My Christmas in Azerbaijan

Personal Note to my readers! As many of you already know, since Thanksgiving I have a new partner in crime in my adventures in Azerbaijan. I’ve mentioned Mike in round about ways in some of my previous entries but I thought it was time to make the official announcement so that clarifies the ‘we’ in my blog entries. Having him to travel around with was the best Christmas present!

I had a great Christmas this year! I’m actually surprised because that doesn’t usually happen when I’m abroad. I started the holiday by taking a 7 and a half hour bus ride to Baku on Friday December 22nd. I think it gets longer every time. They are doing construction on the road (its about time!!) but their pavement eater is way ahead of the pavement replacer so half of the drive is on a dirt/ or in this case mud as it was pouring rain- which of course did not add to our traction! But we arrived safely in Baku just in time for the rain to turn to snow!!! It was absolutely beautiful but horrific at the same time. I thought Azeri drivers were bad on dry roads- its so much worse on snow. They have NO IDEA how to drive in snow. I got to the bus station- and made my way to the metro- anyway- I don’t want to go into too much detail and bore you all to death- so I got my room at the Absheron with a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers- they were having training the past week so I had a cheap place to stay.

In the evening we went to another Caravansarai (see blog about Sheki) this one was even more rustic and spectacular and had a great dinner- well great for Azeri food. I have to admit that I have become less then enthusiastic about Azerbaijani cuisine. It’s basic ingredient is oil. And it is really quite repetitive. Not a lot of variety in the different dishes. But I digress as usual this is supposed to be about Christmas and not about food. The Caravanserai was very atmospheric- we had our own little private cavern with big gas stove. We were probably the only customers in the place but they had an Azeri band- playing tastefully (for once and not at 10,000 decibels) outside in the central courtyard. I have also become less than enthusiastic about Azerbaijan traditional music. Because I hear it in every corner here it is really starting to grate on my nerves.
So we spent a couple of days in Baku- living the ex-pat life on a less than ex-pat budget, but having a good time pretending we had tons of money.

We spent Christmas Eve on the night train to Mingachavir- a small city on the largest reservoir in Azerbaijan, where Mike is working and has to stay. The train ride was amusing as usual. I love taking the train-especially the night train. They provide you with cute little sheets and blankets with trains printed on them and the conductors wake you up hours before the train reaches the station. Then they will rip the sheets out from under you if you are still in your bed when they want to collect the bedding. Its pretty funny, unless of course you are the one in the sheets.

Anyway this trip was amusing because we were getting off in Mingachavir, which doesn’t really have a station. The old woman conductor woke us up around 6:00 and then we scurried around our little cubicle organizing our things and went to the door. The woman kept opening the train door and sticking her head out to see where we were. Finally the train slowed down- but there were no station lights to be found and the woman practically threw us off the train with our baggage after us. There was no platform so the landing was a little hard. It also happened to be the foggiest night I had experienced here so we had no means of orientation. Because the station is not directly in the city its actually about 15 km outside we had to make sure we got a taxi for the ride into town because it’s a long walk in the pitch dark. So Mike ran in what we hoped to be the right direction to get a taxi before it was filled up. Thanks to his nimbleness we secured our transport and started our journey into Mingachavir and passing several travelers who were not so successful in their taxi hailing skills. We embarked upon one of the scariest car rides ever. As I mentioned before, it was foggy, very foggy and drivers- as with snow- do not take weather conditions into account and still drive at breakneck speed down winding roads with practically 0 visibility. I just shut my eyes and hoped that I still had a few of my nine lives left.
After about twenty minutes we finally entered the city and went to find a hotel room but all were closed at so early an hour. So we went back into the city center and picked up another taxi to go to Mike’s host family to wait out the morning until we could find a better place to say. “why not stay the whole time with Mike’s host family” you may be thinking. Which is a good question. His family is not overly keen on Mike being there much less on him having guests- especially female guests. So we could only sneak in and hope she didn’t throw us back out onto the street.

Because we couldn’t stay with Mike’s host family we had to go and find a hotel. Ordinarily in a city of over 50,000 people hotels should not be hard to come by. In Azerbaijan it is a different story. About mid-day we hailed a cab to take us to the one semi-decent hotel in town. Peace Corps staff stays there when they do site visits, so it couldn’t be, too bad! Despite the dubious outer gate and hotel exterior the place didn’t seem incredibly awful. One of the guys there showed us to our accommodations. It was this big cement ‘cabin’ complete with two rooms, bathroom, plunge pool and sauna! Of course the plunge pool was empty (see picture) and the sauna was out of commission. It was very strange to say the least. All seemed to be going well- we were working out a deal with the hotel manager when he asked us if we were married. Being the silly honest people that we are we said no. Then he proceeded to tell us that we could not stay in the same cabin together, we would have to rent two rooms. We argued with him for quite some time about this when he finally agreed to let us stay together but we had to pay a higher price. I guess it was an immorality fee. Then he wanted to show us all the luxuries of the room- especially the cable TV. which made the price of the room worth it. He flips on the TV.and we get a glimpse of some extremely explicit pornography. I really thought my eyeballs were going to burn off. He doesn’t seem overly concerned – doesn’t even apologize to us. But after he left we had quite a laugh about the irony of the situation.
After settling we decided to enjoy the beautiful and WARM day- it was probably around 50 and took a long walk around town and then headed out to the reservoir. We definitely took the scenic and more pungent route, over muddy paths and through cow patties. The views, however, were well worth the dirty tromp. We had a lovely although not overly nutritious Christmas lunch and enjoyed the scenery, this is one of the few beautiful places here in Azerbaijan. (see pictures). After walking back on a more well-traveled road we had a real dinner at a local Turkish restaurant. The other highlight of the Christmas holiday was a very random party that Mike and other Peace Corps Volunteers in Mingachavir were invited to. Lots of singing and Azeri dancing as well as belly dancing and a visit from Schaxta Baba and the Gar Giz (Santa and his granddaughter the snow girl) It was really surreal- especially the hip-hop version of jingle bells. This was another unforgettable Christmas.