The Caucasus--Introduction

In June of 2015, I took a tour to the Caucasus--the countries of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia (circled in the map below).  As you can see, they are just to the west, across the Caspian Sea, from the "5 Stans", where I traveled last year. 

The map below shows a larger view of the area (gray lines are country borders) and the route of my tour (red line).  The tour was entirely on the ground and started in Baku, Azerbaijan, and ended in Yerevan, Armenia.  I found that all tours of the Caucasus must take that general route, because due to an ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, you can't cross the border between them--you have to enter Armenia from Georgia.  Additionally, there are stories that Azerbaijan won't admit tourists who have Armenian stamps in their passport, so you have to go to Azerbaijan before Armenia (I can't confirm the validity of that).

From a political standpoint, it helps to understand the relationships between the countries in the area:

• Azerbaijan and Armenia are at war with each other
• Azerbaijan gets along well with Turkey
• Armenia doesn't get along well with Turkey
• Georgia gets along OK with Azerbaijan and Armenia
• Everyone hates Russia

The tour was through a company called East Site Tours, and although there were a few communication problems setting up the tour, the actual tour was excellent.  There were only 5 people on our tour, none of whom (except a married couple) knew each other.  Amazingly enough, we found out that 3 of us were graduates of the University of Michigan, and two of us were born in Grace Hospital in Detroit!  Even more interesting was the fact that the least-traveled person on the tour had been to about 80 countries, the couple had been to about 90 countries, I had been to 101 countries, and one of the tour members had been to 112 countries!  Apparently one doesn't travel to the Caucasus until one has exhausted all other possibilities!

My flights to the region were on Ukraine International Airlines.  They had just launched service from JFK to Kiev (and beyond) and were having trouble attracting American passengers so they had cut their fares pretty drastically--my round trip to Baku and back from Yerevan was $815.

Part of the Ukraine International Airlines fleet

The quality of the planes (Boeing 767s and CRJ-190s) and service were as good as any American carriers, and the Kiev airport was one of the nicer ones that I've been in.  In fact, all of the airports I encountered in Ukraine and Caucasus (Kiev, Baku, Yerevan) were nicer than most American airports, especially the terminal at JFK that we flew out of.  All flights were on time except (of course) the final flight from JFK to RDU, which was delayed 3 hours.

For those of you who were wondering, the camera I used on the trip was a Sony RX-100 III.  It's one of the more expensive pocket cameras you can get (about $700), but it has a huge imaging area, which means that it takes good shots in low light, which was very useful for shots inside churches.  On the other hand, it has a relatively limited 24-70 zoom, but the image quality was so good that I could just take shots from farther away and enlarge/crop them.   

OK, let's go!

Next: Days 1-3--Baku, Azerbaijan