Azerbaijan is rich – now it wants to be famous (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Azerbaijan is rich – now it wants to be famous (2013)

nytimes.com

55 pointsgeospeck25 comments

I was in Azerbaijan in 2012 for Eurovision. One thing that was abundantly clear was the enormous gap between the excitement of the locals for foreigners and how few foreigners actually showed up. The Azeris saw it as an opportunity to make their mark on the world stage and spared no expense (or human rights violation, or animal rights violation) to make the event spectacular.

Baku is full of me-too projects like the 2nd tallest flagpole in the world (behind Tajikistan and now Saudi Arabia), the flame towers (one of which was broken to the point of uninhabitable) and the mentioned Khazar Islands which build off the concept of Dubai's Palm Islands but nobody seems to want.

The sad thing is there is actual amazing culture and interesting architecture in Azerbaijan. But the modern stuff is just atrocious.

The promotional video mentioned is beyond parody: https://youtu.be/u9InW0nbi0U

Among many other gems, it's narrated by a guy with a strong Borat accent and actually used the words "lobster-shaped".

Hopefully they didn't do the same thing Dubai did and not install a sewer system (Dubai has since corrected that, but not before it impacted beach hotel business).

Sewage from Baku goes right into the sea since ancient times.

It also actually used the words "great success".

This needs an update:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/azerbaijans-dependence-on...

http://www.infoaz.org/new/index.php/en/manset-eng/8076-hazhi...

I am from Azerbaijan, and I can say that having natural resources doesn't make a country rich. In fact, resource-rich countries usually end up poor.

The only reason why the country isn't rich is because all the gains from those natural resources are being siphoned off to fund the lifestyle(s) of corrupt public officials. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not only corrupt public officials, they end up in the coffers of large corporations too.

This actually has a name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

It happens when a country doesn't have enough developed institutions, and finds out that they have natural resources. Having money in the country gives comfort and freedom to public officials, and they try to stop the development of those institutions or completely destroy them. As a result, it leads to lack of democracy which itself leads to lack of economical growth. In case of Azerbaijan, the country started to export its petrol just right after getting its independence from the Soviet Union. At that time it was a new country, and didn't have any proper institution. In general, it is an unfortunate situation which is extremely hard to fix.

Azerbaijan seems to have done a better job utilizing their resources to boost the economy than most other ex-Soviet countries (including Russia, even), just looking at its economic growth since independence.

They've been hosting the Formula 1 race for a few years now. An expensive, but probably effective way to show the world that you exist. I'd never heard of the country before F1.

They're part of Eurovision/Eurosong. That's the only place I've ever heard of them.

Also their name as pronounced by our commentators kinda sounds like a joke country that doesn't actually exist, but everyone is in on the joke and letting them compete.

That's probably why Azerbaijan is going to stick in my memory forever. Even if I have no idea wherw it is on the map.

I agree this is the same way I found out about the country, was remarking about this just the other day actually.

This year's Azerbaijan Grand Prix turned out to be the most exciting race in several years. It certainly left an impression on fans of the sport.

And where they managed to become a bit of an Internet meme by plastering absurdly self-congratulatory "Well Done Baku" and "Baku Welcomed Us All" signs around the circuit.

Azerbaijan is #1 on the list of shadow economies, whopping 67% of GDP.

Economically it is the most normal country in the world:

https://qz.com/970508/azerbaijan-is-the-most-economically-av...

I skimmed the article and saw nothing where it compared Azerbaijan's economic sector composition with the average world's economic sector composition.

The article picks out a few numbers weher Azerbaijan hits the average very well. But it seems to ignore others.

Did something happen to this project?

The khazarislands.com website is blank and avestaconcern.az website only partially loads, with the slideshow images 404ing in the console.

never built anything beyond welcome sign and a website. went bankrupt about 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_Islands

Azerbaijan is not rich, wtf.

Exactly, I can't understand how you got downvoted. Sweden is rich, Switzerland is rich, Luxemburg is rich. But Azerbaijan? Since when do natural resources imply wealth? By that logic, Venezuela would be rich too. Distribution of wealth in Azerbaijan is catastrophic. A nation's wealth should be measured by how well off its poorest citizens are, not its richest.

Also, the GDP per capita of Azerbaijan indicates anything BUT rich.

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