Slums of Baku and children living in poisonous acid

After two days of enthusiasm from Baku, a situation happened to me that tempered the enthusiastic impressions of the city. Not getting to Formula 1, I decided to look for something unusual in this interesting city and went to the Bibi Heybat mosque, which is on the seafront 7 kilometers south of the historical center. I went there on foot in the heat, because because of Formula all buses on this highway were canceled. To my left was a half-abandoned industrial area with many oil rigs (the Caspian was visible behind them), and to my right was a bald mountain and an old cemetery on the slope. I was terribly thirsty in the 40-degree heat, and I turned off the road into some slums hiding behind the fence, hoping to buy water. What I saw shocked me: it’s not just poverty, it’s a natural trash and a terrible smell of poisonous oil emissions, from which my eyes watery. When I arrived, people began to go out and ask if I was a journalist, complaining that they were dying here ...

Oil rigs begin immediately at the southern exit of the city, on the way to the Shiite mosque of Bibi Heybat. Incidentally, the magnificent mosque is perhaps the most beautiful in Azerbaijan.

I don’t know how I managed to go unnoticed to the territory where oil is being extracted. Probably, I was just looking for the shortest path, walking through weeds and thickets of dead grass (I still take thorns out of my legs), so no one noticed me. Belongs to the oil company "Socar".

In principle, quite interesting. I’ve never seen oil produced before.

But something here is all too miserable and trashy.

So, right there, next to the oil rigs (a couple of hundred meters from them) is located residential area No. 6. In Baku, all areas have numbers, not names. I got here.

And it would be okay just slums and dirt, but here it terribly stinks of some kind of chemical muck. Oil is pumped from all sides, oil pipelines are thrown here and there. From time to time a loud hiss is heard from the oil rigs - this is released by the gas accumulated in the pipes. Vonism is rare, and all this bears directly on people.

Noticing me, residents of nearby houses poured out into the street. Oh, are you a tourist? Journalist? How did you get here?

The feeling that people see a foreigner for the first time, but this is almost the center of the city, about thirty minutes on foot to the fortress walls and the Maiden’s tower of old Baku. No, I'm not a journalist, just walking, I wanted to buy water. About twenty people have gathered around me, everyone vied with each other to say that Sokar literally kills them. Children constantly suffer from pulmonary diseases, this and that one died of cancer, everything stinks around. Friends, I’m very sorry, but I’m just a tourist, I can’t help with anything, with all my desire ...

He promised the minimum that I can do. Just show how people live in a city claiming to be the “Second Dubai”. May the authorities be ashamed.

Do you know what kind of pipes are lying on the ground? So there is laid water supply, this is drinking water. Residents say that those pipes that buried underground burst, but nobody repairs them or changes them. I had to forward ourselves on top.

I repeat once again - this is almost the center of Baku, half an hour on foot to the Maiden Tower, restaurants, souvenir shops.
Children play football, they live here all their lives and are used to it.

When I was photographing this puddle, a local man came up to me and said: “Pay attention to the yellow foam in the water, it’s not just dirt. Here the whole earth is saturated with oil emissions, and our children are playing here ...”.

Already evening, I got out of hell called "the sixth district" for a long time, but still tickles in my throat from an unbearable stink. Incidentally, the area was taken and closed with a white fence. So that slums could not be seen from the nearby highway.

Here is this route from where poverty should not be visible. From slums to these fashionable buildings - from a force of five hundred meters. Heaven and earth, agree. But something confused me in these beautiful buildings. Have you noticed something strange too?

And now you see that these are dummy buildings in which no one lives? Take a look at the alley.

And suddenly an insight came! Window dressing, ordinary eastern window dressing with chic facades and ruin in the yards. Nobody lives in many new buildings, these are the "Potemkin villages".

As an obsessed person, I plunged into seemingly new and beautiful neighborhoods, and new discoveries awaited me. Fifty meters from the main streets - and there may not even be asphalt.

It becomes interesting, is this a system of such continuous display? It seems to be a normal house on the left.

We look into the yard. So it is, again a beautiful facade and ruin inside.

Having walked for half a day in the sleeping areas of Baku, I realized that it was by no means a wonderful old city - it is the face of the city. Yes, billions are swollen in the center, but at the same time, nobody cares about the sleeping areas. The bulk of Baku looks like this.

Typical Caucasian pile of squatter. You will see the same in Georgia and Armenia.

If an earthquake happens, these houses will fall apart like houses of cards.

Who and for what bribe allows people to do this, I do not know.

A typical Soviet nine-story building, there are such at every turn. The lack of asphalt is starting to seem like a system problem. There are many where not even in the center.

I will end this article with optimistic notes. As it turned out, billions of oil money passed "by" the cities of Azerbaijan, but at least the historical center of Baku was licked. Already good. Nevertheless, the city is under construction, many new buildings, however, almost everywhere the buildings froze due to the crisis. For example, it’s quite a working day, but the facilities are empty, no one is building anything.