Day 10 (July 20, 2022):


As we are enroute to Qatar tonight, today’s blog is delayed. Please check back on Thursday. 

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Heydar Aliyev Center - one of the most beautiful modern buildings we have ever seen, both inside and out. 


The “ooh, ahh…” of the exterior views is matched inside…
… where the sleek lines continue from top to bottom. 

The extensive Azerbaijani musical instrument collection was a sheer delight to see!


As was the doll collection. Apparently, Azerbaijan is known for its doll-making artistry. 


We could go on and on about the other things we saw in the Center, but we will limit it to this one last photo: some of Heydar Aliyev’s limousines. 








The Baku Metro has the grand air of the typical Soviet metro systems. 


We went all the way across the city to see the second tallest flagmast (162m) in the world (an Azerbaijani flag). They have a massive raised plaza to display this flag, the size of several football fields, but when we arrived there, it was under expansion — and no flag!  We walked around the entire plaza anyway. 



Can you imagine the number of stones that were used to build the plaza?


No flag pole or flag to see, but Pam found some wonderful new shoes!


Baku is filled with so many large-scale and ultra-modern building projects. Such as Crystal Hall, a sporting and exhibition centre, located nearby the place where the second largest flagmast in the world was supposed to be!


Winter Park


For a city that experiences such heat, Baku’s grass is actually quite green. And, shockingly, most of it is watered by hand!  All over the city, in park after park, we saw the grass being watered this way. 


Winter Park

We had another wonderful Azerbaijani dinner, this time, at a restaurant in Winter Park. By the time we left after 7PM, no one else had arrived for dinner. As we experienced last night, dinner is in full swing here after 9:30PM!


Peynirli pide`- a cheese flatbread


Yesterday’s blog entry showed our hotel by night.  Here it is by day. 


Our hotel room had a great balcony and overlooked Winter Park. 

And in case you couldn’t notice who was on the balcony….


The hotel features an informal / social meeting space on each floor, and all of these spaces are open to the main floor gastropub. Very innovative!

Shamefully, we admit that we had been expecting a country and infrastructure much more humble than we found in Azerbaijan. Take the International Airport, for example. It is quite the showpiece!  Even the poorest of countries tend to put a lot of money into their international airport, as a point of pride and a way to make a good first impression. But often, that first impression gives way to the country’s reality as soon as you leave the airport grounds. Not so in Azerbaijan!  The airport is truly indicative of what you find everywhere - at least in Baku.



The Baku International Airport also has many innovative features inside, such as these “cocoons”, for everything from business services to cafes to prayer rooms. 

And individual smoking cabins for those who really need to have a puff. 

Ablution rooms are not something one would see at a North American airport! (Ablutions refer to the personal cleaning regimes required of Muslims before prayer.)


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