Ten days in the South Caucasus

When the Nansen Academy called and told me I could join them on a fact-finding trip to the South Caucasus I didn't need much time to decide. Actually, I didn't have much time to decide - they were leaving in just a couple of days. This was a perfect opportunity for me to find partners and recruit participants in the region so I went right on to book my plane ticket for Azerbaijan, and prepared myself for an intensive trip with fellow travelers Dag Hareide, Rector of the Nansen Academy, and Genc Goranci from the Nansen Dialogue Network.

Baku, Azerbaijan - "Construction, Corruption and Heydar Aliyev"

We landed in Heydar Aliyev Airport around midnight, and lined up to buy our Visas. "It is a good thing that they are efficient and fast", Genc would remark, "or we would have been standing here for hours". Unfortunately, it was a remark laden with irony, and rightly so. It would seem that the inefficiency of the Visa system was a legacy still remaining from Soviet times.

While Dag and Genc were staying in a fancy hotel, I went for a more student-friendly youth hostel. The hostel was run by a nice old lady who didn't speak a word of English, but insisted on serving me hot Azeri tea every time she spotted me, so every visit to the hostel turned into a potential case of heatstroke. Fortunately, our many meetings were air-conditioned.

Our first meeting was a lunch at the Norwegian Ambassador residence, with the Ambassador Jon Ramberg and, amongst others, Thomas Goltz, an American journalist and author of several acclaimed books about South Caucasus, and Hikmet Hadjy-zadeh, former Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Moscow. He is the father of one of the Azeri video bloggers who have spent more than one year in jail for criticizing the government through a satirical video.

After the lunch we went on to the Ambassador's office, where he helped us complete the schedule for our three days in Baku. The schedule turned out to be something of a meeting marathon, so we did not have much time to explore the city. Even so, I did get a certain feel of beautiful city, with parks everywhere and a friendly population. Construction sites seemed to pop up wherever we went. The previous president, Heydar Aliyev, had set his mark upon the city, quite literally - every park, statue and building seemed to have his name on it. I found only one exception - the park named after his son and the current president, Ilham Aliyev.

Tbilisi, Georgia

The three days in Azerbaijan passed quickly, and we soon found ourselves at the airport again, where we spent a rough night on metal benches due to a delay of the plane to Georgia, but when we finally arrived we were met by a beautiful sunrise, and spirits heightened as we drove down to Tbilisi. Accustomed to seeing Heydar Aliyev´s name on everything in Azerbaijan, it was interesting to note that in Georgia, the road to the airport was named George W. Bush Street. I would later be explained the story behind Bush's popularity - on his first visit to Georgia, he supposedly ate more than 20 Khinkali (a traditional Georgian dish), eating his way straight into every Georgian's heart. I had no such feats on my résumé, but from facilitating an Abkhazian/Georgian dialogue under ISFiT 2009, I had friends in Tbilisi, who treated me with the famous Caucasian hospitality during my stay. Like Bush, I would spend my days in Georgia stuffing myself to the gills.

Our schedule in Tbilisi was just as intensive as the one in Baku, only broken up by an excursion to visit settlements for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP´s) from South Ossetia. One of the highlights for me was seeing a concrete result of ISFiT 2009 in development - an Abkhazian-Georgian follow-up project, scheduled for the fall of 2010. I was not able to visit Abkhazia unfortunately, as there was too much uncertainty regarding the safety of going there. Anyhow, one thing was certain not to be safe - Georgian traffic. Many drivers got their license during a time when it was earned through bribery, and thus there are practically no traffic rules in Georgia - and no seatbelts either. "Of all the dangers of working in a conflict area," Dag said, having worked in the Horn of Africa and the Balkans, "it's the traffic that kills you".

Yerevan, Armenia

The journey to Yerevan was done in the blink of an eye, and with our already processed electronic visas, we quickly passed through the security checks. We were met by the beautiful view of Mt. Ararat in the distance, and by Norwegian Honorary Consul, Timothy Straight, who spent the evening with us, helping us finish our schedule for the stay.

After meeting former ISS students in Azerbaijan and Georgia, we had high expectations for the gathering in Armenia - and were not disappointed. This was an impressive lot, some of who already were active in dialogue work. As our program continued, we met everything from filmmakers and festival organizers to NGO's and the Armenian Ambassador to Norway.

Yerevan had a certain European feel to it, with sidewalk cafés everywhere. In one such café we experienced a bewildering case of communicational confusion. Let me quote from Straight's blog:

Dag, one of the Norwegians, pointed out on the menu what he wanted:
Dag: I would like the tiramisu with ice cream
Waiter: I am sorry, sir, we don’t have that today
Dag: OK, if you are sold out of tiramisu, can I have just ice cream?
Waiter: Oh, we have the tiramisu
Dag: So you are sold out of ice cream….
Waiter: No, we have ice cream
Dag: But you said you didn’t have tiramisu with ice cream
Waiter: We have tiramisu. And, we have ice cream. But we don’t have the tiramisu with ice cream.
Genc (the Bosnian, to the waiter): Are you Bosnian?

We all had a good laugh. Now the ten days have passed, and we are leaving for our home countries. Our bags are stuffed with notes and books, our inboxes with e-mails and our minds and hearts with good memories. It is now the work begins - to do our part in the peace building processes of troubled, but beautiful South Caucasus.

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By Martin Melvaer, Head of Dialogue Groups