Azerbaijan is a country in the Caucasus, bordered in the north by Russia, in the west by Armenia, the Lake Van and Kurdistan, in the south by Iran and in the east by the Caspian Sea.
History
Split between Persia (now Iran) and Russia since the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Azerbaijan would be reunited, reconquered and restablished in less than one hundred years. Having had enough on the ineffective Qajar rule and Russian influence, Persian Azeri leader Mirza Kuchak Khan, a low level commander from the 1909 Constitutional movement, launched in 1915 the Jangal Movement in the forest of Gilan, an islamic movement that asked then for autonomy, not separatism and justice ; when the Great European War started, the Ottomans saw the opportunity of an islamic revolt, even if it was Shia, on the rearguard of Russian Caucasus ; Azerbaijan became a battleground between Russians and Ottomans, resulting in a Russian occupation of northern Persia, the spreading of revolt throughout the country and the radicalization and funding of the Jangalis, that took a step further on 30 March 1920 by proclaiming an independent Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan in Rasht, bent on liberating both Persian and Russian Azerbaijans ; Persian loyalist troops, led by Brigadier General Reza Khan, were defeated, their commander killed, by trying to quell down the revolt ; Russian evacuation and defeat in the Great European War allowed Mirza Kuchak Khan to spread the Azeri revolt into Russia, while taking part in the Persian Civil War.
In the Caucasus, the Azeris had to fight on four fronts : against the Russian Empire, Russian communists who had proclaimed their own commune in Baku, and Armenians over the Armenian enclave of Upper Karabakh. Baku was conquered in 1922 after a long siege against the communists, while Armenians were able the secure Upper Karabakh thanks to Allied support. In Persia, prospects for a total victory were stopped after the British occupation and protectorate over Southern Persia, defeating Azeri and islamic rebels in front of Tehran in 1924. Acknowleding the prospect of further chaos in the Caucasus, the Treaty of the Ten Powers recognized the independence of Azerbaijan in 1925, reuniting at once the two provinces.
Mirza Kuchak Khan had been a good revolutionary leader, but he was unable to reconciliate Persian Azeris who called for a true islamic theocracy, respectful of the sha’ria, Russian Azeris who longed for western-style democracy and Turanist ideologues, inspired by Enver Pasha’s New Order, who saw the Azeris as ethnic Turks who had to be reunited with their brothers. The first President would be overthrown by Samadbey Mehmandar, a former Russian General, in 1927, who achieved an agreement with the democrats by signing a Constitution four years later. Wanting to use the oils of Baku to develop his young country, Mehmandar tried to appease the Turanists by studying an offer for unification by the Ottomans in 1933 that was staunchly refused by the Shia clergy, as he had expected, nevertheless entering into a mutual partnership with the Ottomans. Isolated from the Great Powers, surrounded by hostile Armenia and Kurdistan, the first Republic of Azerbaijan would be swiftly overwhelmed by the Russian Army during the Russian invasion of northern Persia, its capital Rasht being occupied on 8 January 1936, ending the first phase of Azerbaijan’s existence.
Now entirely under Russian yoke, Azerbaijan would suffer from the Three Russias Policy ; independentism and political islam were thoroughly repressed, the Azeri language was converted to the Cyrillic script and if Tabriz and Baku would benefit from the development of the Baku oil works from their modernization in 1948 . Revolts occurred in 1945-1946, during the Russian-Ottoman War, in 1969 against Russification policies and in 1982 against Iranian recognition of the border. In this context of repression, islamist theories would take their hold over Azerbaijan, as political Islam and theocracy would be seen as the only steps that would allow the Azeris to regain their freedom.
History and literature teacher Abulfaz Elchibey, cofounder of the nationalist and islamist Azeri Popular Front, was elected Mayor of Baku in 1987 in an upset, and began to speak overtly for Azeri independence, managing to form a broad nationalist front ; the return to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow led the government to crack down on Azeri islamists, outlawing the more radical parties who had allied with Elchibey in 1990. The move only led Elchibey to go into exile in Ankara and the rabiest members of his coalition to form a guerilla in the Karabakh and the Lesser Caucasus, targeting Russian and Armenian civilians and installations ; Armenia launched a series of counter-terrorist operations in cooperation with Russia against the Azeri insurgents. The Vladivostok terrorist attack in 1994 changed everything : the backlash from Russian civilians and the spread of anti-Muslim pogroms throughout Russia radicalized further the wider Azeri population, allowing Elchibey to return in triumph and to proclaim, in the anarchy that Russia was then, from Baku, the second Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan, on 12 May 1994.
The declaration of independence resulted on immediate declaration of war from Russia and Armenia, the latter fearing for the Karabakh, but also from the Ottoman Empire, who had not renounced their Turanist views, and Iran, who pursued their irrendentist dreams. Elchibey had to fight the Turanists from within, taking a backseat as Prime Minister, leaving Shia cleric and guerillero Sadegh Khalkhali as President, leaving him in charge of the theocratic aspects of the new republic. As Azerbaijan became a battleground for four powers, all focused on overtaking the Baku oil fields, the former terrorist groups formed the nucleus of the newly established Azeri Army, with volunteers flowing from the extended diaspora. If the Azeri Army was able to succesfully defend against Russia, Armenia and the Ottoman Empire, it proved no match for the Iranian Army, that managed to bomb and cripple the oil field installations of Baku ; in 1997, Elchibey concluded an alliance with Iran, as the country recongized the independence of Azerbaijan but received exclusive rights for the exploitation of oil and natural gas within the fighting country. With Iranian help, the Azeris were able to roll back the Russians while having to settle for the Armenian occupation of the Karabakh ; on 13 July 1999, the Conference of Baghdad, apart from Iranian gains in Central Asia, saw the independence of Azerbaijan internationally recognized ; Elchibey’s main goal had been fulfilled but in a broken way, as Azerbaijan was now an Iranian puppet and that the Karabakh was firmly under Armenia.
Elchibey died in 2000 and was succeeded by Field Marshal Rovshan Javad, Chief of Staff of the Army during the Independence War, while Khalkhali passed in 2003, and was succeeded by Grand Mufti Allahshukur Pashazadeh. Radicals from the days of Russian oppression and veterans from the Independence War still felt restless about the situation with Armenia, and Javad was killed in a military coup on 2007 by a clique of young officers, that included Lieutenant Colonel Ramil Safarov, a hero and suspected war criminal. Safarov was inclined into rabid anti-Armenian propaganda, taking advantage of pro-democratic demonstrations to expel Armenian nationals and declaring twice war against Armenia, first in 2016, that ended in statu quo ante after an Armenian strategic victory, and after the beginning of the Second War of Mesopotamia in 2020, on the side of the Hashemite Empire ; after the Wuchang Pneumonia and under Iranian pressure, hostilies stopped between both countries but Prime Minister Safarov has promised that before 2030, a referendum about integration into Iran would take place.
Political situation
The Second Republic of Azerbaijan, since its independence, is an unitary presidential islamic republic, claiming to represent “all Azeri believers throughout the world within the land of Whole Azerbaijan”, having claimed control over the Karabakh area. Giving citizenship to both nationals of proven Azeri ascendance (not including ethnic Armenians and Russians) and members of the diaspora, it is a theocratic islamic republic, with half of the Consultative Assembly (Majlis) being filled by Shia clerics, the sha’ria serving as the frame for law enforcement (with blasphemy, homosexuality, prostitution, kidnapping, murder, rape, counterfeiting, consumption of alcohol being punishable by death, making Azerbaijan one of the countries with one of the highest execution rates in the world) and Allashukur Pashazadeh, Grand Mufti of the Caucasus, serving as head of state with the title of Grand Mufti. As such, political parties are forbidden and only observant Shias are allowed to serve as public officials.
Since the 2007 military coup, Azerbaijan has been a military dictatorship, with the Consultative Assembly being reduced to a mere symbolic role and the executive and legislative decisions being undertaken by a camarilla of officers nicknamed as the Young Azeris. The leader is the current Prime Minister, Ramil Safarov ; a volunteer at only 17 in the Azeri Independence War, Safarov climbed the ranks of the Army, finishing the war as a Lieutenant Colonel (although he has since become Field Marshal) ; he is suspected of various war crimes while serving on the battlefield against Armenia, most notably of having personally tortured and executed with an axe captured Armenian officers, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In 14 years of rule, Safarov, a fundamentalist, has also conducted pyrist policies, calling on irrendentist sentiments, declaring war twice on Armenia, conducting pharaonic building projects in Baku and Tabriz and persecuting Armenian and Russian minorities. Internationally, Safarov has been considered as an unhinged leader, with stories circulating about his personal torture of opposants, leading a dissolute lifestyle that had been outlawed by the laws of the Republic, and being on the payroll of the Azeri and Iranian mobs. Others consider him as an useful idiot for Tehran, having agreed to Iranian economic exploitation along with accepting the idea of a referendum on Iranian integration, on the same model than Afghanistan or Mesopotamia.
Population, social situation
One of the few countries in the world with a majority Shia population, Azerbaijan is not as ethnically heterogenous as official propaganda states, as can it be supposed from the unique cultural mindset (see Culture) ; it enjoys sizeable Armenian, Russian and Georgian minorities, as well as Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian ones, that have been heavily suppressed since the beginning of Safarov’s rule, with many Armenians being victims of massacres during the Independence War and expelled after 2011. An ageing population of 15 million, the Azerbaijanis are mostly urban, heavily concentrated in the capital, Baku, and Tabriz. It also has the particularity of having a diaspora as large as the homeland population, mostly found in southern Russia, Armenia, Iran, Kurdistan or the Ottoman Empire ; under the Constitution, ethnic Azeris throughout the world benefit from an automatic citizenship and a law of return providing for revenues and promised real estate, but many have refused to return to the motherland.
If religious sentiment has been blossoming in reaction against Russian annexation, with most of the population accepting the foundation of an islamic republic and establishment of sha’ria, all hopes for democracy have been dashed since the death of Elchibay and the creation of a military dictatorship, with many pointing out the excesses of the military government, corruption and official violence, as elections have been reduced to an empty shell ; during Spring 2011, large demonstrations happened in Azerbaijan’s major cities asking for democracy, all of which were thoroughly repressed by the military, with Safarov putting the blame on the Armenian minority, calling for state-sponsored pogroms and expulsions.
Economy
Exploited since Antiquity, once the most productive oil industry in the world, developed by Russia, oil is still the main component of Azerbaijan’s economy. It was the main drive behind Russian reconquest and one of the most strategic assets of the Empire during the World War, being used for all Allied armies during the conflict. Even if this wartime overproduction led to a decline in the oil fields, offshore exploitation and modernization of production and refining was assured by Russian engineers ; funding the national effort during the independence war, the oil facilites were heavily destroyed by Iranian aviation during the war, and have since been rebuilt by Iranian companies, now in possession of all oil production under the terms of the 1997 alliance, allowing for the Baku-Tehran-Abadan pipeline, one of the pharaonic projects established by Iranian in the early 21st Century. Even as of 2020, oil allows the Azerbaijani manat to be heavily valued and draws foreign investment to Baku, that has become one of the financial hubs of the Near East, even with a drop in the strategic value of oil throughout the world..
Apart from the oil industry and finance, Azerbaijan naturally benefits from heavy precipitation, allowing for one of the largest agricultural basins in the Caucasus, a diverse industry that has been able to export heavily in Russia, Iran and Hashemite Arabia ; the manufacturing sector is also doing well, most notably in car factories, that had been established by Russia, mostly in Tabriz. Tourism is also one of the heaviest industries of Azerbaijan, even if Islamic law have been in place and caused some incidents with irrespectuous tourists.
As throughout the Caucasus, Azeri’s black market, fueled by the heavy presence of the mafia both in the country and within the diaspora, is also a concern, resorting to oil and weapons smuggling, mercenary activites, human and sex trafficking, with international experts pointing out the links between organized crime and Prime Minister Safarov.
Military
The Azerbaijani Army began in 1994 as a ragtag of mountaineer islamist terrorists that had begun the struggle against Russia and Armenia before the Independence War started, deserters from the Russian Army who privileged their homeland over their oath and emigrants who returned to defend their motherland and earn a new life. Propelled by Elchibay’s incandescent rhetoric and Russian military equipment abandoned in Azerbaijan, the Army somehow managed to defend their country during a five-years-long war of independence, with extended destruction throughout Azerbaijan and soon all inhabitants, from all ages, being conscripted into the Army. Independence was won, but now Azerbaijan had become a nation of veterans, all tired and traumatized by years of war. While many military veterans turned to organized crime or mercenary activities, others decided to side by the putschists in 2007, and all these officers and soldiers, bonded in blood and iron, are now the only masters of Azerbaijan, even if many have been resenting the eccentricities of Safarov, the iron grip of the clergy or the satellization by Iran, that has made great deals to improve and modernize the Azerbaijani Army. The short war in 2016 and the aborted 2020 conflict have left the military brass thirsty for Armenian blood.
Culture
A gap remains in Azeri culture between the North, under Russian control since the 19th Century save for the First Republican Era, and the south, that had been part of Persia (now Iran) until the 1930s ; even if both parts of Azerbaijan have been united since the First Republic, it only added to the unique situation of the people : a Turkic people with a Turkish language, it was heavily Persianized, adopting Shia Islam and Persian customs, with Tabriz having been one of the most important cities in the history of Iran. Adding to the confusion was the Russification of the territory, with Cyrillic being adopted as the official script, a process that continued to this day in spite of official efforts to return to Arabic script and de-Russification policies, such as many Azeri nationals dropping Russian suffixes from their given names. This confusion between Turkish and Persian identity have led to popularity of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Iranism, with the one being more popular during the First Republic and second being currently the future for Azerbaijan, as the government has promised a referendum on Iranian integration before 2030.
The cradle of the Parthians, Scythians and the Safavid dynasty of Iran, Azerbaijan enjoys a culture of his own, where the gap can be seen between Baku, the capital, heavily westernized and modern thanks to the benefits of the oil industry, and Tabriz, also modern but more Persian in nature and famous from his handicrafts in rugs and jewellery, its food markets and bazaars. Apart from its customs, handicrafts, traditions, Azerbaijan has also a vivid literary, cinematographic and musical scene, maning to export in Russia or Iran, all under the terms of the censorship of the islamic republic, and if they are devoid of Armenian or Russian ancestry, as writer Akram Aylisli saw, after he was forced to flee in Russia due to his promotion of Azerbaijani Armenians.
History
Split between Persia (now Iran) and Russia since the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Azerbaijan would be reunited, reconquered and restablished in less than one hundred years. Having had enough on the ineffective Qajar rule and Russian influence, Persian Azeri leader Mirza Kuchak Khan, a low level commander from the 1909 Constitutional movement, launched in 1915 the Jangal Movement in the forest of Gilan, an islamic movement that asked then for autonomy, not separatism and justice ; when the Great European War started, the Ottomans saw the opportunity of an islamic revolt, even if it was Shia, on the rearguard of Russian Caucasus ; Azerbaijan became a battleground between Russians and Ottomans, resulting in a Russian occupation of northern Persia, the spreading of revolt throughout the country and the radicalization and funding of the Jangalis, that took a step further on 30 March 1920 by proclaiming an independent Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan in Rasht, bent on liberating both Persian and Russian Azerbaijans ; Persian loyalist troops, led by Brigadier General Reza Khan, were defeated, their commander killed, by trying to quell down the revolt ; Russian evacuation and defeat in the Great European War allowed Mirza Kuchak Khan to spread the Azeri revolt into Russia, while taking part in the Persian Civil War.
In the Caucasus, the Azeris had to fight on four fronts : against the Russian Empire, Russian communists who had proclaimed their own commune in Baku, and Armenians over the Armenian enclave of Upper Karabakh. Baku was conquered in 1922 after a long siege against the communists, while Armenians were able the secure Upper Karabakh thanks to Allied support. In Persia, prospects for a total victory were stopped after the British occupation and protectorate over Southern Persia, defeating Azeri and islamic rebels in front of Tehran in 1924. Acknowleding the prospect of further chaos in the Caucasus, the Treaty of the Ten Powers recognized the independence of Azerbaijan in 1925, reuniting at once the two provinces.
Mirza Kuchak Khan had been a good revolutionary leader, but he was unable to reconciliate Persian Azeris who called for a true islamic theocracy, respectful of the sha’ria, Russian Azeris who longed for western-style democracy and Turanist ideologues, inspired by Enver Pasha’s New Order, who saw the Azeris as ethnic Turks who had to be reunited with their brothers. The first President would be overthrown by Samadbey Mehmandar, a former Russian General, in 1927, who achieved an agreement with the democrats by signing a Constitution four years later. Wanting to use the oils of Baku to develop his young country, Mehmandar tried to appease the Turanists by studying an offer for unification by the Ottomans in 1933 that was staunchly refused by the Shia clergy, as he had expected, nevertheless entering into a mutual partnership with the Ottomans. Isolated from the Great Powers, surrounded by hostile Armenia and Kurdistan, the first Republic of Azerbaijan would be swiftly overwhelmed by the Russian Army during the Russian invasion of northern Persia, its capital Rasht being occupied on 8 January 1936, ending the first phase of Azerbaijan’s existence.
Now entirely under Russian yoke, Azerbaijan would suffer from the Three Russias Policy ; independentism and political islam were thoroughly repressed, the Azeri language was converted to the Cyrillic script and if Tabriz and Baku would benefit from the development of the Baku oil works from their modernization in 1948 . Revolts occurred in 1945-1946, during the Russian-Ottoman War, in 1969 against Russification policies and in 1982 against Iranian recognition of the border. In this context of repression, islamist theories would take their hold over Azerbaijan, as political Islam and theocracy would be seen as the only steps that would allow the Azeris to regain their freedom.
History and literature teacher Abulfaz Elchibey, cofounder of the nationalist and islamist Azeri Popular Front, was elected Mayor of Baku in 1987 in an upset, and began to speak overtly for Azeri independence, managing to form a broad nationalist front ; the return to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow led the government to crack down on Azeri islamists, outlawing the more radical parties who had allied with Elchibey in 1990. The move only led Elchibey to go into exile in Ankara and the rabiest members of his coalition to form a guerilla in the Karabakh and the Lesser Caucasus, targeting Russian and Armenian civilians and installations ; Armenia launched a series of counter-terrorist operations in cooperation with Russia against the Azeri insurgents. The Vladivostok terrorist attack in 1994 changed everything : the backlash from Russian civilians and the spread of anti-Muslim pogroms throughout Russia radicalized further the wider Azeri population, allowing Elchibey to return in triumph and to proclaim, in the anarchy that Russia was then, from Baku, the second Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan, on 12 May 1994.
The declaration of independence resulted on immediate declaration of war from Russia and Armenia, the latter fearing for the Karabakh, but also from the Ottoman Empire, who had not renounced their Turanist views, and Iran, who pursued their irrendentist dreams. Elchibey had to fight the Turanists from within, taking a backseat as Prime Minister, leaving Shia cleric and guerillero Sadegh Khalkhali as President, leaving him in charge of the theocratic aspects of the new republic. As Azerbaijan became a battleground for four powers, all focused on overtaking the Baku oil fields, the former terrorist groups formed the nucleus of the newly established Azeri Army, with volunteers flowing from the extended diaspora. If the Azeri Army was able to succesfully defend against Russia, Armenia and the Ottoman Empire, it proved no match for the Iranian Army, that managed to bomb and cripple the oil field installations of Baku ; in 1997, Elchibey concluded an alliance with Iran, as the country recongized the independence of Azerbaijan but received exclusive rights for the exploitation of oil and natural gas within the fighting country. With Iranian help, the Azeris were able to roll back the Russians while having to settle for the Armenian occupation of the Karabakh ; on 13 July 1999, the Conference of Baghdad, apart from Iranian gains in Central Asia, saw the independence of Azerbaijan internationally recognized ; Elchibey’s main goal had been fulfilled but in a broken way, as Azerbaijan was now an Iranian puppet and that the Karabakh was firmly under Armenia.
Elchibey died in 2000 and was succeeded by Field Marshal Rovshan Javad, Chief of Staff of the Army during the Independence War, while Khalkhali passed in 2003, and was succeeded by Grand Mufti Allahshukur Pashazadeh. Radicals from the days of Russian oppression and veterans from the Independence War still felt restless about the situation with Armenia, and Javad was killed in a military coup on 2007 by a clique of young officers, that included Lieutenant Colonel Ramil Safarov, a hero and suspected war criminal. Safarov was inclined into rabid anti-Armenian propaganda, taking advantage of pro-democratic demonstrations to expel Armenian nationals and declaring twice war against Armenia, first in 2016, that ended in statu quo ante after an Armenian strategic victory, and after the beginning of the Second War of Mesopotamia in 2020, on the side of the Hashemite Empire ; after the Wuchang Pneumonia and under Iranian pressure, hostilies stopped between both countries but Prime Minister Safarov has promised that before 2030, a referendum about integration into Iran would take place.
Political situation
The Second Republic of Azerbaijan, since its independence, is an unitary presidential islamic republic, claiming to represent “all Azeri believers throughout the world within the land of Whole Azerbaijan”, having claimed control over the Karabakh area. Giving citizenship to both nationals of proven Azeri ascendance (not including ethnic Armenians and Russians) and members of the diaspora, it is a theocratic islamic republic, with half of the Consultative Assembly (Majlis) being filled by Shia clerics, the sha’ria serving as the frame for law enforcement (with blasphemy, homosexuality, prostitution, kidnapping, murder, rape, counterfeiting, consumption of alcohol being punishable by death, making Azerbaijan one of the countries with one of the highest execution rates in the world) and Allashukur Pashazadeh, Grand Mufti of the Caucasus, serving as head of state with the title of Grand Mufti. As such, political parties are forbidden and only observant Shias are allowed to serve as public officials.
Since the 2007 military coup, Azerbaijan has been a military dictatorship, with the Consultative Assembly being reduced to a mere symbolic role and the executive and legislative decisions being undertaken by a camarilla of officers nicknamed as the Young Azeris. The leader is the current Prime Minister, Ramil Safarov ; a volunteer at only 17 in the Azeri Independence War, Safarov climbed the ranks of the Army, finishing the war as a Lieutenant Colonel (although he has since become Field Marshal) ; he is suspected of various war crimes while serving on the battlefield against Armenia, most notably of having personally tortured and executed with an axe captured Armenian officers, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In 14 years of rule, Safarov, a fundamentalist, has also conducted pyrist policies, calling on irrendentist sentiments, declaring war twice on Armenia, conducting pharaonic building projects in Baku and Tabriz and persecuting Armenian and Russian minorities. Internationally, Safarov has been considered as an unhinged leader, with stories circulating about his personal torture of opposants, leading a dissolute lifestyle that had been outlawed by the laws of the Republic, and being on the payroll of the Azeri and Iranian mobs. Others consider him as an useful idiot for Tehran, having agreed to Iranian economic exploitation along with accepting the idea of a referendum on Iranian integration, on the same model than Afghanistan or Mesopotamia.
Population, social situation
One of the few countries in the world with a majority Shia population, Azerbaijan is not as ethnically heterogenous as official propaganda states, as can it be supposed from the unique cultural mindset (see Culture) ; it enjoys sizeable Armenian, Russian and Georgian minorities, as well as Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian ones, that have been heavily suppressed since the beginning of Safarov’s rule, with many Armenians being victims of massacres during the Independence War and expelled after 2011. An ageing population of 15 million, the Azerbaijanis are mostly urban, heavily concentrated in the capital, Baku, and Tabriz. It also has the particularity of having a diaspora as large as the homeland population, mostly found in southern Russia, Armenia, Iran, Kurdistan or the Ottoman Empire ; under the Constitution, ethnic Azeris throughout the world benefit from an automatic citizenship and a law of return providing for revenues and promised real estate, but many have refused to return to the motherland.
If religious sentiment has been blossoming in reaction against Russian annexation, with most of the population accepting the foundation of an islamic republic and establishment of sha’ria, all hopes for democracy have been dashed since the death of Elchibay and the creation of a military dictatorship, with many pointing out the excesses of the military government, corruption and official violence, as elections have been reduced to an empty shell ; during Spring 2011, large demonstrations happened in Azerbaijan’s major cities asking for democracy, all of which were thoroughly repressed by the military, with Safarov putting the blame on the Armenian minority, calling for state-sponsored pogroms and expulsions.
Economy
Exploited since Antiquity, once the most productive oil industry in the world, developed by Russia, oil is still the main component of Azerbaijan’s economy. It was the main drive behind Russian reconquest and one of the most strategic assets of the Empire during the World War, being used for all Allied armies during the conflict. Even if this wartime overproduction led to a decline in the oil fields, offshore exploitation and modernization of production and refining was assured by Russian engineers ; funding the national effort during the independence war, the oil facilites were heavily destroyed by Iranian aviation during the war, and have since been rebuilt by Iranian companies, now in possession of all oil production under the terms of the 1997 alliance, allowing for the Baku-Tehran-Abadan pipeline, one of the pharaonic projects established by Iranian in the early 21st Century. Even as of 2020, oil allows the Azerbaijani manat to be heavily valued and draws foreign investment to Baku, that has become one of the financial hubs of the Near East, even with a drop in the strategic value of oil throughout the world..
Apart from the oil industry and finance, Azerbaijan naturally benefits from heavy precipitation, allowing for one of the largest agricultural basins in the Caucasus, a diverse industry that has been able to export heavily in Russia, Iran and Hashemite Arabia ; the manufacturing sector is also doing well, most notably in car factories, that had been established by Russia, mostly in Tabriz. Tourism is also one of the heaviest industries of Azerbaijan, even if Islamic law have been in place and caused some incidents with irrespectuous tourists.
As throughout the Caucasus, Azeri’s black market, fueled by the heavy presence of the mafia both in the country and within the diaspora, is also a concern, resorting to oil and weapons smuggling, mercenary activites, human and sex trafficking, with international experts pointing out the links between organized crime and Prime Minister Safarov.
Military
The Azerbaijani Army began in 1994 as a ragtag of mountaineer islamist terrorists that had begun the struggle against Russia and Armenia before the Independence War started, deserters from the Russian Army who privileged their homeland over their oath and emigrants who returned to defend their motherland and earn a new life. Propelled by Elchibay’s incandescent rhetoric and Russian military equipment abandoned in Azerbaijan, the Army somehow managed to defend their country during a five-years-long war of independence, with extended destruction throughout Azerbaijan and soon all inhabitants, from all ages, being conscripted into the Army. Independence was won, but now Azerbaijan had become a nation of veterans, all tired and traumatized by years of war. While many military veterans turned to organized crime or mercenary activities, others decided to side by the putschists in 2007, and all these officers and soldiers, bonded in blood and iron, are now the only masters of Azerbaijan, even if many have been resenting the eccentricities of Safarov, the iron grip of the clergy or the satellization by Iran, that has made great deals to improve and modernize the Azerbaijani Army. The short war in 2016 and the aborted 2020 conflict have left the military brass thirsty for Armenian blood.
Culture
A gap remains in Azeri culture between the North, under Russian control since the 19th Century save for the First Republican Era, and the south, that had been part of Persia (now Iran) until the 1930s ; even if both parts of Azerbaijan have been united since the First Republic, it only added to the unique situation of the people : a Turkic people with a Turkish language, it was heavily Persianized, adopting Shia Islam and Persian customs, with Tabriz having been one of the most important cities in the history of Iran. Adding to the confusion was the Russification of the territory, with Cyrillic being adopted as the official script, a process that continued to this day in spite of official efforts to return to Arabic script and de-Russification policies, such as many Azeri nationals dropping Russian suffixes from their given names. This confusion between Turkish and Persian identity have led to popularity of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Iranism, with the one being more popular during the First Republic and second being currently the future for Azerbaijan, as the government has promised a referendum on Iranian integration before 2030.
The cradle of the Parthians, Scythians and the Safavid dynasty of Iran, Azerbaijan enjoys a culture of his own, where the gap can be seen between Baku, the capital, heavily westernized and modern thanks to the benefits of the oil industry, and Tabriz, also modern but more Persian in nature and famous from his handicrafts in rugs and jewellery, its food markets and bazaars. Apart from its customs, handicrafts, traditions, Azerbaijan has also a vivid literary, cinematographic and musical scene, maning to export in Russia or Iran, all under the terms of the censorship of the islamic republic, and if they are devoid of Armenian or Russian ancestry, as writer Akram Aylisli saw, after he was forced to flee in Russia due to his promotion of Azerbaijani Armenians.