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Published: January 30th 2009
I've had a few emails recently asking me why I haven't posted any blogs! Well, here you are!!!
We flew home for our first British Christmas for several years. First of all we stayed in a hotel in London for a couple of days and caught up with friends who we hadn't seen in ages. We introduced Steve to the age-old tradition of moving stray road signs when you have had too much to drink. Oh dear!
The rest of the break was a whistle-stop tour of the UK seeing the family. Unfortunately we were riddled with flu for most of the time, and this continued for another week and a half after returning to Azerbaijan. It didn't make for the merriest Christmas we have ever had!
On arrival in Baku, it had been snowing for a few days and the temperatures were rather low. The taxi couldn't get up the hill to our apartment as his wheels just kept spinning. That meant climbing up snowy, icy steps in the dark, rucksacks on back and hardly able to breathe because of the flu. Welcome home!!!
As it's too cold to go away anywhere, we've been getting to
know the city again. January 20th was the day when Azerbaijan commemorates the Soviet repression of 1991. Tanks rolled into the city and massacred many people. They are buried in Martyrs' graves but we were unable to get close to them on the day itself. The police wouldn't let anyone near and when we saw the pictures on TV, it was obvious that they didn't want any more people up there. The procession of mourners was enormous.
Instead we had a wander down the "bulvar" promenade as it was a glorious day. We went back to the eternal flame monument another day and this time managed to find the monument to the British casualties during the First World War. It's not very well known that this monument exists but we were quite moved by it.
Baku is the Islamic Capital of Culture in 2009, but that doesn't start officially until February. We decided to go and see some ballet. It was a piece by Prokofiev followed by Ravel's Bolero. The music was beautiful but the ballet pieces were rather contemporary for our taste! Each dancer carried a red board with a mirror on the reverse and danced around
it. Very strange! They also utilised chairs for the men to jump over whilst the women danced Madonna/Britney-style on them! Not really what we expected to see but an experience nonetheless.
So that was January. Hopefully it's going to warm up soon so we can go away at the weekends and see some of this beautiful country.
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