by Sadagat Ismailova, producer, Azeri service, 21 June 2005

Hurray! We have had our 10th anniversary party in Baku. In fact, the first Azeri transmission was on November 30, 1994 but we decided to have a formal party in June when the weather in Azerbaijani capital Baku is warmer than in November.

It proved a good decision as it was a lovely sunny day, with some khazri – a refreshing northerly wind. The venue was the beautiful Philharmonic Hall with its stunning terrace and sea views through big, arched windows.

Around 100 guests attended, including politicians, diplomats and representatives of international organisations, local and foreign media, intellectuals, colleagues from BBC Monitoring and 30 listeners – winners of a BBC competition.

A string quartet performed

The party started with a short film about the Azeri service which was shown on a huge plasma screen. After the film came the speeches – by Hamid Ismailov, head of the Central Asian and Caucasus service; Azer Khalilov, our senior producer; Arjuman Wajid, our colleague from the Urdu section.

A string quartet performed and popular singers sang Azeri folk songs and Italian arias. Yes, there were a lot of stars at our party – musical stars, the stars of politics and even we, London producers, felt like stars as our listener-guests hugged us, asked for our autographs and invited us to visit their homes.

Azerbaijan – a nation with a Turkic population – is in the South Caucasus on the coast of the Caspian Sea. It regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 but has yet to resolve its conflict with Armenia over the Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijan has lost 20 percent of its territory and must support 750,000 internally displaced persons as well as 250,000 Azeri refugees from Armenia.

As for the name ‘Azerbaijan’, some people think it is a Turkification of Azarbaijan, in turn an Arabicised version of the Persian name Azarpayagan, meaning ‘the land of eternal flames’ or ‘the land of fire’.

Azerbaijani people enjoy life. Their lifestyle and culture are as tasty as their cuisine, which combines Turkish and central Asian elements. Dishes include the much celebrated plov (pilaf), a delicious, spicy speciality made with pine nuts, vegetables and dried fruit added to rice and mutton. Certain types of plov use chicken instead of mutton and include chestnuts.

Heavy soups start

Grilled kebabs are popular, including lule-kebab made from spicy minced lamb pressed onto skewers (we call it kofta-kebab in Britain).

Meals often start with heavy soups: piti is a mutton soup bulked out with chickpeas and slowly cooked in individual earthenware pots and served in the same pots. Also popular is dovga – a sharp yoghurt and spinach-based soup containing rice and meatballs.

Sturgeon, both smoked and fresh, and caviar are fished from the Caspian Sea. Rising pollution levels have given rise to alarm about falling fish stocks, but sturgeon is still widely available at a price.

In the chai-khanas (tea houses), men linger for hours drinking sweet black tea out of tiny glasses. Wines and brandies are produced locally and Russian vodka is popular, although locals prefer tea.

At our anniversary celebration, one of my concerns was the food, which was provided by a local catering firm. Everyone said it was good, but trying to keep the guests happy I simply didn’t have any chance to try it myself. I left the party hungry…

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