“See this apartment? Four girls were renting it. A few times they brought some strangers to the neighbourhood, guys [they were dating], sometimes hand in hand. We called the landlord to complain that it wasn’t acceptable. Don’t get these young men mixed up in everything. After that conversation the owner kicked them out of the flat. Otherwise, there could have been a fight,” says Ahmad Mammadli, a 27-year-old taxi driver from Yasamal, a district in the west of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

“When the girls rented an apartment here, their parents felt that they would be safe,” adds 26-year-old Uzeyir Asgarov. In this particular neighborhood, he says, locals would defend the girls’ honor. “If she is a well-behaved and well-bred girl, men won’t cause trouble for her here. And if they do, we take steps to resolve the issue.”



Uzeyir’s words are a good illustration of how men from this corner of Baku are perceived. The Daghli neighborhood of Yasamal is synonymous with conservative social more and criminality.

“Now we are dissatisfied with the fact that newcomers are moving in. They have a different worldview and they’re changing the atmosphere of the place,” complains 26-year-old Nijat, joining our conversation.

From the late Soviet period well into the 1990s the area was famous, or rather infamous, for its high crime rate; Baku’s taxi drivers were afraid to drive here. Things may be less dangerous now, but Daghli residents’ reputation as “real men” or “tough guys” still remains. From the young men lingering on street corners to their fathers, uncles, or grandfathers playing backgammon outside cafes, this form of masculinity is perceived as part of the region’s social fabric; a fabric that Ahmad and Nijat fear could start fraying at the edges.