A musical interlude spanning 26 years

I was bicycling near the parliament building in Baku, Azerbaijan when I rounded a turn and came upon a military checkpoint staffed by Azerbaijani soldiers with automatic weapons.  I quickly turned around and started peddling away. As I did so, I heard shouts from the soldiers and caught hand signals indicating that I should stop where I was. And so I did.

The two young sentries approached carrying their Kalashnikov rifles, and eyed me up and down. To be fair, I was an unusual spectacle: decked out in a bicycle helmet, spandex riding pants, and earbuds attached to a Sony Walkman cassette tape player, riding a mountain bike I had carried in from America as luggage on an airplane.

The year was 1993. Attire and electronics like these were just not seen on the streets of Baku in 1993.  War was raging at that time between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh, and security was high around government offices.

The young sentries looked me over curiously and – by pointing at various bits of kit I had attached to the bike – inquired about them: a tool kit, a tire pump, foot straps over the pedals, and a water bottle. We shared no common language at that point, so by pointing and smiling we were able to communicate. I think they were a little bored, actually, and I was probably an easy distraction (and could have been an easy target, too, I suppose.)

Then they wanted to know what was this device I was listening to, so I took off the Walkman and let them have a look and a listen. I was riding that day with a Promise Keepers tape of Christian music. They had a quick listen and then sent me on my way.

The memory of these sentries and their rifles popped into my conscious thought on a recent morning as I was downloading music from iTunes for an upcoming international trip. I came across that old Promise Keepers music and as I listened to it these 26 years later, the memories from my earlier days working in Azerbaijan just came alive.

The old Soviet Union had just collapsed under Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars assault, and the former soviet republics were struggling to find their new identities. In Baku, the city at times had the feel of the wild west. 

Generally, life was quiet and sedate in the city, but that calm belied the struggle that was under way between a variety of competing forces for the economic and political heart and soul of the country. Occasionally, the calm was punctuated by moments of almost comical terror.

I recall working late one evening in our temporary offices in the Old Intourist Hotel, which was situated near the Presidential Palace in Baku. The quiet of the evening was suddenly broken by automatic weapons fire – close enough that I dove to the floor of my office and hurriedly turned out the lights.  Most likely it was guards at the palace next door taking target practice at the occasional pack of roaming dogs. We never knew. But it just seemed prudent to take cover when the bullets were flying.

I recall several high speed police chases – one with an aging Russian Lada automobile careening through city streets, drifting uncontrolled through the corners with a likewise aging police vehicle in hot pursuit, siren blaring and lights flashing. They raced by and disappeared down the road. A minute later they reappeared coming back in the opposite direction, tires squealing, police siren blaring, until they again disappeared into the bowels of the city, and all was once again quiet. I and other people along the sidewalk had stopped and watched the spectacle, wondering what in heaven was going on. Once it passed we all moved on our way. Just another day in Baku, eh?

One morning someone even tossed a hand grenade into the tennis club where some of our resident staff occasionally played. No one was injured, or even around when it happened. Most likely this grenade was lobbed because of some financial dispute or lovers triangle with a club member or owner. We never knew. Still, these scenes were indicative of frontier life as the city came to grips with its existence away from the iron fist of the old Soviet Union. 

Listening to that old music on iTunes instantly transported me back to those scenes of my past – a strange and unexpected journey where peaceful, joyful music met the wild life on the new frontier. 

Baku has changed quite significantly from those early transitional days when I was working there. For a closer look at the modern day Baku, see this additional feature.