The Color of Pul

In Azərbaycani, "money" is translated as, appropriately enough, "pul."  The unit of currency is the "manat" (AZN).  As of the date of this post, 1 manat = approx. 1.27 USD.  100 qəpik = 1 manat (reminder; "q" sounds like a "g" and "ə" sounds like the "a" in "cat.").



Consumer Basket 

Item	Approximate Cost (in USD)
Basic Foodstuffs
Water	65 cents / 2L bottle
Milk	90 cents / L
Eggs	$3 / dozen
Flour	50 cents / kilo
Beef	$10.30 / kilo
Lamb	$13 / kilo
Pizza (7")	$6.50
Oatmeal	$1.95 / 15 oz.
Döner (like a gyro)	$1.30
Bread	40 cents / loaf
Coke	65 cents / bottle
Average Monthly Salary
Baku (excl. ex-pats)	$615
In the Regions	$270
Services and Utilities
Utilities (Gas, Electricity, Water)	$70 / month
Haircut	$3.60 for men's cut
Basic Internet (DSL)	$26 / mo.
Satellite TV	$130 for the satellite dish
Transportation
Taxi from Baku to Sumqayit (approx. 20 mi)	$10
Gas	75 cents / L
Miscellaneous
Movie ticket (Int'l release)	$11
Cigarettes	90 cents per pack
University Tuition	$1300 per year

The bills I've seen are the 50, 20, 10, 5, and 1 manat bills.   Coins come in 50, 20, 10, 5, 3, and 1 qəpik.

NB: This is not my money, which was borrowed for the purpose of taking pictures for this blog. Our PCT disbursements are a fraction of this.

The back of all these bills have a map of Azərbaycan and a small map of Europe, representing Azərbaycan's integration into Europe, along with various different decorative elements depending on the denomination of the bill.

The front of the 1 ("bir") manat bill reflects images of some national instruments of Azərbaycan: the Tar, Kamança, and Daf, against a background of ancient carpet patterns.

The back of the 1 manat bill show various national ornaments.  And you can't see it, but the watermark is a bud of fire.

The front of the 5 ("beş") manat bill reflects images of Azərbaycani literary figures, part of the state anthem in the lower right-hand corner, and a stack of ancient books. 

The back of the 5 manat bill reflects the development written language in Azərbaycan: Qobustan rock hieroglyphs, Orhon-Yenisei script alphabet, and contemporary Azərbaycani writing.  The watermark is an open book and a quill pen.

The front of the 10 ("on") manat bill shows Old Baku, Shirvanshah's Palace, and Maiden Tower against a background of the Inner City (Içeri Şeher) wall.

The back of the 10 manat bill reflects some typical Azərbaycani carpet patterns.  The watermark is Maiden Tower.

The front of the 20 ("iyirmi") manat bill reflects symbols of power in the form of a traditional Azərbaycani military sword, shield, and helmet.

The back of the 20 manat bill reflects a symbol for peace.

The front of the 50 ("əlli") manat bill show symbols of the Azərbaycan's future: young people, stairs symbolizing progress, the sun, and chemical and mathematical symbols, representing modern science.

The back of the 50 manat bill shows more ornamental designs from ancient Azərbaycani carpets.

The most common coins I've used are the 50, 20, and 10 qəpik coins.

The back of the 20 qəpik coin depicts geometric symbols and a spiral staircase, representing architecture and mathematics.

The subjects of these images are not objects of copyright according to "The Law of Azerbaijan Republic On Copyright and Neighboring Right." No.: 115-1Q (June 5, 1996).

Fun Fact of the Day

Have you ever listened to Bohemian Rhapsody?  Seen Wayne's World? Or read The Chronicles of Narnia?

Then you know Azərbaycani.

Well, you know some Azərbaycani.

Exhibit 1: "Aslan," from the Chronic(what!)cles of Naria, means "lion" in Azərbaycani.

Exhibit 2: "Bismillah," from "Bohemian Rhapsody" (as in: "Let him go! Bismillah! We will not let you go-o-o-o!"), means "in the name of God" in Azərbaycani.  I've learned of it's use in two situations so far:

1. As an exclamation: if someone startles you, you might say "Bismillah!"; and 
2. As a preface to an action: you might say this prior to rinsing out a glass and tossing the water out the window or before you start tinkering with some electrical wiring.

Mother Tongue

Introduction

Since language is one of the most important keys to any culture, you will find below a very brief introduction to the Azerbaijani language.  After I go over the pronunciation of the Azerbaijani alphabet below, I will make every effort in my future blog posts to write Azerbaijani (Azərbaycani) words as you would see them written in-country.

General Background (excerpted from our language workbook):

"Azerbaijani is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family.  Specifically, it belongs to the Oghuz Seljub sub-group, along with (Osmanli) Turkish and some dialects of Crimean Tatar.  Other well-known members of the Turkic branch include: Uzbek, Kipchak, Kyrgyz, Tatar and Kazakh. The Turkic languages closely resemble each other and form a complex of mutually intelligible dialects. The other two branches generally presumed to make up the Altaic family are the Mongolian and Manchu Tungus languages."

Brief History of the Written Language

Beginning approximately in the 7th Century, written Azerbaijani used the Arabic alphabet, which was replaced by the Latin alphabet in January 1929.  In 1940, a new Azerbaijani alphabet was created based on Cyrillic.  After independence from the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan returned to the use of a Turkish version of a Latin alphabet having 32 letters.  There are nine vowels and twenty three consonants.  Many of the letters sound the same as in English, but there are several special characters that have no English equivalent and a few letter that look like an English letter, but sound different.

Letter	Pronunciation
A a	father
B b	bat
C c	jam
Ç ç	chat
D d	dog
E e	enter
Ə ə	man; sad
F f	football
G g	no exact equivalent but similar to "g" in "give; singer"
Ğ ğ	no English equivalent; clost to French "r" in "pardon"
H h	hat
X x	no English equivalent; close to Scottish "ch" in "loch"
I ı	happen
İ i	beach
J j	massage
K k	keep
Q q	Goat
L l	lamp
M m	map
N n	nap
O o	often
Ö ö	heard
P p	paper
R r	radio
S s	city; south
Ş ş	shelter
T t	tapestry
U u	moon
Ü ü	no exact English equivalent; very close to German übung
V v	vector
Y y	yesterday
Z z	zephyr

Notable Linguistic Characteristics

Unlike English, which has a subject-verb-object sentence structure, Azərbaycani generally has a subject-object-verb structure (e.g., "My name Yoda is."), wherein the grammatical functions are indicated by adding various suffixes to fixed stems.  Suffixes on nouns generally indicate gender and number, but there is no grammatical gender, as there is in most Romance Languages.  Azərbaycani also has Turkic vowel harmony where the vowels of suffixes must harmonize with the vowels of nouns and verb stems.  

PC Language Training

In addition to technical training regarding community economic development, our schedule generally includes four hours of formal language training per day, six days a week, conducted by our (awesome!) Language and Cultural Facilitator ("LCF"), which is reinforced by self-study (i.e., homework) and immersion (i.e., host family/community interaction).  It's definitely challenging, but seeing how well the AZ7s and AZ8s communicate in Azərbaycani after two years or one year, respectively, is both inspiring and reassuring.

Baku to the Future

As with general living conditions, internet access varies from PCT to PCT.  Some host families have wifi; some have DSL; some don't have any internet. My own access is limited, so please bear with.

We PCTs are currently stationed in the suburbs of Baku (on the road towards Sumgayit), which we aren't allowed to visit yet, but here's a preview of the capital city.

Baku is Azerbaijan's capital (and largest) city, the oil capital of the Caspian region. This satellite photo shows remarkable details of the city, including numerous port facilities, which are part of the extensive network of offshore oil platforms in the Caspian. The oil platforms off Baku, built in the 1950s and 1960s, were the first offshore oil-drilling efforts in the world. Today, multinational upstream activities, sea-level rise (the Caspian Sea has risen more than 2 m in the past 20 years), offshore platform maintenance, and related environmental impact are hot issues in Baku.  Courtesy of NASA.

Downtown Baku.  Courtesy of CIA World Factbook.

The Maiden Tower, built sometime between A.D. 800 and 1200, is probably the most recognized structure in the Old City of Baku.  Courtesy of CIA World Factbook.

The New Colossus

On the bus ride from staging in Philadelphia to our Delta flight 72 out of JFK, it seemed appropriate somehow that we were not only departing from the airport named for the President who founded the Peace Corps but also that on our way out of the country we caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, shrouded in so much fog that I unfortunately could not get a good picture of it.  Not all the world's tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, have the great fortune of coming to America, so we're going to them.  At the end of this journey, I shall look forward to returning under the glow of world-wide welcome from her beacon-hand.

Baku State of Mind

Quick update: During pre-service training ("PST") (and so continues the torrent of acronyms and abbreviations), which will last from now through approximately December, correspondence and (ahem) care packages may be addressed to me at:

Peace Corps Azerbaijan
2C Hasan Aliyev Street
Baku, Azerbaijan
(994) 12 499 1720

My understanding is that mail will be collected at the Peace Corps office in Baku and distributed to us PCTs ("Peace Corps Trainees") once every week or two in the suburbs, where our community-based training will take place.

And I'll leave you with a little video that some current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) put together:

Tierra del Fuego - Part 1

Introduction

Since I began telling people where I would be serving, the most common response has involved a hesitant and gentle furrowing of the brow, perhaps accompanied by a slight head tilt and something along the lines of: "Where is that?",  "Is that a real country?", and "Isn't that the place in Harry Potter?"  More recently, I've been happy to be able to inform people that Azerbaijan is the winner of Eurovision 2011!

To which, the response is usually: "What's Eurovision?"

This is Eurovision.  May it be everything you ever dreamed of and more.  I know it was for me:



Anyway, Azerbaijan is indeed a real country, located in the Caucasus region, which lies between and among two roughly parallel mountain ranges - the Greater Caucasus mountains to the north and the Lesser Caucasus to the south.

The Greater Caucasus are near the center of the satellite image, exhibiting strong snow coverage, and form a natural barrier between modern-day Russia, to the north, and the three countries of the Caucasus region, to the south.  The Lesser Caucasus run roughly parallel in the lower center of the satellite image.  Satellite image courtesy of NASA (left). Map courtesy of CIA (right).

The Caucasus

The Greater Caucasus mountains, themselves located in both Asia and Europe, are considered the boundary between Asia and Europe, whose highest point is considered by  many to be Mount Elbrus, located on the Russian side of the mountain range, across from northwestern Georgia, near Abhkazia. The Greater Caucasus mountain range are largely the result of the collision of the underlying Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates.  The geological fault line running deep underneath the Caucasus region is a fitting metaphor for this historically and geopolitically significant crossroads, whose economic importance is matched only by the conflict that such importance inevitably brings and which plays out against the backdrop of an ostensible clash of culture and religion: predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey and predominantly Christian Armenia, Georgia, and Russia.

Image courtesy of wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Azerbaijan

One of the official members of the Commonwealth of Independent States that is made up of former Soviet Republics, Azerbaijan is bordered by Russia to the north and Iran to the South, the Caspian Sea on the east, and Georgia and Armenia to the northwest and west, respectively.

Azerbaijan is on the west (left) shore of the Caspian.  Satellite image courtesy of CIA World Factbook.

Present-day map of Azerbaijan, courtesy of CIA World Factbook.

 

The flag of Azerbaijan

The blue refers to Azerbaijan's Turkic heritage. Red stands for progress to establish a modern state and develop democracy.  Green refers to Islam.  The crescent moon symbolizes Islam, and the eight-pointed star represents either the eight Turkic peoples of the world (as classified at the time) or the eight letters of the name "Azerbaijan" in Arabic.  Image courtesy of CIA World Factbook.