Immigrants on the Move

A number of people commented about my not naming the place I’ve been living in, not talking about it in terms of my next stage in moving overseas. There has been an element of that which was intentional. When you talk about big brother states people tend to immediately think of China and Russia, and I’m sure they are far worse than Azerbaijan, but for me I didn’t feel safe mentioning where I was because I was in a world where everything was highly monitored.

Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing. Herodotus.

When you arrive into Azerbaijan you have thirty days to declare your phone with the immigration control before your phone will be shut down. This came as a huge shock to me, that people I’d never met, in a country that I hadn’t bought the phone could find a way to make that phone unworkable. I used to consider myself good with technology, but the older I’ve got the more it baffles and scares me. The process of registering your phone involved paying import tax on it, and giving them your EMEI number, which when I looked into, I found would give them full access to my phone. I opted instead for buying a cheap local phone to use.

This big brother is watching you feeling wasn’t limited to phones and imports. I heard stories of people paid to trawl through WhatsApp messages, or people deported or held in grubby hotels with no food for days while their deportation was arranged over the slightest of infractions. It became clear to me that this was a country that was not interested in freedom of speech. So as someone who writes honestly about the countries I’ve lived in, someone who freely expresses my opinion, I made the executive decision that the least I mentioned Baku in my blog posts, the better for everyone.

It’s been a couple of months since I left the country, and I’m still not sure I’ve properly digested my experience there. There will probably more blog posts to come. My impression of what I experienced is how Soviet it felt, I expected a Muslim country and I got a country heavily influenced by the Russian rule of control. One night I was at a book club dinner, and I was asked how I liked Baku. The only acceptable answer from the perspective of the locals was it’s amazing and to heap praise on the place. The majority had no concept of anything but blind patriotism. Everything is perfect because our government is perfect; now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Being a rebel, I chose to reply honestly and said I found it very Soviet. The women I was speaking to revealed she was originally born in Russia and she couldn’t believe I found it Soviet, she felt it was so easy going. My reply as you can imagine was this; easy going compared to Russia maybe, but compared to Spain it is not.

One might ask what makes it feel Soviet? For me it is the control, the management of its people, the feeling that opinions and individuality are something dangerous. The people of Baku dress alike, the conversations I’ve had with them could almost be scripted they are often so alike. This makes the individuals who choose to be different in Baku so much more special. They are fighting against a huge wave of conformity, they are risking their personal well-being to stand and be proud of who they are. Most of the time these are women, who are already treated as second class citizens in the country.

So there will be more posts on my experience of Azerbaijan, of the people, the culture and the long term effects of Russia’s occupation. But it’s only fair for me to reflect and digest some of the experiences I’ve had before I put pen to paper and share it with the world.