can you imagine the outcry from America if the Canadian ambassador alleged that Wallace Stevens was from Halifax?!

And (as though anyone cares or is reading this), I decided not to publish that story on the "Jesus and Mary" article in the newspaper here. Better to let it lie...

The swindler, the prostitute, and the imam

2006-03-20T11:51:00.002-06:00

It all began on or about Ashura, which is the Sh’ite holy day commemorating the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali. The imagery of Ashura is a rather unnerving to us Westerners, with its hordes of chanting believers flagellating themselves with chains, sometimes until the fleshy parts of the back and shoulders turn into ribbons of blood.

Thankfully, Azerbaijan is largely free of this sort of zealotry. But this year, Ashura came at precisely the wrong moment, dovetailing with the zenith of the Danish cartoon controversy. On February 11th, a small cell of Ashura observers ran down the Targova here in Baku, frightening even Azeris who just wanted to shop, thank you.

But amidst all the embassy-burning in places such as Pakistan, something happened here in little ol’ Azerbaijan which somehow flew under the West’s radar. And today, after researching this for four weeks in my usual miss-the-deadline fashion, I am mulling over whether to shop the story out to any newspapers or magazines (Security Watch isn’t gonna buy it) or just write it off as a waste of time and money.

What happened is this: a small-circulation local tabloid (I mean that in the literal sense rather than in the pop-culture sense, i.e. it’s a small, one-section newspaper instead of a broadsheet) called Yeni Xeber published an article on February 11 entitled “The Wild West’s Attack on the East.”

This article was, in a word, nuts. In the piece, the author refers to Jesus Christ as a “swindler” and to Mary as “a prostitute.” Wait, it gets better (worse): the war between Christendom and Islam began with Princess Diana lying in the bed of a Muslim man (Dodi Fayed). And you Western men? Your impotence is such that – well, never mind. The entire harangue is pasted below.

Every Azeri friend who has seen it is deeply embarrassed, ashamed. And that is the nub of my problem: do I submit an article of my own detailing the background and the recent court appearance of the editor? (The court appearance was, believe me, an anti-climax. He was sued for libel by a government official in a court action that did not even mention the Jesus and Mary article.)

If I submit the piece and it gets printed, it would certainly not excite even a tiny fraction of the anger that the Danish cartoons caused. Which has been my point all along in talking about this issue with my more pious Azeri friends. I mean, what can you do but laugh out loud (as I did as well as two American lawyers to whom I showed the newspaper) when this infantile “journalist” declares that every foreign man’s wife in Baku “has tasted at least 10-12 Azeri men.”

The sexual subtext is everywhere, and only serves to make what would have been merely a rabid diatribe into something incredibly funny – and sad.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that I don’t want stupid people in the West to think that this sort of tantrum – which is truly vicious at times – is at all indicative of what people think here in Azerbaijan.

Besides, as an Imam lectured to me today, this story is old news. At least it is here. He wouldn’t comment for me on it, even though he also wanted to sue the editor of the paper last month. For the Imam, “this affair is over…nothing good can come of bringing it up again.”

He has a point.

(He has a point even though today he falsely accused me of misquoting him in a previous article in a way that “created trouble for us” at his religious organization. Excuse me, Imam: I checked my transcripts this evening. You were not misquoted. If you want to stay out of trouble with the government, then maybe you shouldn’t say things like, ‘they are supporting Wahaabism.’)

At any rate, he may be right about not revisiting all this nonsense.

But then, he may be wrong. The East needs to see that when an article in an obscure Azerbaijani paper maligns Jesus and Mary in a far worse manner than what the Danish paper did to Muhammad, the reaction in the West is – well, we don’t know yet, do we? That is because the West hasn’t picked up this story.

My guess is that the reaction will be 1) a shrug of the shoulders, because most people don’t read papers and the rest won’t give a damn, or 2) indignation or mild anger from some quarters, or 3) laughter. Mostly 1 and 3, I would think.

People in the West need to see that this sort of thing is possible in a Muslim society, but mostly they need to understand that virtually the entire country felt distress when the article was published. And Muslims need to understand that cultural context is everything. That is because some people here seem to think that if a Muslim paper ever printed insulting cartoons about Jesus, an explosive reaction would occur just as it did in Islamic societies. And of course, that is absurd. And this mistaken assumption says so much about the gulf that separates a truly secular, liberal West from Muslim states that did not experience a Thirty Years’ War, did not enjoy the fruits of an Enlightenment and have not come to similar conclusions about the efficacy of religion intruding on civil society. That’s because for them it isn’t an intrusion at all – religion is society, and even in a secular Muslim state such as Azerbaijan, the whole issue of how societies should be run and what the fundamental premises should be are less settled than you might think.

The Soviet era was for the most part an artificial interregnum for the Muslim republics in the USSR, stifling their cultural development but at the same time imposing an overlay of secular order, with Moscow as the Bolshevik Mecca – actually, Rome is a better analogy, for there has never been a Muslim pope.

OK, that brings us back to my struggle – to submit a piece or let it go.

So what follows for your perusal is the Yeni Xeber article, translated into English by my interpreter and cleaned up by me…

The Wild West’s Attack on the East by Natiq Muxtarli

The publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish “Jyllands-Posten” newspaper deservedly was the reason for the Muslim world’s discontent. But it is incorrect to perceive this only as humiliation by one newspaper against the Prophet of Islam, Allah’s messenger. It is the component of a big attack, administered from one source. It is no coincidence that, while Muslims were peacefully objecting to the newspaper cartoons, successors of the swindler Christ explained that they and their colleagues were uniting to republish these cartoons. It may be said that the cartoons were seen all over the Christian world. A question should be asked: who has done anything to your colleagues that you decided to unite with them? Supposedly, your solidarity was linked to cartoons’ publishing. Heads of all European states dishonorably asked Muslims to respect freedom of speech. They didn’t even blame anyone for outraging the respected portrait of the Prophet Muhammad. America openly passed by this incident. A speaker from the White House stated that there were no such cartoons published in the USA, but if they were published, the White House would not object. It was an open call for newspapers to insult the Prophet Muhammad. Hence, all these were components of the plan were mapped out beforehand. It is an attack of savage Christians against Muslims. It can also be called a second Crusade.

It is not a secret that nowadays sensible people increasingly are coming to Islam. Europe and America cannot deny this. In fact, mighty Allah saw that the swindler Jesus, the son of the prostitute Mary, was not able to lead people to wisdom. He sent his last messenger to the Earth and by this he showed that the only way of achieving this wisdom is through Islam. But a number of psychopathic heads of states in the Christian world were from time to time under the influence of that god. They conducted military and nonmilitary struggles against Islam. The foundation of the attack that began today was laid when American troops entered Afghanistan. This attack started when bombing and outraging of Islamic holy places in Iraq occurred. Those who were not able to be husbands to their spouses saw the sin in Islam. What was Prophet Muhammad’s sin when women from Bush’s, Chirac’s and Blair’s countries come into ecstasy when they see Muslim men? Maybe this war broke out when British Princess Diana lay in the bed of a Muslim man. They couldn’t come to terms with the princess’s betrayal. They saw the sin in Islam. And that is the reason why they killed both of them in a terrorist act. Those who cause terror on a governmental level blame Islam for terror. It is proper to discover Princess Diana’s betrayal not in Islam, but in the character of the prostitute Mary. Anyway, those who pray to Jesus crucify him today. The most merciless Muslim couldn’t invent a more irrational torture than crucifixion. Those who supposed themselves to be civil were engaging in such brutal acts periodically. One can expect any brutality from those who crucify their prophets. Don’t doubt that they are savages inside. I saw that Englishmen are savages after watching their movies. I always doubted that these madmen could be civilized when I saw what they have done to local population of America, Scotland and Ireland. This was the madness of the English that made the Irish become terrorists. Even now, when the national anthem of England is played at a football match, the Scottish simultaneously whistle. Nations forget nothing. This madness will never disappear. Today also, one can witness the brutality of Jesus’s successors. These fools act with condescension to our state and people. They export our oil, they mock us. They cannot show respect for a man. Because respect for a man is distant from Christianity. It can be found only in Islam. Foreigners’ wives living in Baku with pleasure consort with our men. Their “men” hate us because each one’s wife has tasted at least 10-12 Azeri men and has thus understood what a real man’s temperament is like.

Europe today is becoming rapidly brutalized. It is ordinary there now if a pupil takes a gun and shoots his classmates, teachers and parents. This is not the “clash of civilizations” mentioned by American scholar Samuel Huntington. It is the fight of the West with the civilized East. Today the West is rapidly advancing in years, but the East becomes younger. Old age will lead to impotence. And then, willingly or unwillingly, they will submit to the East. Yet there are Bush, Tony and Jacques with blood on their teeth who don’t understand this, or if they do understand, they do not accept it. They still keep fighting. Against Allah’s will. No matter how many times they brand us as terrorists, the foundation of faith moves rapidly toward Mohammed. This movement is for salvation, for returning to humanity. Sooner or later, the world will be totally converted to Islam, and will become beautiful and filled with light. It is impossible to possess this beauty and light by submitting to the prostitute Mary’s swindler son Jesus. Fools, you know perfectly that this beauty was sent to the universe in the form of Muhammad. You know this, but your characteristics of impotence and prostitution don’t allow you to admit this. But you will. Truth is with us. Allah is almighty!

PS: Christians who don’t agree with what is written here – let them accept this as an example of freedom of speech! Let them accept this as you accepted the outrage against the Prophet Muhammad.

"Hell Killers"

2006-03-11T00:31:00.000-06:00

Walking south along Rasul Raza Street on Thursday afternoon on my way home from the Foreign Ministry, I snapped some urbanscapes with a cheap but excellent Kodak digital camera - including this shot...

Nagorno-Karabakh: some thoughts on war and the absence of war

2006-03-02T12:02:00.000-06:00

A political post, for once…

My article for Security Watch on the failed Azerbaijan-Armenia peace talks in France appears here

The Nargorno-Karabakh war (1992-94) was a vicious, brutal affair, if you can somehow prioritize the violence and brutality of wars – some being not so bad as wars go, others because of the methods used or the savagery aroused seeming to touch something visceral in us that we would rather not confront, at least in peacetime.

That’s the insidious danger of war, I think: the feelings of group-identity and tribal affiliation are an ingrained part of being human, and even if we have lived alongside another tribe for eons, we so often welcome the opportunity of shedding the garments of civilization for the delirious intoxication of killing. What triggers this lust for violence is a deeply rooted genetic marker - as deeply rooted as our need for cooperation, one should hasten to add.

The state is not the primary driving force here, but one that structures and rationalizes ethnic or tribal identity: the State as Leviathan, the State as the grand superstructure that brings “meaning” to our brutality as well as our collective notions of truth and virtue and justice.

As Randall Jarrell said in his most famous poem:

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

And Wilfred Gibson in his poem "Back":

They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

I’d very much like to know if the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) war produced a poetic tradition in either country. Azerbaijan is a society that, like many Muslim countries, honors its poets. I’ll have to find out and post what I discover in the near future. I’d like to think that the poetry is as reflective and compassionate as that found in Britain or Germany or America after the two world wars. But I’m going to guess that it’s not.

The lingering, open wound from the NK war is the one topic that binds Azeris, at least binding them in a kind of mournful retribution pact – a retribution that will almost certainly not come in the next decade, if ever. Both countries are mired in history and unlike Saul Bellow’s “woman of bittah-ness,” there is no willingness to take the blow without ultimate revenge.

The latest news here on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is that it is dead. At least, that seems to be what President Aliyev is saying. Actually, he said yesterday that the talks with Armenia are at “a dead end.” The phrase “dead end” when applied to the talks (or applied to anything else, for that matter) has a finality about it: dead end = dead. “Dead end” doesn’t mean “in a state of suspended animation.” It means “no way out,” “dead,” i.e. not living, devoid of life, moribund, expired…

Dead.

As I told a source in the Azerbaijani government recently, I don’t pretend to know what the true nature of the government’s strategy is, but I think there are very few possibilities: 1) they are stalling for time, 2) their strategy has changed drastically, or 3) their strategy was mis-read all along.

Possibility 1 suggests that the president believes that the re-acquisition of NK is impossible and that he will grudgingly accept a plebiscite somewhere down the road. This has been the judgment of the international community for some time, and I am beginning to think that this was a fundamentally flawed interpretation.

Thus, possibility 3 means that the “Prague Process” – at least as understood by the Azerbaijanis – may simply have been a way to wrest control from Armenia of the seven occupied regions surrounding NK in the short term while making zero commitments regarding the future status of NK proper.

So the Azerbaijani understanding was: Prague Process = acquisition of 7 regions + major gains now, no agreement to future plebiscite.

The Armenian understanding was the reverse: Prague Process = 5 of 7 regions given back to Azerbaijan + status quo for NK now, with commitment to plebiscite.

If both of the above are true, then for at least a year and a half, certain think tanks as well as the OSCE Minsk Group may have been hearing what they wanted to hear. So when the two presidents agreed to meet at Rambouillet on 10 February, there was a sense of misplaced optimism fueled by the OSCE, which then quickly crashed in flames at the negotiating table.

And here in Baku, a silly story about the Armenian president getting orders from Moscow in the men’s room explains everything.

# 2 above is also plausible, especially given recent discussions in Baku that “maybe we ought to at least talk about the implications of this referendum idea.” But if that was a serious option, it is either now completely off the table or it is being re-packaged for presentation at a later date.

The next few months are critical. It should be obvious by the autumn, let’s say, whether the plebiscite really is dead (along with the Prague Process) or whether President Aliyev intends to revive it. If so, look for a softening in the anti-Armenian rhetoric and an emphasis on “dialogue.”

You can’t make peace easily with a people you’ve been demonizing for over 14 years. If indeed you have already come to terms with the notion that you’re never going to get NK back, then perhaps the best you can do is take what you can get.

One cannot spend any time in Baku without being overwhelmed by the degree to which the Armenian people have become “the other” – an overused expression in political and social analysis, perhaps, but in this case apropos. The hatred for Armenia is deeply ingrained in Azeris, who learn from an early age about Armenia’s treachery, Armenia’s “genocide” against the town of Khojaly (where a massacre did take place), Armenia’s “invented” genocide at the hands of Turkey and its Black Sea to Caspian grand strategy. You can’t turn around one day and suddenly announce to your people that you have reached a painful compromise with Armenia – unless you take years to prepare them for such a day.

The situation is comparatively easy for Armenians, since they won the war. They don’t need to paint the Azeris as “evil” or as the head of the Karabakh Liberation Organization put it to me last week while referring to Armenia, “one of the worst nations of the world.” This man, Akif Nagi, also has deep contempt for the Russians – a common view here, at least with respect to NK.

What about the Russians? This brings us to possibility #4.

Russia, like any great power, expects something in return for being the “guarantor” (as they are fond of saying) of any future peace settlement.

And some people here suggest that the key to any settlement lies with Russia. Since the only “key” that is acceptable to Azerbaijan must include an eventual return of NK that includes some kind of sovereignty, then the Russians will have to lean hard on their regional ally and client state Armenia. Its president, Robert Kocharian, won’t like that one bit, so he will have to be persuaded. Or cajoled, or assured, or threatened.

Why would Russia do such a thing? Because they will get something in return from Azerbaijan – seen as America’s ally if not its client state. Russia will enjoy renewed power and prestige, perhaps economic concessions from Azerbaijan and most unsettling of all for the US, deeper military ties that will weaken America’s relationship with Azerbaijan as well as its overall presence on Russia’s southern flank. And then America’s only staunch ally in the Caucasus will be Georgia: weak, faltering, torn by at least two of its own separatist movements, both of which are supported by…Russia.

That’s a huge payoff for the Russians as well as for Azerbaijan. President Aliyev will be hailed as a national savior. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s latest Tsar, will be seen as a great statesman. And the US will be reduced to the role of an onlooker.

I’m not saying all this will happen. But it’s an intriguing possibility. We shall see…

Happy birthday Xumar!

2006-02-23T10:54:00.000-06:00

Whenever you walk in Fountain Square and hear the electronic voices calling, "Pabroak a Shalla!" you will think of me. As the Siberians say, you are often dendrubie, or sometimes, sadly, denbruzie. Take a flaxnor to Novosibirsk and ask them! Perhaps you are enjoying gouruk now, da? And birthday cake. Goodbye, and happy birthday!

Sea Police, mirrors, and other perquisites...

2006-02-16T10:06:00.001-06:00

Baku is so alien to anyone's conceptions of serenity and peace that my psyche is still in shock one week after landing here. Unrelenting noise and anonymous, casual aggression are everywhere: in the way people push each other on sidewalks, the shouting, the aftermarket car horns that blare at 120db.

Any major city is affected with these ills, of course: the rattier parts of Chicago's Bucktown or south side, west LA, Downtown Eastside in Vancouver.

But in Baku there is almost no escape from this disturbing social contract that codifies a thousand petty abuses every day. And then there are the grim Khrushchevkas, Leningrad Projects, and Stalinkas that are everywhere in Baku as well as the rest of the former USSR: mile after mile after mile of monolithic worker housing blocks, huge pods of hulking concrete organisms in an endless urban sea of grey.

Unlike the typical five-story Khrushchevka plan, the Leningrad Project apartment buildings can be ten stories high and take up a city block. And the Stalinkas are even larger. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev promised that there would be affordable housing for everyone in the Soviet Union, and the resultant spawning of these structures (named after him in casual usage) in the 1950s and '60s did just that: everyone had an adequate place to live. But on aesthetic grounds alone, what these things must do to the soul on a profound and cumulative level should have obviated their construction.

In late 2005, I vowed not to live in a Khrushchevka, so I resided briefly in the Old City and was blessed with a relatively happy existence, aided somewhat by the fact that the Cafe Mozart, the favorite haunt of my primary source in the Azerbaijani government, was a five-minute walk.

And now? Back in a Khrushchevka. Five hundred dollars a month - the two months' rent in advance has totally erased my bank account, and what I get in return is the coldest place I've ever lived in. Oh well.

For three nights last week, I stayed at the apartment of my friend Nina - single mom and possessor of a razor-sharp mind. Actually, it's Nina's mother's apartment. About 500 square feet, with one bedroom. I slept on a cot in the spare room. (I like cots.)

In the bedroom sleep Nina, her daughter, her mother, her grandmother (visiting from Russia) and her teen-aged brother. On Saturday night we had a birthday party for her grandmother. Lots of fun, and we all drank vodka - except for the abstemious Nina.

Her friend who lives next door had a deal for me: I could live in her apartment, which she no longer needed. Well, actually, she would be in the apartment most days. But she would usually sleep at her boyfriend's house. Usually. Otherwise it was mine.

The living room looked like what I imagine is similar to the sitting room in a fin de siecle New Orleans bordello that might have catered to "high class gentlemen": spectacularly florid gold draperies, off-white carpeting, overstuffed cream colored love seats with gold trim. Her bedroom was in a loft gained by ascending a spiral staircase. The bed itself was draped in crimson with lighting afforded by a soft, red incandescent lamp. At the end of the bed, across the stairway entrance, was a large mirror.

She wanted $500 a month.

The following day, I continued my search, which included a visit to an apartment with a partial sea-view, right downtown (not all that far from my present place). There was too much traffic noise, however, and it was $600, so I rejected it. But one feature in its favor was the 800-channel satellite TV.

"You can get 1200 channels if you want," declared the real estate agent as we watched a soft-core Italian porn game show. Evidently, viewers call in every few minutes to vote on who disrobes. I wonder if the TV in my current apartment gets that show.

On the way up the stairs, I noticed an office with "POLIS" stenciled on the doorway.

"A police station?" I queried.

"Yes, police. The building is very safe."

"That's nice," I replied.

"But they are not regular police."

"No?"

"No. They are the Sea Police."

"So if I ever have trouble with a tuna, I'll know who to talk to."

"What?"

Enough trivia. Will post something on the failed Paris peace talks in the next couple of days. That's why I'm here, after all.

Baku thoughts, Pt II

2006-01-14T14:37:00.001-06:00

Despite the often dysfunctional manner in which Azeris behave toward others, it is nevertheless true that I have never been showered with so much love and affection as from my Azeri students – many of whom are now close friends.

If I can go on a tangent momentarily, it has always been a mystery to me why so many foreigners (in the case of Azerbaijan, that means Britons and Americans for the most part) seem to want nothing more from their experience in a strange land than to spend time with one another. What a crashing bore.

I have learned that the one thing that is worse than an irritating, loud American in a foreign land is a loud, irritating Brit – and there are many of those here, 99% of whom are in the oil business in one way or another. And they all make large amounts of money and congregate in expat bars. Inevitably there is the contingent of exotic-looking, tarted-up women (i.e. prostitutes) in these establishments who are drawn to the smell of money. The whole picture is unsavory, which is why I stay out of such places. (That sounds sanctimonious, doesn’t it?)

Generally, therefore, when I see an American or a Brit in Azerbaijan, I run the other way. (Admittedly, this diminishes my opportunities to discuss the topics that fascinate these people such as sports, engineering, money, and, um…sports.)

At any rate, my friends in Baku are Azeri, mostly, with a smattering of Dagestanis, Tartars, Russians, and Kurds.

Daily life in Baku can be very stressful for a variety of reasons. Here is an excerpt from some 2004 observations after a dreary, endless train trip from Tbilisi:

The trip back from Tbilisi was undoubtedly the worst train ride of my life – fifteen hours in an oven. The temperature in the car was, oh, 33 degrees (for you celcius-illiterate Americans, that’s hot) with a humidity of roughly 90%. Had the heating system not been turned on, the body heat from the passengers would have been sufficient to keep the coupes warm and we all could have slept comfortably. But no. I asked the porter if he could do something about the heat, and his response was (through an interpreter), “It is my responsibility to heat the car!” It is your responsibility to make everyone miserable? (His compartment, I noticed, was a comfortable 22 degrees or so because he had a window open. Our windows in the passenger compartments were permanently sealed.) The heating system consisted of a blast furnace at the porter’s end of the car into which he fed bricks of coal. It is his responsibility! Even the Azeris were complaining about the heat – something I didn’t think was possible in a country where the heat is on everywhere in every office every day.

Ten hours into the trip at about 0400, as I stood looking out the window in the passageway, a Georgian passenger explained, “It is old Soviet heating system.”

Wrong. It is old attitudes.

For all its faults (consumerism, vulgarity, overthrowing democratic governments, Pauly Shore…), America is a society built on the principle of change, something which I am beginning to appreciate. But change is held in deep suspicion in many countries, including this one. All they have to do is order the damn porter to turn off the heat. And all they have to do to get the dog to stop defecating and urinating on the stairway inside my apartment building is for the occupants to have a tenants’ meeting and give the dog’s owner an ultimatum. Or to chip in and buy a screen door to keep the dog out. (I’ll even donate 10,000 manat!!) But no. People just accept it because they fear change and avoid initiative at all costs.

There are times when I think that it’s no wonder that the Armenians beat the hell out of the Azerbaijani army with all the buck-passing that goes on here. But a woman from Albania I met recently in Georgia said that it’s a Caucasus-wide attitude. “If you took all the people out of the Caucasus and replaced them with people from America, nothing would change. Within a few months, they would act just like Caucasians! It’s something in the mountains and the air here.”

Lest I sound too lugubrious, my day-to-day life here has many delightful aspects, not the least of which is the celebrity status I enjoy in my neighborhood. I know absolutely everyone – the shopkeepers, the waitresses, the children. I can’t stroll down the sidewalk without my wider community stopping me every few feet and asking “How are you?!” or making hilarious sign-language indicating who is doing what to whom. It is doubtful that overpaid BP engineers from Manchester and Dallas who live in $1200 a month “Euro-style” flats (and believe me, I wish I lived in one!!) have any contact with the real Baku beyond the occasional beggar in the street or the weekly hooker from the Coral Lounge. So I’m very lucky.

Here are some translated expressions (from Azeri English to American English):

“No problem” means “problem.”

“It’s so simple” means “It’s so complicated!”

“You forgot” means “I forgot.”

“Hello my friend!” means “Hello stranger! I wish to manipulate you!”

“Yes” means “no.”

“Maybe” means “no.”

“Is Azeri way” means “Is utterly perplexing.”

The photos:

The girl with (my) tie on is Xumar, who was one of my US Foreign Policy students in 2004, and is now my factotum. Xumar and I are compiling a dictionary of the unique dialect (which we imagine is) spoken in Siberia, which is called “Cyberian” (although I wanted to call it “Siberian,” but have lost that battle). Once we have a hundred words or so and a mastery of elementary sentence structure, we will fly to Novosibirsk or some such place and try out Cyberian on Siberians. (Of course, all the words in Cyberian are nonsense and the products of our vivid imaginations.) We will video the entire expedition.

Xumar and I are also planning a trip to northern Azerbaijan in search of the UFO base which supposedly operates along the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Ira is the girl in the white T-shirt sitting under the Dutch door. She worked in a “doner” (Azerbaijani gyros) shop last year around the corner from my apartment. Ira is very young (17?) and playful and funny. As you can see in the pictures, every new photo reveals an entirely different and unexpected aspect of Ira’s personality.

Sevinj was one of my most dedicated students, and currently works for the Azerbaijan Ombudsman's Office. She is destined to become a diplomat or NGO refugee specialist or perhaps a human rights lawyer. In this photo, she's in a chic Baku restaurant that serves paltry espresso.

Shola is the statuesque woman below. Like Xumar, she was one of my students in 2004 and now is a close friend. Intelligent and accomplished, Shola is working on an advanced degree in linguistics and spent several months in Japan last year.

The little girl is my best friend in Baku. She speaks no English and I speak virtually no Azerbaijani or Russian, but whenever we see each other, she will talk non-stop about her life, news, whatever. Apart from being irresistibly adorable, Ulduz (the word means “star”) is amazingly bright.

More on daily life in Baku later...

Baku thoughts, Pt I

2006-01-12T21:41:00.000-06:00

My initial post...these are images of Baku, Azerbaijan, where I live from time to time. These photos are from my first soujourn to Baku, where I was an academic Fellow, teaching international relations at two universities.

Since then, I have been back recently to write articles on Caucasus current events for a Swiss web publication, and will return in early February. But more about that later...

For now, I want to give you a sense of Baku and its people - or at least a vanishing Baku, of crumbling facades and aging patinas, and some people who are very special, at least to me.

Baku is three cities, as most Azeris will tell you: the Old City (the Icheri Sheher), the "boom town" and "Baku Soviet." The Old City, where I lived in October-December of 2005, is the original, ancient Baku, founded over 800 years ago, and surrounded by a walled fortification. Thus, I literally lived inside the city walls, which still stand. But in 2004, when I first lived in Baku, my apartment was situated on the confluence between the boom town, which describes the Baku built up during the oil boom of the late 1800's, and Baku (or "Baki," which is how the locals pronounce it) Soviet - the sprawling, infinitely grey Baku of endless, grim apartment blocks and government buildings, typical of virtually any Soviet city. "Modern," classless, worker housing, dotted at the outskirts of the city with factories - many of them abandoned. And the oil derricks on the Absheron peninsula - oil derricks and bubbling pools of petroleum everywhere.

When I didn't have to study for a lecture, I spent a good bit of time just exploring the neighborhoods and side streets of Baki Soviet and the boom town. Carrying my old Nikon, I began chronicling the Baku I knew, which is now disappearing in the fenzy of construction projects as the city reinvents itself as "new" and (there's that word again) "modern."

So, the photos: the cityscapes speak for themselves, for the most part. The fantastic graffito is on the same side street as #197 (see the photo of the wall with 197 on the address plaque). The graffito, delightfuly surreal, is still there, although faded now.