City EScape

After spending all of Saturday in the Kabul airport (which lacks runway lights and janitorial services, in addition to radar), and a good part of Sunday, I finally escaped Kabul on Sunday afternoon. Never was I so happy to set foot upon decrepit Azal Airlines, or to arrive in the Baku airport, which was bright and shiny clean.

I tried to declare an Afghan mirror frame I’d purchased, certain that I’d have problems with it on the way out, but the customs officials insisted I didn’t need to, so I didn’t. My hotel room at the Old City Inn (a fabulous bargain and charming hotel run by students in training) was still waiting for me. I spent the evening wandering the old city, and wound up at a British pub, getting lessons in rugby from a crowd of French embassy workers who had been on the same plane as I.

The next morning, all my fears came to fruition as the customs officials challenged my right to take the mirror frame from the country. I explained it all: I’d just arrived from Afghanistan, it wasn’t an antique, it only cost me $25, and I’d been told I didn’t need to declare it. They checked my passport and verified that I had indeed just arrived from Afghanistan. Then the inspector turned the page and found… an Armenian visa! Horror!

The Azeris and Armenians have been in a state of cold war over the Karabagh for years, and feelings still run high. And so the interrogation began. Why had I been in Armenia? Had I worked there? When had I been there? For how long? An elderly Georgian gentleman joined the fray on my behalf, and I eventually got out and on the plane to Tbilisi, Georgia, with my mirror frame.

I didn’t get to declare it in Georgia either