Happy Hour: Azerbaijan Airlines

I don’t want to keep telling stories complaining about/making fun of Baku. I am having a good time here and meeting interesting people. Today, for example, I went to the service at a Wahabbi/Salafist mosque, and found people exceedingly welcoming. I had never attended an actual Friday service before, much less a Wahabbi* one, and they let me sit in front as long as I faced forward, toward Mecca. I also had to assure them that I showered in the morning. One guy proposed that I do the prayers myself; I don’t know if this was a stealth conversion attempt, but I declined. I apparently blended in easily – the taxi driver who took me there asked if I was an Arab, and at the mosque the guy who ended up translating for me said I looked like a Chechen. But really, everyone was super nice. I got there about 45 minutes early and talked with the people around me until the service started.

The sermon was in Azeri so I didn’t understand a bit. But the imam was genial and conversational and made people laugh several times. After the sermon I asked my ad hoc translator what it was about. “He told us how to be good Muslims, and what not to do,” he said. “Like what?” I asked. “Like not to be suicide bombers,” he replied. I found people there very concerned about making it clear that they were not terrorists. “Did he really specifically mention suicide bombers?” I asked. “No, but we understand that he means it,” was the reply. Then I interviewed the imam who was very friendly (except that he didn’t like gays, Armenians or women who wear pants).

Anyway, there will be more of all of this in an upcoming EurasiaNet story. But what I really wanted to write about was my attempt to buy a plane ticket to Nakhcivan.

Nakhcivan is a small part of Azerbaijan that is separated from the mainland by Armenia, and so there is no way to get there except by flying. As a matter of principle, I am not flying on this trip, but I’m making an exception for Nakhcivan.

I want to go on Sunday, and yesterday I tried to buy a ticket at a travel agent. Not possible, I was told, you have to go to the airline company (Azerbaijan Airlines) central office and buy it there.

I went there today and found that there is a separate room for Nakhcivan, and it was chaos. Buying a ticket there is much like buying a drink at a crowded bar. You find a woman selling tickets and crowd up next to her, with your ID and money on the counter. When someone finishes their transaction, there is a little shuffle and someone takes his or her place at the bar/counter, and everyone else kind of pushes forward their money, hoping that the ticket lady/bartender will serve them next.

I was able to play the “stupid foreigner” card into getting served pretty quickly, but I then found out that I had been too optimistic about how available tickets were, and that the soonest I could fly was Wednesday, which is too late. I asked whether there were open seats from Ganja to Nakhcivan – I know there are flights, and it would be easy to take an overnight train from Baku back to Ganja. But, she said, there is no way for her to know if there were any tickets from Ganja. Of course, there appeared to be not a single computer in the room and all the tickets were filled out by hand, after the ticket lady called another office to get the seat number, so this was not too surprising. But every time I see something unacceptably low-tech or undeveloped in Azerbaijan I want to say “You have billions of dollars in oil money and you can’t X??!!”

So at this point I was pretty dejected. But then she mentioned a final possibility: every day there is an “additional” flight, for which tickets go on sale at 8 am the day of. “When does this flight leave?” I asked. “I don’t know – sometime around noon,” she said. I don’t mind that this policy makes no sense in several ways, because it means I still have a reasonable chance of making it. So, wish me luck.

*They reject the term Wahabbi, preferring “Salafist,” but I use Wahabbi because more people know that term.

Comments

[Paul]

Nakhichevan seems like an intriguing place. Armenians are very curious if any of their monuments still stand there at all, after the Julfa cemetery destruction revelation they don't expect anything more for the rest of the monumnets. Here's a list (most translated- but not all) about it all from an Armenian guidebook:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Rediscovering_Armenia_Guidebook-_Nakhichevan

Of most importance are Julfa

Hin Jugha we know is gone: http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Hin_Jugha

but the jury is still out on Agulis since no one has been able to get there. http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Agulis

It's called Akulis now near Ordubad, if you happen to be in the area.

[Azer]

"But every time I see something unacceptably low-tech or undeveloped in Azerbaijan I want to say “You have billions of dollars in oil money and you can’t X??!!”"

There is no billions. The oilfund of Azerbaijan currently has only 1,491m manats in reserves, of which into budget this year was transferred 1,077m manats, 250,8m manats to support 300,000 or so refugees and some other less important expenses. Azerbaijan has the highest GDP growth and the highest spending on military per capita in percentage terms in the world. This year's military budget is 1 billion dollars, gone up sixfold in the last 3 years.

So I don't know where billions of dollars figure comes from...

However, I agree that AZAL ticket counter rather reminds a brothel. I'm afraid on the plane to Nakchivan, if you are unlucky to have your seat taken by someone else, you will have to stand upright the whole flight :)

[phyek]

In terms of underdevelopment, that pretty much applies to most Soviet republics. Indeed the bulk of those billions (that do exist) are pocketed by government officials/families/clans while the leftovers are mismanaged and directed to shady construction projects as well as the oil fund. Instead of seriously helping the refugees and average citizens, military officials get raises. That's old news though; certainly Azerbaijan's transparency international corruption rating is among the highest in the world (partial credit goes to that "savior"). Still it's too early, and it will be interesting to see where the country is in 10 or 20 years. Hopefully, things improve for the better.

[Josh]

Well, Azer, first: no one had to stand up on the flight, fortunately.

And there is a lot of money in Azerbaijan. You point out the military spending. I've seen fancy new "sport complexes" in every town of any size I've gone through. The airports in Ganja, Nakhcivan and Baku are all very nice and new. At the Baku airport I even saw a bright red Hummer fire truck! I think that one Hummer would go a good way towards getting some sort of automated system for the AZAL Nakhcivan flights.