Baku of Beyond
Baku, Azerbaijan, Day 1
Moving from Hong Kong to Dubai was, in general, a good thing. In Dubai the sun is out all the time; it’s tax free; there’s a ski slope; and they show pretty much every single English Premier League game live & in full. What’s not to like?
Work wise it was a good move as well; I had more responsibility, in a larger, and (more importantly) more successful team; and (very) broadly speaking, everyone in the new team spoke the same language. So things were looking up. The only slight drawback was that whereas in HK I had a regional role, and so had to go on extremely important business trips to mad places like Inner Mongolia or downtown Tokyo, when in Dubai I was only covering the UAE. And so for most of my time there, I didn’t get to go anywhere.
But you can’t keep a good man down, and after a while funnily enough opportunities just seemed to present themselves. I went to Syria for two days, crossing off another name on my extended Axis of Evil Tour; however Syria, although interesting, was largely uneventful. After this I had a number of conversations about going skiing in Iran – higher mountains than the Alps apparently, but it’s a devil to get an après ski beer – but unfortunately the trip didn’t come together.
And then one of my clients got in touch and asked me if I would like to go to Azerbaijan with them to see their oil storage tanks and fuel distribution centre? Well who could turn down an offer like that??
So we met at the airport for an early morning flight on Azerbaijan Air - yes, it is a real airline. We were sitting in business class, although the main benefit of this seemed to be the fact that there was no-one else around; I don’t think the extra money went on the food.
By way of entertainment they were showing an Azerbaijani movie. It didn’t have any subtitles, and was in the local dialect, making it a tad difficult to follow, but I had a go at trying to make sense of it anyway. Unfortunately I failed, not helped by the micro budget, as the whole thing seemed to take place in one house. The plot seemed to revolve around a rather fat Azerbaijani woman wearing national dress, whose contribution was dancing round in circles on her own with her eyes shut, then lying in bed with a mannequin. Maybe this was some metaphorical comment about the prowess of Azerbaijani men, or possibly the fact that local women are independent enough in these enlightened days not to need a man to have a good time; or maybe the film was just rubbish.
So four hours out from Dubai on the borders of the Caspian (straight up north from Dubai, east of Eastern Europe, between two big landlocked seas. Don’t worry, I looked it up) we landed in Baku. In Baku airport my client reassured me that he had paid for VIP service at Customs, so we could go to the VIP lounge and take it easy whilst going through the rapidly accelerated formalities.
So we sat down in the lounge & I noticed the TV in the corner; who do you think was the first person I saw on the TV? The Azerbaijani President? A famous Azerbaijani singer? The fat woman with her mannequin? Nope.
The first person I saw was David Beckham. There really is no escape.
Turns out they were showing the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics live (yes I know that was a while back, as I said, I’ve been busy…) and Becks had flown half way round the world to wear a dodgy outfit and punt a ball into the crowd. (Bit like taking free kicks at United, boom boom….) After an hour in the VIP lounge waiting for our passports, we’d also seen a London Bus with a privet hedge, and I was wondering if I’d ever get out of there to kick a football again myself.
Eventually the passports turned up and we made it out onto the highway. Baku is well known for having oil, or at least it is amongst my oil clients, but I was expecting massive oil rigs pumping for all they were worth; whilst there were a few of those, there were also some tiny one-man rigs that looked like people had set them up in their back gardens, just to get enough supply to keep the lawnmower running. These oil rig nanos were all over the place, I wonder if you could buy one at the local B&Q equivalent?
We checked in at the extremely plush Baku Park Hyatt – USD300 a night, welcome to Central Asia – and I got ready for our meetings the next day. Despite all my business trips, my packing abilities still can leave a bit to be desired, so inevitably I end up in my hotel room ironing my shirt for the next day. This is usually pretty routine, but in Baku it all got a bit complicated, as I couldn’t get the iron cord to stretch to the plug. I just about got it all wired up, but then when I started ironing, I pulled too hard, the plug fell out, I reached to grab it, the iron fell on the floor, the water spilled at, this blew a fuse, all the hotel room lights went off, and in the dark I knocked the ironing board over onto my foot.
After I’d finished swearing, I rummaged around and eventually found my mobile phone, with which I turned the light on, giving me just enough light to find the phone and call the front desk, with a very embarrassed call as to whether someone could come up and turn all my lights back on for me.
Day 2
Off bright and early for the big inspection, we arrived at the tanks, which were located by their own port facilities on the coast. The idea was that we would lend them the money to buy oil from the well in Kazakhstan, ship it across to the Baku port, put it in the tanks, then when ready put it on a train, train it cross-country to Tbilisi in Georgia, put it in another tank, sell it to another company who can ship it across the Med, and then pay us back from the proceeds. Don’t ever say you don’t know what I do…
They passed the first test of the inspection on the basis that they were extremely safety conscious. Lighters and naked flames were not surprisingly banned, but also there were warning signs every five metres & we all had to wear safety hats – always an important safety touch when standing next to a train. We also weren’t allowed to take photos of the installation, something I found to my cost when I took one picture & caused huge consternation amongst everyone watching.
After checking that everything was indeed where it was supposed to – it didn’t take long, they are big oil tanks, they really don’t do much – we left & went off for lunch in an Azerbaijani restaurant, which my client helpfully told me he had booked a table in. Good job that he booked, as when we got there, we were the only people in there. The food was a mixture of a few different cultures – the kebabs of the Middle East, some more hearty vegetables of Russian style, and even some south Asian naan breads; the main Azerbaijani influence seemed to the shocking local pop music blaring out. It may well make fat women dance with their eyes shut, but it just made me want to get out in a hurry.
In the afternoon we had some more meetings, the only highlight of which was my client telling me that one of his trains taking oil into Georgia had recently been blown up by the Russians during their invasion, but ‘don’t worry, we’ll pay you back very soon’. Ok that’s alright then.
With all the formalities completed, we had some time to see the sights of Baku, the main one of which seemed to be a cemetery near the coast, commemorating a civil uprising in the early 1900s. Judging by the size of the cemetery, I don’t think it went very well.
We were then on our way back in a cab, when I entered into a slightly surreal phone call, completely out of the blue.
‘Hi Ian, this is your global boss. We’re having a talent review and I wanted to ask you what you were interested in doing next?’ Always a good question to be asked I thought
‘well next I’d like to run a larger team’
‘ok I understand. Any particular location?’
‘Well I’d like to go back to Asia.’
‘Fair enough. Anywhere in particular?’
‘Well probably a Chinese speaking country, because I’d like to have another crack at the language’
‘Ok so let me check this. If you could do anything, you’d like to go to a Chinese-speaking Asian country, to run a larger team?’
‘Yes’
He must have been killing himself with laughter at this point.
‘Well that’s good, because we’d like you to come and run the China team.’
Well after that I couldn’t really say no…
Back in the hotel, and with me starting to regret having given up on my Chinese lessons two years before, we were on our way out for dinner, when we saw a few of the local Azerbaijani businessmen meeting their escorts for the evening. I was interested to see (purely in a cultural understanding type of way, of course) that they all seemed to be statuesque blonde Azerbaijani women in short dresses, but no doubt they were being invited for their stimulating conversation and personalities.
My client had been to Baku numerous times before, so he promised to sort out the dinner arrangements. What I don’t think he had been counting on was some loopy Baku traffic and an even loopier Bakuan (Bakunese? Bak Paker? Bak to the Future?? I’ve no idea) taxi driver, who managed to get lost, before getting stuck in a huge traffic jam, and encouraging us to just get out and walk. We did get out and walk, but without really knowing where we were or where we were heading, leading to some rather lengthy wandering around the city, until finally coming across an Indian restaurant. Funnily enough I didn’t need any encouragement, and it was one more country to add to my countries-I’ve-eaten-curry-in list – 15 now. Good to know that chicken dhansak tastes the same wherever in the world you go.
On the way back, Azerbaijan Air did their bit to try and push local culture on me by showing the same film on the way back – the fat woman was dancing again & the mannequin was still the best actor. And it still didn’t make any sense….
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Tahskent, Uzbekistan
Friday
Whilst in Dubai, I had another client who this time did a lot of business in both Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Once upon a time they were actually lining me up to go to visit their businesses in Afghanistan, but the little matter of the ongoing war put paid to that. I may be adventurous, but even I have my limits.
So they asked me if I wanted to go to Uzbekistan instead. Sure, why not?
Uzbekistan (educational bit coming up again) was further east than I had imagined, crossing all the way from the Caspian to virtually border China. In particular, Tashkent was in the eastern part of the country, close to the Chinese border, so there was no doubt I was heading towards Asia.
I lined up at the airport check-in, to find myself somewhat the odd one out – I seemed to be the only person on the flight who wasn’t:
a) a middle-aged woman with at least two gold teeth;
b) wider than I was tall;
c) carrying more hand luggage than could possibly be safe without putting my back out.
The luggage in particular was impressive – obviously Dubai was the place to go for TVs, DVD players, toasters, and anything else that you plugged into the wall, because the good people of Tashkent had been on a buying spree. The red channel at the far end could be busy.
I think I flew on Tashkent air, or something similar. Compared to Azerbaijan Air the food was marginally better, but the local movie they showed was equally bad. Again I didn’t have the benefit of any subtitles, and it seemed to feature two main characters based on Jabba the Hutt and a munchkin; thankfully I was asleep before I ever had to find out if there was a love scene.
Anyway after the cultural onslaught, I arrived in bright sunshine, to be met by the clients. Everyone on the roads is driving somewhat rusty Ladas, but we were in a top of the range new Range Rover; time for me to put our pricing up I reckoned. There were two clients, both fairly hefty Central Asian men in their fifties, and the translator Sergei, a young blond Russian in a suspiciously tight t-shirt.
That evening we tried one of Tashkent’s apparently better restaurants – it certainly must have been very exclusive, there was hardly anyone else there. It was set on the first floor of a building, in what I suppose could loosely be termed as a ‘sweeping ballroom’. There was a big stage at the front, onto which a singer appeared fairly on to serenade us with some local Tashkent hits. The Uzbek music scene obviously isn’t up to much as she seemed far less interested than we did, and she soon moved off to be replaced by some dancers, who performed an interesting medley of part-Uzbek part-Indian part-Chinese dancing; which I suppose sums up the local influences.
My hosts plied me with some decent local food and slightly less good wine; apparently the restaurant didn’t have any beer. And this place used to be part of the USSR? I felt well taken care of, although they didn’t need to go as far as their offer after the meal – did I fancy a sauna? Er…….no.
Saturday
So its Saturday morning and we’re going for a meeting, but much as I tried to ignore it, that was what I was there for, so off I went & met a Government official to talk about the possibilities of financing flour shipments from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say. Suffice to say the meeting was more interesting than I thought it would be – no, seriously – but I have to confess that as of today we’ve still never actually got round to lending them any money to do this; I guess no-one in Afghanistan is eating any bread.
We followed the meeting with a second discussion at the client’s office, where they talked & I listened about railway logistics and how they moved their products around; we spent a long time pouring over a map of the region, helping the client to show me how it all worked. I really appreciated this, not for the understanding of the railways, or the distraction from another potential sauna, but because after studying the map of the area, I could finally tell where Tashkent actually was. It wasn’t where I expected it to be.
For lunch we went to a local restaurant with a fairly unpronounceable local name, just across the road from an establishment called the Chelsea Arms, which was a sports bar with a huge mural of Chelsea footballers splashed across it. A big picture of Frank Lampard is enough to put anyone off their lunch, but in the Uzbek restaurant I ploughed on regardless and got stuck into some local delicacies – some Mosh soup (bit watery), Plov (kebabs), and Manty (like a sort of central Asian dim sum). Basically it was all meat and bread – just my sort of place.
After lunch we hit the road & we headed out of town, through some fairly flat landscape that I now realise is effectively the Steppe – it goes through Uzbekistan north east up into the far corner of China and into Mongolia. You could envisage Genghis Khan rampaging through the fields on his horse, laying waste to the wildlife as he went; we made a good effort to copy him, when the driver was a bit careless driving past a herd of cattle and managed to hit a cow. The cow seemed unperturbed by this & we made our apologies and carried on. With the two clients speaking no English, it was left to Sergei to chat to me; inevitably after a while we spoke about music, and Sergei admitted he was a huge fan of disco, as well as Elton John & Celine Dion. Fabulous.
Dinner that night was in the “Corner of Paradise” restaurant, a name which you could say was slightly misleading. We were seated in a booth that can only really be described as a small cave, which was so dark I ended up reading the menu by the light on my phone. To accompany the four of us, two very (seemingly) blond women appeared. I was a bit worried that this was all supposed to be part of some over-enthusiastic ‘corporate hospitality’ being thrust in my direction, but it soon became clear that they spoke no English either and were there only to talk to the clients. Ah…so I’m supposed to talk to Sergei then; I did this whilst getting stuck into some Baltika beer, and some rice as finally someone had thought to serve some carbohydrates alongside the meat fest. Sergei seemed to get more animated as he got stuck into the Baltika, I just concentrated on keeping my distance.
As the night wore on, more people poured into the ‘club’, quite a lot of them being very tall East European women - possibly Azerbaijani - making the most of the somewhat cheesy disco that followed, and the short stocky rather lecherous Uzbek men that followed them. After a while the disco faded & our respite was to be serenaded by a Mexican singer, who was, quite frankly, terrible. After she finished destroying ‘Strangers in the Night’, the clearly audible sound all around me was either the rest of the audience sighing with relief that she’d finally finished, or it might have been ole’ Blue Eyes himself spinning in his grave. And he’s buried in the US.
El Mexicano Diablo was followed, as with the night before, by some local dancers, who yet again managed to give a ‘fusion’ of different dancing styles. So we opened with some tango – because Argentina is close to the CIS – and then one of the younger dancers started breakdancing to Axel F. I then realised that I hadn’t actually flown to a new city, I’d just gone back in time to 1984 (yes I know some of you would say I never left there in the first place….)
Sergei generously escorted me back to the hotel after the meal & music had finished, his two colleagues and their two ‘friends’ were nowhere to be seen. All the lights in the hotel were off, making it as dark as the restaurant, but I made sure that Sergei understood that I could find my room on my own, and called it a night.
Sunday - Samarkand
After the previous night’s exertions we got off to a late start, not helped by the fact that as I didn’t have any Uzbek money, the hotel suggested they keep my passport until the clients came back later to pay the bill. Yes that’s a wonderful idea.
Inevitably closed followed by Sergei, I went off to visit the local mosque, which was part of the Samarkand tourist trail. We were met by a tour guide who seemed very enthused by her job – which roughly translates as she did not stop talking. She told us about the mosque, she told us about the history, she told us about the town. In fact the only time she shut up when she started me asking questions to test what she had told us earlier – and then was somewhat surprised to find out that I had actually been listening, despite any appearance to the contrary, and so that I did know the answers.
She also told us about Tamerlane who apparently was a middle-ages warlord who ruled most of Central Asia in the 1400s. Who knew?? We visited his tomb, which contained four different types of mausoleum. No ego there then.
At lunch the whole gang was reunited, with the clients back with their ladyfriends. Slightly disconcertingly, everyone except me has the same clothes on as the night before; I could probably understand the women, but for the guys, they had always planned to stay over, it shouldn’t really have been a surprise to need a clean t-shirt? Anyway we got stuck into some Plov and some USM (unidentified strange meat) – I didn’t ask for any more details, and anyway it was better than having salad
In the afternoon we went round the mosques of Samarkand, which used to be on the Silk Road, and so, to be fair, are quite impressive. As you can see (hopefully) from the link below, I took a few photos, & then I sponged 5 Uzbeki whatevers off Sergei to buy a fridge magnet as a souvenir.
We trekked back to Tashkent & in the evening for dinner they took me to an outdoor restaurant, which was supposedly by a big screen where people sit outside watching football. Sounded nice enough, although when we got there, we were the only people there, giving it the effect less of a bustling piazza, and more of eating dinner in an empty car park. The screen was showing an Uzbek movie, although there was no Jabba – dwarf hanky panky going on this on, so I polished off some more USM kebabs, washed it down with some Sarband lager, promised Sergei that yes I would stay in touch and send him an email when I got back, and then politely made my thanks yous for the trip home.