Picture the scene: a Central Asia region home to under-developed economies, bound for so long by various complexities and conflicts but equally on the cusp of modernisation and potentially powerful economic growth.
A geographic scene on the one hand dominated by such turmoil and destruction, yet on the other brightened by the emboldened buzz of rebuilding and revitalisation. A region at the heart of a conflict of a very different nature today – the trade-off between a world so attuned to its drive for decarbonisation, clean energy and the end of ‘big oil’ and yet so accustomed to the fossil fuel economies that it simply cannot depart from overnight.
Perfectly encapsulating this modern dichotomy is Azerbaijan, the former Soviet republic bounded by the Caspian Sea and Caucasus Mountains. Azerbaijan spans both Asia and Europe; its capital Baku is a bustling financial hub and yet is also famed for its historic and picturesque medieval-walled Inner City. The country boasts an economy that has completed its post-Soviet transition into a major oil-based system, but is in the midst of reform and further repositioning. Against this backdrop and the wealth of natural resources that Azerbaijan sits on, the country has prospered from the continued need for oil and gas-based products.
... to continue reading you must be subscribed
