The etymology of the word Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, is derived from the Persian Badkube, meaning “city where the wind blows,” probably because gale-force and yearlong winds lash the city unrelentingly.
In the last decade Baku transformed at a rapid rate. It is a process driven by unfettered industrial exploitation, soaring population growth, the Azerbaijani elite’s self-indulgence, greed, and rampant systemic corruption. When Marco Polo passed through the city in the 12th century, he described it as “a spring from which gushes a stream of oil, in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once. This oil is not good to eat; but it is good for burning….” Today, it is this same oil that propels Baku into a process of practically unstoppable development, at least for the next 20-30 years, until the oil runs out. The first drilling of oil wells in history took place in that city in 1946. Nearly half a century later, at the turn of the 20th century, half of the oil consumed in the world was supplied by wells located in the vicinity of Baku, now positioned near one of the world's largest and most coveted oil reserves.
After it achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991—which was followed by a two-year military conflict with Armenia over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region—Azerbaijan saw the return of the former deputy prime minister of the USSR, Heydar Aliyev, an Azeri who became president of the young state. He opened the country up to international investment with a view to further develop the country’s abundant oil and gas resources. That decision has changed the face of Baku, especially after the commissioning of the1768 km Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in 2005, which carries Azerbaijani, and some Central Asian, oil through Georgia’s territory to Ceyhan Port in Turkey, where it is then loaded onto tankers to European and international energy markets. The BTC pipeline, which is now fully operational albeit not at full capacity, was made possible through a close collaboration with the U.S. and EU.
With booming oil revenues, Baku’s downtown and the Caspian Sea coastline have been undergoing a multi-billion dollar “facelift” with impressive architectural and urban renewal projects. The Parliament Hill is now dominated by the astonishing “Flame Towers”—three flame-shaped towers, designed by HOK international, intended to become an icon for Baku's coastal skyline. The towers’ unusual shape alludes to Baku’s historic Zoroastrian roots and modern connection with natural gas. In the same vein of renewal, the old communist buildings in the city center have given way to innovative buildings designed and constructed by the best European architects. The “Black City”—the area where the first refineries were built and where oil is still refined—is being transformed into a “White City,” an ultramodern urban area which will connect Baku’s pompous historical center to its rundown suburbs. The largest city in the South Caucasus, Baku is being changed into a real metropolis. It is home to approximately four of the nine million inhabitants of the country.
Plans for the future are equally ambitious. The Zira Zero Island project, developed with Danish BIG Architects and Ramboll engineers, aims to transform Zira Island, located in the bay of Baku, into a carbon neutral resort and residential development. The project will be on the level of an eco-futuristic city located along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Danish architects apparently took inspiration in their design from the shapes of famous Azerbaijani mountains. Baku, through this new construction, is rediscovering its ancient national identity based upon the country’s dramatic natural setting.
Also, 25 km south of Baku, Avesta, an Azerbaijani construction company, is working on the $100 billion Khazar Islands project. Since 2011 the company has been building 41 artificial islands, known as Khazar Islands, which will reach 3,000 hectares (an area of approximately 11.6 sq mi) into the Caspian Sea. The new city will be able to house one million residents, and will contain 150 schools, 50 hospitals and daycare centers, numerous parks, shopping malls, cultural centers, university campuses, and a Formula 1 race track. This “new Venice” is scheduled to be completed between 2020 and 2025. American, Turkish, Arab, and Chinese investors have already expressed their interest in the project.
The sudden oil wealth has improved only in part the living conditions of the Azerbaijani population. The cost of living in Baku is similar to that of Western European and North American cities. The Azerbaijani national currency, the Manat, is valued almost on the same level as the euro, but its high value has not brought benefits for all. Away from the glittering Baku city center, the country is still in a deeply underdeveloped. Apart from the export of oil and gas, no other industrial sectors have prospered and become competitive on world markets. The privatization of farms in the 1990s resulted in a tremendous increase in the suffering of the rural population, so that today 42 percent of rural residents live below the poverty line, while the gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
For the majority of Azerbaijani citizens the average monthly salary does not exceed 350 euros per month. Away from Baku’s glittering and bustling city center, the country is lagging behind in progress and development. Apart from the export of oil and gas, no other industrial sectors have prospered and become competitive on world markets. The privatization of collective farms in the 1990s resulted in a tremendous increase in the suffering of the rural population. Even today, 42 percent of rural residents live below the poverty line, while the gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
The frenzied rush to modernization has not changed Azerbaijan’s non enviable reputation of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. As far back as 1985, the Soviet newspaper Pravda accused Heydar Aliyev, the iconic Azerbaijani president who ruled the country between 1993 and 2003, of corruption when he was vice president of the USSR. His ties to the mafia were exposed by an Azeri prosecutor, Gamboi Mamedov, who persisted in his investigation amid retaliatory threats to the safety of his relatives and colleagues. Mamedov’s investigation was followed by a series of suicides of Azerbaijani mafia members and the mysterious death of a few of Aliyev’s close clan members.
Corruption is still alive and well under IIham Aliyev, Heydar’s son, who came to power in 2003 after the sudden death of his father. IIham continues to rule the former Soviet republic with the same authoritarian methods as did his father. Moreover, the hydra of corruption has crept into every nook and corner of the society, from business to health, politics and education. Baku takes the lion’s share of the reaping based on highly engrained practices of embezzlement. In Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, Azerbaijan found itself in 139th place out of 174 countries, not far from countries like Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, and Nigeria, well known for their abnormally high levels of corruption.
Corruption undoubtedly remains the main source of discontent in Baku, and throughout Azerbaijan in general. For the International Crisis Group (ICG), corruption is the real pillar of Aliyev’s regime. Ordinary citizens also feel that Azerbaijan is inundated with corruption at all levels of power. In January 2011, President Aliyev launched a campaign to “heal the wounds” of corruption, declaring that his administration would strictly implement new anti-corruption measures. The media closely covered this announcement as well as the subsequent dismissal of some government officials in March of that year. Some activist groups, however, denounced these measures as mere window-dressing, since only a few low-profile state-employees were dismissed.
The political opposition—and the general public—suspect that the government’s sudden concern about corruption was designed to create a pretext for imposing a further crackdown on the opposition forces following the collapse of the Mubarak regime in Egypt a few days before. “What we are seeing is plastic surgery on a patient who needs a heart transplant,” wrote opposition newspaper Liberty in a May 2011 issue. Over the years a large number of international monitoring reports and articles have outlined the corrosive effect of corruption on Azerbaijani society and economic development. Azerbaijani authorities have harshly criticized or simply ignored these reports.
In December 2012, on the occasion of the Human Rights Day, a peaceful demonstration against the government in central Baku was violently repressed by the police, which in a few minutes, ‘cleaned’ the square of demonstrators by force. According to Amnesty International, Azerbaijani authorities regularly criminalize all forms of peaceful protest, and use legislative and administrative methods to ban citizen groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field of human rights. In the Azerbaijani media, these types of events are not news, because the main television channels are controlled by the Aliyev government, which also controls approval of broadcast licenses. In the Reporters Without Borders’ 2012 rankings, Azerbaijan took the 162nd place in the world in terms of press freedom. Freedom of expression in independent media and social networks is particularly vulnerable as it is constantly and thoroughly monitored by the state.
Azerbaijan is a country exceedingly divided along lines of income inequality and freedom of expression, and Baku is an obvious example. Oil revenues allow the construction of amazing architectural edifices, but at the moment only a small group of the Azerbaijani elite benefit from the wealth. The situation is further exacerbated by rampant corruption and the denial of political rights to oppositional groups. The task of bringing change will not be easy or quick.
Richard Rousseau is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. His research, teaching and consulting interests include Russian politics, Eurasian geopolitics, international political economy, and globalization. He lived three years in Baku.
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Baku: A City of Contrasts and Contradictions
December 2, 2013
The etymology of the word Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, is derived from the Persian Badkube, meaning “city where the wind blows,” probably because gale-force and yearlong winds lash the city unrelentingly.
In the last decade Baku transformed at a rapid rate. It is a process driven by unfettered industrial exploitation, soaring population growth, the Azerbaijani elite’s self-indulgence, greed, and rampant systemic corruption. When Marco Polo passed through the city in the 12th century, he described it as “a spring from which gushes a stream of oil, in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once. This oil is not good to eat; but it is good for burning….” Today, it is this same oil that propels Baku into a process of practically unstoppable development, at least for the next 20-30 years, until the oil runs out. The first drilling of oil wells in history took place in that city in 1946. Nearly half a century later, at the turn of the 20th century, half of the oil consumed in the world was supplied by wells located in the vicinity of Baku, now positioned near one of the world's largest and most coveted oil reserves.
After it achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991—which was followed by a two-year military conflict with Armenia over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region—Azerbaijan saw the return of the former deputy prime minister of the USSR, Heydar Aliyev, an Azeri who became president of the young state. He opened the country up to international investment with a view to further develop the country’s abundant oil and gas resources. That decision has changed the face of Baku, especially after the commissioning of the1768 km Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in 2005, which carries Azerbaijani, and some Central Asian, oil through Georgia’s territory to Ceyhan Port in Turkey, where it is then loaded onto tankers to European and international energy markets. The BTC pipeline, which is now fully operational albeit not at full capacity, was made possible through a close collaboration with the U.S. and EU.
With booming oil revenues, Baku’s downtown and the Caspian Sea coastline have been undergoing a multi-billion dollar “facelift” with impressive architectural and urban renewal projects. The Parliament Hill is now dominated by the astonishing “Flame Towers”—three flame-shaped towers, designed by HOK international, intended to become an icon for Baku's coastal skyline. The towers’ unusual shape alludes to Baku’s historic Zoroastrian roots and modern connection with natural gas. In the same vein of renewal, the old communist buildings in the city center have given way to innovative buildings designed and constructed by the best European architects. The “Black City”—the area where the first refineries were built and where oil is still refined—is being transformed into a “White City,” an ultramodern urban area which will connect Baku’s pompous historical center to its rundown suburbs. The largest city in the South Caucasus, Baku is being changed into a real metropolis. It is home to approximately four of the nine million inhabitants of the country.
Plans for the future are equally ambitious. The Zira Zero Island project, developed with Danish BIG Architects and Ramboll engineers, aims to transform Zira Island, located in the bay of Baku, into a carbon neutral resort and residential development. The project will be on the level of an eco-futuristic city located along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Danish architects apparently took inspiration in their design from the shapes of famous Azerbaijani mountains. Baku, through this new construction, is rediscovering its ancient national identity based upon the country’s dramatic natural setting.
Also, 25 km south of Baku, Avesta, an Azerbaijani construction company, is working on the $100 billion Khazar Islands project. Since 2011 the company has been building 41 artificial islands, known as Khazar Islands, which will reach 3,000 hectares (an area of approximately 11.6 sq mi) into the Caspian Sea. The new city will be able to house one million residents, and will contain 150 schools, 50 hospitals and daycare centers, numerous parks, shopping malls, cultural centers, university campuses, and a Formula 1 race track. This “new Venice” is scheduled to be completed between 2020 and 2025. American, Turkish, Arab, and Chinese investors have already expressed their interest in the project.
The sudden oil wealth has improved only in part the living conditions of the Azerbaijani population. The cost of living in Baku is similar to that of Western European and North American cities. The Azerbaijani national currency, the Manat, is valued almost on the same level as the euro, but its high value has not brought benefits for all. Away from the glittering Baku city center, the country is still in a deeply underdeveloped. Apart from the export of oil and gas, no other industrial sectors have prospered and become competitive on world markets. The privatization of farms in the 1990s resulted in a tremendous increase in the suffering of the rural population, so that today 42 percent of rural residents live below the poverty line, while the gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
For the majority of Azerbaijani citizens the average monthly salary does not exceed 350 euros per month. Away from Baku’s glittering and bustling city center, the country is lagging behind in progress and development. Apart from the export of oil and gas, no other industrial sectors have prospered and become competitive on world markets. The privatization of collective farms in the 1990s resulted in a tremendous increase in the suffering of the rural population. Even today, 42 percent of rural residents live below the poverty line, while the gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
The frenzied rush to modernization has not changed Azerbaijan’s non enviable reputation of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. As far back as 1985, the Soviet newspaper Pravda accused Heydar Aliyev, the iconic Azerbaijani president who ruled the country between 1993 and 2003, of corruption when he was vice president of the USSR. His ties to the mafia were exposed by an Azeri prosecutor, Gamboi Mamedov, who persisted in his investigation amid retaliatory threats to the safety of his relatives and colleagues. Mamedov’s investigation was followed by a series of suicides of Azerbaijani mafia members and the mysterious death of a few of Aliyev’s close clan members.
Corruption is still alive and well under IIham Aliyev, Heydar’s son, who came to power in 2003 after the sudden death of his father. IIham continues to rule the former Soviet republic with the same authoritarian methods as did his father. Moreover, the hydra of corruption has crept into every nook and corner of the society, from business to health, politics and education. Baku takes the lion’s share of the reaping based on highly engrained practices of embezzlement. In Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, Azerbaijan found itself in 139th place out of 174 countries, not far from countries like Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, and Nigeria, well known for their abnormally high levels of corruption.
Corruption undoubtedly remains the main source of discontent in Baku, and throughout Azerbaijan in general. For the International Crisis Group (ICG), corruption is the real pillar of Aliyev’s regime. Ordinary citizens also feel that Azerbaijan is inundated with corruption at all levels of power. In January 2011, President Aliyev launched a campaign to “heal the wounds” of corruption, declaring that his administration would strictly implement new anti-corruption measures. The media closely covered this announcement as well as the subsequent dismissal of some government officials in March of that year. Some activist groups, however, denounced these measures as mere window-dressing, since only a few low-profile state-employees were dismissed.
The political opposition—and the general public—suspect that the government’s sudden concern about corruption was designed to create a pretext for imposing a further crackdown on the opposition forces following the collapse of the Mubarak regime in Egypt a few days before. “What we are seeing is plastic surgery on a patient who needs a heart transplant,” wrote opposition newspaper Liberty in a May 2011 issue. Over the years a large number of international monitoring reports and articles have outlined the corrosive effect of corruption on Azerbaijani society and economic development. Azerbaijani authorities have harshly criticized or simply ignored these reports.
In December 2012, on the occasion of the Human Rights Day, a peaceful demonstration against the government in central Baku was violently repressed by the police, which in a few minutes, ‘cleaned’ the square of demonstrators by force. According to Amnesty International, Azerbaijani authorities regularly criminalize all forms of peaceful protest, and use legislative and administrative methods to ban citizen groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field of human rights. In the Azerbaijani media, these types of events are not news, because the main television channels are controlled by the Aliyev government, which also controls approval of broadcast licenses. In the Reporters Without Borders’ 2012 rankings, Azerbaijan took the 162nd place in the world in terms of press freedom. Freedom of expression in independent media and social networks is particularly vulnerable as it is constantly and thoroughly monitored by the state.
Azerbaijan is a country exceedingly divided along lines of income inequality and freedom of expression, and Baku is an obvious example. Oil revenues allow the construction of amazing architectural edifices, but at the moment only a small group of the Azerbaijani elite benefit from the wealth. The situation is further exacerbated by rampant corruption and the denial of political rights to oppositional groups. The task of bringing change will not be easy or quick.
Richard Rousseau is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. His research, teaching and consulting interests include Russian politics, Eurasian geopolitics, international political economy, and globalization. He lived three years in Baku.
