Stumbling Over History

As civilizations go, the U.S. is pretty new. One rarely stumbles over history in America, except for our own—generally only a few decades old.

I’ve blogged from Europe many times about the history everywhere—Charlemagne’s coronation chair in Germany, the Roman ruins in London, the Burgundian architecture in what is now Belgium.

Azerbaijan today is a weird mix of ancient Silk Road tradition, Ottoman-era customs, Soviet repression, and 21st-century material obsessions.

Azerbaijan today is a weird mix of ancient Silk Road tradition, Ottoman-era customs, Soviet repression, and 21st-century material obsessions.

The Soviet occupation (1920-1991) affected both everything and nothing here in Baku. I say “nothing” because the semi-rural Muslim culture lasted right through Soviet times and still remains: the patriarchal, multi-generational family; obsession with female virginity; intense relationship with sheep; tradition of obligatory hospitality; serious superstitions about almost everything.

One lasting impact of the Soviets is the forests of extraordinarily ugly apartment blocks assaulting the eye in every direction. The construction was cheap, the style consciously hideous (no bourgeois love of beauty here), the urban planning non-existent. Virtually all the late 19th century neo-classical or beaux-arts buildings were torn down (by the Soviets or, after 1991, the money-obsessed Aliev family tyrants), and with them, all authentic Azeri architectural style.

Another Soviet impact Azerbaijan shares with other central Asian and Eastern European countries is demographic—who ended up where, and how. Here’s my Baku story for the day:

I went looking for a new neighborhood today, and found one about a kilometer from my hotel. After walking all afternoon I was hungry, and the first decent-looking café I found featured Ukrainian food and decor. I had a fabulous meal of borscht, kasha, herring, pickles, home-made chicken sausage, and, thrillingly, fresh-squeezed orange juice.

The waitress looked very un-Azeri, so I asked, through a translator, if she was Ukrainian. She said yes, “sort of,” and we began a conversation. How did she get here? Her grandparents immigrated here, her mother was born here, mom married a Ukrainian in similar circumstances, and here she is.

Hmm, she looked early 40s, so I figured her for early 30s. That would make her mother maybe mid 50s now, meaning her grandparents had come here immediately after WWII. This was getting interesting—especially since Stalin’s hatred of Ukrainians was greatly feared and is well-known.

“Were they forced to come here?” I gently asked. Everyone has a family story of some kind in worn-torn areas, and such inquiries are not generally considered intrusive.

Yes, in fact, her grandparents were forced here. I was hot on their trail. “To work in Sumgayit, yes?” Yes. They had been dragged to the center of Azerbaijan’s post-war oil industry—arguably the dirtiest, unhealthiest industrial center in the world at that time. Having driven last week through what’s left of it, I can’t quarrel with their reputation.

The stuff we Americans read or hear about—1915 Armenian genocide, massive 1920s Turkish-Greek population exchange, violent Hindu-Muslim mutual exile of 1947 India—happened to actual people. And so we can stumble onto Ukrainians in Azerbaijan, Croatians in Macedonia, Lithuanians in Poland and Russia, and other ethnic anomalies. They didn’t ask to be banished from their homeland (or to have their country overrun), but years ago, they were.

We call it history. They call it exile, or home, or both.