Tag Archives: Azerbaijan 🇦🇿

times of grapes

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There was a nice hotel in Shamakhi, and I had a room in it. When I looked out the window I saw rain, and since I was both tired and a bit sickly, it felt very good to be able to stay inside and rest. The seasons were changing. I had thoroughly enjoyed the time […]


languages

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“Chris, don’t leave today,” Murat, who spoke English pretty well, gave me a pitiful look as I was loading up the Caboose. He pointed up to the sky: “There will be rain!” “Yes, maybe there will be rain,” I answered. “Or maybe there won’t.” This was well in line with my general attitude of knowing […]


without humans

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The hotel was nice, and it seemed to be completely empty. This was a bit weird because the night before I had enjoyed a fantastic dinner with Murat and his friends who worked there: But in the morning, when I went to the kitchen to get some hot water for my tea, all I could […]


all i need

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When I woke up I felt tired and sore: I looked outside and saw a few tractors that were being repaired, and since it was just a few minutes after seven, I wondered if this was by any chance a 24/7 repair shop: Then my mind became occupied with other things – there was a […]


a quick fox didn’t jump

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I woke up early in the morning, brushed my teeth, got some hot water for my tea, and then I said goodbye to the boss and stepped out of the gate: The world seemed to be asleep, and I did not see many people outside: Then the buildings on either side of the road became […]


the process of leaving

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Today was the day that I finally left Baku. After more than two weeks spent hanging out and exploring, after a lot of good food, after a trip to Kazakhstan and intense feelings of loneliness, I was now ready to leave. It felt right. So I walked out of the hotel gates, and I turned […]


orders

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The day before, when I went out to get the new thermos, I also got these plastic boxes that I wanted to use to bring some order to the inside of the Caboose: Oh, and here is the thermos, green and shiny: I was told my postal package had finally arrived, so I went downtown […]


where are you and where am I

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Remember a while ago I told you that I suspected one of my thermos flasks to be broken? Well, it seemed as though it was true. I didn’t understand why, but the thing had started to become hot on the outside after I poured hot water into it, and then the water inside quickly cooled […]


friend from another place

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I was told by DHL that my package had long reached the border of Azerbaijan, but apparently it was unclear where exactly it was right now. So all I could do was wait. In the morning I went to a café and had semolina porridge, which is one of the most awesome things in the […]


shades incoming

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Being back in Baku didn’t mean grabbing the Caboose to waltz out of town right away. I was waiting for a postal package from Germany: new hard drive, new SD-card, new microphone, sunglasses. Wait, sunglasses? Yes. I hated everyone who wore shades (especially the reflective kind), but deep inside I knew I was just being […]


bad man good man

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I went back to the museum today, to get my “antiques” looked at. Turns out it cost me 5 euros for photos and almost 50 euros for the certificate for the items. It didn’t feel good. I walked back to the apartment where I was staying, and on the way there I came across a […]


pictures you don’t like

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Went to the Palace of the Shirvanshahs today. It had basically been turned into a museum: The whole place looked like it had been thoroughly reconstructed, so I was happy to find that this little mausoleum in the back still showed some scars of time, some traces of imperfection: The tentacles were always there, reaching […]


my antiques

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Remember how I had tried to mail some of my written diaries and my SD-cards home two months earlier? I had failed that time, and now I had returned to try again. I gathered my things – the diaries, the SD-cards, a book I had finished reading, and some gifts from my friends that had […]


tentacles

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So there I was in Baku. One of the biggest cities in the region (2 million), one of the lowest-lying cities in the world (-40 meters), and the place where all the money was in Azerbaijan (a ton of oil-money). Turns out Baku has some pretty cool tall buildings, like these here: They are officially […]


Baku

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Today, on the 25th of August, Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, was coming to Baku. And so was I, Christoph Rehage, Puller of the Caboose. We would probably not meet, though. The Caboose and I were very busy. I left the hotel at about nine in the morning: It had been good a good […]


cow overrules everything

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Imagine being a mouse and sleeping in the exhaust pipe of a parked vehicle. That’s what it felt like for me last night. It wasn’t that good. I slipped quietly out of the truck repair shop: And then I was in the semi-desert again: Sadly, there was no other way but the highway: Sometimes I […]


Donald Trump’s origins

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I woke up after a surprisingly good night in the tent: I walked for a little while, and then, right before the little town of Alat, I saw my first oil well: Its bobbing head reminded me of chicken, and it was strange to think that this was what Baku had been built upon. The […]


58 phone cards

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After what can only be described as a perfectly peaceful night, I woke up well-rested and thanked Ildar, the owner of the restaurant “Tabriz”, for his hospitality: Then I continued along the old highway, thinking that it would probably last forever: But of course it didn’t. The old highway ended somewhere in a fenced area. […]


bridge to silence

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If you look at the map, you can see how the river winds through the city of Salyan, and that there are several ways to cross it. For reasons that are not quite clear to me in hindsight, I ended up walking towards a bridge in the west. It felt good at first. The road […]


almost

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Sometimes I wonder. Not about the walking or the writing of my private diary. Not about the picture taking. But about the online thing. It takes a lot of time. I was in Salyan, but I really wasn’t. I was busy updating the blog: One time I went out and had some potatoes: Another time […]