Baku, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Claude Salhani - Trend:
I started out giving transportation a 7 out of 10 by counting the pluses that make foreigners like living in Baku. High on the list of "likes'" is the capital's new terminal at the Baku International Airport. It is spanking new and efficient. You don't need to walk forever to get to your gate, which is certainly a plus. It has an acceptable duty free shop, and although not affluent, you can find a number of electric outlets to recharge your devises that meant to make our life easier, but our carry-on bag that much heavier and filled with all sorts of gadgets.
Where it loses points is when you try to fly anywhere other than Istanbul or New York. Getting a flight out seems that a stop in Istanbul is almost inevitable. Still, it could be worse. So I deducted a point or two.
Compared to other major cities around the world, roughly the same size be it in Europe, Asia, North or South America, they all have some major crime related issues, yet one does not see this in Baku, where you can still see young grade school aged children walking to school on their own, something which is unheard of in North America today.
The results given here are purely based on this author's assumptions. They do not reflect an official report or statistical finding.
Ten is the maximum positive number and zero is the minimum. The author compared the ten criteria based on his experience living in other major cities, including Paris, London, Brussels and New York.
Thus, Baku gets 10 out of 10 for safety, cost of living and entertainment. The rest of the services, such as transportation, housing, communication, health services, ecology and state of roads are also at a very high level.
This is the third of 10 articles and each one will be looking at one of the topics mentioned here and reflect on the positive and negative aspects.
The first article can be found here.
The second article can be found here.
The third article can be found here
Claude Salhani is senior editor at Trend Agency and a political analyst. You can follow Claude on Twitter @ClaudeSalhani