WELCOME

The reason why I create this additional blog is first and foremost the ambition to describe, to whom it may concern, the internship I will carry out the following seven-month period in Baku, Azerbaijan. During the introductory phase of the internship I have experienced some difficulties to gather and get hold of accurate information, on both historical and present Azeri events. Thus, the blog will also serve as an attempt to provide updated information on key Azeri occurrences. My aim is to contribute as much objectivity as possible to the updated events I will bring up. However, I am completely aware of the difficulty to fulfil this aim.

NB! I decided to end my internship on the 29th of October in order to write my bachelor thesis on the possible impacts of foreign aid on Azerbaijan's sustainable development process and to carry out an internship for the Swedish based organization Social Entrepreneurship Forum (SE Forum) that promotes social entrepreneurship as a way of solving social and environmental problems while at the same time earning a profit. My overall impression of the internship was that - despite the organizational problems and sometimes deficient performance - it was very much fruitful and my experiences from the Republic of Azerbaijan invaluable. I will truly miss the people I got to know, the things I did and the daily life in this highly interesting country. As a promise to myself and to many people involved in this program I will keep on updating the blog, both on everyday experiences (thesis and SE Forum internship) and on current Azeri events.

Azerbaijan: Geography

Azerbaijan belongs, together with Georgia and Armenia, to the South Caucasian region. The region is separated from the North Caucasus by the Caucasus Mountains at the northern border of Georgia. To the east, the country is bounded by the Caspian Sea and with neighbours such as Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Iran and Turkey, Azerbaijan is at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Azerbaijan is considered as a part of Eurasia though in some occasions it may be mentioned as part of Asia. The capital of Azerbaijan is Baku (Baki) with a population of 2.1 million. The total azerbaijani population is about 8,7 million. (Detailed information on the internationally unrecognized region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exclave of Nakhichevan will be provided when available.)