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 black pointed shoes and sometimes VERY pointed. My brown shoes get many stares. I’ve never detected shock but they are obviously a point of interest. Black is the key colour for men. There are other colours but black trousers, black leather coats, (black hair) dark sweaters are everywhere.

Polis (Az) officers wear Russian army winter hats and maybe it’s those same officers who wore French gendarme hats in summer. There are also Soviet soldiers’ Ushanka winter hats to be seen and military officers wearing Russian captain’s high peaked hats. How do I know these names? Then there’s the Soviet army officer’s hats.

There’s still a lot of Soviet ways seen here.