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GEORG
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ABlack Sea ON MI' MIND
Minded by Kalashnikov-toting, drink-swilling, Lada-driving Black Sheriffs, Oliver Dixon travels through Georgia and on towards Uzbekistan.
0 pinions differ as to the subject of armed guards. Some people like them; Slobodan Milosevic was rarely without a set, whilst Ceausceascu would have left his apartment sans trousers rather than goons, Idi Amin revolutionized the whole dicatator chic thing when he started to accessorize with the AK47.
I reckon they're a bit over-rated myself. Throughout our progression through Georgia, we have been mindedand I use the word under advisement by a gang of Black Sheriffs, each toting a Kalashnikov in one hand and a bottle in the other and, for real incongruity, using Ladas as pursuit vehicles.
If Jam to have an armed guard.! would like him to dojust that guard.These boys made me feel about as safe as a turkey come November and, given that Georgia is a lawless place at the best of times, being shadowed by aforementioned Sheriffs with barrels pointing out of windows, on bumpy roads,caused the old hair to grey a bit.
But Georgia wasn't all bad. It's a pretty place, with the unmistakeable stench of corruption wafting over it like a black cloud. They want to become a part of Europe, so some might argue that this is a good quality. But, at the moment.there are an awful lot of what look to be bad men in good suits lurking around. Draw your own conclusions.
It's weird.About thirty miles south ofTiblisi.
—you drive up hills not unlike those in Southern Scotland.When you come down the other side, the entire landscape changes. People look different, the houses are different, and I guess that this is the point at which Europe does become Asia.
Infrastructural quirks
And the roads start to get truly funky. On a couple of occasions! hit bumps that, had the Good Lord not been smiling down upon me that day, would for certain have put the Actros on its back with its legs in the airlhere's a covert adverse camber just before you get to the town of Ganga I kid you not that had the trailer in front of me on three wheels and with twelve inches of daylight twixt rubber and road.
But it doesn't really matter, because in terms of driving craziness,Azeris rank well up there. If you take the 0-10 scale of motoring flamboyance with Torquay at 0 and Bogota at 10. then we begin to establish that Azerbaijan is. in fact. Columbia. So here we have a country that is floating on oil, doesn't speak English too good and has allowed its population ready access to weapons of mass destruction in the form of car keys. Here we go again.
Despite this, I'd recommend Azerbaijan to anyone who cared to listen. I can't get my head around the politics, but, basically.as one taxidriver told me, the large oil companies own the place anyway, so why worry?
Cultural subtleties
That aside, its unnerving to see the President's poster stuck everywhere— even on diesel pumps.The notion of the British motorist having to put up with the sight of the messianic features ofTB — or even that double-barrelled half-wit for that matter—beaming down at him every time he stuck another 50 litres in his tank would surely cause people to use their cars less and stay at home. Probably free up some living space as well, although they'd have to start double stacking the corpses as people lost the will en masse.
So, after a couple of days of swashbucklin' in Baku — the Azerbaijani capital, we've taken ship again this time the Merkuri 1 from Baku tolbrkmenbasy in Turkmenistan:lhere's not a lot I can say about this place.The man who used to be in charge during the '80s is still in charge today, and secrecy is the name of the game. For all that, the people on the streets look happy, and there's none of the pinched and hungry look that we saw a lot of in Georgia.
Turkmenistan has the world's fifth biggest supply of natural gas, and the money is being spent. Open a plant hire firm in Ashghabad, from where I'm writing this, and you'd clean up. Construction is everywhere, and if a parallel was needed between Traceca and the days of the Middle East run, t hen you'll find it right here, in the Turkmenistan capital.
The Actros is being given the workout of a lifetime. and hasn't let me down yet. Fleetboard is telling me rude things about my fuel consumption, but !suggest Fleetboard gets out and looks at the size of the ruts we're traversing as we run down through into Asia proper.That the truck is still running and I'm still walking is good enough for me. There's also a pleasing absence of mosquitoes.
Tomorrow, as we head towards Uzbekistan, it'll probably all change again. Once over the Turkmenistan border, it's likely to get an awful lot more Tu rkm en bashi seems to be a certain liveliness about Afghanistan at the moment, I'm beginning to consider the potential for merriment when we arrive there. Still — it could be worse: I could have a properjob. •