Personally I would say the list of things I don’t know about Azerbaijan is much longer than the list of things I do know. So just in case any of you were as bad at facts about countries as I, I thought I would do a little research and give you ten ‘interesting’ facts about Azerbaijan. So let’s get on with it…..

1. Azerbaijan is known as The Land of Fires, other than just being a cool name this is due to the area being a key oil region.

2. The national animal of Azerbaijan is the Karabakh Horse. Here’s a whole gang of them.

3. A traditional music style in Azerbaijan is Ashugs, this is improvised an accompanied by a stringed instrument called a Kobuz.

4. Oil Rocks (Neft Dashlar) in Azerbaijan in the world’s first and largest town built on stilts at sea.

5. Apparently tea is the most popular drink in Azerbaijan. Tea is also the most popular drink in my life, followed by gin.

6. Azerbaijan is the home to the Azykh Cave, this cave is thought to be one of the earliest caves to be inhabited by man.

7. In the Gobustan National Park in Azerbaijan you can find around 6000 rock engravings which date back from 5,000 – 40,000 years ago.

8. Oil is possibly what Azerbaijan is best known for. It is thought that its oil fields have been used since the 9th century. It was near Baku that shallow holes were made to collect oil and it is claimed that these were the origins of oil wells.

9. Azerbaijan is home to half of the world’s population (?) of mud volcanoes, over 400 in fact.

10. The Seven Beauties Competition is a traditional competition for girls in Azerbaijan which involves crocheting stockings apparently. They know how to have fun!

There we go, 10 things I didn’t know about Azerbaijan.

While I am writing this though I think it’s important to bring up the issues surrounding human rights in the country surrounding the competition. I don’t feel confident enough in the issue to write my own views about it so I’m going to throw in some links at the end of this post. It’s important that these problems aren’t overlooked and I feel bad for not commenting on them beforehand. While many are protesting Eurovision taking place in Azerbaijan this year, I think that it would be more productive now to use this protesting energy to promote awareness of the problems and encouraging an end of them.

Greetings from Azerbaijan – The Music Front

BBC’s Panorama Programme – Eurovision’s Dirty Secret

Amnesty International on Azerbaijan

Human Rights Watch

txx