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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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I had the oppurtunity to go to Azerbaijan, and I seized it.
When life gives you lemons you make lemonade amirite?
Azerbaijan is a Muslim majority country in Asia, home to 10 million people.
Almost everyone speaks Azerbaijani, and a lot of people speak Russian.
It's capital, Baku, is also a Formula 1 host city.
Azerbaijan in the World Map (JPG, 70KB)
Baku means "where the wind blows" in Persian.
Being in a former Soviet republic, it's streets and architecture is similar to other formerly USSR countries.
Baku is simply mesmerising. While not having the best city planning, it's beauty still shines.
Without leaving the city, I saw: Oil rigs in the sea, USSR era buildings, Skyscrapers, an olympic stadium, a UNESCO recognized culture center, a carpet museum, and more!
Truly, remarkable!
Baku is a big city of 5 million people. Average Baku resident lives a city life. Talking with them, they said that while the jobs pay well, the rents are high. This lead to a lot people having a home outside Baku, going to Baku to work and/or study **everyday**.
Azerbaijan requires at least 2 doses of Covid-19 vaccination for tourists.
In Baku, like all big cities, there are neighbourhoods a traveller ought to stay out of.
Being a tourist, I stayed out of certain parts of the city. Nothing unplanned happened. I also did not miss any attractions I wanted to see.
This part will include pictures I took, in no particular order, and some text to go along with it!
We were stuck in an elevator! Took some time but they rescued us. We had time that day so it wasn't a major inconvenience :p
Shawarma is the Burger of Azerbaijan. One can find it everywhere varying in prices. We ate at No.1 Shawarma and it tasted amazing!
Being 21st century consumerists and overpriced coffe connoisseurs, we went to Starbucks.
I saw some juice that had nationalistic sayings on it's packaging. Upon Azerbaijan winning the war against Armenia, some companies did these kinds of desings. They were temporary, then became permanent. (or at least thats what my friends said)
The price is 0.8 Azerbaijani Manat (~0.5 USD, time of writing) if bought with a loyalty card.
Baku has a smaller city within it called "icherisheher" translated as Inner City/Old City.
The flags are, again, related to the war. My friends said, Turkey took a major role in Azerbaijan's victory. It had some things to do with drones if I recall?
So people have lots of these flags around.
We went to the "Museum of The Traditional Art of Azerbaijani Carpet Weaving"
This carpet's colors were spectacular.
Info card also says:
Warp, weft - cotton; pile - wool
The carpet was woven on the basis of Tahir Salahov's painting.
This place was a gamer-cafe e-sports arena mix. There wasn't an event the day we visited, so it was just lots of people playing Valorant and CS:GO. (Azerbaijani people love Valorant for some reason 🤷
Sunset and park looked fine together.
The Heydar Aliyev Center has no edges. The building is a single continuous surface folding to form different functions and entrances.
This design is the Azerbaijanian people's way of saying "We are now free from the Soviet architecture. We are now free from a monotone, flat, depressing government."
Also I got excited about the car because this area was normally closed to traffic.
Picture of Baku shot from above.
My friends from Baku were basically my tour guides. Shoutout to B and E.
And the cute girl lmao
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 🎑🚬 ali@tilde.pink
