Clean and Transportation

Frank left a comment about how clean the city of Shirvan appeared. He remembered Europe as not so clean. Yes, Shirvan is very clean compared to much of Azerbaijan. However, there are parts that are not so clean (pictures with next week’s blog). The pictures in this posting are: the Heydar Aliev monument and park, a portion of the long park adjoining the monument, the mall where the Central Library is located across from the monument, a cleaning crew, and the street by our home (we are the second door on the left).
The cleaning crews are usually older women who do the backbreaking work of sweeping the malls, parks, and streets with straw brooms. Men oversee the sweeping women and do some of the work, but the women do the majority of the labor for cleaning the parks.
You will see pictures in the next posting of how people litter the streets. Shirvan does have an organized trash removal program, but there is an attitude of drop trash wherever, even if there is a trash receptacle close by.
There are many cars in Azerbaijan the most popular being the Russian Lada. The only person we have known who owns a car was the father of a university student that Linda tutored in Saray. Almost everyone uses the public transportation – buses, taxis and trains.
One of the great joys of being in Shirvan is that Linda and I can walk almost everywhere. During our training we had to use the marshrutkas every day. A Marshrutka is a van or extended van that seats 15-20 people and holds up to 25. The temperature is carefully controlled by the amount of people on board – the more people the hotter it is. On a rare occasion we would be on a marshrutka that was not at near capacity. The marshrutkas follow numbered routes and the cost was 20 cents within a city and 30-50 cents to travel to a nearby village or city.
It is difficult to explain, but some marshrutkas have fold down seats that take up the aisle. There may be five rows of seats and as the bus fills the seats are folded down from the rear. We would get on and take a seat usually in the very back. Then more people would get on board. The seats come down. We would be the first ones off meaning everyone in the middle has to stand, fold up their seat and get off (or just stand and give us 6-7 inches to work our way around them) for us to get off.
Along with the marshrutkas are very old busses that seat 20-25 and hold up to 45. There is always room for 1 more on these buses. If a marshrutka is full, they do not pick up anyone else, but not so with the buses. There is a definite etiquette once on board. There is very little talking, and a man always gives his seat to a woman who is standing, and young women give their seats to older women. Women do not sit next to a man they do not know unless absolutely necessary. Young men give their seats to older men (I did not have to stand as often as the younger volunteers). If you are carrying a package and have to stand, a seated person will offer to hold your package. If a mother or father get on board with little children, people will hold the children and shepherd them while the parent(s) handle their packages. Complete strangers are entrusted with the infants at times.
Because everyone uses the buses for shopping trips and general travel, people bring on board as much as they can carry. Often a person will get on with 4 large handled cloth or plastic sacks and find somewhere to place these. Some of the packages we have seen brought on board are: decorated cakes, 4 dozen eggs on trays not cartons, groceries, building supplies, fire wood, plastic furniture, and suitcases, but no live animals.
The fare is paid when one exits. There are designated stops, but if you want to get on, just flag a bus down. When stopping, shout Sachla (STOP!). The fare is paid to the driver unless you cannot get close to him because of the crowd. In that case one passes the money through as few or many people as necessary, and if there is change, it is passed the same way. We always tried to have the exact change.
To travel a distance of more than 15 miles to another city we can take a big bus or a marshrutka. The cost varies up to $5.00. We are going this week to Salyan which is about 40 miles away. It will cost $1.00 a piece and take an hour and a half. We will take a local marshrutka #3 to the bus station for .20 and then find a bus to Salyan. The busses generally leave on schedule, that is when they are full.
It is not all bad. Twice during training Linda got on the wrong bus. Once she realized her mistake she indicated to the drivers her problem. Neither of them spoke the same language, but they communicated. Each time the driver went out of his way to get Linda on the right bus. I once missed a stop, and was at the end of the route. I called my Language teacher who spoke to the driver. He took me back to my stop and I was the only one on the bus.
One of the highlights of training was visiting a Peace Corps Volunteer at their site. Our assigned volunteer was Jane in Lankaran. We rode a big bus from Baku to Lankaran about 6 hours with many stops. There were 9 volunteers on this particular bus of 50 people. When each volunteer would get off at their stop (ours was the last), they would stop outside the bus and wave vigorously to those remaining on the bus. It must be noted that this practice of waving was an American practice, and the Azerbaijanis do not wave like that.
On the bus we began to communicate as best we could with one man. I asked the names of villages as we passed through. That was about all the Azerbaijan I could speak, and he spoke as much English. It was determined we were from America. When he left in the bus at one of the latter stops, after seeing all the other volunteers get off, he shook my hand warmly, got off, turned and waved vigorously. It almost brought tears to my eyes as he was reaching out the best he could to communicate welcome.