Night train to Azerbaijan

The train 37 Tbilisi-Baku departs at 20:35 from platform 1 of the Tbilisi central station. I have never been to Azerbaijan, so here we go. It’s a cold, rainy day in Tbilisi. I set in my compartment, which at the moment is empty, and wait for departure.

Night travels by train have a somewhat romantic feel, but it also means there is little to see outside. Once we leave, it is not completely dark yet, but photos taken from a moving train in scarce light conditions are what they are.

The first stop is Rustavi, a few kilometres southeast of Tbilisi. Here, an Azerbaijani woman joins me. She came to Georgia for her sister’s wedding and she is not returning to Baku. She speaks enough English for basic communication and seems nice. She likes Georgia and Tbilisi. In the next stop, which names I do not remember, a grumpy old man and a woman enter. They talk in Azerbaijani, and the man complains about something. I do not understand, which is good. After having settled their luggage, the man leaves the train (he was just accompanying the woman, which seems more friendly). With the help of the first one, I know that she is ethnic Azerbaijani, but lives in Georgia (she has a Georgian passport).

At the Georgian border, our passports get collected, one officer checks if I have the visa for Azerbaijan, then leave. He returns and gives us a declaration form, that we compile. It is in English, but a terrible one. There is a line where we are supposed to indicate where we are coming from and where we are going, but it says “Country of arrival/Country of destination”. Someone should explain them it’s the same thing, but for sure that won’t be me. I guess that the first stands for “Country of provenance”, and I fill it.

Other parts are also awesomely Monty Phytonesque.

 

After a long stop (roughly a hour) we get our passports back, and we depart, and I get ready for a more in depth-check at the Azeri side of the border.

Once we stop again, officers board the train. The first hilarious moment is when they get slightly pissed off at some brilliant German tourists, who decided they could already go to sleep after the first check. I understand that you’re used to Schengen, but come on! Some officers enter, ask some questions in Azerbajani to the other travellers, then ask me (in English) if it’s my first time to Azerbaijan, if I have ever been to Armenia (no reason to lie, so I say yeah, some years ago), then proceed to check my luggage. Once all is cleared, they start with the identification procedure. Taking turns, we get called in an otherwise empty compartment, where an officer with a computer file us, taking a photo with a webcam and checking the visa if needed. All in all it takes roughly another hour, then we depart again.

Once the bureaucratic part is done, the two women pull out food and drink and they kindly offer me all. We talk a bit of, I get of course asked why I am not married (“because I like to travel!” “You can travel with your wife!” “I like to travel ALONE!”), then seeing it’s already 01:20, we go to sleep.

I wake up at around 07:00, as I usually do when traveling. The landscape is rugged and flat, but the weather seems getting better, with a faint promise of sun on the horizon.

Visiting the toilet allows me to see more hilarious English, in the form of rules and regulations on the train itself. If this is how it is gonna be, I’m going to have some fun. Who have ever thought that it is dangerous for bursting to carry out bursting?

With a bit of delay, we finally arrive in Baku. The city looks way more modern than Tbilisi, as it belongs to a country with a strong oil and gas economy. The weather is pleasant, so I take a stroll to my hostel, where I am welcomed by a man whose rugged and raspy voice would make Tom Waits sounds like Farinelli. My Azerbaijani adventure officially begins.