Looking Back At Baku by Nikke Allen of the United Kingdom

Baku. I’d never visited Azerbaijan before and really had little idea what to expect. However, I went with an open mind, ready to make friends and embrace every experience – and I was rewarded by the most glorious two weeks, of which Eurovision really was the icing on the cake!

I remember Flag Square on a baking hot morning, queing for our accreditation. The friendliness and helpfullness of all the young volunteers, so eager and happy to talk with you. I learned their names, what their favourites were, watched them experience having Eurovision in their own country, and made lots of friends, in particular a girl called Nargiz, who sat with me at the shows and showed me around Baku.

My memories are still so bright and colourful and happy…

Jedward basically taking over their own press conference and throwing popcorn everywhere. By the end of that day they had won over most of the young volunteers in the press centre, who were by then wearing the paper “Jedheads”

Ukraine running off the stage and up the walkway at the end of their song at the semi final. At the corner of the walkway where Nargiz and I were seated, the dancers took off their wristbands and threw them to the crowd – Nargiz and I got one each. It’s quite a thrill to have something that was actually worn on the ESC stage!

The Hump blowing a kiss to Nargiz and I as he walked down the walkway after performing at the final, because we were waving my large UK flag I’d given to Nargiz as a friendship bond between our two countries. It’s now displayed on the wall in her bedroom.

Also getting blown kisses by Kurt Calleja of Malta and Zeljko of Serbia as they walked to the Green Room. And waved to by the Grannies. Having Jedward cartwheel along the walkway right in front of you as they went to join the other qualifers onstage is quite something!

Sitting chatting with Lys Assia in the lounge of our hotel. Asking her what her favourite song was this year, and she replying Albania and Macedonia. Being allowed to cuddle her cute and tiny little dog she had brought with her. Meeting the first winner of Eurovision and actually there being time to sit and chat together at leisure was a highlight and something I will never forget.

As for Baku itself…

An Azeri woman reporter who had interviewed me the day before, bringing me a pale pink damask rose from her garden in Baku. The scent was heaven, the beauty of it incomparable set against the rush and bustle of the press centre. I wish I could have preserved it somehow. I should have pressed it between the pages of a book. But I took a photo of it and can still recall the scent.

The Caspian Sea. Right outside the door of the Crystal Hall, the Caspian Sea had a mood all of its own and I was utterly captivated by it as each day it changed. I will never forget how, on hot sunny Day 2, it was azure and looked as though it was scattered with diamonds as far as the eye could see. The next day it was a mystical ultramarine; the day after it was a lively teal; for two consecutive windy days in the second week it was a choppy storm-grey – and one glorious night as I rode along the promentory in my London taxi cab at 2 a.m, it was a star-less and moody inky-black, silently rippling. On the very last day at the press centre, the day of the final, it was like a millpond, barely wrinkling on the surface, quiet and content as though it knew the Big Day had finally arrived . The Caspian Sea had so many colours and moods that fascinated me and each had a beauty all its own. But I shall never forget Day 2 when it was azure and scattered with diamonds.

The rides in the taxi back to my hotel early in the morning/late at night through the still crowded traffic streets of Baku. Cars tooting their horns, policemen directing traffic, buses packed with people. A bus pulling up beside the taxi with literally two inches space between us. After the fifth or sixth time of that happening, I stopped freaking out and wanting to drive the taxi for the taxi-driver! The taxi drivers didn’t speak English and didn’t attempt conversation, so I was left to my own thoughts and impressions in the back of the taxi, just watching everything and everyone as we crawled onwards towards the hotel. It often took a good 20 minutes to get there because of the traffic.

I inadventently looked into cars that pulled alongside us and caught snapshots of private families lives without meaning to. Seeing arguments, conversations, laughter. Swish cars driven by yuppies, family cars with a whole host of dark-eyed children staring back at me, and on several occassions hanging half out the windows or standing on the front seat – horrible accidents waiting to happen should their father brake suddenly. Groups of young men parading around in their car, liking to see and be seen. The cars reminded me how dusty Baku was – as so many of them had a noticeable film of dust on them.

Parents walking around the Bulvar with their kids at 2 a.m. .Everything in the city lit up, including the Maiden Tower, which had designs projected upon its side. I remember going past it once to see an Egyptian design with camels projected onto it. It was awesome.

The workforce in Baku. The workforce never seemed to stop. They were building all along the roads – kerbstones being hewn and shaped and fitted, pavements relined, elegant white and beige marble-like residences on the verge of opening, with hedges being planted. Further out towards Bayril and the Crystal Hall Area, the building went on even more apace, as you saw the sides of buildings being scaffolded and workmen stopping at 2 a.m to sit and have something to eat. Women in headscarves sweeping gutters with long twiggy brooms, day and night. Baku, although dusty, was so clean. No dropped litter. The Bulvar and the Fountain Square’s paving slabs gleamed. As did the paving of the Crystal Hall area.

And the workforce worked on throughout the night at the Crystal Hall during the two weeks in the race to get the surroundings finished before the big night. I saw them every night, sometimes two and three in the morning as the taxi took me on a convuluted route round the promentary up to Flag Square and beyond. Workmen and women – busy planting trees, shrubs, flowers. Others turfing a huge area, which was completed the next morning when I rode past it. Others fixing a solitary broken paving slab in the middle of this huge paved walkway to the Crystal Hall.

And the whole Crystal Hall area was like a fairyland when lit-up at night. The Hall itself sparkled with thousands of small lights, its moving beams lit up the sky. On Grand Final night, after the show, I kept seeing what I thought were specks of glitter dancing in the light beams in the sky – and then I realised they were hundreds of moths, attracted to the light beams and dancing there, and the light was glittering off their wings. Really truly beautiful. I wonder if anyone else saw that and realised what it was. It was magical.

And that really sums up my two weeks in Baku, in this fascinating, complicated, hospitable, beautiful land of Azerbaijan. Magical!