Azerbaijan - 27 April 2025 to 3 May 2025

A 22.25 flight from Heathrow to Istanbul meant that I pretty much had the freedom of the airport. A very rare, but nice, thing. Oxford's victory over Sunderland earlier in the day meant that they were safe from relegation. If that didn't warrant a pre-flight pint, I simply don't know what would! Obviously, it was tempting to have several pints, but common sense had to prevail. After all, I didn't want to spend the whole flight in the Gentlemen's powder room. As fate would have it, I had all of row 7 to myself, so if I had needed the loo regularly I wouldn't have been disturbing my fellow passengers in seats 7B and 7C . 

I'd invested in a "snooze band" for my flights, in an effort to help me get some sleep. However, my usual tried and tested music choices of Air's "Moon Safari" or Mozart's clarinet concerto in A major failed miserably to do the business. A sleepless night beckoned! We landed at Istanbul's huge and luxurious airport on time. With just over 2 hours to kill before my onward flight to Baku, sleep now was not an option. 

Me and my snooze band (obv's that what I look like sans make-up)

All nice and relaxed, I decided to liven things up by leaving my phone (therefore credit cards, too) in trap 17a of one of the many Karzies. Twas 10 minutes later that I realised my loss. Did I panic? You bet I did! I scuttled back to back to trap 17a, and bugger, someone was in it. Shit! (maybe even be quite literally!). I lingered, very self-consciously by the door, and eventually an Indian looking chap emerged. Quicker than a ferret up a drain pipe, I shot into the cubicle, and breathed a huge sigh of relief to see my phone resting on top of the loo roll holder; exactly where I left it. Phew! Get your act together man.

 

Istanbul Airport

Lift off - over the Black Sea

Little of note happened on the flight from Istanbul to Baku - the highlight being about 15 minutes sleep. It took about 20 minutes of queuing to get through immigration. Visa all in order, I picked up my awaiting rucksack and headed for the currency exchange. A sign reading "on a break" forced me across to two ATM's, neither of which worked. Welcome to Azerbaijan! I emerged to a throng of drivers all touting taxi's, but immediately saw my man with an "Intrepid" sign. That's better! I could tell he was keen to whisk me off to my hotel in the city centre, but nevertheless insisted that I changed some money, and bought a local SIM card to save me from the vagaries of o2's awful roaming capabilities, and shameful charges.

 

Baku - Heydar Aliyev Airport

Ten minutes later we were on our way, through the ultra modern, oil-funded suburbs towards central Baku. En route we passed the Baku Olympic Stadium (yes another Olympic stadium that has not hosted the games!). It looked rather fine from the outside, so I can see why the renowned geniuses at UEFA chose it for the 2019 Europa League final. There could not have been a more convenient location for a match between Chelsea and Arsenal - and the UEFA chief's were left scratching their heads as to why the stadium was only half full! Oh well, at least Chelsea won.

Baku's "Olympic" Stadium

 

Heading into the city

Rather unhelpfully, the hotel wouldn't let me check in until 2pm, so I had two hours to kill. I wandered towards the main area for restaurants and the post office. On my way I happened upon the Sapphire City Hotel on Nizami Street. This really threw me, as subconsciously I had convinced myself in my head that I was staying at the "Sapphire City Hotel, on Nizami Street".  Had I been dropped at the wrong place? But they had a reservation for at the place where I was dropped! More importantly, what was the name of the place where I'd been dropped? In my head I was simply going to pop "Sapphire City Hotel" into Google Maps to get myself back to where I was staying. Now I wasn't! I don't wish to come across as too big-headed, but I simply do not do "lost" or "wrong directions", but here I was absolutely not at my hotel! (do not mention this to my old friend Paul Cooper, for he will have a field day of Mickey taking). Crestfallen I had no other option than to go into the hotel and explain my predicament to the receptionist. She was lovely! after giving me a bottle of water (did I really look that flustered??) she explained that there were 5 Sapphire Hotel's in Baku. Eventually after poring over a map for 5 minutes we established that I was actually staying at the Sapphire Inn Hotel. 

 

Downtown Baku - Nizami Street  - felt a bit French!

The rest of my wander passed without incident. Even buying stamps was remarkably easy. Clearly my weeks of learning Azerbaijani had paid off handsomely! (and if you believe that, I'll sell you a "How not To Be Gullible t-shirt" for just £199, plus £40 P & P). My initial observations of Baku was that it was a wealthy and ostentatious kind of a place; but clearly not in the same league of bling as Ashgabat (last year's jaunt). I walked along the promenade by the Caspian Sea. The views of the buildings were terrific, but the sea itself? It's difficult not to use the "F" word here, but the water was beyond disgusting - a combination of oil and floating turds. Simply outrageous. My swimming cozzy was definitely not coming out in Baku!

The Caspian Sea - full of s...t

 

The Crescent Hotel and the Flame Towers

Deniz Mall

Google maps did its stuff, and guided me impeccably back to the Sapphire Inn Hotel, where the hitherto unhelpful Reception staff transformed themselves into masters of customer service. I'd struck a chord with the main man by explaining that I needed a taxi later to get to a local football match. Nothing was too much trouble, and yes, of course a Bolt taxi would pick me up at 5pm!

Refreshed after 2 hours of deep sleep it was footie time. My chariot whisked me off in a southerly direction, passing right underneath Baku's most famous landmark - the Flame Towers. After 20 minutes the landscape changed dramatically. We'd left the oil rich sunny uplands for a more local and down-at-heel environment. Low-rise, cheap looking, half-built buildings was now the norm. No gleaming shiny clean pavements. In fact no pavements whatsoever. Numerous open-fronted garages and workshops interspersed with scruffy shops. Life was lived on the street here! The taxi driver got close to the stadium, but numerous foray's up narrow cul-de-sac's proved to be fruitless. He was having to a lot for his 5 Manat (£2.30) fare!. In the end I just told him to stop and let me out. I knew roughly where I was (yes, the radar was back fully functional). Within 40 seconds I found a rather grandiose looking entrance with turnstiles - all of which were closed! Hmm, what now? To the left of the turnstiles was a gate house with a couple of men in suits lingering. I just walked up to the gate, and they waved me in. 

To my right was a stand with a few policemen lurking next to the entrance. Again I wandered up to the entrance and they just waved me through. I was in! The big time of Azerbaijan Premier League was mine; and it was for free. The ground was quite tidy. Three sides of stands with seats, and a big building housing the changing rooms and offices behind one goal. Three sides - home from home for an Oxford United fan! With 10 minutes to go before kick off there were about 150 people, mainly unruly 14-15 year old kids in the place. I decided to see if I could get away from them and go to the stand on the opposite side. Back past the grumpy looking policemen, who for all the world seemed to be expecting trouble. Around the back of the office/changing-rooms. A man in a suit stops me, and says "VIP?". I respond with "no". "Where are you from?". "England". "You VIP", and he ushers me through and shouts to his colleague on the next gate. His colleague greets me like I'm some kind of a celebrity, and I'm in. It turns out to be not very "VIP". Just for media, club officials and their families; but it gets me away from the feral 15 year old on the other side, and their bloody drum; which frankly they can't play! The game itself was quite entertaining, and ended 1-1.

 

 

The visitors, Araz Naxçivan hailed from the city of Naxçivan which is in an isolated part of the country, cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan by a chunk of land that has been annexed by neighbouring Armenia. This is my first encounter with understanding the absolute hatred between these two countries of the Caucasus. Aside from flying, the only route between the region where Naxçivan is, and the rest of Azerbaijan is along a narrow corridor road just inside the border with Iran. More on the Azerbaijan/Armenia relationship in future blogs.

The disputed territory (Nagorno Karabakh) between Armenia & Azerbaijan

After the game, it's a question of "how do I get back to the city centre?" My impeccable, non-existent Azerbaijani won't help me! There are no taxi's to be seen, and even if there were, I'm not sure I'd have the balls to try and hail one! Fortunately, my confusion over "Sapphire Hotels" earlier in the day had given me a back stop. A mile and a half's walk from the stadium was the Sapphire Bayil Hotel - and that is where a lovely English-speaking receptionist would order me a taxi back to the Sapphire Inn. The walk through the badlands was uneventful. Fortunately, nobody bothered me. Directionally it was easy - just head for the huge flag and flagpole that was just beyond my target hotel. I later discovered these to be the biggest flag and flagpole in the world. The pole 191m high. The flag 35m x 70m, weighing a mere 500kg. With a very strong wind blowing that evening, the noise of it fluttering could easily have been mistaken for a low-flying helicopter. Phenomenal!

The end of day 1. It was meant to be a rest day. However, the lure of football, and the chance to be able to chalk up a game in my 31st of the 55 UEFA countries; well what can the boy do?!! Tomorrow I meet up with the rest of the group.