Another One Bites The Dust (c).

Oops, here comes Johnny! As Turkey goes, so goes Azerbaijan, which still is a complex issue on its own. 

(Bloomberg) -- President Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan won’t seek closer integration with Europe, which he accused of discriminating against Muslims and undermining his country’s traditional values. “Where shall we integrate?” Aliyev said in a rare public criticism of the West in a speech to university students and teachers in the capital, Baku, on Tuesday. “Shall we integrate with those who are saying ‘Stop Islam’? Shall we integrate to a place where there’s no difference being made between men and women? We definitely shall not.” Aliyev’s remarks mark a departure from the national security strategy he approved in 2007, which said energy-rich Azerbaijan targets membership in European and Euro-Atlantic alliances. The majority Muslim but secular nation of 10 million people sandwiched between Iran and Russia forged close political and economic ties with the U.S. and the European Union after declaring independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. The president’s speech “was his acknowledgment of the failure of secularism and western values in Azerbaijan,” prominent Azeri journalist Khadija Ismayil wrote on Facebook. Ismayil, who’s known for investigative reports into Aliyev’s undeclared family businesses, was sentenced to prison in 2015 and freed the following year after international criticism of her detention and trial.

First, let's start with debunking the point about "failure of secularism". Oh, please! Ilham Aliyev had absolutely different thing in mind. For starters, even in Soviet times it was a normal occurrence for some deceased Party bureaucrat to be buried in Muslim tradition, with Mullah present and all that. Azerbaijan was always a Muslim country but initially Russia imperial and, later, Soviet rule provided an extremely serious boost to Azerbaijan's development which fused with a rather rich and colorful Azerbaijani culture. Among all former Soviet Caucasus republics, now independent states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan in 20th century was most genuinely multi-cultural place, with the capital of Baku being an extraordinarily cosmopolitan city with very large, almost equal in size,  Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian diasporas populating it, with yet another smaller diasporas of Jews, Germans and heirs of Russian Molokans constituting the rest. That gave the rise to a unique recognizable identity and even lingo of Bakunians (Bakintsy) who were Bakunians first, and Azerbaijani, Russians or Armenians second. In other words, Azerbaijan has a vast and, with the exception of tragedies of connected to the collapse of the USSR, positive experience of true integration. Enough to mention that even today a huge share of Azerbaijani public schools teaches students in Russian language, despite Russian diaspora in Azerbaijan dwindling to few tens of thousands after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Just to demonstrate. Here is 2018 graduation ceremony in Baku's school # 145 (my wife graduated it)--it is still school with in depth physics-mathematics curriculum. Pay attention--all of it is in Russian, and in fact repeats to the smallest detail almost Soviet, and, in general, modern Russian graduation traditions. 

Same goes for higher education and with many Azerbaijani youth doing their higher ed. in Russian. So, Aliyev's speech is not about "secularism" or its "failure"--quite opposite. Ilham, who himself is a graduate of famous MGIMO and a son of possibly the only one man in Politburo who could stop the collapse of the USSR, Geidar Aliyev, knows where the actual Islamization stops. Here is Ilham's wife and mover and shaker of Aliyev's business, Mehriban Aliyeva, with Putin four days ago during inter-regional forum in Moscow. 

I dare to say, that Azerbaijan's moves are precisely against talibanization and recognizing the fact that, especially after Turkey's moves, it will be a traditional, and dear to many good honest hard working Azerbaijanis, Moscow (and Russia in general) with who the fates of their country lie. I deliberately omit here the issue of Nagorny Karabakh--it is a separate and a very complex topic on its own--but the number of Azerbaijanis living and doing business in Russia is large and yes, by far not all of them are selling vegetables and fruits at the markets, nor are involved in the ethnic organized crime--an inevitable "benefit" of multi-ethnic state. Many are excellent doctors, engineers, people of art and culture and, in general, well-educated and highly socially adaptable people. In the end, it is all about geopolitics. For Azerbaijan, the West is far, Russia, on the other hand, is a few hours of drive north from Baku to Dagestan, same goes for Iran to the South. Plus, Baku commands serious reserves of oil and gas, plus, so called modern Western "values" are equally rejected in Moscow and Baku. 

But even more importantly, Azerbaijan is a pivot state of the region and, speaking in a very simple language, she gets it one way or another if the "reputable" (/sarc) United States decide to commit suicide and go for Iran's jugular. There are 20+ million ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Northern Iran, including in the province symptomatically called Azerbaijan. Boy, talk about the complexity of the region. Of course delusional "opposition" people in any nation sound all the same and read from the same script written either by Soros or CIA and they do sound stupid:

The president is “quite sincere” in his opposition to European integration because “Europe means democracy, free elections, rule of law, universal human rights and social welfare,” Altay Goyushov, an opposition politician who heads the Baku Research Institute, a think tank in the city, wrote on Facebook. “Aliyev wants to see a medieval monarchy in Azerbaijan,” he said.

That's the definition of being delusional. Especially when one talks about "democracy" in Europe which is run by corrupt homicidal EU bureaucracy and is dominated by political parties whose agendas are anything but "human rights" driven and have very little to do with "free" elections. In general, it all comes down to who will have better economic prospects with all that follows politically in the mid to long term future. It is Eurasia--pretty much no-brainer. As for Azerbaijani Armed Forces, guess who is in charge and what institutions many of them graduated from?  Well, including my naval academy. Those people are not stupid, they can count and plan. They also can assess geopolitical situation and deduct power balance. I am sure they do it professionally and do identify trends well. Talk, especially about "human rights" and "democracy" (not to mention "rule of law") is cheap. The only things that matter are actions and things that work. Europe doesn't. So, it is not about Islam, or, rather, not about it primarily. It is about pure national interest and elites seeing future for themselves. Prosperity usually produces stable political situation, especially when one has to consider what neighborhood he (she) resides in. And, frankly, I would (and probably will, inshallah;)) rather visit Baku than Paris or Madrid.  Beaches are good and the food is out of this world--I know, I was born there. In a sense that I have a slight idea about how it works.

   

Here are some additional views of modern day Baku. A warning, do not try to compare it with glitzy and tawdry Arab Gulfie newbie playgrounds such as Qatar or UAE.      
                                       

On A Hellhole Otherwise Known As Ukraine.

I didn't really want to touch this topic but since it is a sad, 5th year, anniversary of the war coming to Donbass and Banderites openly, with "style", destroying the monument to Marshal Georgi Zhukov in what at some point of time was called the most Russian city in Ukraine, Kharkov, I think it is worth revisiting this Ukrainian topic. 

We need this revisiting to shut down, finally, all those uber-patriotic voices which continue, albeit at much lower level, to whine about Russia not invading Ukraine in 2014 and trying to point out some hypothetical "benefits" of such an invasion. Those voices are wrong not only strategically or operationally, they are wrong (and ignorant) on a fundamental, cultural, level. 

We should start from dispelling any illusions on the account of the so called Novorossiya and, grossly inaccurate, picture of Eastern Ukraine as being taken hostage by Western Ukraine Banderistas--this picture is only partially correct, to put it mildly, and does not reflect reality on the ground in the Eastern Ukraine.  But first, let me give you some (very limited) pictures from my military life from 1988 through 1990 which resulted in a complete implosion of the USSR and war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I will abstain here from commenting rights and wrongs--but that was our life then and I know how half-a-million people look like running at you. Also how to live and serve in the city under siege with a lot of bullets flying around.

The reason I go "there"--a very painful memories--is simple: for whatever reason, when people are unified with a single idea, however bad or good it is, they move in hundreds thousands, if not millions and the place becomes hell. Here are some photos from Baku where Baku garrison, including cadets from my Alma Mater, and, of course, formations of MVD and DoD, were dealing with then, starting from 1988. 

Disarming. Some of our people died. 

Naval cadets at block-post.

Our guys (naval cadets--I was an officer then), actually, had one block-post literally next to our high-rise--very eventful nights, to put it mildly. Apart from huge numbers of demonstrating people, as you may have already guessed, the next step is always--going for the guns and other weapons--that is what people in turmoil do. Mind you also, events in Caucasus which shook and dismantled USSR were happening in a still fairly well structured security-wise Soviet Union.  And here is a tactical question: in the immediate aftermath of Crimea getting back home in 2014, the number of people protesting at Kharkov's main square (Kharkov is about the same size as Baku 1.5+ million people) never reached anything higher than 50,000 people at the most active days (compare this to Maidan in Kiev--order of magnitude more people), not to mention the fact that apart from taking the main building of regional administration, very little was done to ensure that "uprising" will be successful. There is a dramatic contrast here between, almost equal to Kharkov's size, Donetsk and much smaller Lugansk, who, while having massive demonstrations, went for the jugular: weapons, control of key administrative, financial, transport, military installations. They also formed militias immediately. This was not the case with allegedly "Russian" city of Kharkov. Why? 

The answer is very simple: same as with Odessa which took its rape on May 2, 2014 never getting off its knees--Ukrainians DID happen as a political nation. As Rostislav Ishenko astutely observes--these are Russian speaking Ukrainians for who Ukraine is a self-contained prime value in their lives (in Russian) and they, in 2014, didn't want to go to Russia, period. Those are majority in what today is known as Novorossiya and these are not the people Russia needs to spend blood and treasure "liberating". In fact, any invasion by Russia for the sake of liberating allegedly "suffering" from svidomyte and Neo-Nazi dictatorship people there would have been a catastrophic mistake, since those people didn't want to be "liberated" and were completely content with Ukraine as their unique nation-state. In fact, should have Russian Army annihilated VSU (Ukrainian Armed Forces) in 2014, which would have resulted in catastrophic losses for VSU, that would have been precisely these rather dormant Ukrainians who would immediately radicalize to a Western Ukraine Banderist Neo-Nazi level. Not to interfere was a smart and wise decision by Kremlin, despite hysterical appeals by arm-chair "strategists" and other uber-patriots. 

Today, at the dark fifth anniversary of the war in Donbass, we can observe clearly both correctness of the decision not to interfere, unlike it was in Donbass, where primarily Russian people rose up, in Ukraine and to let EU and US deal with the economic and moral hellhole Ukraine has become today. We may wax political or philosophical whatever we want, but to illustrate what this all means I can give an example, that in my brigade, the chief of counter-intelligence department (Special Department-Osobyi Otdel), Captain 2nd Rank, himself an Azeri was not serving USSR since 1988 so much as providing crucial information to Azeri nationalists. Just one example of many, same things were happening in Armenia and all over Caucasus--very many people were changing loyalties. Dzhokhar Dudaev rings the bell? And here is the catch, these are not anymore Ukrainians who rejected Russia and Russians, most of who from Ukraine either live in Donbass or already moved to Russia, but these are Russians today, unlike it was the case in 2014, who do not want anything in common with Ukrainians. Yes, Putin may continue with his politically necessary gospel of Russians and Ukrainians being brotherly peoples--this is simply not true.  An overwhelming empirical evidence testifies to this.

Now that the Ukrainian economy is pretty much done and Ukraine has finally turned into a complete economic, cultural and intellectual shithole, many Ukrainians, those very same Ukrainians who in 2014 didn't want to be liberated, begin to grasp this simple reality and it hurts, badly. I wrote about it in 2017, today it is crystal clear--the fate of Ukraine is eventual disintegration, possibly due to a civil war (or wars) and, inevitably, Eastern Ukraine trying to whore itself out to anyone (not that it is not being done as I type this), while Western Ukraine will inevitably be divided between Poland, Hungary and Romania--let them deal with Banderistas--Eastern Ukraine will remain, well, irrelevant for Russia. I don't recall who drew this excellent parallel recently but Ukraine today is like that proverbial dead cat whose corpse neighbors throw over the fence at each-other's property to avoid dealing with rotting dead feline. This is exactly what is happening now between EU, USA and Russia. Russia is NOT going to put a single ruble into Ukraine (or whatever will be left of it) and once Nord Stream-2 and other pipe-lines are completed, Ukraine can go to hell and enjoy her status as parents of Sumerian civilization and diggers of the Black Sea. She eventually will be completely de-industrialized and will, finally, reach her desired status of a complete independence from Russia. Although, I have to correct myself--for the first time on my memory--I can say that Russia finally gained her independence from Ukraine and for that one has to thank profoundly and sincerely Vladimir Putin and those people from his circle who made the only correct decision in 2014--not to move a single battalion on Kharkov. After all, unlike in Caucasus in 1980s and 1990s, the numbers were simply not there and Kharkov deserves to lose monuments to Zhukov and its other famous people most of who considered themselves either Soviets or Russians.   

Very Personal.

They are the class of 1989 (I am 1985). The video was uploaded in 2009 (this is NOT the class of 2009--by then it did not exist) Baku and my Naval Academy, which even today continues to deliver...

Knee bending ceremony is for Stalingrad's Marines (Naval Infantry), I still remember me and Admiral Kemp Tolley almost crying to each-other on the phone in 1997 about what we knew from those years--I'll give you a hint, Kemp Tolley knew our WW II superintendent really well. He, of course, wrote Caviar and Commissars too.  He was THERE. 

 

But if anyone needs other reference points, here is Sasha Turilin (Tourilin), well Rear-Admiral Alexander Turilin (class of 1983), they were our company's Seniors (yes, we drank together):

One of many others among my class-mates, company and faculty fiends and buddies, many of them today people who face realities of the modern world. No bigger than late Vice-Admiral Vasily Alexandrovich Arkhipov, whom I had an honor, the same as knowing Rear-Admiral Kemp Tolley to know in person, physically, or sometimes over the phone. Those who wanna see early 1980s in Baku with English--here it is;-)

Today Baku is STILL stunning, as it was in 1970s and 1980s. It probably is even better but just lacking something...But it still comes to me in my dreams...

Those who don't know who Vice-Admiral Arkhipov IS, Google Caribbean Crisis, he didn't allow the world to die, he was Commander then, Chief Of Staff of 69th Brigade of Diesel Submarines, those proverbial Project 641 (Foxtrots). 

Down The Memory Lane.

Stumbled upon this very fresh photograph (in Moscow) today and suddenly was taken down the memory lane:  

Ah, the summer of 1980--the last summer of personal civilian freedom, the hottest Summer on memory in Baku, Moscow Olympics, entrance exams to Naval Academy and this song blaring from so many open Baku windows. 

    

Damn, Debbie was drop dead gorgeous and the music was so good, it stood the test of time. And the Heart Of Glass was not the only thing which made those biorhythms get in sync...