Sumgait

Now that Pre-Service Training is coming to a close (I get sworn in on Wednesday) I have to think back on the twelve weeks I've spent in my settlement of Saray and all I've learned here. I'm glad to say that Training was a worthwhile and beneficial experience for me; language has been a breeze, I've made good friends, and I have plenty of hilarious stories. But nothing has been more central to this Training experience than the mysterious metropolis of Sumgait. Sumgait is the third largest city in AZ and is situated in the center of our Training villages, so that whenever the entire PC group meets up, we meet in Sumgait. It is every PC Trainee's internet, beer, and entertainment haven. And as crazy as it sounds, I'm going to miss this place when I leave in four days. What can I say about Sumgait, the city of escape?

Sumgait is a purely Soviet town that is just now discovering its Azerbaijani roots. It is on the Caspian Sea, and once served as the USSR's capital of chemical engineering. This era of chemicals has come to halt, thereby slowing economic growth but ironically alleviating the high rate of infant mortality and sea pollution. According to my Travel book, Sumgait used to be the world capital of infant mortality and one of the top ten polluted places in the world. Yet I have to say, even as you peer into the evening smoke haze from the nearby factories, there is something eerily charming about the town's winding pipe mazes and rusted metal fixtures. Every now and then you find a candid glimpse into the Soviet era; in the form of an overgrown theme park, countless Technicolor apartment buildings, modern art sculptures made of cement, old men doing their daily Soviet exercise routines by the seashore, a corroded Cyrillic sign inviting citizens to enjoy the "City beach," or the giant red rusted hull of a ship still idly waiting at the dock. It's a very nostalgic place, and if I were more of a solitary person, I could easily spend hours by myself wandering around. I'm not sure I'll ever come back to Sumgait, but I will leave here with very fond memories. Partly because of friends and family, but I think mostly because of Sumgait itself. It's good to be here.

All aboard!

One and two and three and four!