BAKU’S OIL BOOM

"The Russians, Iranians, Kazakhs and Turkmens have no idea how much oil we are already pumping through (BP’s) oil rigs," said Terry, who spent 10 years in the region as a BP employee before opening his pub, the Garage, which caters strictly to foreign oil workers. "Our gap on the competition in terms of technology would need to be measured in light-years." The outer-space analogy is appropriate, as a patron in the Garage describes expatriate bars in Baku as being like the intergalactic nightclub in the Star Wars movies, "only instead of strange individuals from foreign planets, they are bizarre representatives from across the globe." The original bars and clubs were deliberately rough around the edges to appeal to the mostly ex-military types who blazed the trail through this previously non-Westernized territory. For instance, at the Garage they serve bowls of free hot french fries at the bar instead of the traditional peanuts ("I’m an Englishman, not a monkey," says Terry when asked about this custom). But as the boom in the Azerbaijan economy — 25 per cent growth last year in GDP alone — spreads into sectors outside the oil industry, the hospitality business has begun to cater to a much greater variety of foreign tastes. "First it was McDonald’s, then a whole bunch of fancy restaurants and now we’ve even got expensive wine bars," bemoaned the Garage’s owner. "Baku will never be the same." http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/520422.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 8, 2006]

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