happy to be "home"

It's amazing how you can get so used to and comfortable in a place (Tbilisi) without even knowing it, but you appreciate it after being away in a less familiar land...

Our long weekend trip turned into the majority of a week trip when we returned on Tuesday around noon to Tbilisi. Somehow I thought that overnight train meant that it was only during the night, even though I heard it was going to take around 16 hours. For the record, I am done with overnight trains for a long, long time, especially when it is around 90 degrees outside, and the AC only works when the train is moving fairly fast (i.e., not at 4 hour border stops), and especially when Azeri border gards are involved. I thought we might get kicked off the train when Salome shouted at one of them for smacking her on the leg to wake her up and get her passport. (It was totally uncalled for, by the way.) In keeping with their reputation, though, the Georgian border guards were very nice and civil.

So let's start with the good things. Like I had heard, Baku was indeed the most modern of all the capitals of the Caucasus countries. Its oil wealth was apparent, and unlike Tbilisi, most buildings looked freshly painted kept up with, at least outwardly. The geography is much drier and more arid than Georgia, and the city definitely has more of a Middle Eastern flavor combined with the Soviet and European. There was a large, very European and pleasant pedestrian section that held many nice clothing stores (of which we visited some). We got there around 9 on Saturday morning, and since I had some kind of respiratory allergy all night, I had barely slept and felt awful. Fortunately the others picked up the slack and found us a comfortable, cheap hotel. We went from there into the historical walled city part of Baku, which I loved. Its windy streets climbed a moderately-sized hill, at the top of which stood the Palace of the Shirvan-Shahs. It included a mosque, bath, and apartments with beautifully carved stone and wood, and courtyards filled with hibiscus and pomegranate trees. Also, around the courtyards there were lots of stone tablets filled with Arabic and human and animal forms that had been rescued from a mosque somewhere else in Azerbaijan that were really fascinating. Then we went to the Maiden's Tower, whose function is not really known, but one of the legends is that one ruler wanted to marry his own daughter, so she had him build her a huge tower to prove his love, and then when it was done, she jumped off it to her death (or something like that). It had great views of the city stretching out to the Caspian Sea. We spent a good amount of time walking through the old city and poking our heads in carpet/tourist shops, and I picked up a few nice scarves for gifts for the people I've been working with in Tbilisi.

Saturday night we picked out a few restaurants that the Lonely Planet book said had authentic Azeri food and some belly dancing and asked the taxi driver that hung out outside the hotel to take us to one. He instead suggested that he take us to a much better, cheaper, and more authentic Azeri place that also had belly dancing, so we thought, what the hell. We got a little suspicious when the cab ride took more than 5 minutes and seemed to be heading away from the center, but when we arrived to a parking lot filled with very nice cars, we started to feel better. We walked into a kind of garden filled with tables and lights, a stage where a live band was playing Azeri music, and absolutely no other foreigners- it was great! Fortunately for us, Salome speaks Russian, as do most other people in the region, so she could do a little better with ordering food for us. The food we were brought was probably the most beautiful spread I had ever seen. (I tried taking a picture, but it was dark and didn't come out well.) They brought two plates each of fruits- plums and little red berries, a plate of tarragon, parsely, and a cilantro-like herb, one of delicious cheese, yeast bread and flat bread, and fresh vegetables to start. Then we had two types of salads with cooked vegetables and chicken with mayonaise-like dressing, and for the grand finale, a beautiful plate of Azeri shashlyk (kebabs), with beef ribs and ground meat of some sort that was wonderful. We definitely partook in the dancing (more on that later) and really had a nice time.

Sunday was cool, cloudy, and a little rainy, so we decided to not go to the other side of the Abseron Peninsula to find a beach. Instead, we did a lot of shopping both for normal clothes and for souveneirs in the touristy street market, and then we went down to the waterfront for some beers and doner kebap. (At about $1-2 for a huge sandwich with fresh veggies on it, we had this very frequently.) We went to another Azeri restaurant and ate another delicious meal with much the same food, but this time with some other traditional food (I forgot the name) which is bread with meats (this time chicken and peas and stuff) baked inside. It reminded me of a chicken pot pie.

Monday we traveled 10 or so miles outside the city to visit the Zoroastrian fire-worshiping temple. Because the huge amounts of gas and oil in the region, there used to be spontaneous fire coming from holes in the ground there, and so the fire-worshipers built a temple around it. I read that now it is artificially fed with natural gas pipes, but it was still cool. We returned to the city and took a little ferry ride around the bay of Baku before getting back on the train for a long trip back.

So as I hinted, there were things that were not so good... we had become used to the enthusiastic hospitality and friendliness of the Georgians, and the Armenians were more or less indifferent to our appearance in their country. But the Azeris gave us a different feeling- they were somewhat suspicious, and at times somewhat hostile to our presence, in a way that made most of us feel uneasy for some or all of the trip. The most obvious manifestation of this attitude was at our first dinner on Saturday night, the great authentic Azeri restaurant. Perhaps it wasn't so good to go so authentic. We seemed to attract a lot of attention, first of all by being young foreigners, and second of all, with our exhuberant at the food, drink and dancing. In Georgia, people would probably be delighted if you appeared to be enjoying yourself that much with their culture; in Azerbaijan, they didn't seem so. While we were dancing (not at all provacatively by our standards), perhaps because us 3 girls and 2 guys were dancing together (not kosher in this Muslim country?), perhaps because we were being loud at dinner, perhaps because we were not welcome in general and from the start, an Azeri guy on the dance floor flashed an Exacto blade at Julian. There were other factors as well that made us feel unwelcome: from the beginning, the embassy gave us a hard time and made us pay $100 for the visa. Border guards were really rude and unnecessarily harsh. While one of the hotel desk workers was extremely friendly, another commented to Salome that we shouldn't have gotten such a good deal on our rooms and that it was strange that men and women were staying together (even in two rooms joined by one bathroom). Cashiers were unfriendly. There were some exceptions, but generally we weren't left with a good taste in our mouths. It's not that this kind of attitude is malicious (well, except for pulling a razor on someone), but it was cold and it was not expected by any of us, including Salome, and it took us by surprise.

So for that reason and others (like I hadn't had a shower for 3 days), it was great yesterday to get back "home" to Tbilisi. I took a 20 minute shower and brushed my teeth for 5 minutes straight. We went out to our favorite Khinkali House, where my love of Georgians was reaffirmed by this little gesture: I have been looking all over for a Kazbegi (Georgian beer) beer mug to take home. We were served beer in them at Khinkali House. Salome mentioned to the waitress that I had been looking for one and where could I find one. So, not only did the waitress ask her manager if they could gift me one (he said no), she told us that she wouldn't count the glasses when we left, and then she actually took one of the empty glasses, washed it, and brought it back so that I wouldn't have to drip beer in my purse when I stole it. It was amazing. I really haven't seen people so consistently this generous anywhere I've been, and I'm surely going to miss that when I leave.