Power Transformation: Reality

The torrential rain that hit Baku on May 17 once again turned the capital’s main avenues into water traps. According to Azerbaijan’s National Hydrometeorological Service, 103 millimeters of rain fell in Baku and on the Absheron Peninsula within nine hours — equivalent to 523% of the climatic norm. Babek Avenue, Nobel Avenue, the airport highway and several other roads were flooded, traffic was paralyzed, and authorities blamed rainfall far exceeding the “norm.” Yet what is happening in Baku has long ceased to be merely a weather story.

Late in the evening, inside one of the government buildings in central Baku, lights continue to burn in several offices well past midnight. Folders filled with reports are stacked across desks, telephones do not stop ringing even at night, and mid-level employees wait for messages from senior management, afraid of missing an instruction. One official, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity, admitted: “Sometimes it feels as though you are not working, but constantly taking an exam.”

Just a few years ago, parents in Azerbaijan repeated nearly the same formula for success to their children: get into university, earn a degree in law, economics, or management, secure a position in a government institution or a large company — and build a stable life.

Baku has always been built as a dialogue between eras—sometimes harmonious, more often tense. Here, the medieval walls of Icherisheher stand just minutes away from the flowing forms of the Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by Zaha Hadid. This is a city that does not so much grow as accumulate—like a geological cross-section in which each layer speaks of power, money, and visions of the future.