Protests, Gentrification & Food - Day 1

I arrived in Baku around 7pm and was picked up by Halima's sister, Nushaba.  Nushaba was a little late which resulted in about 5 minutes of panic on my part.  Once she arrived she wisked me off into an awaiting taxi and we were off. Nushaba explained to me that she was late because she was busy editing film from the day's protests.  Nushaba is a photo/video journalist for "Radio Liberty" / "Radio Free Europe".  She spent the day covering the Freedom protests, which resulted in mass arrests in one part of the city, with police even arresting passerbys not only protesters.  While the protest was not on a grand scale like those in many other parts of the Muslim world, they have been quite signigicant for the people of Azerbaijan.  They have had the same family (father then son) ruling their country since the break up of the Soviet Union.  Nushaba feels as though not much will come of these protests at the moment because there is not viable alternative to the those currently in power. 

While she was describing her busy day I was looking out the window and admiring row after row of beautiful, ornate buildings that lined the highway. Everything looked new and very clean. These buildings had intricate stone work on the facade and were well lit so to empasize their grandness.  I commented to Nushaba about these buildings and she proceeded to tell me about a report she recenlty completed about them.  She explained to me that these buildings replaced older buildings so that foreigners traveling from the airport would have a great impression of Baku/Azerbaijan.  The previous inhabitants were vacated and more affluent residents have now moved into these buildings.  Gentrification - Central Asian Style.  Once we turned off the highway the buildings were older, not so pretty, kind of run-down.  Nonetheless, Baku seemed like a city in the middle of big changes. There was obviously money to fund such big modern projects but there is still an old feel to the city. 

Like all good hosts, once we arrived at her apartment Nushaba offered me some food. She had a type of cherry jam.  Basically it was as if  you made jam with the whole fruit and didn't mash it. Sweet and yummy. Later for dinner we had Dolma, stuffed peppers, a yogurt drink and bread. A great first meal for my first day in Azerbaijan.