Baku is the sort of town you’ll just love to wander around in, it’s hilly, leafy and full of beautiful old mansions. The best attractions are all close to Fountain Square, which is a great place to hang around in the summer. Nobody bothers you, although if you approach them, they’re very happy to chat. The locals love to drink vodka at lunch and there’s a ton of bars run by British expats working in the oil industry, those are very friendly places as well. The city is quite pretty and everybody dresses quite well. Nobody seems religious at all and the women are quite beautiful. It’s also getting built up ridiculously fast, when I was there in July 2006 there were construction cranes on the construction cranes. It’s an exciting place yet there’s very few foreigners there other than the oil folk and yet it’s the sort of place that look like it would be possible to make a fortune fast as a westerner. I’d go back in a heartbeat.