On June 7, Azeri President Ilham Aliev was proud of journalists, sportsmanship and Olympic flame. A preliminary opening of the first edition of the European Olympic Games to be held in Baku from June 12-28, 2015. The youngest of such competitions (the American and Asian Games already exist for many years) is a host of choice, which has not hesitated to spend fortunes to beautify its city and seduce a tourist population that drags on to take the road to Azerbaijan.
And for a few more billion more…
Just over EUR 7 billion. This is the official (official) addition of the European Olympic Games to Azerbaijan. Or at least what the government wanted to spend in order to offer Baku new skin and new sports infrastructure. Baku is not at his test. Winner of the Eurovision in 2011, Azerbaijan had been the organizing country of the musical event in 2012 and had already, for the occasion, swallowed up fortunes in the development of the seafront, the renovation of roads and buildings, the creation of a new Heydar Aliev center and the construction of the Crystal. Palace and its 25,000 places (4 times more than the Zenith of Paris). All of this to get to grips with the so-called subject of human rights by Western journalists who do not know anything about the case and whose airline tickets he himself paid. So we cannot let its population die of starvation in the shadow of crystal palaces? To that end, Azerbaijan is postponing this a few months later by hosting the Women's Football World Cup under 17 (won by the team in France, by the way). Again, the country is benefiting relatively little from the financial fallout of the event, with 5 of FIFA's 6 stadiums in the capital. And then the communication operation fails, and international opinion, as it does again in recent months, of social misery, just a few steps away from the entrance of the stern stages and their parking lots filled with limousines.
But why is this fierce against Azerbaijan?
Blood and ink at the opening of the Games
That is true! The country is just trying to do things right. But the desire to embellish the city faces a finding: impossible to redo all the buildings in the capital! It is as simple as that. During the Eurovision, Azerbaijan, like between the airport and the city center, often reopened the road and set up, in front of the decrepited buildings of the Soviet era, huge signs of lightweight, easy and fast materials to be installed, behind which the local population and its old-fashioned dwellings no longer risked collision. the sensitivity of high-level managers, entrepreneurs or sportsmen… The problem of these light materials— we had forgotten to tell the population without doubt— is that they are so easily flammable, as we saw in May last year when we saw it in May whena building crashed at an uncontrollable speed. Balance sheet, 16 deaths including 5 children, and a bad press for a president too busy to choose the color of his dressing suit. Fortunately, he has the official partners, who are very clean on them, to support the Olympic Games and their EUR 7 billion in expenditure as a factor in human and social development in Azerbaijan. First partner, British Petroleum. Well, we cannot always do in originality when oil accounts for three-quarters of state revenues and 90% of its exports. But try to read All that glitters (all that shines), which comes out in bookstores that same June 12 and evokes the relationship between the Bakinois political power and the oil giant. It's also sport! Another one? The Tissot watches of course. Swiss Tissot, which must try to compete with the other Swiss Chopard, already largely located on the other side of the Caspian, in Uzbekistan or in Kazakhstan, where he has woven strong friendships with the 1% of the local population who live every month in Yemen's GDP. Swiss watchmakers love dictators' families, money and… sporting events to time! But what does the Azerbaijani presidential communication do? We will end up believing that the Olympic Games have nothing to do with sport!
Why do tourists avoid the country?
An old city classified as UNESCO heritage, a modern city built in the 1920 s by the first oil magnates, a contemporary city closer to the architecture of an emirate, a field of petroglyphs at 60 km from the capital, also classified, small towns of character, palaces, ruins of caravanessas. walking tours, hikes for all levels and even beaches on the Caspian. What, then, holds tourists on the road to such an enterprising country? Still not dictatorship… sorry, the presidential regime giving the presidential executive a great deal. Finally, we travel well in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or China, and we have traveled well in Tunisia, Vietnam and Burma without asking too many questions. And it must be admitted that, so far, Ilham Aliyev was not the worst perceived on the scale of the dictators of the former USSR republics. As evidenced by his multiple re-election at more than 80%… huge oil and gas revenues, Aliev's son (yes, his dad was already president before him) had always had the right idea to get it to the low people. A small road by the way, a small school by there, a hospital or two. And always for freedom. Free is actually the population to find gasoline, teachers or doctors to use its new toys. The problem is that there is a check of $ 7 billion, 3 times the cost of the Eurovision organization, which is difficult to cash, even with Swiss friends. In the end, Ilham Aliyev is going to find his com-com operation very expensive, which only highlights the slippery slope of a corrupt and always totalitarian regime towards journalists, students, women, intellectuals, artists, refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, homosexuals… finally, Azerbaijanis what.
However, the Petit Futé this year is the 4 th edition of the Azerbaijan Guide. Yes! Because we love that country. You are even encouraged to go there, because we know that a boycott or conviction "with the utmost firmness" will not prevent the dictator from eating his caviar and drinking his champagne. So wait for the end of the Olympic Games: the good minds will tell you that this has nothing to do with dictatorship; But by reflagging it, it has nothing to do with sport either. And you're going to discover that country and this population so outspoken and kept in obscurantism that it doesn't even know that light exists. And tell them!
