Celebrating Military Day

Yesterday was yet another holiday in Azerbaijan, this one to celebrate Military Day. It was actually a fairly dramatic day with various parades and air shows around Baku. I had a bit of a preview of the parade on Tuesday when after waking from a nap, I looked out my window to see several trucks with what looked like scud missles driving down my street. But this was only the beginning...yesterday featured a full-fledged parade with several army units and different floats showcasing of the latest military equipment purchased by the government with the estimated $2 billion annual military budget (a ten-fold increase from 2003). But the day wasn't only endless pageantry...I made the poor decision of trying to find a laundrymat in the middle of this mayhem and while waiting with my suitcase full of laundry a skirmish broke out between some young kids and police. At first, I thought that the police were just trying to clear the road but suddenly things felt different somehow, with kids running towards me and the police cars weaving in and out of the crowds in a kind of manic way. This continued for a while and then kind of subsided. I asked a few people about it and they shrugged it off as "something that happens in post-Soviet states on holidays." Go figure. Regardless of these episodes or the reception of those who observed the parade, the government had a clear mission here to send a strong signal to Azeris, Armenia and the world alike that Azerbaijan's growing military is very much focused on the simmering Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which remains a deeply sensitive and central aspect to the country's foreign policy.