We are preparing for a short trip to Baku, Azerbaijan in early July.

It seems absurd to post it in the Turkey forums but this will not be the first absurdity i have performed in my short life.
Azerbaijan competes in the Eurovision song contest and won it this year, they are also competing in the European Football Championships and beat Turkey unexpectedly, leaving us dangling between belgium and Austria for a qualifying spot to be won at the last match of the series.

Yet Azerbaijan is not listed among the European countries on the Fodor's list. And unfortunately, there are almost no posts on the Azerbaijan forums. I am hoping that this thread will give some more visibility to a less known country, which i hope will turn out to be quite interesting.

We are fortunate that a Romanian agency recommended me as a speaker to the Azerbaijan Insurance Companies Association and Ministry of Finance and they invited me to Baku to the II Insurance Forum to speak and to chair a panel. they were also very gracious to invite my wife.

It will only be one night and two days, but i am hoping to have enough time to visit the old townand some museums and that Eser will have the opportunity to take some photographs which we can post on the web and give a link here. I have already accepted the fact that whichever of us takes a photograph it becomes hers. She does not even have to bring up an unwritten or unspoken marriage agreement anymore, or women's rights.

This is how it goes, I write, it is mine; i photograph, it is hers, our money and children are ours unless there are associated problems, then they are mine.

We are also considering visiting a jazz club if we can that only night we have in Baku, despite the fact that i will have to attend the conference the next morning. Apparently Azerbaijani people are very good in music and literature. Azerbaijani girls seem to be very beautiful, but now that Eser is coming with me, i will probably not be allowed to witness or view much. Come to think of it, my photographs may also have a limited perspective.

Our hotel will be the Radisson Park Inn with a view of the Caspian Sea and close to both the shopping area and the old town.

In any case, i will appreciate any and all information regarding Baku if you have visited the city or heard about it from someone who knew someone who visited it. All thoughts and experiences from previous reincarnations are also appreciated.

OC

Aduchamp tells me he is going along to pass the hat when you speak. True or false?

Though I've been to Uzek SSR (now Uzbekistan) I can't help with Baku info. Just wear a hat in case it rains oil...black gold as we put it.

We are fortunate that a Romanian agency recommended me as a speaker to the Azerbaijan Insurance Companies Association and Ministry of Finance and they invited me to Baku to the II Insurance Forum to speak and to chair a panel.
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I am sure both people with be inthralled by your presentation.

I know so little about Azerbaijan, I don't even stereotypes that need correcting.

Someone who visited it? Ryszard Kapuscinski -- read his excellent book Imperium.

Of course, his visit was about 44 years ago, so some information may be a bit dated. ;-)

Things do not change quickly in this part of the world and 44 years is not long time anyway. Thanks for the tip. Will try to look it up.

Stereotypes went the way of stereo tape players, although Adu does not seem to know about it yet. Maybe he lives in azerbaijan and is not aware of it.

And Adu, i will not be speaking to only two people, as of last week 9.5 people had already registered. Sorry, i meant 95. These decimals keep floating.

Further, the Ministry of Finance, has nothing to do with the religious persuasion in Azerbaijan, unlike some burroughs of New York.

That's a lot of people, be sure to get to the breakfast buffet first.

I wish you luck in your appearance. If you need a couple of opening jokes, you know my usual fee.

CNN News Flash; Property values in and around Azerbaijan just plummeted and hit an all time low, with the news that Adu and Celebi will soon arrive to stir things up beyond repair. If anyone on this forum has a Caspian Sea condo, dump it or hold on for the market to come back in 2037...or better still make a quick trade for something more upscale in beach-front Tripoli.

Ahmet..sorry for the error....Chelebi it is.

I am physically prepared. so is Eser. The orange suitcase with its own protective nylon which is always forgoten and is now used to cover the stains it should have protected the suitcase against, is about half full with four shirts, two pairs of pants and a sopare suit, just in case. And a carry-on should do it.

My presentation on liability insurances which was delivered in Pakistan and the report i prepared for the world bank on compulsory catastrophy insurances will be perused at the last minute and will not be packed.

Can i afford to upset my gracious hosts by wearing red socks with my red tie, pink shirt and navy suit? Should I chair my sessions wearing cotton navy blazer with blue buttondown shirt and white gabardine slacks, whose bottoms will not be rolled up no matter what?

Here's a quotation by that awesome author of uncertain fame, Ahmet C. celebiler,:

"Moderating moderates where members read their manifestos while pointing with pointed sticks at fuzzy graphics and similar things on a screen of magics." With such eloquence, he pictures a conference that the reader becomes dizzy upon attempting to visualize such an event of earthshaking importance.

Up at 4:30AM tomorrow Morning, to start the wait for the prepaid back up shuttle to the airport. we will not be looking forward to our two aisle seats which will allow us no dozing unless plane is not full. 170 minutes flight time. seven of those could get us to Chicago to Ceylan.

You know what, i really am getting old. never thought i'd be so happy to have Eser with me on such a trip as this. someone to lean on. You're so right Tower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're back in istanbul. Baku was much more developed than we expected. the people were very friendly, especially to Turks, but they were also very shy. The girls were always dressed up and stand-offish, except when they were dancing to the rock and roll of a good Italian group, as on out last night of the conference, followed by an excellent show of Azeri folk dances and spectacular drum and clarinet show.

One remnant of the russian occupation was that ground floor was "1" but there was a "0" on the elevator call button at the Park Inn, which made us wait a long period at our floor after punching "0" and staring hopefully at the never-opening elevator doors.

I was good, Nay, a great chairman for the two panels on the first day. Three people among the 150 or so among the audience laughed and fourteen smiled at some of my jokes and two young ladies sitting at the front wore beautiful mini skirts.

Eser thinks that you, the readers, will underestimate my success as moderator at conferences because of the way i write and that i should totally erase the above paragraph. She also tells me that this suggestion has nothing to do with the last sentence.

In any case, I now have an invitation for a repeat appearance at Bucharest, Romania, for the second week of October. Another chance for us to visit a city and country we have not visited yet and a trip report to bore you.

There are some difficulties in visiting Azerbaijan, mainly in terms of the visa taking 7-14 days. New 5-7 star hotel capacity is increasing very rapidly in Baku. The Hilton will open soon, The Marriott is on the way and twin sisters to the famous Burj of Dubai tower already loom over the landscape with views of the Caspian Lake (not "sea" because the "sea designation apparently would give more oil retrieval rights to russia which the other Caspian bordering countries do not like, understandably)

Traffic can be horrendous in the evening on the wide boulevard bordering the huge park by the coast. Somebody must have taught the drivers that when the roads are not jammed you should drive in between lanes by taking the lane dividers as a help to your driving in a straight line. On the other hand, due to a general lack of traffic lights for pedestrians, pedestrians may cross anywhere and cars will usually stop for them, especially if they are in groups of three or more and thus more visible.

the parks are nice, the old town has similarities to medieval european towns. There are almost no tauts and very few tourist shops. we could not find any guide books or maps.

We tried to buy a painting or a small sculpture but found them to be over-priced and not good value at the only gallery we could locate during our short stay. Managed to receive the name of an artist but could not find his address so that we could visit him at his studio. We did not ask the prices of the carpets which were the most frequently sold items in the tourist shops.

One of the British participants at the Azerbaijan Insurance Forum, Paul W. told me that I was very witty but very few people could understand or appreciate my wit, so i decided to stop being witty on Fodor's also.

I hope you will prove him wrong by at least grimacing when you read some of my earlier post.

Please ask any questions you may have on Baku and Azerbaijan, and i will try to answer as well as i can.

We will post some photos on esercelebiler at webshots.

OC

Azerbaijan is listed (along with Georgia and Armenia) on Fodors' Asia board. Maybe you could get this thread moved there, so people looking for info on Azerbaijan would stand a better chance of finding it.

I am glad you, and moreso Eser, are alive and back in Istanbul. It sounds like a most interesting trip.

When Stu reads this, he will be offer a great deal of advice on Romania, since he has spent much time there.

I am sure you were most witty, since most Azerbaijani stand up comics do insurance joke. A Turk, an insurance broker, and a camel walk into a bar...

Thursdayd, i checked your excellent reports on Georgia and Armenia to find out that hardly anyone was interested in those areas except for your friends and followers.

However, i agree that some of this information may be useful for the lone misguided person in the coming years who mistakenly investigates at the fodor forums. So. i will copy-paste soeme of the possibly significant info there.

Adu, Azerbaijan actually does have at least one stand up comedian who is also in Insurance and made a big deal of introducing me to three of his friends at that dinner after he apparently had at least half a bottle of Vodka and tried to sing with the Italian group, as the man who read minds and could hear the rumbling of empty stomachs and would cut a conference short to assist the audience in rushing them to lunch as emergency health care.

By the way, we did listen to local jazz at the roof Japanese restaurant/bar of our hotel where we had shrimp tempura and a cosmopolitan and a long beach ice tea all of which were prepared well but unfortunately served without napkins.
the music was also decent and it was interesting that our combined age was possibly equal to that of the six people at the neighboring tables.

We now havethe photos on webshots :

http://travel.webshots.com/album/580518806OfEDZu