International Railroad Discussion > Azerbaijan, part 1. Baku station

The breakup of the Soviet Union resulted in 14 republics becoming independent of Russia.

* 5 Stans in central Asia:
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

* 3 republics in the Caucuses mountains, technically part of Asia:
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia

* 3 Baltic Sea states in eastern Europe:
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

* and 3 other eastern European states
Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus

Of these, there is a long gradient of levels of separation from Russia that different nations have chosen to take or not to take. Belarus is the only one that has remained strongly allied with Russia. The three Baltic states are the only ones that have gone to full solidarity with western Europe, having membership in the EU, part of the Schengen area, and using the Euro as currency. The other 10 are somewhere in the middle.

4 republics have "breakaway provinces" currently under foreign control. 3 of those have provinces controlled by Russia (Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova). 1 has a province controlled by another former Soviet republic -- SW Azerbaijan is controlled by Armenia. These breakaway provinces cause lots of domestic issues, border security and transport issues, and prevents them from gaining membership in the EU.

All of these political and geographic issues have a large, negative effect on train travel. Many of the rail mainlines in the former USSR are now closed at international borders or breakaway province borders. And many mainlines still have freight service, but have limited passenger service because of border crossing issues.

Azerbaijan --

Azerbaijan is a very small country on the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With Russia to the north, Iran to the south, Georgia to the NW and Armenia to the SW.

Azerbaijan's rail system radiates out from Baku, but has only 2 international connections in operation (Russia and Georgia), and two international connections with no service (Armenia and Iran).

Additionally, there is a sliver of Azerbaijan between Armenia and Turkey that has its own rail line, which is severed at both the north and southeast with Armenia.

Oddly, all trains run at night. There is no daytime service. Which makes things lousy for railfans. The only advantage I've been able to identify is that sometimes international border crossings take a couple hours, and it could be intensely annoying to be stopping and starting every mile or two for 3 hours. The delays are more palatable when you're asleep.

Azerbaijan is populated by Turkic peoples, and allies itself with Turkey.

* Visit the Caravanistan Azerbaijan pages.
https://caravanistan.com/azerbaijan/
https://caravanistan.com/transport/train/azerbaijan/

* Map of Azerbaijan.
http://www.mappery.com/map-of/azerbaijan-tourist-map

* Azerbaijan has been at war with Armenia since about 1993. Mostly just occasional cease fire violations along the edge of the Armenian occupied area.
Random googled page
http://www.armandsag.nl/artikelen/The%20Rise%20of%20Azerbaijan.html
Says that Armenia took control in the early 1990s, but has suffered economically as a result. Azerbaijan is expected to prevail sometime soon through economic might...

1) schematic rail map of Azerbaijan from Caravanistan.

2) country map, black lines are railroads. It's about 250 miles wide, 250 miles tall. You can see the isolated rail line in the isolated province on the left, broken at 3 points now on the Azerbaijan/Armenia border. Annotated to show my route on the country map, also showing the portion of Azerbaijan controlled by Armenia (the yellow and red areas).

3) Google map of the 3 Caucasus republics. You can also see Aktau KZ in the upper right and Socci Russia in the upper left (2014 Winter Olympics location).

The capital of Armenia is Yerevan, where the "m" in Armenia is.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/18 02:45 by gobbl3gook.

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3) Train schedule from the Baku station. (This cycled between English and Azerbaijani, and between train departures and another information screen. So train info was only visible 25% of the time. I took a photo of it, sat down, and transcribed all the info to a railway route sketch sheet of paper to make myself a personal train schedule that was legible.

Looking at this makes my head hurt right now. Sitting at the comfort of my own computer desk, without needing to actively interpret anything.

It really made my head hurt at the time when I was trying to decipher it, having it flicker every 20 seconds to a different screen or language. I enlisted the help of ticket agents and bystanders, it took about 45 minutes to translate the train board into a workable map and schedule for myself. Which revealed that there were no daytime trains, anywhere. Except a 10 mile commuter train "Sumgayit" which ran all day. I couldn't quite believe it until I had deciphered everything. No daytime trains? Really? Bizarre... No single domestic train goes more than 200 miles. They leave after dark, arrive at the destination sometime around midnight or dawn. And manage to come back in the dark, too.

4) This national rail map was in the corridor outside the ticket room. You couldn't look at both the map and the train schedule at the same time. Neither was available in printed form.

5) This was the other screen that the train schedule board flickered to. Alternating pics 3 and 5, and English and Azerbaijani (4 different screens total).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/18 00:27 by gobbl3gook.

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I had hoped to ride a train to the Russian border or Iranian border, and bicycle back to Baku. But, since the trains only ran at night, and I didn't want to set up camp somewhere at 2:00 am, I just took the longest domestic train possible, to Balakan. Then I backtracked by bicycle to the mountain tourist city of Sheki, then backtracked again by bicycle back to Balakan and crossed into Georgia. (see photo 2, the annotated map)

6) The station looked nice and modern. It would have been nice if they would have spent a little more money on an actual train board mounted next to a map. The class and polished floors and escalators were nice, but they didn't help you find a train...

7) Outside the station in back were the nice electric trains that only went 10 miles and then came back.

8) In yard off to the side of the boarding platforms were the more interesting trains, Soviet era sleeper trains for all the domestic long haul services.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/18 00:42 by gobbl3gook.

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Detail photos of the train cars. Very pretty. I wish they would have run them during the day...

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12) One more. Interesting how there are at least 3 different liveries. I think the red and cream is Georgian Railways, so this could be the Baku-Tbilisi train.

I didn't want to get chased out for trespassing, otherwise I would have enjoyed walking the tracks and taking more detail photos.

And, I'm just now realizing that these trains in my photo may be the trains that go
Baku => Moscow, Russia
Baku => Rostov, Russia and
Baku => Kharkiv, Ukraine (via Russia).

As well as the internal domestic trains, and Baku => Tbilisi, Georgia.

13) Baku has a funicular. It only goes up about 300 feet, so its mostly for show. But it puts on a good little show.

14) View from near the top.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/18 03:27 by gobbl3gook.

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What a fabulous geography lesson!

I have enjoyed your posts. Thanks. Although I have traveled to most continents, usually in search of steam, my travels have never taken me to central Asia. Many of your images and insights remind me a traveling within China by train in the 1980s.

Really great post and more pictures that's always good.
I've taken the train from Yerevan Armenia to Tbilisi Georgia and the border crossing was a pretty minor affair. Not much different than crossing from Ukraine to Moldova. I and a couple others in the group got some hard looks from the Georgian border police because we had visas in our passports from the breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, now known as :, but other than that it was all very smooth.
As for Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia, there is a daily train from Moscow to Sukhumi the capitol.The Moscow train is huge, probably 19 cars at least and packed. I believe there are also a few local trains between Sukhumi and Sochi Russia. It is possible to enter Abkhazia from Georgia, the border is tense but doable. No problems entering Abkhazia from Russia at present.

Pictures of the Moscow to Sukhumi train: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,4043144,4052089#msg-4052089

Are you planning to visit Armenia? If you do it's worth it to also go to Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, just don't try to enter Azerbaijan again. If you're interested send me a pm and I can suggest a contact in the government of Artsakh that might be helpful.

Very interesting narrative, illustrations, and photos from a part of the world that can be somewhat confusing.
ALLEN

Glad you all liked the post.

Getting Short -- I stayed away from any breakaway republics. They would have been interesting, I'm sure. But, no health insurance coverage, no assistance from a US embassy if something goes wrong. I'm not shy about adventure, but staying in the confines of conventional countries with established relationships with the US government was enough excitement for me this trip.

I would like to visit that back sliver of Azerbaijan, though. Maybe if I ever go to Turkey.

I should also add that the Azerbaijan tourist visa cost $65, can be gotten online as an "E Visa" and you should allow a couple hours to do it, I had a glitch with a .jpg vs .jpeg formatting issue on my passport photo upload -- AZ wanted one file extension, my iPhone would only offer the other.

No cost for visas for any of the other countries I visited.