Ch 42: Day 5: Heading to the Iranian Border

11.2 kms, Sept 1, 2012

Taking the Baku metro feels a bit like a trip through time. At the top the Old City station is an elegant, glass structure, where you can either buy a rechargeable card, or wait by the recharging machine and give someone money to recharge their card--and they'll swipe you in.

But as the escalator plunges into the bowels of Baku, it takes on a more old Soviet feel, with stern women in uniform watching people as they go up and down the escalators. The signs are few, confusing and not necessarily correct. Even though there are just a couple of lines, you can easily get confused, as different trains run on the same line.

The Traveler takes his time, wandering around Baku's huge, multi-story bus station. It is nice to finally be able to read signs in the Latin alphabet.

he Azeri alphabet has an interesting history, he later learns. Once written only in the Perso-Arabic script (and still is, in Iran), in the 1920s, they decided to follow step with Turkey and switch to the Latin alphabet... then just a few years later came the Soviet takeover and they switched to the Cyrillic script... then in 1991, they went back to the the Latin script.

This is sort of symbolic of Azerbaijan's confusing identity search, here forever a country "in between".

Not wanting to be inefficient as other Latin alphabet languages like English (why the hell do we need 4 letters that make the "k" sound?) They decided to be more resourceful and put the redundant letters to use. So the Q is used for the "gh" sound, and the X is used for the throaty "kh" sound, and the C is for the "zh" sound. Makes sense to me...

They also taken their most common vowel sound the phonetic upside down e... and... kept it as an upside down e! This might've worked well if it weren't for the internet age. Trying to look up a Azerbaijani city on the internet can be frustrating--as there's the official spelling, then a bunch of alternate spellings on the internet for users who haven't figured out how to type the upside down e!

Good try Azerbaijan. Too bad the rest of the world hasn't followed suit and uncluttered their alphabets and made them purely phonetic!

After checking out numerous options, the Traveler finally opts for a mini-bus that is headed straight south, to the Iranian border. Seems like a good way to start his exploration of this country.

Village on the Border

It seems like a very nondescript, forgettable town with quiet streets lined with long generic walls. But Astara, Azerbaijan is in fact a significant spot on this globe. This is a border town. To the south of this border is Iran, the former seat of the Great Persian Empire. A proud nation and culture that has defied European conquest and colonization since the time of the Romans. To the north and west of this border is what was once the Mighty Soviet Empire which stretched from the frozen tundra to the fiery Middle East.

Does this mean that this is the border of Asia and Europe? The Traveler wonders. If so, then Astara is the south-easternmost corner of the great continent of Europe.

Later he learns...yes... technically he is now in Europe. Most “official” maps and country lists put Azerbaijan in the Europe Club.

Or is it? The more he learns about this country, the harder it is to put it in any specific category.

A few things he will quickly learn: first of all, folks are very friendly and curious to learn about this unusual stranger in their midst. It only takes a few minutes of wandering around Astara, and a group of jolly fellows at a mechanic shop invite him for tea and ask him to play some songs for them.

Fortunately Azeris a quite good with hand gestures, and the Traveler soon learns how to carry on a simple conversation that goes something like:

“(turning a light bulb gesture) What are you doing here?”

“(Walking gesture) (looking around gesture) (taking pictures gesture) (playing guitar gesture)”

“(Come and drink some tea gesture)”

Later on “are you married? (points to ring finger)”

“Yes... I have two children (pats child's head gesture)”

And so it goes...

Azerbaijan and Women

Another thing that abruptly changes from the Middle East to Azerbaijan, is the attitude towards women and female modesty. In all the Middle East, except in Jewish Israel, a woman defines herself by how much skin she covers. Showing a lot of skin is interpreted as being of “loose” morals. It can even mean that she is bringing shame on her family—and she is asking for constant harassment on the streets, if not worse. And older women almost universally dress in a conservative manner.

But in Azerbaijan, everything abruptly changes. The Traveler sees a young girl in a skimpy dress go by a group of men... he watches their reaction... and none of them even glance at her. In all his travels in Azerbaijan, he never once sees a girl being harassed or made uncomfortable on the street. Quite the opposite: here you still see old fashioned chivalry as men will stand on a bus to offer his seat to a woman—or squeeze over so a two seat bench can become a 3 seat bench. And most older women dress just a women do in Western Europe.

The Traveler learns most Azeri women are in fact quite conservative when it comes to dating and sexuality—however, that has nothing to do with how they dress—they can dress however they like.

The funny thing is, that while men don't ogle or harass women, they do seem to be very attentive to what the Traveler is wearing! One day when it's pouring down rain, he is wearing plastic sandals, while most other folks are trudging through the streets-turned-rivers in expensive leather shoes. And yet several guys approach him, point to his feet and ask why he's wearing such inappropriate footwear!

The Traveler is quite intrigued at the sudden change in behavior towards women. He knows that religion does play a major role in how woman are perceived in public. Many Muslims see a woman's modesty as a core principle of religion. If a woman is a “good” Muslim, she should not dress in a way that makes here noticeable to men other than her husband, to arouse their lust. So in these countries, men will be very quick to notice and brand a woman as a “loose” woman, if she's not dressed by their standard of “purity”.

But Azerbaijan is a predominantly Muslim country as well. And yet, men don't seem to have that same obsession with needing to control women's attire. If a women passes by that makes them feel aroused or lustful, they're able to simply suppress those desires and not do anything rude or disrespectful.

It seems that here men are taught from early childhood that THEY have the power to control themselves and behave politely, no matter what. That is their job, not the job of women.

The Traveler wonders... was it the years under Soviet rule that retrained Azeri men to think differently? It it because people are less religious here that makes them more likely to mind their own business and be respectful of women in public?

In the miles ahead, as the Traveler wanders through the Islamic Middle East and secular Europe, this topic will come back again and again. It turns out, when men feel they need to control how all women dress in public, there are a whole host of social issues that come up. He thoughts will often go back to Azerbaijan for reference... a country where Islam and a very liberal dress code seem to go side by side.

Parks, but no Jobs

From the border town of Astara, the Traveler makes his way north, past hill covered with jungle like foillage. This place feels more like the tropics than the Middle East—or Europe for that matter. It turns out that this is just one of Azerbaijan's many climate zones packed into this small country.

With no really clear idea as to where to go and what to see, he just takes a bus to the next town on his map north: Lankaran.

He reaches the outskirts of Lankaran, where he gets off, as the the minibus is bypassing the town. Here he starts his walk into town, by what looks like a dreary Soviet -era factory. It is a tea processing plant, across a river and into the town, which seems to still be running, as workers are trudging alongside him, heading back home.

Across a bridge... and into the city... or is he? Here he is reminded of the spacious Soviet style cities of Central Asia, with no real urban “core”, just a very spread out square in the center. Lankaran has a a huge, nicely trimmed park/plaza in the center with monuments to the soldiers and of course, as in all Azerbaijani towns, a monument to Heydar Aliyev, the first ruler of Azerbaijan after its independence from the Soviet Union.

The Traveler pulls out his guitar to play a few songs. A fellow sits down beside, and to the Traveler's pleasant surprise, the man speaks English.

“I'm part Russian, part Siberian, part Azeri” he explains to the Traveler. “But I grew up here in Lankaran”.

He goes on to painta picture of this region that is quite different from what the Traveler expected to hear. "There used to be 7 factories here in Lankaran providing work for people. Now there are none. People used to have steady jobs and a guaranteed retirement. Now everything is uncertain.”

“What is the government doing for us? It's building big fancy parks in every city of Azerbaijan. But what are we going to do if we have parks but no jobs? We can't live without jobs! It's sad, but the only real option for many of us is to go to Russia.”

This is a puzzling realization for the Traveler. He remembers learning about economics from the Western perspective. He was told that communism is a cruel dysfunctional system where little gets done. Western capitalism is a wonderful system where everyone has jobs, opportunities and hope for a better future.

But clearly, when the Soviet Union opened itself up to capitalism, things did not get better here in places like Lankaran. They got worse... much worse. Most of the jobs disappeared.

Someone might argue that the factories here simply weren't competitive in the free market and needed to be shut down. Maybe the system was doomed to fail sooner or later. Maybe not. Maybe a middle road could've been found eventually.

What is clear is that the lives of many common people did not get better after the fall of communism. And now, 20 years later it seems many of them feel that things still aren't better.

The Traveler wanders around the town a bit, seeing more signs that things are worse now then before. There's a dliapidated train station... Now only one train a day leaves from here to Baku.

Near the station a somber memorial is set up. It shows images of the people who died in a massacre perpetrated by the Armenians in the war between the two countries in the 90s. (This is their side of the story... the Armenians probably don't call it a “massacre”). As in Central Asia, when the Soviet Union fell apart, old ethnic rivalries suddenly sparked back to life in this part of the world. Armenians and Azeris, who had lived together in the same cities peacefully under Soviet rule, suddenly became bitter enemies as they fought over territory and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee from one country to the other.

Yet another side effect of the sudden fall of the Soviet Empire...

Finally, after wandering around town a good bit, the Traveler finally finds a cheap hotel to spend the night in. He happily drops off his things, then heads out to soak in this city a bit more...