astonishing Azerbaijan

So little time to take holidays this year, as the workload is relentless, but with July/August typically our quietest time I managed a two-week tour around Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia.

We started in Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan), whose Flame Towers (above) dominate the city, sneaking into the background of nearly every photograph of any part in the city.  It seems that the inspiration for these is the location in Azerbaijan of the founder of Zoroastrianism, although as far as I know only India and Iran still have practitioners of the Zoroastrian faith.  You can see why this might have originated here, however, with places in the country such as Yanar Dag, which we visited, where fire just comes out of the rocks, burning continuously as it is fueled by gas seeping out.

Whilst the religion, which considered fire (as well as water) to be life-sustaining, is no longer practised in Azerbaijan, the gas that feeds the eternal flames is hugely important.  The country overall is not that rich (103 in the world ranking, apparently), but the effect of oil and gas money in the capital is clear.  There is a Lamborghini dealership in one of the Flame Towers, and we drove past outlets for Aston Martin, Ferrari, Armani, Gucci - indeed all the top designer names appeared to be there.

& the fancy architectural projects are not limited to the Flame Towers, but also include the Heydar Aliyev Centre (designed by Zaha Hadid), the Caspian Waterfront Leisure Complex and a number of other impressive modern buildings - but to my surprise they are intermingled with Russian imperial buildings from the turn of the twentieth century.

Too many photos in this post, I know, but I found the place quite astonishing, and it's hard to describe all this.

I couldn't get any answers to my questions to the guide about income and wealth distribution (is it Azerbaijanis buying Gucci and Ferraris?).  But one things was clear - the wealth is all fueled by fields like these just on the outskirts of the capital: