A Half-Step Up From Hell

I never told you about the refugee slums I visited last week in Sumgayit, an hour north of Baku.

Sumgayit was built as an industrial center by the Soviets right after WWII. They recruited brainpower and labor through a combination of incentives and coercion. The area exported oil and gas to the Russians for decades. And as in every Communist country, it was done without absolutely any concern for the health of the workers, their community, or the planet.

Apartment blocks that looked bombed-out were occupied by desperate-looking men, women, and children. The old-looking people were actually in their 30s and 40s, badly aged from being homeless for half their lives. Families lived 3, 4, and 5 to a room, with several unrelated families living in a single dilapidated apartment. Some “apartments” actually had no roof; many had windows open to the elements. Water pipes and gas pipes crisscrossed the scrubby earth between buildings, sometimes dangerously hidden by trash and weeds, sometimes dangerously exposed to careless or diseased feet.

Sumgayit became legendary as a carcinogenic, mind-numbing wasteland. Eventually the area was so polluted that no one could work there. And the industrial technology changed, so most of the equipment was abandoned, left to rust and collapse.

Where else would you send war refugees?

From the day I started planning this trip a year ago, I was determined to see the refugee camps. Between 1991-1994, Armenian soldiers and nationalists occupied more and more Azerbaijani territory—first the province of Ngorno-Karabach, then 7 more districts adjacent to it—and expelled the Azeris who lived there. (Note: the Azeris aren’t completely blameless in this; they ran a few pogroms against Armenians in Baku and elsewhere.)

Overnight, these Azeris had to leave their farms, ranches, vineyards, flocks, and ancestral homes, including their ancestors’ graves. They fled primarily east, some stopping in crude tent villages, others going all the way to Baku. Armenia is holding onto this land at an enormous price: other than the ever-meddling Russians, the international community has virtually blockaded Armenia as a result.

The UN says that, proportionate to the population, Azerbaijan has the largest internally displaced population in the world—a million people, more than 12% of the population. Towns like Guba (the “big city” from which to explore Xinaliq) quickly doubled in size, from 130,000 to over 250,000. The traditional pace of life here made such dramatic change even more disruptive.

So when war refugees flooded east, one logical place to put them was the abandoned, unsafe, ugly town of Sumgayit. The edges of the town have recently been developed with high-tech industry and ostentatious villas; ironically, the seaside once littered with transport equipment is becoming a weekend destination for residents of the increasingly crowded, increasingly treeless Baku.

So I persuaded the tour company to set up a little excursion around Sumgayit. They shrugged and said the Azeri equivalent of “sure, whatever.”

It was a half-step above hell.

Apartment blocks that looked bombed-out were occupied by desperate-looking men, women, and children. The old-looking people were actually in their 30s and 40s, badly aged from being homeless for half their lives. Families lived 3, 4, and 5 to a room, with several unrelated families living in a single dilapidated apartment. Some “apartments” actually had no roof; many had windows open to the elements. Water pipes and gas pipes crisscrossed the scrubby earth between buildings, sometimes dangerously hidden by trash and weeds, sometimes dangerously exposed to careless or diseased feet.

How did I get to know what these homes looked like? I didn’t have to persuade anyone; I was dragged into them by people desperate to tell their stories. Women in filthy sweaters and shawls spat out their stories for the thousandth time—stories of dawn expulsions from homes, families torn apart, husbands and sons shot in front of their eyes.

Some showed pictures of their former homes and intact families in happier times. Some showed me the one pathetic treasure they had rescued and preserved on their nightmare escape—an old toy, a handmade cap, a high-school diploma in a cheap frame.

They demanded to know what they had done wrong, and what was going to be done for them. They wanted my promise that I would rescue them, starting by telling their story.

I can’t rescue them, but I can tell a bit of their story.