"Azerbaijan Gets Ready To Go Nuclear"

The flow of jarring news headlines this week continues, with this surprising and somewhat unsettling story from Eurasianet today. Given the gradual drain of its energy resources (and the already polluted area where the reactors are proposed), I guess the country's pursuit of nuclear energy could make sense. On the other hand, these type of developments generally are more than meets the eye, so it will be a fascinating story to follow.

"Economic Future of Azerbaijan Seems Obscure To Me"

This is the title of a front-page interview this morning on Today.az, which serves as one of the only English-language web sites for news in Azerbaijan. Basically, the interview with economist Inglab Ahmedov cites his concerns about slowing economic growth and the local economy's over-dependence on the energy sector. It's always surprising to me when interviews like this are published in a forum that generally seems quite tightly controlled.

Azerbaijan in the World

I wrote an article for the research publication associated with the Academy where I am an intern. It is adapted from one of my Georgetown papers this past spring and is about geopolitics and energy in Azerbaijan. Here is the link to the article.

Travels, Traffic Jams and More Army News

I finally have a breath of blogging time after a very busy past few weeks. The Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (where I am an intern) hosted a Summer School last week about Islam and Contemporary Foreign Policy. The programming was quite interesting, highlighted by Vali Nasr (from Fletcher/Tufts) and the local sheikh talking about the theme of "Shia Revival" in a recently renovated Baku mosque (used as a carpet shop during Soviet times).

There were various adventures during Summer School, including an off-topic education in the nuances of Baku highways. Returning to town one day we entered a 3 hour traffic jam, and after realizing the indefinite nature of the delay, exited the bus (Mercedes circa 1970) and walked. As the barren landscape dotted with oil derricks and blowing sand and dust coated our eyes and skin, it became clear that the traffic jam was created by a two-direction road being turned into one way, but in both directions. Failing to see the pattern in this, drivers (and the police) only allowed the jam to grow, resulting in what was probably an almost endless mess of a Saturday afternoon.

My father also arrived in Baku last week, spending two days on his own seeing the sights and preparing for the overnight train ride to Tbilisi, Georgia (pictures to follow). The "Dragon Ladies", as my father referred to them, assertively grabbed our passports on the train platform and lead us to our "cabin" where we met our two female Georgian roommates. Departing Baku, a bit of a chill thawed with these newfound roommates and honestly, after the 16 hour trip to Tbilisi even their slight mustasches were mildly charming. Despite the novelty of it all, this was an exhausting trip -- Soviet-era tracks tend to be very bumpy, thus limiting sleep considerably.

Meanwhile, another Azeri I know here just let me know that after a huge farewell party for him last week before he departed for his one-year army service, he also was told he didn't have to serve due to some unclear ailment. So, in the blink of an eye he is off to the Czech Republic for a summer training program about elections and civic institutions. Gosh, if only I could go with the flow like that!

The Army

Tonight is the farewell dinner for a local friend here who will ship out to the army on Saturday for his one year service. While the location of this mandatory service can be negotiated through family connections and bribes, it seems that the actual service is pretty much a given for every young Azeri male. Yet someone else I met, having just returned from reporting for service earlier in the week, said that he was discharged because he was too skinny (or too short relative to his weight, the language barrier was in full effect). Anyway, I don't really know where I am going with this posting...I am kind of lethargic this week, thus boring blog postings!