These are a slightly disjointed set of observations based on my time and experiences in Azerbaijan. Perhaps, given Azerbaijan’s richness, nuance and variety, it is fitting that these paragraphs are not bound by a single idea and instead weave, wander and emerge.

Part One: Beer, mosques and flags 

I like to do a little research before entering a new country. I mean little. Thus it was that as I read Wikipedia’s article on Azerbaijan I discovered a key factoid: the Azeris export the majority of their wine. I thought “That makes sense. It’s a Muslim country so they wouldn’t drink wine”. Such are the limitations of Wikipedia, not to say of myself.

I was somewhat surprised therefore to see an abundance of beer and a scarcity of mosques as I travelled through Azerbaijan. Every roadside shop had a beer cooler and a small but potent selection of spirits behind the counter. Wine was not to be seen, but it was clear that many Azeris fancy a tipple after all. However, we didn’t see many bars (until Baku) and it seemed that beer was drunk in private - instead it was chay evis (teahouses) that dominated - and being male-only affairs they did just that. Clearly tea was a socially acceptable drink, consumed out in the open alongside backgammon, cigarettes and a pot-bellied stove. I never saw an Azeri woman sitting down at one of the tables in a chay evi.

By contrast to the beer coolers, mosques were a rare find. This was surprising to me; in Turkey and Kosovo, there would be a mosque in every village, and despite knowing Azerbaijan was nominally secular, I had expected to see a generous smattering of mosques through the landscape. It was two days before we saw our first mosque, and continuing, we saw more “landmark” mosques, reminiscent of the old Silk Roads, than modern constructions. Religion was still politicised; there had been reports that the Imamzadeh Ibrahim mosque, a stunning red-bricked and turquoise domed building dating back hundreds of years, had been shelled by Armenian forces during the recent conflict. But these reports have since turned out to be unsubstantiated.

However, Ganja, 10km away and Azerbaijan’s second city, had been hit in the fighting. Vuksul, an Armenian-born Azeri who managed the CCTV cameras in the hostel where we stayed, told us he had seen the rockets hit the street on his cameras. It had made national news. Luckily the night we were in Ganja nothing untoward happened. In an act of caring that was articulated in many different ways across our journey, Vuksul kept watch on Chris throughout the night, sending screenshots to the Bristol2Beijing Instagram account to assure me Chris was safe. The recent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in which Azerbaijan proved to be the decisive winner, loomed large throughout Azerbaijan. From the first kilometres we saw signs proclaiming “Qarabag azerbaycandir” (Karabat is Azerbaijan’s) with a clenched fist in the colours of the Azeri flag, blue, red, green. As I wrote this I couldn’t remember the flag colour order; but all I needed to do was glance outside the window of the central Baku café I’m in, and sure enough I saw a flag. 

The flag is everywhere. It hangs from balconies and water pipes, it’s painted onto walls, sellotaped to doors and emblazoned on car rear windscreens and bonnets. To say the Azeris are proud of their victory is an understatement. They have reclaimed territory that has legally belonged to them yet they are at odds with most of the international community, with few countries supporting them, the notable exceptions being Turkey and Pakistan.

The Azeris have not forgotten the support they received either and their flag rarely hangs alone; very often the Turkish flag flies alongside, and with persistence the green and white Pakistani flag joins the other crescent moons. Never before on my trip had I seen one country’s flag partnered with another, the exception being the EU flag; flags usually stand proudly alone. Therefore I found it striking to see such a public acknowledgement of Turkey’s support, celebrating the two countries’ partnership.

However the war has a darker side. Beyond the beflagged towns and villages lay graveyards. The fresh graves were clear: shiny black marble, bright yellow and red flowers and green stems jarred with the death beneath. Few towns were spared freshly turned earth and we saw how the deaths of soldiers were spread across the country. What better way to bind a country together, and make the war relevant in every corner? It was tragic – and must be equally tragic in Armenia – to see the birth years on the gravestones: 1996, 1992, 2000. It was another reminder life brings no guarantees and is not fair. These boys were younger than me, had never been diagnosed with cancer and every expectation of a long life.

And yet I was the one standing there looking at their graves. In Quba, there were about 20 gravestones, etched with the names of those boy-soliders and strewn with flowers. A moaning and sobbing came from a corner. It was powerful to hear raw grief and stirred painful memories inside of me: huddling with Mum and Dad at John’s cremation, a rare time when the tears flowed unchecked and I saw the enormity of my loss in something close to its entirety –  all the wonderful things John brought to my life were not reversed but removed – a gaping hole of energy and life. There is a very ugly side to any conflict and flags cloak pain and sugarcoat scars.

Part Two: Past and Present

Depending on your perspective, Baku is either the mask, or future, of Azerbaijan. Women walk down the streets in crisp, pressed trousers, the crease pointing straight ahead, and sharp jackets and heels. Others clop in inch-thick rubber-soled trainers, ripped jeans, black jacket and mask. Pomeranians strut next to Land Cruisers idling in traffic. Filament lightbulbs hang in front of Italian coffee machines, ticking off every cliché of global hipsterisation. 

Contrast this with the villages and towns we passed through before Baku. There we saw almost no women. Upwards of 90% of the people we saw on the street were men. It was almost as if women didn’t exist. From the range of views I canvassed it seems like it was a “cultural” factor, no longer explicitly bound to conservative Islam but probably a hangover from when Azerbaijan was part of the Persian Empire. Rural areas seemed less touched by the Soviet push for equality and the flourishing of Western values. Though even in the capital sharp suits and trendy clothes that women wear can be a cover for more conservative values.  

One Azeri friend told me that even in Baku, the priorities a woman is expected to have are marriage, kids, and then work. To an extent this also applies to men. I was often asked if I was married and how many children I had. My reply would leave them crestfallen. “God help you” was a common refrain, said with sincerity. By and large, it is the men who call the shots in the household. “And everything only happens after marriage” my friend says, pulling a face. That said, there have been rapid changes over the past 10 years – couples walk hand in hand on the boulevard and one sights an occasional make-out session in public – a sign of how far the borders of acceptability have been shifted.

Religion is not a present strong shaper of Azerbaijan, but its historical impact permeates Azeri society. That is the best conclusion I have come to, trying to square Azerbaijan’s labelling as a “Muslim country” which – for most intents and purposes – it is not. There are few almost no mosques, no long beards, little conservative dress (in Baku), no Quran bookstores, prayer beads. I am here in Ramadan and life goes on seemingly unchanged – the cafes and restaurants are just as busy throughout the day, though Iftar (breaking of the fast) supermarket discount bundles are now offered.

In the rural areas, the ubiquity of men can only be rivalled by one thing – Ladas. The people’s car of the Soviet Union is truly the car of Azerbaijan and to explore the rural areas can feel like a time warp back several decades. The stubby shape of the Zhiguli quickly became familiar along with its compact off-road cousin, the Niva. And credit to these cars, they did everything – on road, off road, taxi runs, transporting furniture and livestock. They were a fantastic reminder that the basic car is wonderfully versatile, with a little imaginative persuasion. It was only as we approached Baku that they fell out of favour, replaced by oil-monied unscratchable SUVs and saloons.

Part 3: Nature

In many ways nature in Azerbaijan  feels very present and accessible – and what beautiful nature it is. This was my favourite part of cycling through Azerbaijan – it is a wonderful place to be immersed in - especially in spring, when the hillsides shine a verdant green, so different from Georgia’s relentlessly brown slopes just a few weeks earlier. The horizons seemed particularly expansive, either from a high vantage point unbroken fields stretched in to the distance, or lower down the horizon was framed by far-off mountains. However, when camping, I rarely got a good night’s sleep. We were disturbed by yapping howls that sounded disconcertingly close. Camping in a stand of trees next to a field, we heard the yapping nearby. I looked over at the field with my head-torch and saw two pairs of golden eyes bounce back. They were European jackals, luckily not the wolves I’d somewhat hyperbolically thought, and luckily they appeared to have little interest in us, though they worried the local dogs enough to set off cascades of ferocious barking throughout the night.

Whenever I camp, I am reminded how right it feels, and how much we miss out on when we stay between four walls. The fresh air, not just next to a window, but wherever you are. The sight of the stars and clouds, startlingly, hypnotically beautiful; and we forget their presence when a ceiling takes them out of mind. The flickering of a fire – perhaps the most thought-provoking entertainment ever made. The tang of the cold air as you get out of the tent in the morning. In every respect I feel more in touch with myself, more alive, when outdoors.

Meat is an unmistakably important part of Azeri culture, visible in both plates and the streets. As I vegetarian, this meant I lived off eggs “glazok” (sunny-side up - literally “eye”) for much of the journey across Azerbaijan, but it is a meat-eater’s paradise: shashlik, cutlets, stews, kebabs – the list goes on. Particularly in the regions, meat is very “in your face”. Hanging outside of a butcher’s shop would be a sheep carcass, or on a few occasions, a cow’s head, from the front very life-like, if disembodied, but from the back the flesh and tubes surprise, like a bouquet of pink roses.

Final thoughts

As I wait for my onward visas to come through, I am keenly aware of how lucky I am to be in a country of such interest and complexity. It has been interesting to try and puzzle out the Azeri identity – they have modernised, not Westernised and want to be seen as such. As an Azeri friend said “I want people to see me as Azeri, not a similar to Turkey or Russia”. That identity is definitely forming: Hadid’s Flame Towers sit alongside old caravanserais, near a grand Soviet school and an oil-boom mansion. Cafes serving cappuccinos and flat whites are strewn around the centre – but they are used differently: in contrast to the UK, they are busiest in the evenings, as chairs and chatters spills out onto the streets.

Azerbaijan is country that is little known in the West but openly displays contrast between old and new, religion and secularism, wealth and paucity and welcome and war. It has probably been the most thought-provoking country I have travelled through so far, and it makes me excited to head further east. What other snapshots of the 21st century will enter this notebook?