» Issue 4: Spring 2006

Bubbling with Azerbaijani experiences

Second year geology student Suzie Ogilvie looks back on an experience of a lifetime

WHEN RSM’s De La Beche society was organising a field trip to Azerbaijan, to be honest, I’d only vaguely heard of the country, and certainly knew virtually nothing about its history or culture.

Nevertheless, I jumped at the chance to go along with the six other students being promised a month of fascinating geology plus a brilliant insight into the Azeri culture, not to mention 80 hours of Russian language tuition.

Did it deliver? It most certainly did! On landing in the early hours of the morning, we were welcomed into our host family’s homes with incredible hospitality. The guidebook warned us that Azeris will look after their guests to the point of extreme and suggests they would be willing to take a bullet for us.

Every dinner was like a banquet and our families were more than willing to help us do anything we wanted. I found the Azeri culture to be fascinating. The complicated history since the fall-out from Soviet times means the capital city, Baku, is now intermixed with Soviet heritage and renaissance of the Azeri culture.

Baku itself holds on to a proud historical culture with many museums focused on arts, literature, puppets, carpets and various other cultural artefacts. Everywhere you go, there’s a statue of a popular poet or literary person. On the weekends we went on tours around the city and visited these museums, further enriching the whole experience.

The Russian lessons were incredibly intense, but also good humoured and fun. The seven of us split into two groups and had four or five hours of lessons a day, switching between two teachers. We then combined for a ‘language practice’ session.

Although this teaching was gruelling at times, I was surprised how quickly I picked up the basic concepts. I found when wandering around the shops and restaurants that I was able to buy or order something and more often than not ended up with the right thing – a sure sign of improvement!

In the afternoons we went on the geology fieldtrips which were my favourite parts of the trip. There were four main areas of study – oil, mud volcanoes, structural geology (including landslips, exposed bedding, gauges and visible folding) and ancient history (cave-paintings and fossils).

We were taught by a Russian professor from the Oil Academy in Baku, in Russian, but with an Azeri translator from the university with whom we built up a good friendship and still email occasionally. We could even communicate with the professor by remembering our school French. Also good practice for the future, I guess! Our Russian wasn’t quite up to scratch, unfortunately.

I couldn’t believe what a fantastic variety of geological features was right on the doorstep. The vast fields of nodding donkeys scar much of the Absheron Peninsula, but produce a good percentage of the world’s oil and are the key factor in the continued growth of Azerbaijan.

We were lucky enough on our visit to make some contacts at BP during our weekly evening conversation class. They invited us on a tour of their oil terminal in Sangachal, which we gratefully accepted.

The whole experience was incredible and better than I ever could have imagined. I learnt so much in that month about Russian, geology and Azerbaijani culture and had so much fun in the process. I’ll always look back on it as an experience of a lifetime, one which is unlikely to be repeated, unfortunately.

The other students on the trip also made it one to remember, with great fun being had playing with the mudvolcanoes and building mammoth sandcastles on the beach, with oil rigs in the distance off-shore.

Azerbaijan opened my eyes to a completely different way of life and a culture so unlike our own – in some ways better, and in others worse.

I was pleasantly surprised that western culture has only just moved in, so the city still retains its own unique identity. McDonald’s however was present. Give the country 10 years and I’m sure things will have changed. So I am so glad to have had the chance to go there now, before it loses its charm.