by Jamie Maslin
This he explained in a sort of blasé manner that betrayed some deeper familiarity.
“You wouldn’t have ever fought your dog, would you, Timur?” asked Ethan.
“Oh, I try him out once after I buy him, but he was not very good.”
Ethan and I shared a subtle “bloody hell” glance of surprise.
When we finished our teas Ethan and I left Timur to his work and stepped outside.
“If you buy a sports car in America,” discerned Ethan, “you take it up to a hundred-and-twenty-five once or twice, just to try it out. You buy a dog in Kazakhstan, hell, you throw it in a fight.”
* * *
Aktau is not the sort of place you want to get stranded. After seven long days waiting for the arrival of the cargo ship, Ethan and I were going stir crazy, itching to sail off across the Caspian’s choppy waters to new and uncharted territory. With no attractions beyond the beach, we spent an inordinate amount of time in Aktau just wandering and observing, trying to wring what little interest from the place we could to pass the time. We snuck into a huge tower block under construction and climbed onto its roof to check out the view. We purchased Borat-style Kazakhstan t-shirts and shorts, and through near tears of laughter took spoof “Blue Steel” modeling photos of ourselves against a gritty industrial Soviet backdrop. We attended a very strange pop concert in honor of the country’s dictator, starring a one-legged vocalist who performed in front of a huge stage filled with a banner depicting the president’s face, and was attended by audience members wearing t-shirts with the English slogan “I love President.” We sat on the beach watching army recruits being put through their paces in a section cordoned off with razor wire. We attended a local kickboxing and kung-fu tournament (as spectators); and we visited the country’s largest and only yacht club, home to no more than twenty vessels, not a single one in the water, or indeed, not resting on wheels or a makeshift plinth of bricks—somewhat dashing our hopes of hitchhiking a ride with one to Azerbaijan. Just when we were beginning to think we would be stuck in this godforsaken town forever, Ethan’s cell phone rang.
It was the girls from the travel agency, and with good news: the cargo ship had arrived; if we could get to the port in the next couple of hours, then Kazakhstan would soon be but a memory. Having finally acquired our visas this very morning, the timing couldn’t have been better. With no food facilities on board the ship, we quickly stocked up on bread, cheese, meat, and beer, then, after thanking Timur for his hospitality, headed for the port. Still waiting outside, stuck in their trucks, were Dmitriy and friends. They must have been bored out of their minds; and it showed. Despite it being mid-day, Dmitriy was wasted on vodka and had a permanent cheesy grin plastered across his face. We said our goodbyes, then entered the port’s waiting room.
To wait.
And wait.
And wait.
An hour here or there we kind of expected, but forty-two hours later? Let me state that again through gritted teeth, FORTY-TWO HOURS LATER!
The reason for this gargantuan hiatus? Some fog on the Caspian was proving too vexing for the ship’s antiquated navigational equipment. If we’d known it was going to be so long, we would have headed back to sleep at Timur’s, but with officials popping in periodically to tell us that all would soon be well, we were damned if we were going to take the risk of going away and literally missing the boat.
“Any longer here and we’ll develop Stockholm Syndrome and will start latching onto that woman in customs,” said Ethan, after thrashing me at the umpteenth game of chess.
When the glorious moment finally arrived, and an official waved us through to customs, I almost didn’t believe it.
“You go on without me, Ethan,” I joked, “This is my life now. I’ve been here so long I’ve become institutionalized. The thought of stepping out into the wider world is just too daunting a prospect. But you go ahead and lead your life. Please explain to my family and friends; I hope they’ll understand.”
* * *
Standing on the deck of the cargo ship as the shore of Kazakhstan slowly receded in the distance, we cracked a celebratory beer, toasting our departure. Soon not a speck of land was in sight; water stretched to every horizon, and I could feel the allure of moving on, of imminent new adventure.
The ship was dated and empty. With only three non crew members on board, us and an Azeri man named Shakvalad, its long barren corridors, empty seating areas and abandoned upper deck, bestowed an eerie quiet—almost that of a ghost ship. Ethan and I shared a cabin, a basic but homely little space containing bunk beds with 1970s-style bright orange blankets, chintzy curtains, a tatty old porthole, and chipped and peeling laminate wood walling. Compared to the waiting room in Aktau, it was heaven.
“You want see eagle?” asked a crew member we came across changing the Kazakh flag to an Azerbaijani one on the upper deck.
“Err, sure,” replied Ethan.
We shared a look of intrigue and followed him down a dark and empty corridor.
“Must be quiet,” said the crew member softly as we stopped outside a particular cabin.
Opening up, he led us in, where, perched on top of the bed, looking longingly out of the porthole window, was a young bird of prey. Taking off his beanie, the man cast it on top of the bird’s head to temporarily blind it, then quickly grasped its talons and picked it up to show us.
“We call Shaheen,” he said.
He was a magnificent creature with wild piercing eyes and a beautiful plumage, of orange, brown, gray, black, and white. Eventually the man released his grip. Flapping back to the window, he sat once more, staring forlornly at sea birds drifting merrily by on the breeze outside. Every so often he would flap his wings and attempt to push through the transparent surface that stood between him and the life he longed for. What a cruel fate, so against the natural order of things. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution had created him for such a different life, and every fiber in his being knew it. I felt so very sorry for that bird, and empathized deeply with his predicament. I knew what it felt like to be confined, to be trapped somewhere that I desperately wanted to break free from but could not, yet there was nothing I could do to help him. At this moment I was free and he was trapped. It was as simple as that. With a pained smile I said a little internal goodbye to the bird, promising that I would carry him in my heart and honor his memory by taking every opportunity to feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my face and to soar wild and free in spirit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tank Graveyard
A day and a night on board, and the rain-lashed skyline of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, came into sight. Cutting-edge modern architecture mingled with stately old European-style buildings that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the opulent streets of Paris. Not that it was all grandiose or avant-garde. Mixed in were the usual drab towers you’d expect from a former Soviet republic, along with plenty of port infrastructure; but even from a long distance, it was clear that this was no Aktau that lay ahead.
Dominating the scene was the most out of proportion flag I’ve ever seen, a ridiculously oversized national banner, quivering in the breeze atop a colossal pole. I later learned the pole measured 531 feet, making it, at the time of its erection in 2009, the tallest unsupported flagpole in the world. With the ensign stretching 98 feet by 229 feet, and weighing in at nearly half a ton, it had petroleum-funded delusions of grandeur written all over it.
Having selected the cheaper transit visa option instead of a tourist one, my stay in Azerbaijan was limited to a fleeting five days; but given that this tiny country could fit into Kazakhstan thirty-one times, it seemed more than adequate for my purposes. I had arranged for Ethan and me to stay in Baku with an Azeri friend of mine, Jamil, a couchsurfer who had previously crashed at my place in London. He agreed to meet us on the main road outside Baku’s port, where a deluge of BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, and other luxury cars drove past, making clear, along with billboards for swanky top-end fashion brands, ho
w awash with oil money the city was.
It had all begun in 1872 with the deregulation in Baku of commercial oil extraction, leading to one of the world’s great oil rushes that saw entrepreneurs and workers flocking there from every corner of the Russian Empire, and further beyond. In under thirty years Baku’s population sky-rocketed by 1,200 percent, and by 1905 the city was producing an amazing 50 percent of the world’s petroleum, creating gargantuan fortunes for a select few. Although nowhere near responsible for such a lofty figure today, a new pipeline stretching from Baku, through Georgia and Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea a thousand miles away, has seen the boom time return. Since going online in 2005, rents, property prices, and hotel costs have hit the roof, making it a huge stroke of luck that I knew a local: accommodation would have cost us a small fortune.
“You know what, if Jamil arrives in anything other than a Benz, I think I’m gonna feel disappointed now,” I joked to Ethan as another one tore past.
Fifteen minutes later he arrived in a shiny—Benz.
It had been a while since I’d last seen him, but he looked the same as ever, with a shaggy mop of jet-black hair, tufty goatee beard and a geeky pair of glasses that made him look every bit the computer expert and IT consultant he was.
“Jamie!” he cried through the car’s window. “Welcome to Baku!”
We bundled in and soon arrived at Jamil’s charming apartment in a nice leafy district of the city. Here Ethan took a turn for the worse, the color draining from his face and his normal joie de vivre departing.
“I think it’s the flu,” he groaned. “Been feeling ill all morning.”
I could tell he wanted to crash-out, but when an offer came from Jamil to take us to see Baku’s central Fountain Square, he dug deep and tagged along.
It was a nice enough little spot with decorative, scalloped-pattern paving, plenty of benches and, of course, a fountain. But Baku’s real attraction, at least for me, was its historic, fortress-walled Old City. With Ethan in no state to go traipsing around, I arranged to meet him and Jamil later, and went solo to this nearby twelfth century UNESCO World Heritage Site, where atmospheric back-alleys and lanes twisted their way past traditional carpet sellers, mosques, art galleries, museums, an old sand-stone palace complex, and the country’s most iconic historic building: Maiden’s Tower. According to legend, this ninety-five foot stone tower had been constructed by a wealthy king who fell in love with his own daughter, and then asked the poor girl to marry him. Repulsed, but in no position to deny the King, she requested that before she gave him an answer he build her a tower from where she could observe his whole domain. When finished she climbed up to the top and leapt off to her death.
* * *
The following morning Ethan looked like death warmed up, but he soldiered-on for another outing, this time a road-trip heading south along the road towards Iran. Joining us now were Jamil’s auburn-haired Lithuanian girlfriend, Ieva, and their photojournalist friend, Vladic.
Soon Baku’s generally pleasant inner center gave way, on its southern outskirts, to an industrial nightmare of nodding-donkey oil pumps that stretched along a color-drained sandy corridor to the distant shores of a gloomy Caspian. It was horrendous; and today’s miserable gray weather just added to the look.
“Have you seen the James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough?” asked Jamil.
“Sure.”
“This is where they filmed the opening scene. We call it the James Bond oil field.”
It didn’t get much better further along the road. Scruffy beaches, rusting pipelines and hideous petro-chemical plants, made up most of the view across a post-apocalyptic landscape.
“I’ve never seen it, but apparently there’s a giant statue of Lenin’s head out here near the Azerbaijan Methanol Company,” said Vladic.
Flicking through his copy of Mark Elliott’s Azerbaijan travel guide, Vladic found the appropriate page and handed it to me. Sketched out was a hand-drawn map depicting a gas station, some chemical works and a small boxed section labeled, “Lenin still stands in grounds of factory.”
Locating the gas station, we traipsed across barren fields with rusting pipelines emanating from the huge industrial complex, the Azerbaijan Methanol Company, where the statue was said to reside. Being Sunday there were few workers about with whom to make inquiries, but we found a couple of bemused guards who told us Lenin had been removed and was now in storage. Not that this spelt the end of our jaunt out here.
“Fancy trying to find an old tank cemetery instead?” asked Vladic, pointing out the details in his book.
There were two, one marked with, “Now a closed military zone—Keep Away!” that contained mostly parts, the other, also off limits, contained mostly tank chassis. Traipsing in the direction of the chassis cemetery, we came across a battered old factory with a rusting metal frame and huge vacant gaps in the sheet-metal paneling of its walls. Out the back was what we were looking for: two huge padlocked metal gates. Beyond stretched the decaying serried ranks of a brigade’s worth of gutted and oxidized tanks and armoured vehicles. Gaining access was easy. Although locked together, the gates sagged so much on their hinges that we simply squeezed through, entering a bizarre decaying world of coiled tracks, chunky axles, spiked drive sprockets, old unidentifiable engine parts, and the skeletons of the tanks themselves.
Climbing among an amassed mountain of parts spilling out between these old mechanical war horses, we clambered inside multiple vehicles. With arms spread out tightrope walker-style, we took turns shuffling along the tanks’ main guns, perching on their ends to pose for photos. Many were practically stripped bare, missing turrets and almost everything else that would have once identified them as tanks, others relatively intact and lined up in battle-ready formation as if poised for a final big push that never came.
On our way out, we happened upon a nearby factory worker who explained the tank cemetery for us. After the fall of the Soviet Union the tanks had been brought here on the executive orders of the President. Those with salvageable components were stripped and the parts used in a nearby factory that produced shiny modern tanks, whose munitions were tested on the hills opposite—a good reason not to go strolling that way in search of the second graveyard. We made our way back to the car instead.
* * *
With Ethan still ill and planning to spend the next couple of days recuperating before catching the train to Georgia, I said goodbye to him and Jamil at first light—for now anyway, as both were soon planning separate trips to London—and got myself to the outskirts of Baku via local bus and the city’s swanky subway system, lavishly decorated in sections with fetching mosaics.
Hitchhiking in Azerbaijan proved far easier than Kazakhstan. Despite having acquired a note explaining what I was doing, I didn’t really need it; far more people spoke English, and the rides came frequently, if at times for short durations. By the afternoon I had cleared half of the country, and found myself traveling in an SUV along a rural road that cut through a green and hilly landscape, with charming little villages and farms, so very different from the urban sprawl of Baku.
My new chauffeur was Adil, a senior operations officer at a mine clearance organization.
“Some years ago we lose a little territory to Armenia,” he told me. “Our army soldiers take a little bit back; but a lot of these areas are heavily mined. The region is fertile soil: gold and agriculture and wine factories, and it is very beautiful, but it cannot be used for agriculture now. Each year there are many civilian casualties so we do mine awareness as well as clearance.”
“How many mines are left?”
“Thousands, but the Armenians leave no records.”
He was on his way to the organization’s regional training base just outside the city of Goygol, about two hours drive from the border with Georgia, and asked if I’d like to have a look around the place. I wanted to arrive in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, before dark, but with it being only an hour or so beyond the border, this left ple
nty of time for a side trip.
Several billboards on the road depicted Azerbaijan’s former leader and KGB man, Heydar Aliyev, who ran the country during much of its Soviet period as chairman of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, and was the first and only Azeri to become a member of the U.S.S.R.’s executive committee, the Politburo. After independence, Aliyev performed something of a political about-face, becoming President, but now as an endorser of the “free-market.” The sight of these billboards led to an interesting discussion with Adil, who I queried about the differences between Azerbaijan under communism compared with today.
“In Soviet times it was much better,” he told me. “Some things were very bad but most things very good. The people were more generous, happy and sharing. But now everyone is chasing money and worrying for tomorrow. In Soviet times you absolutely knew tomorrow would be better than today. We had good school, free university, lots of jobs, good apartments, and stability. Money was enough for food and saving, and to get a car; it was sufficient to have a good life. There was no criminal, no Mafia. When we get independence, a few people get a lot of money, but most people nothing! If this is democracy, I don’t want it!”
We arrived at The Azerbaijan National Agency For Mine Action through big green gates, and made our way along a dirt track lined with cypress trees to the front of the complex, a modest school-size building, mostly hidden from the outside world behind a large screening wall. Out the front, fluttering in the breeze, were the flags of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and NATO. Leading me inside, Adil took me past a large map depicting the locations of landmined areas, and a fascinating life size 3D wall display, featuring all the different sorts of landmines, grenades, cluster bombs, projectiles, rockets, and munitions they might come across.
“Are you hungry?” he asked as we entered a staffroom full of uniformed personnel.