The Phenomenon of Begging in Azerbaijan: Socio-Economic Causes and Legal Regulation

On paper, Azerbaijan is still growing. Its population reached just over 10.25 million in 2025, edging upward by a modest 0.3 percent. But beneath that steady headline figure, a more consequential transformation is unfolding — one that is reshaping families, labor markets and the country’s long-term economic trajectory.

This year in Azerbaijan, spring officially began on March 20 at 13:45 Baku time (UTC+4), when the spring equinox occurred, marking the arrival of the Novruz holiday.

In the hills of Khojavend on March 16th, officials from Azerbaijan’s presidential administration gathered for another meeting of the Coordination Headquarters overseeing the reconstruction of territories recaptured after decades of Armenian control. The session, chaired by Samir Nuriyev, head of the presidential administration, was one of many bureaucratic rituals underpinning one of the most ambitious state projects in the South Caucasus: the “Great Return” of displaced Azerbaijanis to Karabakh.

On March 2, President Ilham Aliyev inspected a new fleet of municipal garbage trucks assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant in the courtyard of the Baku Expo Center. Seventy vehicles, each with a capacity of 22 cubic meters and built on chassis supplied by the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ), will be distributed to 58 cities and districts across the country.