we're hardly allowed out of the house
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we're hardly allowed out of the house
In Baku all the bars in the centre cater for expats, brit US German what ever. If they relied on local custom they'd be closed in a week. When you live and work there you just naturally gravitate to where people you know go.
But thats only for the beer, for everything else it is far better using the local shops tailors cafes restaurants etc. Lovely people for the most part. I used a tailor when I'm there. He has a little place under the stair well in an appartment block about 5 doors from the London pub.. He'd do any alterations or repairs you wanted in less than 24 hours and was so cheap it was unreal. Great guy.
I was the main suspect in a robbery in Baku a few days before Wales played away to Georgia a few years ago. I was innocent, of course - and I was eventually cleared after the Police discovered from some locals that the victim (a German-speaking Palestinian) had been rolled by some Russians after he met them in a bar. He didn't spill the beans himself as he was a Muslim and didn't want it to be known, particularly by his family, that he was frequenting bars and drinking alcohol. I had merely stayed in the same B&B overnight.
A few days later I gave myself a challenge to hitch into Armenia (where there are few cars on the road) from Georgia and without Armenian currency, which was fun.
And the Meetup hostess in Georgia, a poor, elderly lady with whom I did not share a common language, could see me in bed from her kitchen sink.
It was an interesting trip all round.
I have been to places on the "red" list produced by the Foreign Office. I'd happily do it again. I won't go to America because that IS dangerous and I speak from experience of two trips that ended sooner than I hoped.
I won't go to Azerbaijan because it is oppressive. I know ex-pats who worked there, more or less blood money but can't knock people for trying to make a quick buck in a place where most are oppressed.