Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
TURKISH EXPERTS ACCUSE HEYDAR ALIYEV IN MURDERING EX-PRESIDENT OF TURKEY
17:08 11/02/2013
Shocking information was announced about the last Azerbaijani President
Heydar Aliyev on the Turkish TV channel "Ulke TV". On February 7, in
the program "Special Edition", the issue concerning the poisoning of
the dead Turkish President Turgut Ozal was discussed. You can watch
the video here.
According to Azadlyg writer Omer Ozkaya says that Turgut Ozal was
poisoned by mixing poison with the lemonade which he got from the
hands of the "trusted person in the Azerbaijani leadership." As a
result of inquiry Ozkaya came to the conclusion that that person
was Heydar Aliyev. The evidence for this hypothesis the Turkish side
received from the intelligence services of Bulgaria from whom it had
actually obtained the poison.
According to Turkish expert, after having transferred this information,
the Bulgarian secret service agent was found dead.
According to the official version, he committed suicide, but the
examination showed that he was killed.
Azerbaijani authorities hastened to refute the information that Turgut
Ozal was poisoned in Baku by Heydar Aliyev. Allegedly, Aliyev was
not in Baku during this time, as far as in 1992 he was the head of
the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic.
Recently it was reported that in the textbook of "Constitutional Law"
for law students of Turkish universities the former president of
Azerbaijan, "National leader" Heydar Aliyev is brought as an example
of a modern dictator in the same line with Saddam Hussein and Pinochet.
Source: Panorama.am
Shocking information was announced about the last Azerbaijani President
Heydar Aliyev on the Turkish TV channel "Ulke TV". On February 7, in
the program "Special Edition", the issue concerning the poisoning of
the dead Turkish President Turgut Ozal was discussed. You can watch
the video here.
According to Azadlyg writer Omer Ozkaya says that Turgut Ozal was
poisoned by mixing poison with the lemonade which he got from the
hands of the "trusted person in the Azerbaijani leadership." As a
result of inquiry Ozkaya came to the conclusion that that person
was Heydar Aliyev. The evidence for this hypothesis the Turkish side
received from the intelligence services of Bulgaria from whom it had
actually obtained the poison.
According to Turkish expert, after having transferred this information,
the Bulgarian secret service agent was found dead.
According to the official version, he committed suicide, but the
examination showed that he was killed.
Azerbaijani authorities hastened to refute the information that Turgut
Ozal was poisoned in Baku by Heydar Aliyev. Allegedly, Aliyev was
not in Baku during this time, as far as in 1992 he was the head of
the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic.
Recently it was reported that in the textbook of "Constitutional Law"
for law students of Turkish universities the former president of
Azerbaijan, "National leader" Heydar Aliyev is brought as an example
of a modern dictator in the same line with Saddam Hussein and Pinochet.
Source: Panorama.am
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
The Dictator screenings cancelled in Azerbaijan, cinema claims 'technical problems'
Wednesday 23rd May 2012 – 4.39pm
Author: Safia Azizi
Screenings of the new Sasha Baron Cohen's film 'The Dictator' have been cancelled in a cinema located in the capital of Azerbaijan on Wednesday.
The Park Cinema, from which the film was pulled, was the one and only venue where 'The Dictator' was shown across Azerbaijan. The reason invoked for the cancellation of the screenings was "technical problems." There are only three cinemas across Azerbaijan including Park Cinema in the capital Baku.
Cohen's film tells the story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he oppresses.
Azerbaijan is under the spotlight this week as it is hosting the Eurovision song contest. Approximately 125m are expected to watch the extremely popular program live from Baku.
Despite an apparent improvement in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of speech, journalists, bloggers, as well as political activists and artists, including musicians, continue to be intimidated, censored and imprisoned in Azerbaijan.
The government banned last month all foreign TV shows claiming that the measure aimed at boosting and "supporting the domestic sector.”
Azerbaijan authorities arrested several protesters on Monday during a rally attended by members of the Public Chamber opposition movement, as well as NGOs and individuals in the opposition. They demonstrated in support of political prisoners who they say have been illegally arrested or convicted and therefore should be released.
Public Chamber has planned to organize more protests during the Eurovision contest in order to attract media attention to their cause and human rights violations in the country.
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Outdated, but nonetheless funnyLeave a comment:
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Azeri Woman Attempts to Cross into Karabakh
YEREVAN (ArmRadio)—Azeri police detained a 76-year-old woman who was attempting to cross Karabakh border with a white flag in her hand, the Azeri service of Radio Liberty reports.
Zarifa Safaraliyeva, the mother of 8, took the step because of Azeri authorities’ unacceptable treatment of her five sons, who became disabled in Karabakh war.
The woman complained that her sons were beaten up and ridiculed over their disabilities, with local police taking no effort to protect them.
“I gave 5 of my sons to the war and they came back disabled. My sons also have large families; one of them has 15 kids. They were drafted into war, and I was promised compensation. Now, the authorities wouldn’t hear of it. That’s the reason I want to go over to Armenian side with my family,” the elderly resident of Guzanly village said.
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Almost empty after a year... The Shard turns into the tallest white elephant in the world
.. Just six of its 72 floors in use after owners struggle to find buyers and tenants for luxury flats
.. Only occupants are 32nd floor restaurant and a viewing gallery on the upper five floors
.. The Shard is south of the Thames, across the river from the lucrative Square Mile
Reaching more than a thousand feet into the air, The Shard was hailed as one of the wonders of the age when it was completed.
Yet Britain’s tallest building is almost entirely empty, as its owners struggle to find buyers and tenants for its offices and luxury flats.
As our picture shows, London’s 72-storey skyscraper is largely dark in the early evening, while the surrounding buildings are bright with office lights.
FULL ARTICLE
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
That's a really strong point. There has always been reports over the past decade of increased cancer rates due to the oil extraction in BakuOriginally posted by Hakob View Post
And what you say about sinking shore is absolutely true, also note that the water level is rising, which is a proven fact, except in Baku science I guessOriginally posted by .But when I left the Old City and its Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana stores and headed off to Sangachal, the town where BP’s terminal operates, I found a nation heading full speed into the 14th century…
Baku, once the world’s leading manufacturer of oil drilling equipment, is now one of the world’s leading centers of oil-toxin cancers. Walking along the main street of Sangachal, the aptly nicknamed, “Terminal Town”, was like doing the rounds in a cancer ward.
The local shoemaker, Elmar Mamonov - who hasn’t sold a shoe in two years - told me:
“This one’s daughter has breast cancer; there, Rasul had a brain tumor. Cancers we had never seen. His funeral was last week.”
Azlan, afraid to give his last name, paid to have a cancerous lung cut out, because employer BP wouldn’t pay. He says the oil company fired him after he could not keep up with his work.
And there was Shala Tageva, a schoolteacher, who has ovarian cancer. She needs treatment soon, but how to pay for it, Mamonov can’t imagine. Shala is Mamonov’s wife.
Caspian Sea-Level Rise: An Environmental Emergency
eye opening graph
Also, we need to realize from every side there's oil exploitation, where 4 of the 5 regimes are former USSR regimes, with companies sprung up in the lawless early 90's period, where environmental protection is far down the list of priorities, and political dissent is never heard. So there's little regulations, long term planning, or safety considerations, just focus on profits, only increasing potential for disaster
Finally, such a plan takes so much planning and research to even be remotely viable, the fact that this jackass drew something on a t-shirt, and got started building, and is proud of it, just shows you who we're dealing with
Lol we just gotta sit back and enjoy the show
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Unlike arab emirates or other oil exporter states on the seas, the Caspian is a closed ecosystem. For any oil spills and residues stay long time.
Imagine how filthy the shoreline is going to get. It is allready filthy enough. Seen oil covered beaches or fields in there in pictures? People would come and spend money in stinking neighborhoods? By the way, I remember a soviet times study that showed that land around baku was slowly sinking, just like the whole caspian basin that has been sinking a few million years.Leave a comment:
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
I think the tower would make a fine target to aim at from marduni some day
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The Highest Skyscraper In the World Will Be This 3,444-Foot Turd
Forget about the 1-kilometer-high Kingdom Tower. There will be a building higher than that: the Azerbaijan Tower. It will be fifty meters higher than the Kingdom Tower, have 189 floors and look like a shiny glass, steel and concrete monolith of crap.
The 1.050-kilometer (3,444.88-foot) Azerbaijan Tower will be built on the Khazar Islands, an artificial archipelago that is being constructed on the coast of the Caspian Sea off Garadag, southwest of Baku, the capital of the country. It's an architectural aberration, a nonsensical bunch of structures tied together into a tower with zero coherence, let alone taste. It looks like an oversized mall growing among other oversized malls. Vertical bad taste.
Pure turdchitecture.
And while you can criticize the super-tall towers in the Arab Emirates, at least something like the 1-kilometer glass shard that is the Kingdom Tower has purpose and simplicity, something that is complete absent in this building and all the little skyturds that surround it.
The Khazar Islands will be a $100-billion city composed by 41 artificial islands. They will cover a 2,000-hectare surface. According to the plan, one million people will live in this new "city". The developer—some Haji Ibrahim Nehramli, president of the Avesta Group of Companies—is already negotiating with the companies that built the Burj Khalifa. Construction of the tower will start in 2015. It will be finished around 2019, with a total price tag of $2 billion.
When I saw the Burj Khalifa in real life I was truly stunned. The tallest skyscraper in the world defies belief. Today I learned something that also… Read…
Now, imagine the process of building this in a virgin ecosystem and then having 1,000,000 people move in. Even if they get their sewer system right and don't have to use trucks to get the poop out, the impact will be enormous. But of course, who cares. Screw it. Let's play SimCity.
So yes, this is going to be real. Hell exists and it's surfacing in the Caspian Sea
lol one of the comments
"This is most amusing. I have worked in Baku, it's a xxxx hole. In fact the whole country is a bit of a xxxx hole (no offense to any Azeries reading, but it is). If it wasn't for oil, it would be a xxxx hole that I would have never visited nor wanted to. Why on earth spend this amount of money putting this in a xxxx hole? The money would be better spent removing the xxxx from the hole. 2/10/12 3:03am "Last edited by Mher; 07-08-2013, 03:48 AM.Leave a comment:
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Azerbaijan Opposition Pins Hopes On Cultural Heavyweight For Presidential Vote
By Arifa Kazimova and Daisy Sindelar
July 02, 2013
Surprises are hard to come by in the highly managed world of Azerbaijani elections.
But Azerbaijan's opposition has already managed the first twist in what may prove an unusually lively electoral season by backing screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov to face off against incumbent Ilham Aliyev when the oil-rich nation votes for a president in October.
The National Council of Democratic Forces -- an umbrella group pulling together the country's main opposition parties -- voted overwhelmingly on July 2 to nominate Ibragimbekov, the screenwriter behind such classics as "White Sun of the Desert" and "Burnt by the Sun," the Academy Award-winning film made with his longtime collaborator Nikita Mikhalkov.
Ibragimbekov's name has been dangled as a potential nominee ever since he was appointed council chair last month. But it remained uncertain whether Azerbaijan's fractious opposition could ultimately unite behind a single candidate and whether the 74-year-old Ibragimbekov -- who has described himself as a "political neophyte" -- would rise to the challenge.
Speaking by phone from Moscow shortly after his nomination, Ibragimbekov told RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service he was daunted but determined.
"This is a huge responsibility. I am grateful to my comrades for their trust," he said. "I will do everything in my power to achieve success. My hope is in the people of Azerbaijan. They will decide their own historic destiny. If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't agree to take this responsibility. I will fight to the end."
Fresh Urgency
Ibragimbekov's nomination is not necessarily expected to alter the outcome of the vote, in which the country's 51-year-old president, Ilham Aliyev, is widely expected to win a constitutionally permitted third term as the candidate of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP).
But the participation of an esteemed cultural figure like Ibragimbekov, whose work is known and respected far beyond the borders of Azerbaijan, may lend fresh urgency to calls for change in the increasingly autocratic Caspian country, which has been ruled by a single bloodline for more than two decades.
In addition to Ibragimbekov's nomination, the National Council on July 2 approved a formal memorandum outlining a radical overhaul of Azerbaijan's political system in the event of an opposition win.
The memorandum foresees a two-year, single-term "transitional" presidency, fresh parliamentary elections in 2014, and a recalibration to narrow presidential powers and broaden legislative ones.
Ali Karimli, the head of the Popular Front Party, attended the July 2 National Council session and said Ibragimbekov was the ideal candidate to guide Azerbaijan through a political transformation.
"This is for the position he's demonstrated in recent years, for his efforts at forming the National Council, and for his authority in the world and among the Azerbaijani people," Karimli says. "This man will only be president for two years. He will not participate in the next elections. He will remain nonpartisan. He will not think about naming heirs in the presidential or parliamentary elections. He will work for this nation to join the democratic world during the transition period. We think Rustam Ibragimbekov can become this person."
Celebrity Status
For his advocates, Ibragimbekov's assets go beyond his perceived political incorruptibility. He is also seen as having celebrity status in both the United States and Russia, where he is expected to generate a drumbeat of support ahead of the election. (A formal date for the election has not been announced but constitutionally it is due to be schedule
Ibragimbekov, who won an Academy Award for "Burnt by the Sun" in 1995, traveled to Washington in June, where he said lawmakers expressed enthusiasm for steps for the "development of democracy" in Azerbaijan.
Now in Moscow, Ibragimbekov is expected to draw on an especially powerful circle of friends, including the so-called "billionaires' union" -- the Union of Azerbaijani Organizations of Russia, a diaspora support group that includes LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov and property mogul Araz Agalarov -- of which he is a member.
Gathering support abroad, however, comes at the expense of face time at home. Having thrown their weight behind his nomination, opposition supporters are now eager to see Ibragimbekov return to Azerbaijan as soon as possible – even if it means his possible arrest or even murder, as Ibragimbekov has himself suggested.
READ NEXT: Azerbaijan's Opposition Gears Up To Give Aliyev Serious Challenge
Isa Qambar, the head of the Musavat opposition party, backed the National Council decision but is also keeping his own party nomination active in the event that Ibragimbekov does not return to Baku.
"Ibragimbekov says he will come to Azerbaijan by the end of the month. We want to believe this," Qambar says. "I hope we won't hear in a month, 'Gather 100,000 people and I'll come to Baku.' That we won't hear in two months, 'I'll come after my candidacy is registered.'
"Registering a candidate is a risk. If there are other candidates in addition to our single candidate, the authorities will have a chance to choose between them and there's a risk of that happening. The National Council could be left out the elections altogether."
Registration Perils
The ruling party has already raised the possibility of a National Council collapse, with the YAP deputy executive secretary, Siyavush Novruzov, saying on July 2 that "every political party leader is going to put forth his candidacy as the elections approach. Nothing the National Council does has any significance for YAP."
The registration period is certain to present its own perils to a potential Ibragimbekov run. By law, each nominee is required to gather no fewer than 40,000 signatures in at least 60 electoral districts -- a demand that can expose opposition candidates to the vagaries of local officials loyal to the ruling regime.
Ibragimbekov, who holds a Russian passport and owns homes in Moscow and California, may also hit procedural snags over an electoral ban on candidates holding "foreign commitments."
For many Azerbaijanis, the potential of an Aliyev-Ibragimbekov face-off in the October vote is a drama as personal as it is political.
Despite a 2012 YouTube video showing the Azerbaijani president raising a lavish vodka toast to the filmmaker on his birthday, Ibragimbekov has had a hot-and-cold relationship with both Ilham and his father, Heydar, and recently criticized the ruling elite for failing to nurture the Azerbaijani intelligentsia.
"They think they are the salt of the earth, and they think our history began in 1993," he said. "Such neglect offended me. That's why I'm speaking up."
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Azerbaijani Opposition Nominates Single Presidential Candidate
July 02, 2013
BAKU -- Azerbaijan's political opposition groups have united to nominate a single candidate for October's presidential election.
At a session of the National Council of Democratic Forces on July 2, prominent screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov (aka Ibrahimbayov) was chosen to represent the opposition in the presidential race.
The session also produced a memorandum outlining a "transition period."
The document states that, if elected, the opposition's candidate would remain in office for only two years.
During that period, the National Council would establish a "government of national trust" to implement constitutional and electoral reforms. The proposed reforms would decrease the powers of the presidency, widen the parliament's responsibilities, and establish an independent judiciary system.
The ruling New Azerbaijan Party nominated incumbent President Ilham Aliyev as its presidential candidate last month.
Aliyev has held power since 2003, after succeeding his father.
Last edited by Mher; 07-08-2013, 03:46 AM.Leave a comment:
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Ibrahimov, who sported blue Stefano Ricci crocodile-skin shoes that matched his blue Stefano Ricci jeans, blue Zilli jacket and blue Zilli button-down shirt, tapped his foot arrhythmically. Every time I started to ask a question or he started to answer, there was a call or an incoming message. Occasionally Ibrahimov said something random that could be mistaken for something profound: “I live very simply,” or “My favorite places are France and Turkey.”
When Ibrahimov talks about himself, he hews to platitudes about, say, family (“it is important”) or how to get ahead in ex-communist countries (“instinct”). They are lessons he seems to have internalized. Ibrahimov was born in a village in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, a sliver of Azerbaijan wedged between Armenia and Iran. He has four brothers and two sisters. He called his father a “good Soviet” and a major influence in his life, but some suspect that Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s previous president, played a more important role.
Aliyev, a former Politburo member, also came from Nakhichevan. In 1991, he became de facto leader of the autonomous republic, just as the Soviet Union was falling apart and Ibrahimov was starting his first business, a limited-liability corporation called Ilkan. It’s unclear what Ilkan made or sold — Ibrahimov said only that he made his first million, in 1992, in the furniture business — but in the early ’90s, according to Avesta company literature, Ibrahimov built a three-story headquarters for Ilkan in Nakhichevan, which would probably have been very hard without support from someone powerful. Then, in 1993, Aliyev became president of Azerbaijan, and in 1996, Ibrahimov began Avesta. “Mr. Ibrahimov has always had very good relations with the government,” Guluzade, Khazar Islands’ former marketing director, told me.
Today Avesta oversees Ibrahimov’s many smaller companies. Some of these companies do things that seem to actually support Ibrahimov’s larger, development-related projects (building things, hauling equipment, clearing debris). Others, like the Azerbaijan-Iran Gunel Joint Enterprise, suggest more political interests. Opposition figures say that Ibrahimov owes much of what he has to the Aliyev family, but when I asked Ibrahimov about this, he shrugged. He said Avesta is not only a corporation but also a philanthropy, building water pipelines and mosques for poor villagers. He called Heydar Aliyev, who died in 2003, his inspiration, and he made a point of saying, more than once, that he likes Aliyev’s son, the current president, very much and thinks that he is guiding his country toward a more glorious and profitable future.
As Ibrahimov spoke, the Rolls trundled over an unpaved road. He maintained, always, the outlines of a barely discernible grin, and every few seconds he would point at something that wasn’t there but he could already see perfectly, that had been part of his vision. The Azerbaijan Tower, he proclaimed, would definitely be in Guinness World Records, and if the Saudis or Emiratis or anyone anywhere tried to build a bigger building, then he would build an even bigger one.
I asked him if there was anything Freudian about all these skyscrapers. He didn’t reply. Then suddenly, Ibrahimov blurted a series of unprompted factoids in his faux-profound style. First, “One hundred and fifty bridges are planned for Khazar Islands.” Then, in what seemed like a reference to his love of yachts: “Today the Caspian is only used for oil, but it’s not right.” Huseynli pointed at a cluster of recently planted palm trees. This seemed to cheer him up.
On some level, there is an economic logic behind building the tallest, biggest, brashest building anywhere. The rise of superdevelopments in cities like Doha, Riyadh, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai — and, of course, Abu Dhabi and Dubai — sent signals to investors that the state supported growth. Usually, these sorts of developments attract the attention, first, of regional investors who know the local topography, which Khazar Islands has already done. “They’re coming from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, the Arabic countries and especially from Israel,” Guluzade told me. Next are the more skeptical international investors that Ibrahimov is hoping to impress. Hence the Azerbaijan Tower. “The investor is faced with this battery of choices,” explained Brian Connelly, a strategic-management professor at Auburn University’s College of Business. “But there are things they can’t see, so they’re looking for a signal that tells them this is good for them. If I can see that there’s the tallest building in the world, I know the host-country institutions are behind them.”
Riding around in the Rolls, I couldn’t tell whether Ibrahimov was indeed a brilliant strategist or someone who just had the capital to create a vision on a piece of tissue paper and turn it into a construction project. Or perhaps both. As we neared the site of what will be the ritziest restaurant at Khazar Islands, he became very excited. The concrete and aluminum skeleton of the restaurant resembles a Viking helmet, and when it’s done, it will include a microbrewery, which Ibrahimov mentioned two or three times. “We have a guy from Austria,” he said. Nearby, there were more men in hard hats and jumpsuits, and trucks carting rocks. “In my head,” he said, “this project is already done.”
Ibrahimov is not the only developer in Baku, and Khazar Islands is not the only major development. Flame Towers, which features three flamelike towers, includes a five-star hotel and, at night, will be lighted in red. The Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by Zaha Hadid, includes a museum and looks a little like the starship Enterprise. Baku White City will encompass 500-plus acres of new apartments and parking lots and is supposed to be the opposite of Black City, where the oil barons built their refineries a century ago. Finally, there’s Crystal Hall, a 23,000-seat arena overlooking the Caspian.
Nearly three years after Ibrahimov’s initial vision on the Azerbaijan Airlines flight, Khazar Islands has grown to 4 fake islands, 1 bridge and 13 apartment buildings. All this development can feel a bit weird, or at least incongruous. As the Rolls careered through the outskirts of Baku, Ibrahimov became quiet. Unlike the United Arab Emirates, which was, until recently, a desert, Baku has a rich architectural history, with centuries-old mansions, mosques, palaces, squares and esplanades. (Some sites date to at least the seventh century.) Baku has a grace and cosmopolitanism; it feels like an amalgam of Paris and Istanbul, albeit dustier. It also feels like a gateway to the East, distant places, mythologies and many other things that the new Azerbaijan doesn’t have much appetite for. I interpreted Ibrahimov’s silence as a sign of melancholy, but in the front seat, Huseynli, who was fielding calls on two or possibly three cellphones, each with its own hip-hop ring tone, turned around excitedly. Glancing at the beige facades, the narrow streets, the old women selling apricots and nuts and pirated DVDs, she said: “All of this soon will be gone. Then we will have a new city. I like the old, of course, the historic. . . . But this will be gone, and then it will be a different country.”
When we pulled up to the Avesta Concern Tower, in central Baku, several men in tweed jackets were assembled on the curb and ready to escort us inside. After lunch in Ibrahimov’s private dining room, we decamped to the office and sat on a red silk divan with miniature Sphinx armrests. Ibrahimov pointed out his artifacts: his desk, which, he said, is Spanish and the same kind used by Vladimir Putin; a chess set from Italy; a sculpture of his father.
Ibrahimov segued back to Ilham Aliyev, the Boss of All Bosses, whom he called a great supporter, an ally, the son of the savior of the people of Azerbaijan. I asked him about other features of his regime: the lack of transparency, the lack of civil liberties, the detention of opposition activists. Ibrahimov said what oligarchs have been saying since Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian industrialist, was exiled to Siberia in 2003: “I don’t know anything about politics.” But “biznessmen” are much more intimately woven into the political fabric of Russia or Azerbaijan than C.E.O.’s in the West. They may wear crocodile-skin shoes, but they rely on the state for pipelines and extraction rights.
Ibrahimov, like other successful men in this part of the world, knows his place, and he knows it is best to be philosophical about these things. “Don’t ask me about politics,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake. This is not what I’m good at. This is not what I do.” Then his semismile semiwidened, and he started talking about his next big idea, which features more stratospheric buildings and superlong canals and eight-star hotel-palaces and heliports and yacht clubs. He was sure all these things could be done. He knew it There were important people — “political people,” he said — who support him.
Last edited by Mher; 07-08-2013, 02:06 AM.Leave a comment:
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Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs
Azerbaijan Is Rich. Now It Wants to Be Famous.
The New York Times
In March 2010, Ibrahim Ibrahimov was on the three-hour Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Dubai to Baku when he had a vision. “I wanted to build a city, but I didn’t know how,” Ibrahimov recalled. “I closed my eyes, and I began to imagine this project.” Ibrahimov, one of the richest men in Azerbaijan, is 54 and has a round, leathery face with millions of tiny creases kneaded in his brow and the spaces beneath his eyes. He walks the way generals walk when they arrive in countries that they have recently occupied. In the middle of his reverie, Ibrahimov summoned the flight attendant. “I asked for some paper, but there wasn’t any. So I grabbed this shirt in my bag that I hadn’t tried on. I took the tissue paper out, and in 20 minutes I drew the whole thing.”
Once he arrived in Baku, Ibrahimov went straight to his architects and said, “Draw this exactly the way I did.” Avesta Concern, the company that governs his various business interests, subsequently commissioned the blueprints for Ibrahimov’s vision. The result will be a sprawling, lobster-shaped development called Khazar Islands — an archipelago of 55 artificial islands in the Caspian Sea with thousands of apartments, at least eight hotels, a Formula One racetrack, a yacht club, an airport and the tallest building on earth, Azerbaijan Tower, which will rise 3,445 feet.
When the whole project is complete, according to Avesta, 800,000 people will live at Khazar Islands, and there will be hotel rooms for another 200,000, totaling nearly half the population of Baku. It will cost about $100 billion, which is more than the gross domestic product of most countries, including Azerbaijan. “It will cost $3 billion just to build Azerbaijan Tower,” Ibrahimov said. “Some people may object. I don’t care. I will build it alone. I work with my feelings.”
It’s not surprising that Ibrahimov, who plans to live in the penthouse of Azerbaijan Tower, had his epiphany on a flight from Dubai. The vision behind Khazar Islands, after all, is not a vision so much as a simulacrum of a vision. The fake islands, the thousands of palm trees and the glass and steel towers — many of which resemble Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel — are all emblems of the modern Persian Gulf petro-dictatorship. And two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union — its final custodian during 23 centuries of near-constant occupation — Azerbaijan could be accused of having similar ambitions. The country, which is about the size of South Carolina, has 9.2 million people and is cut off from any oceans. It builds nothing that the rest of the world wants and has no internationally recognized universities. It does, however, have oil.
In 2006, Azerbaijan started pumping crude from its oil field under the Caspian Sea through the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Now, with the help of BP and other foreign energy companies, one million barrels of oil course through the pipeline daily, ending at a Turkish port on the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. This makes Azerbaijan a legitimate energy power (the world’s leading oil producer, Saudi Arabia, produces 11 million barrels every day) with a great deal of potential. If the proposed Nabucco pipeline, running from Turkey to Austria, is built, Azerbaijan would become a conduit for gas reserves, linking Central Asia to Europe. This could strip Russia, which sells the European Union more than a third of the gas it consumes, of one of its most potent foreign-policy levers. It could also generate billions of dollars every year for Azerbaijan, which between 2006 and 2008 had the world’s fastest-growing economy, at an average pace of 28 percent annually.
Sitting on a couch in the temporary headquarters at the construction site of his future city, Ibrahimov mulled the possibilities. The headquarters, which looks like a very modern log cabin, features a big conference table, flat-screen televisions, a bar, pretty assistants and a dining table that is always set. There is a gargantuan portrait of the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, hanging from a wall, next to the bar. Spread out on the conference table were blueprints for Khazar Islands, which looked like battle plans. Men in leather jackets picked from crystal bowls filled with nuts and dried fruit and caramels in shiny wrappers.
Ibrahimov had slept five hours, he said, but was not tired. He started the day with an hourlong run, followed by a dip in the Caspian Sea, followed by a burst of phone calls over breakfast, followed by meetings with some people from the foreign ministry, then the Turks, then his engineers and architects. Now, while sipping tea, Ibrahimov’s attention was back on Khazar Islands, which he insisted was not modeled after Dubai. “Dubai is a desert,” he said. “The Arabs built an illusion of a country. The Palm” — a faux-island development in Dubai — “is not right. The water smells. Also, they built very deep in the sea. That’s dangerous. The Palm is beautiful to look at, but it’s not good to live in.”
Ibrahimov paused and took a sip of tea. The tiny creases of his face bunched up under his eyes, which looked off into the distance, out the tiny window of the faux log cabin, toward the construction site. He said that he was put off by the inorganic feel of Dubai, the sense that it was so . . . ephemeral. “Everything,” he said dismissively, “is artificial.”
Few countries have come as far in mastering the art of geopolitics as Azerbaijan. After being occupied by Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, the Seljuks, the Mongols, the Persians, the Russians, the Ottomans and, finally, the Soviets, Azerbaijan, which achieved its independence in 1991, has cultivated relationships with the United States and many European countries and deepened relations with Russia and key Central Asian “stans.” These days, Azerbaijan, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, buys advanced weapons systems from Israel in return for oil. A new member of the United Nations Security Council, the country sided with the United States against Russia last year on a resolution condemning Syria. “This is a very small country on a very significant piece of real estate,” says Matthew Bryza, the former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan pursues a very realpolitik policy.”
In the old days, they came for geography (Azerbaijan is perched on the Caspian). About a century ago, they started coming for oil. Then, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the energy sector became a source of enormous wealth. Now Azerbaijan is trying to take advantage of that wealth. As such, Avesta’s sales and marketing team recently produced a gleaming 101-page coffee-table book in a gilded box promoting Khazar Islands. It features photographs of men in Italian suits and women with pouty faces; everyone drinks wine and is on a cigarette boat or in a Mercedes convertible. There’s also a video that shows computer renderings of Khazar Islands in the not-too-distant future. The video lasts 5 minutes 6 seconds and includes an image of a make-believe skyline at night and another of Ibrahimov on a cellphone in front of a private jet, even though, he conceded, he doesn’t own one.
Two things about the video are striking. First, there isn’t any information about asking prices, square footage, move-in dates or why anyone would want to live in Baku. And then there’s the soundtrack, which is a synthesized blast of violins, harps, horns and snare drums that makes you feel as if you’re riding a stallion in the desert in the 1980s.
The day before my three-hour flight from Moscow to Baku last spring, Avesta’s sales and marketing director at the time, Kenan Guluzade, flew to the Russian capital to hand-deliver the book and DVD to me at a Starbucks. Guluzade said he had to be in Russia anyway, but he was also worried that, as a journalist, I might not get into Azerbaijan. Guluzade came with his assistant and his father, who sported an elegant, silk scarf and a tailored jacket. Guluzade spoke quickly, in English. “It’s really nice to feel attention to our construction project,” he said, and then he handed me a fancy shopping bag with the DVD and the book. His father sipped a latte. “The new Baku is stunning,” his father said. Then Guluzade said: “This is true. It’s amazing what is happening.”
When I arrived in Baku, the first of the Khazar Islands had already been plunked down, and the first few apartment buildings were going up. The entrance featured a menacing, falconlike archway. Boulevards and traffic circles had been paved, and there were long strips of palm trees — “Mr. Ibrahimov loves palm trees,” Nigar Huseynli, Ibrahimov’s assistant, said — and everywhere there seemed to be mounds of earth and retaining walls and the concrete outlines of future cineplexes and shopping malls. Amrahov Hasrat, who was the chief engineer at Khazar Islands, told me that 200 trucks brought in rocks every day from a bluff eight miles away. “We are destroying the mountain,” Hasrat said, pointing off into the distance in the direction of a hill, “and taking the rocks back to the sea to build the artificial islands.”
In some ways, though, reality is already taking shape. When Guluzade met me in Starbucks, 96 apartments had been sold. Two days later, that figure inched up to 102. Now, it’s 136. The asking prices run from about $280 to $460 per square foot, meaning a typical 1,076-sqare-foot apartment at Khazar Islands starts around $300,000. Ibrahimov expects geometric growth after 2015, when they’re scheduled to break ground on Azerbaijan Tower.
Western financial analysts and real estate developers are understandably skeptical. For one thing, there’s President Ilham Aliyev’s regime, which opposes political competition and other reforms that would diversify its economy and spur the long-term growth needed for this kind of mega-project. There’s the fact that no one has ever tried anything this ambitious in Azerbaijan. Finally, this is a rough neighborhood. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region within the country, raged between Azerbaijan and Armenia from 1988 to 1994 and has never really been resolved. Russia could invade Georgia, as it did in 2008. There’s the chance of an American or Israeli strike on Iran, Azerbaijan’s southern neighbor. Last month, riots raged for two days in Azerbaijan as people protested local corruption in Ismayilli.
Yet Ibrahimov, sitting behind the blueprints in his log cabin, remained extremely optimistic. Azerbaijan, with its new money and undeveloped coastline, offers “biznessmen” from the former Soviet Union — a group that might be defined as importers, exporters, government officials who dabble in the private sector, people who aspire to be Ibrahim Ibrahimov — an affordable nearby playground. As of late 2011, according to WealthInsight, a market research provider, there were nearly 160,000 so-called high-net-worth individuals in Russia alone, with a combined worth of nearly $1 trillion. Even Turkmenistan, the North Korea of the former Soviet Union, is building a luxury development, Avaza, which also has fake islands and reportedly will cost $5 billion and sit on the Caspian’s eastern flank.
It was crucial, Ibrahimov told me, to visualize what everything will look like in 2022, when Khazar Islands is supposed to be finished. He pointed outside the small window, to the sea. “That is where it will be,” he said, referring to Azerbaijan Tower. “In the water. Can you see it?”
Some in Baku already can. Indeed, the most crucial factor underpinning the project is that President Aliyev’s regime seems to want Khazar Islands built. Ilgar Mammadov, chairman of the pro-democracy Republicanist Alternative Movement, characterized Khazar Islands as an inexorable beast. The country’s international strategic monetary reserves are now more than $46 billion, Mammadov said, and in 10 years, as oil and gas revenue rise, they could be near $150 billion. “Azerbaijan has the capacity to build the tallest building,” Mammadov said, a hint of lamentation in his voice. “That’s not in doubt. We will create this big building, and then it will, by itself, by the very mere fact of its existence, bring cash. How will that work? Nobody knows.”
Ibrahimov was sitting in the back seat of a black Rolls-Royce as it tore across island No. 1 of his soon-to-be built archipelago. Nigar Huseynli, his 23-year-old assistant, was sitting up front in a black and white floral-print skirt, black tights and rectangular black sunglasses. She seemed to be vaguely worried, always. She wore a great deal of perfume that, she said, came from Italy. “When he’s in Azerbaijan,” Huseynli said, “Mr. Ibrahimov always drives in his black Rolls-Royce. In Dubai, he has a red one.”
Before I arrived in Baku, Huseynli tried to convey just how much power Ibrahimov wields in his country. But it wasn’t obvious until I landed at Heydar Aliyev International Airport and showed the passport-control officers a letter from Huseynli stating that I would be meeting with Ibrahimov. The letter included Ibrahimov’s name and signature at the bottom, and it seemed to frighten, shock and amaze all at once. A crowd of guards and customs agents gathered around and stared in silence.
Ibrahimov seems to be vaguely aware of the numinous glow that envelopes him. He is supremely concrete, focused on things like buildings, cars, hand-held devices, jeans or which country he’d like to be in right now, but in a manner that suggests he can have whichever of those things he desires most. As the Rolls sped past large knots of men in hard hats and jumpsuits, he sent text messages and juggled cellphones. His son called. Then the Qatari ambassador. Then someone who annoyed him. A television screen positioned three feet in front of the seat that Ibrahimov always sits in blared music videos, and some girl group was singing a two-minute riff called “Take Me Away.”
continued in next postLast edited by Mher; 07-08-2013, 02:03 AM.Leave a comment:
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