BAD VIBES IN BAKU "Where am I? How do I get out?" "Why, this is hell - and nor are you out of it." - Doctor Faustus It was probably after about a week of me being in Baku that I realised I had made a mistake in going, and was extremely unhappy being there. I was unable to pinpoint it, but I knew there was something very wrong with the school I was teaching in; the atmosphere was rotten. Combined with this were high prices - the poun...

BAKU "And when foreigners come to this city all they talk about is the heat, dust, and oil; why do they not love our city?" - "Because they are foreigners" - Ali & Nino The Black Sea to the Caspian in one day. One long day. First leg - train from the resort town of Batumi with its semi-tropical coastline and sprouting hotel complexes, bonatical gardens and thunderstorms to Tbilisi, seven hours of comparative bliss on a shiny new el...

Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, the most populous of the three Caucasian capitals with around two million inhabitants, has come a long way since the unlamented collapse of the U.S.S.R, and having come through a period of bitter war with Armenia (over Nagornno Karrabach - which they lost) and power struggle in the 90's it is now run effectively, if somewhat undemocratically, by the self-appointed Aliyev dynasty - who don't so much govern Azerbaijan, as own it. It is ...