Baku, azerbaijan
When I first started telling people I was going to Azerbaijan, I pretty much had the same response across the board. Where on earth is that? Is that a real place? When I pull out a map to show them, the shock value increases. Ohmygoshhhhhhh it's like - the middle east? Is it safe? So far it's been nothing but safe. However, with the recent terrorist attacks on Paris, it goes to show that anything can happen, wherever you are. But yes... (mom) I'm still being as safe as one can be.
When I first drove in to Baku (which ended up being at four in the morning, finishing off the nine hour road trip from Georgia with my manager - you can read up on it here) the city didn't look real. Everything looked brand-spankin' new. The hotels were ginormous, the massive apartment high-rise buildings were pristine, and everything seemed to be lit up and on display. The main road from the airport into town is apparently called the Belt of Happiness - an extravagant production with sand-coloured concrete walls lining the roads (paid for with the bundles of oil money in the city) intended to hide the woeful shacks behind them. It is quite clear that there is no middle class. And driving through town you are able to see the vast differences of how individuals are living their lives here. Neftchilar Avenue, which means Oil Workers' Avenue in Azeri, is where the heart of the Happiness Belt lies and holds all the designer boutiques - Tiffany, Gucci, Dior, Burberry, Bottega Venata - stores that I will definitely not be shopping in (let alone allowed inside).
A view of Baku at night & the Flame Towers.
There are definitely a few major differences within the country and my new club specifically, which took a little bit of time getting used to. Here's a compiled list of tidbits of information that I will be adding to as the season progresses!
Police cars are everywhere. However, their idea of controlling traffic is belligerently yelling thru their loudspeakers. This has virtually no effect.
Driving is a free for all. And if you're walking across the road, it's definitely at your own risk.
Baku set the world flagpole record with it's 23,000-square-foot Azerbaijan flag (on a 531-foot-high flagpole) until last year when Tajikistan topped it by about ten feet. Apparently the president boycotted a scheduled conference in Tajikistan after that. #realproblems
They have no local fashion designers and no local fashion customs. They need to hire international agencies to do the display windows. Interesting.
If you are wanting to workout in Baku, be prepared to see all the women in full snow/track-suits on the cardio machines. Prior to putting on their suit, they are in the change room wrapping themselves in what looks like saran wrap. All to cut the kilos.
Our team works out / takes over the male-side of the gym. I guess we're just badass like that.
At the turn of the 20th century, Baku was pumping half the world's oil and foreign investors were comin' in hot.
The Soviets pretty much killed the oil industry when they took over Azerbaijan in 1920, but now, the three wavy Flame Towers flicker every night with the light of 10,000 LED's; an emblem of the city and a note to the world: Baku is back.
Most of the nation's income is off the books. Hollaaaaaaa shadow economies!
Baku hosted the First European Games this past summer.
At our home games, 95% of the individuals in the stands are men. 100% of them are wearing all black.
The state language is Azeri but it seems like everyone can speak and/or understand Russian as well.
There's no way I would be able to safely maneuver myself in a car, so on the off days I head to different places in the city via the metro. Luckily it's extremely cheap and very easy to navigate through.
Azerbaijan became part of the USSR in 1922. It declared independence from the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.
We play in skorts. I know you're jealous.
The bulk of our sweatsuits are white. It has become a running joke between us foreign players on who can spill the least on their suits. Or most.
Team colours: black, pink, florescent green. Accented with gold. Heeyyyooooo.
Walking along the street is not as peaceful as back home. Unless you enjoy the constant sound of car horns.
Wind storms are a thing. I love feeling all warm and cozy inside my apartment, until the day my windows break apart. It can literally sound like the end of the world outside.
Free days with my foreigners usually consist of meeting in the city center to have coffee and lunch. And coffee and coffee. #addiction
We are not allowed to go home in between morning and evening practices. We have a hotel that is right beside our gym where we go to rest. Aka nap the afternoon away.
Before all CEV home matches we stay in a hotel. The evening before our game we give in our cellphones, get them back after breakfast, and give them back again before afternoon naps. They will be returned to us after the match. If we win.
Every morning on the road / at the hotel, a designated player has to call the coach and wish him good morning.
Furniture stores are everywhere. And I mean everywhere. If half of them were to be changed into coffee shops I would be a very happy individual.
Taxi drivers don't reeeeaaalllyyyy actually know where they're going.
Our team's age range is between 18 and 35.
Grocery shopping is an adventure in itself. Large shops such as Costco, Safeway, WholeFoods etc. etc. don't exist here. I have about five different stores that I go to for certain foods. And to buy any "North American" things... you're going to be forking over some cash.
People stare. A lot. When you stare back, nothing happens. And it's just plain awkward.
We went to the MockingJay 2 movie in English and were the only ones in the theatre. Spoiled.
Our apartments are very, very large. And very, very strange. The decor is a mash of gothic meets modern.
Baku JUST got a Starbucks. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my bank account) it is not so close to me.
On the grand boulevard, a charming little sea side walk, you can find a couple Soviet-era ferris-wheel rides sprinkled along. I have yet to go on one - but I will!
Since arriving, there have definitely been a few ups and downs (what would professional sports be without those!). I am pretty convinced that I could play anywhere in the world if I could eliminate that first week. Don't get me wrong - it's definitely an exciting time. However, I take a lot from the connections I make with people and obviously in that first week you don't know anybody, you don't understand how things work within the club or your new city, and you're virtually always lost for a good chunk of time. Not many people speak English in Baku - that's always an interesting time. Even within our team, there are a lot of translations going on in practices and meetings (and who knows if we're getting the full story!). I just find it pretty lonely having always come off of a National Team tournament and busy summer with the girls. Suddenly I'm all alone in a foreign place with not a lot of things to distract my brain - which can be a bit dangerous. That first week is a hard adjustment for me to make as I'm missing my family dearly and forced into the realization that I cannot reach out to Connor. Pro seasons give me too much time to think.
But alas! Once I'm settled in, I'm okay. I can adjust. I can play, I can make friends, and I can be excited about what's to come during this new season. The first thing you have to get used to when playing here in Baku is the lack of a concrete schedule. We started our SuperLeague a few weeks after all the European leagues started, as they were trying to add another team to our league, and just straight up hadn’t organized it yet. There are four SuperLeague teams all of which train in Baku. Azeryol (my team), Azerail (our sister team that practices in the same gym as us), Telekom, and Lokomotiv, and the Junior Azerbaijan National team and Georgian National team have joined our league. My team is also playing in CEV and the other three SuperLeague teams are also competing in Champions League. Our first game as a team was also our first CEV match in Targoviste, Romania (photos below). We ended up losing that game which put a lot of pressure on us for the following match when they came to play us at home. We had to win in 3 or 4 in order to force a golden set(after the game is done, a golden set is played to determine the winner – a “winner takes all” set to 15 for all the marbles). We did it – and ended up winning 15-13 in the golden set. Slight stress. At the moment we are 4-2 in the league and are heading to Finland next week for the second round of CEV. Just over a week ago our coach got released from the team and our assistant coach stepped into the head position. Despite this disruption, our team luckily didn’t skip a beat in terms of training hard and keeping our positive atmosphere on and off the court. Regardless of having three different languages constantly going on at the same time – Azerbaijani, Russian, and English - our team is more ‘together’ than I would have expected. It’s so interesting to me that even if you don’t speak a word of the same language with a teammate, you can still come to really care for them as a person and actually communicate quite a bit. Hand-signals for the win.
At the time of Canadian Thanksgiving I was frantically driving across Canada to get home so I wasn’t able to celebrate it. I absolutely ADORE thanksgiving and it’s becoming one of my most favourite holidays. I am super fortunate to have three American’s on my team, and onehonorary-North American (who’s actually from Germany) which makes up my “American Mafia” crew. I love them. So for American Thanksgiving, we had the day off and cooked an absolute feast. We started preparations the night before and all got together at Lauren and Janelle’s apartment at noon the following day. We really outdid ourselves and the spread looked like something out of Canadian Living magazine. Or American Living. Whatever. It tasted like heaven. It was probably the most delicious thanksgiving meal I’ve had.Ever. Wife us up, folks – we nailed it.
Janelle also informed me not too long ago, that she had come across my blog during the first couple months she was here for pre-season training. A few months later, when the club announced that I would be joining us she realized that it was meeee! "How long do I wait until I tell Kyla that I know her entire life story?" She definitely waited a good long while to tell me (such a creeeeep) but we had a good laugh. Oh, how the world works!
Three more weeks to go – a handful of league games, a trip to Finland, off for a little Christmas break, on to Winnipeg for National Team training, bus to Nebraska for Olympic Qualifiers, then fly back to Baku for the second half of the professional season! Busy, busy, always non-stop but there’s so many exciting things packed into this next month and a half, especially - I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Here is a blog post I originally wrote For VolleyVerse:
Playing in Baku, Azerbaijan this season was nothing short of “an experience”. Regardless of where you play, what league you’re in, and what crazy things you’re seeing, you can be sure to always arrive home with experiences. But this season was something very different. An ‘ex-periiii-ence’; a lot of emphases and a lot of sighing on that one.
It was a whirlwind couple of weeks after I signed my contract in September. I had to fly back from Mexico (our Canadian National team had just finished playing in the NORCECA Championships), pack my bags in Winnipeg, drive my car back to Vancouver, head back home to re-pack for eight months overseas, and then have my head on straight to fly out a day later. Vancouver to Toronto, Toronto to Istanbul for an 8-hour layover, Istanbul to Tbilisi, Georgia.
Met at the airport by my new manager. Be prepared to stay in Georgia for five days with my new team manager while they sorted out my visa. Supposed to then fly to Baku from Georgia but wait, change of plans. We are going to drive from Tbilisi to Baku, which is through extreme countryside dotted with small farms and country dirt roads, all the while waiting for goats to cross off the road, stopping to visit family, and stopping to pick up wine and cheese for the staff. It took ten hours. Excellent life choices all around.
Discovering Azerbaijan
The only reason why I knew the country Azerbaijan existed is because of its strong, well-known women’s volleyball league. I didn’t hold it against anyone when their reactions were “wait, you’re going WHERE?! Azer-what?”
Most volleyball players have heard of the Rabita Baku club who has taken the SuperLeague, CEV Champions League, and FIVB Club World Championship titles in the past. Some phenomenal players have passed through Rabita. Including millions of dollars. Although that club has not been running for a couple of years, the league still remains very strong.
I played for Azeryol, one of four club teams within Baku. We played in the CEV Cup and the other three were in Champions League. The league had to add the Azerbaijan Junior National team and Georgian National team to the mix to make it legitimate, but those games weren’t so… challenging.
Exploring Europe
It was my first time playing in the CEV Cup and I loved getting out each month and having the opportunity to explore another country! Since we didn’t need to leave Baku ever, as all of our games were usually played in our gym, we had a little more time to travel to the various teams when we needed to.
However, I can see how difficult it would be managing the travel on another team where their normal away games are a trek across their own country! Lots of time spent on the planes and bus! We took down Finland, Romania, Poland, and Italy this past year and then lost to a strong Russian team in the CEV Cup semi-finals! I definitely enjoyed our opportunities to play other strong CEV clubs and go face to face with some of the best players in the world.
We had one CEV trip to Muszyna, Poland. It was fun to be in another city regardless of how small and snowy it was at the time. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us ride the ski lift without skis (one of my brilliant ideas) but it was nice to… look at (?) nonetheless. After our game, we had to leave hours later in the middle of the night to drive what felt like days to Warsaw, to fly out that morning. They sent one of those extremely small buses…for an entire volleyball team and their staff. Gracias.
After too many hours, we stopped at a random truck stop where a few of us got off (and then almost froze to death). We were deliriously wandering around in the middle of nowhere trying to find a place to pee because the washroom was locked. Or non-existent, I can’t quite remember the problem.
During my walk back to the bus I came around the corner and the bus was driving away. Shoot. I’m not sure if I was just totally frozen or I was fairly fed up with life in that moment, but I didn’t change pace. A couple teammates said they saw me from the bus (they did end up telling the driver to stop… thanks a lot), but I was just strolling through the parking lot without a care in the world. I dare you to leave me in the middle of Poland. I double dare you.
Embracing Baku
I’m going to start off by saying one of the weirdest things I experienced this year was having to play volleyball in a skirt. Excuse me, I mean skort. Those spandex shorts covered up by an extra piece of fabric in the front and voila! You have a skort straight out of the 1990’s. It was especially interesting having to learn to feel even remotely comfortable in said skort with all the spectators in the stands who happened to be 90% male, all over the age of 50. Excellent.
Not to mention that I think the last skort I wore was in grade 5. It was red and pink with white hibiscus flowers on it. Our team’s skorts didn’t look quite as good as that particular number, but there was definitely some gold-bedazzled-embellishments on them. Our manager did not hold back when designing our jerseys (all six of them!).
Luckily, the foreigners on my team were just as old in spirit as I was. Our days off consisted of heading to the gym for an extra workout and maybe a sauna (where we were consistently being steamed out by the locals who were in the sauna wearing garbage bags to try and drop kilos – they also wore full plastic track suits and went on the treadmill for hours), then we would head out to the city center or our favorite restaurant for a couple cups of coffee. A “couple cups” being the key.
I love being out and about in the mornings and afternoon but then home for dinner so there’s time for that quality rest and a couple Skype-dates before having to start another busy week. I am usually exploring when I have the chance but there weren’t so many areas to choose from in Baku. The main city center had lots of restaurants and coffee establishments, a few shops, and Old Town attached to it, which was where we spent a lot of our time.
Starbucks had recently entered the country of Azerbaijan, something the Americans and I were very grateful for. Hilarious that we have it on every street corner and some locals weren’t even the slightest bit familiar with it; “some important American coffee shop is here now… I think it starts with an S?”
Playing overseas in some remote cities and countries can make it pretty hard to meet other people outside of your club and team. But once you hear English, it’s a free for all. Any native-speaking English person you’re basically allowed to attack (in the friendliest of ways of course), it doesn’t matter the setting. I once pushed my way to the other side of the Starbucks because I heard a girl speaking English. Chances are they’re just as happy to see you too.
Eye-opening
In Azerbaijan, I saw the largest gap in social classes than I have in any other country I’ve played in so far. Because of the booming oil industry, the rich are very, very wealthy. And because of it’s new(ish)-found independence, Azeris want to show the world that they’re back, stronger than ever! They are an extremely proud country.
The main street coming from the extravagant airport all the way “downtown” is lined with designer shops that nobody can afford. But they look pretty and that’s what matters. Turning the corner, however, it is shocking to see how everyone else is living and the vast difference from the upper class. There isn’t really a middle class in this country so that was also interesting to navigate around.
Although every couple of weeks the ATM’s would have enormous lineups where people would literally be lined up around the block. I’m still convinced they were shooting out free money. Dang – missed the boat on that one every time. There were also so many luxury hotels sprinkled throughout the city, but with nobody to fill them. The Fairmont, Four Seasons, Marriot, Hilton, and Trump Towers just to name a few.
Before every CEV home game, our team would stay in a hotel with our opponents. As I said before, there isn’t anyone to fill up these hotels and therefore the staff has next to zero experience dealing with guests. They almost always ran out of food and so it was a first-come first-serve situation where the away-team would usually receive the grunt end of that deal.
When Modena, Italy came to stay at the hotel and were given instant coffee and a few oranges for the pre-game meal, a couple of their staff had a few things to say to the hotel and to our manager. Maybe you’re thinking that we did it on purpose. Starve the other team. But we were also starving… so that one backfired pretty quickly.
Entry Lottery
In order to get into the country of Azerbaijan, you need to receive an official letter from the government that invites you in. In order to get a visa, you also need to pass through a few more roadblocks and even if everything checks out, the last stamp of approval could be denied for no apparent reason.
This actually happened to one of my teammate’s agents; he was flying in for a couple of days, flights were booked and everything was ready, and the day before he was supposed to fly, one of our managers informed us that the temporary visa had been denied. When we asked why, the answer was something along the lines of “maybe he was in Armenia some time in his life or there is a terrorist with the same name as his.” Yes. Maybe. We had a different conspiracy theory, but I’ll have to save that one for another time.
Azeri Weddings
It can be a pretty scary toss-up entering new teams each year; you never know whom you’re going to get. One of our Azeri teammates got married this year and we were all fortunate enough to get an invite. Holy molly – Azeri weddings are done right. Tables on tables of guests, filled with an assortment of appetizers, meats, salads, and lots and lots of drinks.
Still understanding the etiquette of our new country, we were in self-serve mode. The waiters didn’t like that so much, even though I felt a bit pretentious asking someone to scoop me out some salad when it was right next to my plate. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the waiters that were constantly circulating the tables to re-fill wine glasses. Firstly, the initial pour is only millimeters away from the top of the glass. I’m sure that I had to skooch the wine glass to the end of the table and go full cat-style to slurp up that first taste. Secondly, even if the glass was half gone, the waiters filled it to the very top. Again. You had to stop counting after the third or fourth… or fifth or sixth refill.
Needless to say, our team did not hold back on the dance floor, and our entire coaching staff was right beside us!
We were definitely treated well this year, spoiled in terms of our gear, as I for sure received more clothing, suits, practice get-ups, and bedazzled jerseys than the last 3 years combined, cakes made an appearance at least once every week and a half (“keep them under 10 points and I’ll bring cake tomorrow”), and on our way home from Russia our manager bought everyone a perfume of her choice and casually spent 1500 euros.
The biggest problem we had was knowing our schedule. We didn’t know anything – up to the morning of the afternoon games. It was never set in stone and like I said, it could change at a moments notice. And it did. Weekly.
What time is it?
One of my favorite stories from this year was during day light savings. I am still chuckling to myself thinking about it now. The night before the clocks sprung forward, we received a message from our manager saying “No daylight savings. We cancelled it because of Formula 1.” Wait. You CANCELLED daylight savings? Can you do that? Isn’t that sort of, a non-negotiable? AND Formula 1 isn’t until June… I think the drivers would be used to the time-differences by then, no? Amazing.
Our team proceeded to argue via whatsapp on what time it really was. Probably for about an hour, it was incredible. But there you go, folks. Azerbaijan eliminated day light savings just because they wanted to. Bossy.
Family Support
After a pretty tough month in February (those February overseas-blues are so real), my Mom had the opportunity to come and visit for two weeks!
The only time she’s been overseas was two years ago when she came to stay with me for a month in Istanbul, Turkey and Italy for the World Championships. Our apartments were pretty big, especially in comparison to the typical European ones we’re used to. The medieval-style décor was a little bit interesting but after a while I even got used to the sparkly-swirls and multi-brown squares that were on my walls.
Mom was pretty pumped that I actually had a functional-looking bathtub this year until one day I was met at the door with “Kyla… your hot water isn’t working”. Oh yah… I haven’t had hot water all year Mom, and I won’t be getting it for the last month. Sorry.
It’s great having a family member come visit for an extended period of time (regardless of the hot water situation) as it definitely helps the days pass by a little quicker. We went to some good restaurants and she basically hung out with my teammates and I to try and get us through to the end of the season.
She is still shaking her head at some of the craziness she experienced with us and people don’t believe her when she tells some of the stories. I don’t think she will be going back any time soon!
Player Safety
In Baku there are two types of taxis: government-issued ones that run from a meter and others that are just… there, where you can negotiate prices. Coming back from lunch one day with my mom, I handed over 5 manat to our driver once I was out of the car (in a negotiable-friendly cab), which is the typical price from where we were coming from. He didn’t like that so much and came at me so abruptly he almost ran me into a concrete wall.
After that pleasant experience he got out of his cab and ran after me, proceeding to get directly in my face, screaming some English profanities I didn’t even know people on this side of the world knew, grabbed at my purse, shoved me back, and continued screaming. Needless to say I was a liiiiittle bit shaken up but was able to grab back my purse (without spilling my coffee which was still in hand) and then walk away.
I guess some other people were yelling at him to stop so he didn’t end up following me. Whewf. I was pretty traumatized after that one.
When I told my manager the story at practice later that day (try passing balls when you still have tears in your eyes!) and he was ready to go try and find the guy and introduce him to his fists. That would be nice, but fairly impossible as there are a thousand and one cabs in the city. That was definitely one for the books.
This year had me thinking a lot more of our safety as players when we’re overseas. I heard a couple of stories in terms of break-ins, and very aggressive cab drivers that attacked one player in Brasil. Plus, the terrorist attacks in various cities in Europe where a lot of players are located had me a bit shocked.
I guess you just never know what will happen and in any scarier-than-normal circumstance, the situation could change at any given moment. One American teammate on our ‘sister-team’ told us one day she had received a text message from her manager telling the team not to open their apartment door because random men were breaking in and stealing everything. Good. Definitely didn’t get THAT memo.
I also heard that our apartments were bugged… but that is still to be confirmed.
Home Safe & Sound
Back safe and sound in my small hometown of Roberts Creek, in British Columbia and holy it’s nice to be here and take a deep breath. In Baku, everything was a rush. A text from a manager saying they need such-and-such IMMEDIATELY for life to proceed, the schedule has changed so the bus is picking us up now (we had same-day game cancellations with an ever-changing schedule), something hasn’t been planned so we’ll just pay someone to get it done as fast as possible and deal with repercussions later. Phewf. It was exhausting.
That being said, I have decided to take this summer off from the national team to rest up my mind, body, and soul after a tough year in Baku but also just an incredibly tough past two and a half years. I’ll be talking a bit more about that and my reasons for taking a step back in the next Volleyverse post I write, if you care to come back for some light reading!
As our manager said in one of our last team meetings, “it’s like you’ve been in jail and are going home soon.” Well, I’m home. Thank goodness. And after a whirlwind season like the one I just had, taking a few breaths at home is precisely what the doctor ordered (but seriously… he did). It’s always an adventure whatever team you end up on but I think my stories from Baku definitely take the cake. What an exper-iiiience, but I survived!