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  5. Баксовет

    в Лёгкая Беседа

    Опубликовано:

    Ну так, я жду :luv:

    Cuty, не верь ей, она просто трепандж юзер, увидела, что обсуждается центральный район, так сразу вписалась)) Ты на флуде темы посмотри, Энтернити там уже отметилась, как проживающая на Торговой, шяхяр ушагыды :gizildish:

  8. Red Bridge To Nowhere

    в General

    Опубликовано:

    THE HILLS SPREAD out and became sparse as we drove south of the Red Bridge that connects Georgia to Azerbaijan. It is one of a few which have remained open in the decade of border changes and wars in the Caucasus. The Red Bridge is not contested either, which is something rare in itself.

    Before my eyes, Georgia has become isolated, the passes closed or fallen into rebel hands. Even the Black Sea, which is Georgia's traditional connection to Europe, is half gone in separatist and soon-to-be-separatist rebellions. All that is left is a little bit of beach, the city of Poti and the Red Bridge, which connects us to Azerbaijan, another half-eaten country.

    When you enter Azerbaijan, you come down from the mountains. The land is hard to describe: it is part-steppe, part-savannah with a few swamps spotting the fields. I was admiring a sudden patch of trees, not thick enough to be a forest, when my traveling companion pointed to what appeared to be smog. Out here, miles from any industries that are still operational, that was not likely. Actually, it was smoke. Off the side of the road, obstructed from view and pushed aside, several hundreds of thousands of refugees are kept in cemetaries created for the living, refugees in their own land.

    We pulled the car close and immediately we were surrounded on all sides. Children in dirty and tattered shirts picked at their faces, too shy to talk. A little behind them, their mothers, holding another little child in their arms. These are the people who should have been in my last story about Karabakh. But you can't find Azeris anywhere in Karabakh these days. This is the closest they come: seventy kilometers from the front line where soldiers still take easy shots at each other with sniper rifles, fighting a war that's over.

    THE REFUGEES - THE "internally displaced" as those who specialize in disaster relief call them - are everywhere in Azerbaijan. You won't come across them by accident though - you have to go looking to find them. They are concealed in old "Pioneer camps," where the Communist Boy Scouts in red hankerchiefs would raise tents and listen to speeches about Lenin the founder of the Soviet Union, and in other places where we foreigners have no reason to go.

    The government hates these people, but it needs them desparately. They are the reminders of the loss of the province of Karabakh, the Armenian uprising there and the terrible price of the Azeri loss in that war. So they are kept in camps, not allowed to move elsewhere through a maze of bureaucratic tricks like permits, housing quotas, and so on. They have become the Palestinians of the Caucasus, valuable because of the political advantage in their suffering. In another generation when these children covered with dirt grow older and learn how to hate and make bombs to strap around their waists, they may behave in the same way.

    I WAS IN Baku for a job interview. It didn't go well, and I was depressed. Baku is the new "boom town" of the Caucasus, but people are struggling there just like everywhere.

    The oil companies have moved to Baku, because there is so much under the Caspian Sea and the Arabs don't have a hand in it. The companies like the one I interviewed at bring in executives from the West and pay them Western salaries, plus extra to work in this barbaric place. Outside of the handful of Westerners though there are Azeris, in managerial positions down to the lowest jobs, who make Azeri salaries - less than $100 in American money every month.

    The government pockets the rest of the cash from the oil boom, but evidence is everywhere that it is not going for the public good. Things like garbage collection do not happen very often, and the electricity in places outside of the city itself shuts off too often for a country with so much energy. The state is a caricature of a sultanate, run by luxurious shieks in Armani suits. Even more than Tbilisi, a few hours exposure to this place made me want to scream for a class war.

    YOU COULD NOT find a refugee in Baku if you tried. I tried and found none, except for some of the poor who live in the Old City. The government claims that the city is already overcrowded, and this is true: there are too many people and Baku is too big to be supported by such a small country. The refugees here would be thrown into an urban world of organized criminal activities, like Rome after 1945.

    It's the rationale that the government uses, and it's cold-hearted. It's like saying that a man whose house burned down cannot live in the ruins, because it may collapse on him. He is therefore left to sleep - in "safety" - in the street.

    ONE HUNDRED MANATS, the currency of independent Azerbaijan, isn't worth much. Try telling that to a child who has been born and lived the first seven years of his life in a refugee camp in his own country. Hasan, a little boy I met in the camp in Mirzalar, had no doubts. He held it like it was a fortune, tightly, as if he was used to losing things or having them taken away by those stronger and more hungry.

    This was the entire population of a large neighborhood in Shusha I was standing in, only Shusha is dozens of kilometers away. This is Mirzalar, where every Azeri in Karabakh passed through. Some were dispersed to the other camps, hidden even further away from the border and the roads carrying international travelers, but some remain.

    The exodus of more than five hundred thousand Azeris surpassed the giddy fantasies of some Armenians in Karabakh, sure, but it horrified others, who won an empty land to rule. The refugees were on the move and no one could stop them. Some Armenian commanders pleaded with them to stay, but this was late in the war, after the Khojali Massacre where a few hundred Azeris were killed while they fled. When I heard the reports of this in Tbilisi, at first I did not believe them (the Armenians still don't). Later, after the facts became known, I thought to myself that this is not just the way we fight wars in the Caucasus, but how we fight wars everywhere. No animal is naturally remorseful. But no animal celebrates its enemies' destruction except man. In some countries they celebrate deaths that happened centuries ago, in their days of independence or revolution. And the celebrations are always days of national humiliation for someone else. Here the "someone else" is not far away, and the wounds are still fresh and bound in resentment. The Armenians in Karabakh are exultant. Hatred repels those who lost and those who won, and reconciliation isn't even a possibility.

    There is no electricity in most of the camp. Just a few dozen watts make it this far, and it powers a large light bulb on a pole in the middle of the camp, with a dirty steel ring around it to cast its light as far as possible. A loudspeaker is up there but whatever it was attached to was missing, no wires. (What would be announced anyway?) Some of the children gather underneath the light to read the books they haven't burned yet. They are mocked viciously by the gangs who escape from the dreariness of the camp by sniffing paint in a shadow of the high white light.

    WHEN THEY GET old enough to run away, some will go to Baku and live in the sewers and the alleys, running away from police and any adventurous relatives who will travel the underworld to find them. Others find their way to Mohammed.

    Mohammed is not a prophet but he is a legend. At the age of 16 he killed one of Tbilisi's notorious criminals who had a monopoly on the prostitution trade. Rumors attacked the one who put him up to it, who Mohammed was fronting for in the gangs. But Mohammed was fighting for himself. He still is.

    Now 21, Mohammed has an army of runaways, kids from Georgian families who have died or succumbed to AIDS or alcohol, and kids who have run away from the Azeri camps. They indulge in petty crime, theft, breaking into buildings and car theft and sometimes murder, though Tbilisi has a guild of professional killers who are usually given jobs like that.

    "He's not a bad kid," an informant tells me. "I just can't believe how биипing smart he is. Too smart. He gets complex ideas and if he can't get talked out of them they don't go right and he gets in trouble. The only way he can get out of trouble is more killing."

    Mohammed is surely at the bottom of Tbilisi's underworld, but nobody underestimates him. He has not expanded into other areas because there is no more real estate on the criminal topology to take: Tbilsi's underworld is stagnant and areas are parceled out between the different gangs. Any move would trigger a major war and many think the state, which allows this to go on, might not survive something like that.

    I SEE A couple of kids in Tbilisi who have graduated from sniffing paint to stay warm to smoking heroin. I met Ali - also called "Ioni" - three years ago when I was working on a story about the street kids who had been harassing all the merchants downtown, stealing their inventory and breaking into the stores. The story was killed by an editor for mysterious reasons, like most stories which feature the underworld.

    Ali was from the Azeri camps. I was interested in the way the worldliness of a boy who lived in war and then the poverty of the camps would be pushed off to the side by the sixteen year old who would cut out pictures of Tbilisi's pop stars from the tabloid magazines. And a boy who knew how to mix heroin with other powders to extend its usefulness was nervous when a pretty girl sat next to him on the subway.

    "Are you a virgin?" he asked me later. I smiled and shook my head. I was then twenty-five years old and engaged to be married, but his face expressed a total disbelief that not everyone was like him. He probably killed his first contract victim before he lost his virginity.

    I learned much about the camps from Ali, about the trade in humans by people like Mohammed and the other gangs who use refugee children to do suicidal crime missions or to transport drugs across the border. They are often employed in one of Tbilisi's greatest underground businesses - breaking the chains and carrying away the diesel generators on the balconies of Tbilisi .rtments, a necessary piece of equipment when the authorities cut off power to the whole block for one resident's refusal to pay a large bribe. The children do that. Like tiny ants they crawl through the city, everywhere, smashed underfoot or tunneling under the earth when chased by larger predators.

    Ali is gone now. He is probably dead but I had the hope that I would find him in Mirzalar or the nearest "large" city, Agjabedi. I did see children just like him, also named Ali or sometimes Mehmed, discarded and thrown aside. I do not know how much the Tbilisi gangs pay for their ants, but it cannot be very much. By the laws of our everlasting capitalism, the supply is larger than the demand.

    I WAS SENSITIVE the whole time to how close we were to the front lines of the Armenians' and Azeris' civil war. Just a few months ago I was over on that side, in Karabakh. I was forced to confront the Armenians' humanity, their way of life which they feel they must guard. Now it was time for balance, another shift in perspective. For every story in the Caucasus, there are four or five sides. It's impossible to believe you can ever find the truth in any of them, but it is important to preserve them, even if they will be used as propaganda.

    After seeing the front from the Armenian side, I wanted to see it from the Azeri view. The front is "off-limits" and it is illegal to go there without an Interior Ministry pass, but I had nothing to lose. It's a grim business up there. The Armenians withdrew a few kilometers, but all of the villages were bombed by artillery and every high building is blackened from fire. We were silent as we drove through one village where only freed animals from the peasant farms roamed. It was the same thing I noticed in Karabakh itself: all the houses, all the farms, all the stores, but no people.

    There is no military equipment in sight at the front, because Azerbaijan does not have an army anymore. This is why, the authorities say, they cannot go to war again to drive the Armenians out. But we saw, high on an incline, an improvised shelter. A board moved on a hinge and a man in a bushy moustache and the striped undershirt of the military, with the black lines faded to blue, stepped out and waved.

    His name was Private Murat Abshidze. He was here by himself "to watch the rocks shit," he said. He was demoralized, sent here by himself to live in the elements and look at the bright villages, full of electricity and people living in normal conditions, a few dozen kilometers away on the Armenian side.

    Murat pointed to a similar structure on the Armenian side, but it was made of concrete, unlike his temporary hovel. "We shoot at each other, just for fun," he said. He was a real philosopher, full of jokes about the futility of being in this stupid place. He was visited every day by a commander who always forgot his pay and left a pile of cans of fish and other disgusting food. "After a week you can't stand the taste any more. Good there are a lot of spices around!" he said, and pinched a bit of dirt from the ground to mix inside the can.

    This was something I could use, a metaphor. The refugees, they lived in dirt. Murat, the Azeri soldier, ate it. And from here they could see the Armenians in their villages, eating from their fields and milking their goats, while their "friends" in other places write reports which prove that refugees do not exist. The only thing worse the Armenians could do is sleep with the Azeris' wives. They dressed in thin rags here, while the Armenians sold the wool from their famous Karabakh sheep. The Azeri elders who once pruned the herd and sold them for a profit now sell their children to foreigners.

    When we were about to leave, Murat took out his gun and asked for a bit of money to buy fresh milk and cigarettes from his "enemies" that he shot at leisurely on the Armenian side. This too is Azerbaijan now. He had so little malice, it was like he was holding a toy. We gave him the rest of our manats, forgetting to mention the Georgian money we had in our passports. And as he robbed us without anger, we drove away without fear. It wasn't fearful, it was depressing. And there was no way any of these problems could be solved. I was considering the future, the fate of countries with oil, what executives are willing to do with countries who had the stuff in the ground, as we passed the Red Bridge again, a relic of a tyrannical but safe place in the past.

  13. Баксовет

    в Лёгкая Беседа

    Опубликовано:

    И вообще, это не моя тема, она принадлежит всему Баксовету и посвящается к говорящему памятнику Эки у Кардинала, который периодически переносится к пивнушке "Оскар", со стандартными фразами : "Гагаш сигаретка найдется", "Гедяк пивя вураг" и "Доняр олса йейярдик" :gizildish:

  15. Women

    в Лёгкая Беседа

    Опубликовано:

    Так точно :luv:

    Ну, как Вам моя новая подпись? На это фобий нет?))

    Ну опробуй подпись в действии, глядишь и фобии появЮтся) А вот насколько нашенский...это уже слишком лично и неприлично) Closer than close)

    Пысы: Все шагом марш на новую флудскую тему. И Ингокнитую тож берите за что можно и тащите :gizildish:

  16. Баксовет

    в Лёгкая Беседа

    Опубликовано:

    Микрорайон, Ясамал билмирям, Гюняшлийя гедян маршруткалара минмирям))) Баксовет! Как много в этом слове...Не знаю как для вас, а для меня очень много. Ах эти улочки, этот зеленый театр, этот водопад, эта чайхана в губернаторском, 13.00 - выход у западного (движенний), Эка, вечно в кайфе у клуба "Кардинал", мирно напевающий свои "най най най" свихнувшийся старичок (забыл как его зовут) , вя даха няляр няляррр. А еще и флудеры Biggie+Cuty, тоже неподалеку от "Кардинала". В общем, хороша баксоветовская жизнь :gizildish:

  19. Фобии Форума

    в General

    Опубликовано:

    Ты, ОПЫТНЫЙ ФОРУМЧАНИН - Не флуди!)))

    Soul, это фобия у форумчан на такие подписи?

    You'll see, You'll see. Скоро тебе будут писать вот так:

    Спасибо, милая :luv:

    И вот так: С новым годом!!! :luv:

    И еще: Все будет хорошо :gizildish:

  20. Фобии Форума

    в General

    Опубликовано:

    Хотя на этом форуме я новичок, но это мой далеко не первый форум. Поэтому вышеуказанные фобии у меня позади. После модерирования вообще всё ушло в небытие.

    Однако, всё описано великолепно. Видно, был хороший личный опыт))

    Cuty, ох и подпись ты взяла...не удивляйся, если тебя будут Летицией называть после этого, это тут такая фобия :gizildish:

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