Leigh in Azerbaijan

Women here, when wearing coats, only seem to wear fur coats, short or long. Fashion is important here especially for the women. They will often wear stylish hats, amazing combinations of colours, short vests at breast height.
Men are more sober in dress. Jeans are rare (maybe it’s only expats). They only wear [...]

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I’m a month behind the game. Johnny Chung Lee has found that you can use the Nintendo Wii remote to create an interactive white board from any flat surface, as long as you have a data projector. This could revolutionize how whiteboards are used. The challenge seems to be in creating the infra [...]

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A friend’s uncle died this week. His death was expected so hopefully there’s not too much grief to be endured. She shared with me some of the customs. Apologies if I get them wrong.

On the third day the women meet at the cemetery (I guess the coffin is in the grave), around [...]

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At least it says that the information has been handed out by the government. It’s a pity it wasn’t scrutinised to find out what it means.
Registration procedure of foreigners and stateless persons changed in Azerbaijan

17 January 2008 [13:39] - Today.Az

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has introduced amendments to his previously signed decree “On creation [...]

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This weeks Today.az has an article decrying the lack of freedom in various states including the ex-Soviet countries. The following is an extract.
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Georgia and Armenia were ranked as “partly free,” and Azerbaijan was rated as “not free.” Overall, of the 193 countries surveyed, 90 were deemed “free,” 60 were judged “partly free” and 43 [...]

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Thanks to Cristi Karlstead (on my blog role), who teaches at Koc School in Istanbul, I learnt again about Kiva, which organises microloans through the internet for people developing their business. What an inspired idea! The internet makes it possible to loan to Kiva which works with various microloan organisations around [...]

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Had another Azeri lesson this afternoon. This next week is a mountain to climb, in terms of learning conjugations. The conjugated verbs go onto the end of the noun, potentially making quite long words, but so far this is part of what I’m learning. The extra thing is that there’s various endings that [...]

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A simple walk outside almost turned into a few days away from school and a sling for six weeks.
As I’m moving apartments on Monday (that’s the plan from school)  I finally took some original paintings from Australia and Guatemala to the framers’ but even though the temperature has been above zero for a while, there [...]

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It’s good that Azerbaijan is under Europe’s watchful gaze. Original article in Today.Az
10th Jan 2008 The European Union made a statement on Azerbaijani President’s decree of pardon releasing 119 prisoners.

Foreign Ministry of Slovenia chairing the European Union reported that the statement welcomes the president’s act.
“The European Union welcomes the decree [...]

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The following is another straight excerpt from Today.Az. While it gives little information, it indicates that the government is preparing a case against another journalist. While previous posts may indicate that freedom of the press is improving, this may not be the case. Maybe journalist’s imprisonment is not surprising [...]

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