Baku- Despite the ability of the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to capture the eyes and hearts at first glance, upon landing at Aliyev International Airport and stepping out into its streets, filled with the magic of the East and the West together, the visitor feels that there is a secret, something incomprehensible.
A missing link whose parts are formed over time. The city, which depends mainly on tourism, seems to have another side to its beauty, far from the lights of its towers, shopping malls and luxury hotels.
Before arriving in Azerbaijan, I read a lot about it, its most prominent landmarks, its people, and their treatment of tourists. Most of the experiences confirmed the beauty of the country, the kindness of its people, and their friendly way of welcoming and hosting. That was indeed what I found – as a tourist – but a few days were enough to see another side of this bright face.
While walking around the capital, one can clearly see dilapidated houses, narrow streets and people with miserable features, alongside the shiny high-rise towers, clean spacious roads and five-star hotels, in complete clarity of the great differences between the classes in the country, as in the rest of the third world countries.
Near restaurants and cafes, there are beggars, one of whom asks you for one “manat” (the country’s currency, which is equivalent to about 0.6 dollars) to buy food, while a line of luxury cars is lined up waiting to get a suitable parking space.
In Azerbaijan, where Shiite Muslims constitute the majority of the population and there are more than two thousand mosques, some of which are historic, the call to prayer is not permitted. Since 2007, the country’s Supreme Islamic Council has banned the call to prayer from loudspeakers in Baku and a number of cities. Wearing the hijab in schools has also been banned since 2010.
Language barrier
Another angle of this aspect is related to the language. In this country that seeks a place on the world tourism map, the tourist faces the problem of dealing with the Azerbaijanis, as the majority of them speak only Azerbaijani, and some remnants of Russian, and a small percentage speak English or at least understand it, so the visitor finds himself confused about how to deal and how to spend his day?!
I don’t know why I saw so many details of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in Baku, the same streets that exude the scent of history and successive civilizations, the same crowding and its culture and the recklessness of most drivers and the desire of many of them to get more of your money.
In the old city of Baku, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and dates back to the 7th century AD, you feel like you are walking in Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street in Cairo, or perhaps in the alleys of Souq Waqif in the Qatari capital, Doha. The only difference is that the old city in Baku is not only for tourism, but it is also inhabited by many.
Nizami Street, a pedestrian and shopping street in the center of Baku, named after the classical Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, resembles many streets in our Arab and Islamic countries. You will find it close to the Msheireb neighborhood in the heart of Doha and the famous Istiklal Street in the Turkish city of Istanbul, where it is crowded with hundreds of visitors and dozens of shops, restaurants and cafes filled with people smoking hookah and playing backgammon and dominoes.
It seems that Baku, which has just ended more than 30 years of war in Nagorno-Karabakh, resembles us, or that we see our homelands in it, and perhaps this is part of its charm that attracts visitors from all over the world, especially from our Arab world.
