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Published: March 4th 2009
Once again it's been a while since we published a blog. The truth is that it's been too cold to go away anywhere and we haven't really been exploring the city too much recently.
The last week though has been much better and we've been out and about a bit. Baku is now officially the Islamic Capital of Culture having had the inauguration ceremony a couple of weeks ago. The parks are still being spruced up and the Bulvar (waterfront boulevard) is far from ready for visitors. You get the impression though that everyone is gearing up for the warmer weather to arrive very soon.
We haven't seen much evidence of an increase in cultural activities but it's early days yet. Last weekend we went to see a German jazz group called "Berlin Voices". They were very good and most of their repertoire were jazz versions of Billy Joel classics. The Kappelhaus was packed and, despite getting there half an hour before it started, we had to stand at the back! We have also been to the Baku Jazz Centre where we saw an American military jazz quintet who were very good. They only played for about 35 minutes
Berlin Voices
Jazz from Germanythough, but it gave us a chance to see the venue and we will be returning.
The weather has been mixed throughout February but whenever we've had the opportunity we had had a walk around a new area of the city. Some of the parks are very nice but others are still boarded up. Some of the statues have been cleaned up and the fountains look beautiful on a sunny day.
The Baku Soviet metro station has finally reopened in its new guise as Icari Sahar. Outside it looks a bit like the pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris. Inside it's quite smart but the escalators are still wooden which surprised us.
So, Baku is coming to life. We can't wait for spring to arrive so we can go out with less than 5 layers at night!!!!!
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