A Life Spent on the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

Filming a large open pit coal mine in Neryungri, Yakutia, Russia.

Neryungri is a long way from anywhere... from nowhere. Yet, 40 years ago, hundreds of enthusiastic, many young, people rushed to the far reaches of the Siberian taiga to build the greatest of all railways. The idea was to create 14 industrial centres and connect them to the world with rails. But, what looked good to bolster the Communist ideal of a "Светлое Будушие," a brilliant future, didn't pan out in the real world. Only one centre was built, making many concider all the effort to naught... the railway to nowhere.

Raissa Petrovna shows me pictures of her garden,
her family and of her trip to China.

To the individuals who built the railway it remains the greatest of all railways. Raissa Petrovna, originally from Bielorussia, came to join the efforts in construction with her husband and newborn child, Dima. "Sixty degres below zero in the winter, but we still worked," reminisced Raissa. "People from all nationalities worked together. Everyone helped everyone." When the railway was built, Raissa stayed on to work accompanying the train to Moscow and back... a journey of 5 days, one way. Recently, and suddenly, her husband passed away. Tears were in her eyes when she showed me a picture of him on the balcony of their house, giving her a kiss on the cheek. 

The north shores of Lake Baikal, where one fifth of
the world's fresh water lies.

Her son Dima, grew up in Siberia and went on to study social work in university. But, there isn't much other work here except for the railroad. Dima also works on the same train as his mother, taking on the night shift.

There are plans to create a BAM 2.0 to help exploit Siberia's riches. But, it probably won't be done in the same idealistic spirit which drove Raissa Petrovna and hundreds of others like her. Their's is a story of passion, toil and family, of simple pleasures and great dreams. BAM is Raissa's life and is her greatest railway.

Most theatres are labyrinths. I imagine even veteran actors get disoriented once in a while. The Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersbourg, Russia is no exception. We filmed all over the old building, all the while following our guide. By the end of the two days of filming, I began to recognize some hallways and could sometimes get an idea of where I was, but if the guide left for a bit, I just stayed put, not wanting to forever roam the halls with ghosts of other lost journalists or stage hands.

The Mariinski has seen a lot of history and has artfully interpreted passing epochs. The evening we filmed, English director Graham Vick presented a modern version of the 19th Century opera Boris Godunov by Alexandre Pushkin. It put the storyline in the events of the fall of the Soviet Union. I felt a bit old watching it, because here is an opera about events which I lived through! They even had a television crew on stage filming the protests.

A new Mariinski theatre will open at the end of this month and I'm glad we got to film in the old one. People working there seemed very proud of their work and inspired by the history and tradition of Mariinski. The new building will have a modern stage built for modern, more technical plays and operas. The old theatre will continue, though and maybe the ghosts of lost soals will simply have another building to wander.

Born in Africa, “Racial” Scars and the Internet Gap

Let’s just say, you’re better off not getting sick or injured in an African village. If the wound or disease isn’t too bad, you may suffer, but you will get better. Anything worse, you’ll probably have the money to pay for transport to a hospital in the city. If you’re from the village, you will probably die. Speaking with most women, they have many children, partly because they don’t know how many will survive. A typical response… “ I have had nine children, four are dead. Now I have five.”

Gbemissola just had another baby nine days ago. She waits in this medical centre until her husband comes back with money to pay for the birth(probably around 10 €). Gbemissola’s face is decorated with scars. Decorated, because it is a symbol of her tribe, the Houli. She says she is neutral on the subject. “That’s just the way things are,” resumes Gbemissola. She won’t scar her newborn’s face. Not because she is against the practice, but because the scars are passed down from the father and Gbemisolla’s husband is Fon, so no scars. In general, this practice is becoming more and more rare.

There is no electricity in Kpokissa. There is no running water. And, of course, there is no internet. In the last 20 years, our lives in Europe, America and Asia, have changed drastically because of Internet. A world of information is at our fingertips. Friends from afar are only a Skype away. When I used to come to villages like Kpokissa, they seemed underdeveloped to be sure. Now, they seem like another planet, but it is more that we in the west live on another planet. The gap between us has increased by trigabytes. A kid in Europe copy-pastes his homework from Wikipedia on his ipad, as Gbemissola’s little baby waits in the dark for his father to return with money so they can leave the rundown maternity… probably by foot.

Taking pictures of misery

I have always said it is not easy to take pictures of misery. Not only emotionally, but composition, feeling of the picture. It is difficult to convey what poverty is like when, many times, it is sunny. The buildings around are lapidated, but still you don’t feel the pain of poverty. People are usually smiling. You know they suffer, but they don’t show it. It is very hard to capture in a picture.

But, today, misery was in plain sight. We were driving back from the border of Togo where we interviewed the Commissar about how he and his men can stop child trafficking. I noticed, just off the road, a bunch of people digging. Then I noticed most of them were children. We stopped the car and I went over to film. Kids, as young as probably 4 years old, were lifting picks bigger then themselves. It was hot. There were a few adults. No one stopped me.

And that was strange too. No one thought anything was wrong with this scene. Kids are helping their parents. But breaking up gravel in the hot sun for sale is no work for small children. One little girl in her little yellow dress, barely looked up when I went to photograph her. Other kids laughed and wanted me to take their picture. It was almost a haunting feeling filming this little girl, this silent little girl lifting the huge pick while other kids laughed around me. What was going through her head?

You're never without help in Africa

We head out of this northern town to the village of Tepridjissi to film a group of women who raise fish for sale. The idea is to give women extra revenue so they can help provide for the family and thus run less of a risk that the children look for work and fall into the hands of children traffickers.

As we arrive at the fishpond, massive black clouds billow at the horizon. The women must have felt something because they weren’t anywhere to be seen. We decided to head back for shelter. Arriving back to the path, we discover the 4x4 vehicle axle deep in mud. Worse, the driver had closed the doors with the motor running and by some automatic system, the doors locked.

As the skies started to open up and the rain came pouring down, we all climbed into the back of the truck. Some women came walking by and asked us if they put their sacks of fertilizer in the back of the truck to protect them from the rain. After a while, a whole group of villagers were hanging around the truck, shivering in the pouring rain. We got out and broke a window to get in the cabin and the villagers helped out, lifting the truck and putting branches under the wheels. The path is now a stream, but after 20-30 minutes, we finally get the truck out of the mud.

The showers stopped our filming for the day, but we had a small adventure and got to share some time with some nice people in a little African village. You're never without help in Africa.

Dédougou, Burkina Faso: Not yet the economic opportunites of a city, but no longer the familiar support of a village.

Lightning illuminates the sky almost constantly. Thunder grumbles and every once in a while explodes as though it were right on top of you. The rain comes down not so much in droplets as in streams. It is the rainy season in sub-sahelian Africa. And it is during these short four months of rain when everyone must produce enough food to last the rest of the other eight months’ desert dryness.

A young girl doing her chores in the shade.

The road to Dédougou from Bobo Dioulasso is paved and pothole free. The toll is 400 FCFA or about 60 euro cents. The heavy rains have inundated some of the crops and the countryside is green with grass, trees and shrubs. Father Philippe, who is driving me to Dédougou has spent over 12 years in the region, speaks the language and knows what it’s like also in the dry season. “Everything is brown and dry,” he tells me. Along the way, there are no electric poles because the villages here have no electricity. They do have mobile phones though as we pass GSM towers every so often. “Usually, someone has a generator and can make a little business charging phones,” tells me Father Philippe.

Learning the land.

Here to do a story on an educational programme for underprivileged (living in the “developed” world, most would probably consider just about everyone here “underprivileged”) youth, I get the opportunity to follow Apolinaire, 16 years old, to his home in Dédougou. Burkina Faso is a Muslim country where men can have more than one wife. Apolinaire, one of eight children, introduces me to his father and “aunt” whom I later learn is his father’s second wife. His mother is in the fields. It is sometimes difficult to get the story right concerning family relations. It is his father, worried about Apolinaire who had left school, who got him into the education programme.

A young girl may have her life already planned.

Apolinaire is still quite shy with the white foreigner. Although most people speak pretty good French, communication doesn’t only depend on the language. There is a big cultural difference. My life must seem as strange to Apolinaire as his life seems to me. At 16, Apolinaire says he would like to know about this thing called Internet. Thinking about all those kids back home glued to a computer screen instead of under the shade of a big tree with the whole (or most of) the family, I wonder who has the better life.

Ibrahim makes the night rounds.

At night in the centre for the programme, I hang out with the crew on night guard. They have to keep an eye out to make sure a goat doesn’t get loose and go eat the budding crop or that a neighbour’s animal doesn’t venture into the school’s fields. As Ibrahim, 16 years old, makes tea over glowing coals, Bernard, 13 years old, beats the adult guardian at checkers and others prepare a meal of To (corn meal) with a sauce of leaves. In this town, not yet a city, but no longer a village, the stars and constellations fill the immense African sky. 

Burkina Faso ; Land of the Honest People

« Faso » in the Joula language means « country ». Burkina in Mouré means « honest » or in French, « intègre ».  So, Burkina Faso is the land of the honest people. Joula and Mouré are the two dominant languages of this land-locked Sahelian country. Marcel, the young man who cleans up around the church grounds where I am staying taught me that. The languages are very different. Marcel speaks those languages and very good French as well. Many Africans are polyglot learning the language of their neighbours as well as the former colonial language.

I arrived on Thursday from Paris to Ouagadougou, the capital. Alain met me in is well-cared for but ancient 2CV. I thought to myself, « are we going to drive all the way across the country in this ? » No, I just stayed the night at Alain’s bed and breakfast he and his wife built and the next day I took an air-conditioned, modern bus to Bobo Dioulasso.

Marcel shows a map of Burkina Faso.

Buses are a great way to meet people. Next to me on the sold-out bus, was Clément, a mechanic in a gold mine near the Niger border. He was going back to Bobo to visit his family. Clément seems to be a happy young man.  « They treat us well at the mine (owned by a British company) and I have a good salary, » he tells me just before his smartphone rings. Clement works 7 days of 12-hour shifts and then has 7 days off. He makes the all-day trip by bus every week instead of hanging out in the capital. « I don’t feel at home in Ouaga. My friends and family are all in Bobo. » He says he always looks forward to seeing the family and drinking beer with his mates. I have the feeling he probably gets more rest at the mine !

Clément may be one of the lucky ones. Walking around Bobo, many young men, even boys, ask me to come look at their necklaces, paintings and other souvenirs. Bobo has a cooler climate than the capital and is clean and calm. But tourists have stopped coming. « With what is happening in Mali, people are scared to come here, » laments Roger.

I am in Burkina Faso to do a story on a programme supported by the Foundation Follereau de Luxembourg to help underprivileged children learn a trade and get a basic education.

Mixed marriage, refugee rights and just a good day.

A beautiful day and no work to do. So I went for a walk in Nancy, France, a short hour and a half train ride from here. Off the train and a nice walk to Place Stanislas, the touristic heart of the city. Lot's going on there and a fine place to sit and watch. First, lots of noise from a wedding. There was a Moroccan group with a very long trumpet and drums. The couple looked like a mixed marriage. The kids will surely be very international!

From there, I walked to the other side of the square and saw the 24 hours of Stan: a student gathering where each faculty pushes around a float for 24 hours. They weren't pushing anything yet, but were getting sprayed with paint and water and basically making as much noise as they could! 

Next, back the the Place Stanislas, where a protest was beginning to protect the rights of immigrants in France. France has always been known as "Terre d'asile", a country of refuge. The participants are hoping that the new Socialist government will be more human toward those just seeking to better their lives. Maybe we should just get rid of borders all together and just live like humans?

Nowrooz in Tadjikistan

I am in Duchanbé, Tadjikistan to cover the Nowrooz festival. Nowrooz was originally the Persian New Year. As the celebration preceeds Islam, it is forbidden in Iran today, although most people celebrate it privately at home. Nowrooz is probably the most important holiday in any country which was part of the Persian Empire, all the way to Kazakhstan. But the holiday has been often falls victim to politics. Nowrooz was illegal here during the Soviet Union.

However, there are a lot of Iranian journalists here because Akhmadinajad will arrive in a couple of days. But they aren't covering the festivities. On the 25th, they will celebrate International Nowrooz here in Dushanbe, with 600 foreigners from some 30 countries. Many heads of state will be here including from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are trying to get interviews with all these important leaders.

Long trip

Much better place to stay this time.

Just arrived in Haiti from Yeosu, Korea via New York. But the trip went well and I got to sleep a night in New York. Weather in Korea was windy with temperatures just above zero. It actually snowed for the first time this year in the captial, Seoul. New York's weather was beautiful. Would have loved to go to the city, but just had a few hours to sleep and back to the airport. This is the best time of year to visit Haiti. It is 30 degrees C with a light wind and white puffy clouds. We are here to do a story with the Red Cross. I will have more on that later.

Two years after the horrible earthquake. I haven't seen much yet, but the airport is looking much better. The parking lot where we slept two years ago, is full of cars. The tarmac is empty compared to two years ago when it was filled with aid boxes, big C-130 planes, soldiers and aid workers, not to mention journalists. The accomodations are better this time, staying at the Red Cross base camp on the other side of the road from the airport.

I wonder who my neighbors are?

I have been here to cover elections and filming in the city was dangerous because of a high crime rate. During the earthquake, though, I felt we could go anywhere, even places off limits before. People were more concerned with finding food and water than with a foreigner with a camera. I asked the driver how things were now. "It's dangerous again," he chuckled. In some sense, I guess that is progress.

Preparing the Fantastic

The site of "The Living Ocean and Coast" Expo 2012

We came to Yeosu on Korea's southern coast to film the preparations for World Expo 2012. It is still work-in-progress, but this 3 km2 site will be full of imagination and discovery. From Beluga whales to high tech laser, water and pyro shows to the largest pipe organ in the world, Expo 2012 will probably surprise even the most blasé.

2012 marks the end of the commitment period of the Kyoto Protocal and the 10th anniversary of the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development. The theme of the ocean and coast, man living with the ocean underlines the importance of respecting nature. The ocean is 71% of the earth's surface and 40% of the world's population lives on the coast or within 60km of the shore.

Nam Jae Heon and his Big O under construction.

The Big O with be a central attraction. It is an engineering feat combining the latest in pyro, laser and water technologies. A Californian company is putting in the entertainment side of the O and says there will be nothing like this anywhere else in the world. Mr. Nam, head of the Big O project says it is a delicate project. "The Big O is floating and we have to take into consideration a tide change of 11 metres and we have to think of the effects of bad weather," explains Mr. Nam.

So far 106 countries will be participating. We went to see the USA pavillion which will be huge. Philippe Cousteau will be the official US representative to the Expo. General World Expos happen every five years. In between, there are World Expos based on themes. Expo 2012 will be in Yeosu, Korea from May 12th to August 12, 2012.

Sunset over the hills and islands in Yeosu, Korea

Yeosu is a city of almost 300,000 people in the south of Korea. Fishing is maybe a traditional occupation, but the city is now a major port and the site of an amazingly huge area of large factories that light up at night with the same colour lamps making it look like a stary night on earth.

The city is gearing up for some 8 million visitors, mostly from Asia. I have often been to Korea and can only say it is a great place, so you can visit the Expo 2012 and take time to see the rest of this fantastic country. You can see our report on www.euronews.net/focus during the week of 19 December.

Ninja miners

Heading out under bright blue skies.

Jargal, our fixer, read my last entry and told me she said Mongolians were now into mining, not money. It seems like the first is the way to the later, so maybe the sense is the same. But she told me there are many people who go out to areas left by the big mining companies and try to dig up the rests of any gold the big machines of the mining companies might have left behind. Because they go out with sacks hung over their back and thus look like Ninja turtles, they are called Ninja miners.

Offered vodka, but I perfered buttermilk tea.

Today we visited a family of hearders. They seemed pretty well off with solar panels and satellite dishes on their yourts. Galbadrakh Dambiinyam's  yourt was decorated with many medals for horse racing. He said he couldn't imagine a different life. "If things get bad here, I can go to the west of the country," Galbadrakh said confidently.

Mongolia, 20 years later

A clear cold day in Ulaan Bataar.

Winter came suddenly this year by travelling from mild weather Europe to Ulaan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia. Today, the temperature was -20 C. This is my second visit to this amazing country, but I was here over 20 years ago and at least the capital has changed completely. One interesting change is that in 1992, everyone spoke Russian here. Everything was written in Russian. Today, signs are in Mongolian, albeit in Cyrillic letters and not the traditional Mongolian letters. English is the language of choice of the youth.

Ghengis Khan and his soldier look out over the Capital.

We have come to Mongolia to do a story on the heavy migration of people to the cities. Many are herders seeking a better life after bad times in the steppes. Some are simply people hoping to get a better education for their children.

This is our first day and after a two-day trip to get here through Seoul, Korea, we are just getting our bearings. We have learned that one of the biggest threats to this city is an earthquake. At these temperatures, not so many people would die in the earthquake as in trying to survive without heating if the big heating complexes are destroyed.

Mostly only people over 40 still speak Russian. I was able
to speak with these ladies, working 7 hours a day in the
freezing cold shoveling snow.

We met our fixer today. A fixer is a local journalist who can help us get oriented and has a thick address book of local interviewees on all different subjects. Jargal says Mongolians are extremists. "A long time ago, we were into fighting, so we took over the world," says Jargal, her arms spread wide to accentuate the exploits. "Then we got into religion, Buddhism. 90% of the men became monks and the population took a dive. Then came communism and we became Russian. Now, we are independant again and everything Russian is gone." Jargal is young, but unlike many, she speaks fluent Russian as well as the more popular English. Forward thinking, she is now learning Chineese. She ends her quick description of the Mongol mentality with a bit of regret... "Now we are into money."

Shady motels, a drowned soldier and ice-cream.

Cords dangle to somewhat hide the guest's car.

When I usually go to Seoul, we stay in nice, even very nice hotels. This time it seems those places were booked. So we stayed in a motel. In the US, a motel just means you can park your car in front of the room. In Korea, it is a room for couples to rent for some privacy. With jetlag and a busy schedule in front of me, I thought how was I going to get any rest in a place like this. But, other than some voices now and again, I didn't hear any odd noises and the room was very comfortable and clean. The minibar was free and there was free popcorn and coffee downstairs. Koreans seem to be very neat and tidy in everything they do, even in the shadier side of life.

My bright golden bathrroom at the motel.

We came to do a story about improving economic activity near the DMZ on the North Korean border and even creating tourism WITHIN the DMZ to see an ecosystem untouched for over 60 years. Within the DMZ, we filmed tanks, barbed wire and lookout posts. It is hard to imagine many tourists wanting to come to see rare birds while a million soldiers point big guns at each other. The DMZ is an odd place anyway. Looking north you can see fake villages in the haze and imagine the horrible hardships of the north Koreans. Looking south, people are organising peace walks and DMZ marathons. The very subject of the two Koreas and unification is not much talked about, almost taboo. South Korea has come a long way and is a very modern and friendly place. The Koreans have worked hard to get there and many don't like to think about having to support all of North Korea in the event of a unification. But, on the other hand, they don't like to be thought of only as a divided state constantly on the verge of war. One interesting fact; a soldier told me that they find a dead north Korean soldier washed up on the south side of the river about once a month. He gueses they try to escape but drown in the process. He said the last body they found was just two weeks ago.

To end on a positive note, at my nice motel, they also had free ice-cream! But the flavours were a bit odd. This is corn ice-cream! Now, can that be considered a vegetable?

My vote for most friendly city: San Francisco

City Hall

Maybe it was the particularly great weather during my visit or some end of the summer good feeling in the city, but I tend to think that basically people here are just a friendly bunch.


I asked the girl next to me in the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) if this was the 12th Street station. She said no, it was the next one. Since she seemed to know the system well. I asked if she knew how long it would take me from here to the airport. Saying she wasn't sure, she pulled out her smart phone. I thought she was just going to make a call and that was the end of the conversation. A minute afterwards she turned and said she was sorry, but the internet was very slow and she couldn't get the information I needed so quickly! Also on the metro, two people bumped into each other upon entering. Each turned to say sorry. I know some cities where that would have at least been pretext for some hateful stares.

Classic picture: Alamo Square

Taxi drivers are from all over the world. From the Ukraine to Ethiopia, each has their story. Sethi comes from India and his wife used to be a journalist and still does the odd article for the Indian press. He was listening to a radio in Hindi and said there was even a television in Hindi in SF. Everyone must feel at home here.


My reason for being her is to film the opera of the book "The heart of a Soldier", a true story about a soldier who later in life became a security agent at the World Trade Center in New York and saved many people on September 11th 2001 and gave his own life. 

A good husband is one who has a bike.

South Kivu is the site of horrible massacres, mass rapes and marauding armed groups. Every few kilometres a memorial marks the site of a mass grave of victims. Here in the territory of Fizi, in the month of June and only in one village, 120 women were raped. Rape is a weapon of war here. In all of the Congo, I am told there are 45 rapes every hour. But people are returning despite all the violence. Returning to destroyed homes and fields, they are trying to put their lives back together. The area is spectacularly beautiful, but also holds many mineral resources, the reason so many different groups are fighting.

Two very eligible bachelors?

There aren't many roads, no railway to speak of and many goods are transported on the backs of women. So if you are a man with a bicycle, you are very popular. They use bicycles to transport everything. Most bicycles are imported from China or India. Anyone want to open up a factory here to build local bikes? Could be a profitable market and you could create many a happy home!


An interesting story to follow-up on: In this traditionally christian country, I notice a few mosques. Talking to a group of children, one tells me his name is Aboubakar, a name I would expect in Mali, but not here in the Congo. I asked an aid worker here about the presence of islam. He tells me it is ever since the UN soldiers arrived. Most soldiers are from Pakistan. "They have their official mission and a secret mission," he tells me. "They give 100 dollars to someone who agrees to convert to islam." 

African leaders meet in an exclusive area on an island in the Atlantic

Not many people have been to Equatorial Guinea, but most of the African leaders now have. Shuffled from their private planes along a private 6-lane highway, lined with their portraits, the leaders entered the area known as Sipopo. Each has his own villa overlooking the sea. I don't doubt the sincerity of many of the leaders, but this area seems to be at the heart of the problems that these leaders are gathered here to talk about: poverty and the income gap, education and opportunities for youth.

Just behind my hotel is, sadly, what one normally sees of Africa, dirt roads, shacks and people struggling to get by. And Equatorial Guinea is a rich country with gas and oil. The place is fairly clean and there is, I'm told, very little crime. There is a lot of construction going on. Like many countries in Africa, it has a lot going for it. They say this is the continent of the future.


That is, of course, if they, the leaders, can get things moving. Organising a good summit might be a place to start. I don't like to complain, but I can't say I've seen a summit meeting so badly organised. Only one person was in charge of people arriving at the airport. I had to wait 4 hours out on the sidewalk while others waited for their visas. Finding a hotel took hours. The first day, I was questioned and reprimanded, although politely, not to film because I didn't have the right papers yet (this is probably because the regime here is authoritarian and they are not used to cameras). Accreditation takes hours as well and, so far I have had 3 different accreditation cards. At one accreditation booth, the guy even asked me for money.

Pool at the 5-star hotel, said to be the President's.

But, in the end, things seem to work out and most people here are of a good nature and any conversation ends in a good smile. I'm not sure if that is good enough to discourage leaders from building their own private highways to the beach and to invest in their people's future. 

The National Centre for Performing Arts or The Egg.

China may soon be the next superpower with its economic weight and as a tourist in China, you might feel that people are free, being able to own things and work as they want. But I tend to judge a country's level of freedom by the way they treat the press. China is still afraid of journalists. We came to do a simple cultural programme, featuring a famous piano player Youndi Yi. But we weren't able to bring in our own equipment because the Chinese put a high temporary import tax on cameras. So we had to rent gear in China. You also have to work with a local production company or have someone from the government accompany you everywhere you go. So, not exactly a press-friendly place.

Despite the lack of freedom, China is a wonderful place. Beijing is a big modern city with clean streets and dazzling lights. The people are friendly and the whole thing makes you want to go out and learn Chinese!


Maybe one fact leading to China's economic success was its one-child rule to reduce its population. Established in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, the law was meant to be temporary, but is still in place a quarter of a century later. The law has maybe had its economic effect but does have secondary social effects. The Chinese prefer to have a boy and there have been many cases of ending a pregnancy if it is a girl. Now there are many young men left without hope of finding a bride and many young women enjoying a good education, social mobility and a large choice of future mates.

Everyone gets along in Azerbaijan

I'm here to film a report for Euronews on the Intercultural Dialogue Forum. Azerbaijan is really at the crossroads of many cultures. To illustrate the story, we filmed four different religious ceremonies, Jewish, Russian Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim. Having been to four different religious prayers in one day, I should have all bases covered for the afterlife.


It would be nice if religions were always that open. As one delegate said, the problem isn't religion... it is those who try to use religion for their own political purposes. The church, synagogue and mosque invited us in and were very hospitable. At the synagogue, mosque and orthodox church I was allowed to film anywhere and I did try to get a lot of different angles. Only the catholic church said I could only film from the back of the church.


The last time I was in Baku, I was in the Soviet Union. Today, this vibrant city of four and a half million is unrecognisable from that not so distant past. With new oil wealth, the city is being completely revamped. New construction seems to follow a building code to respect the architectural heritage of the city. The old soviet style buildings are all being torn down. Parks and façades are beautifully lit at night as the cool evening air off the Caspian sea rolls in.

The talk at the forum is of cultural diversity, acceptance of each other and tolerance. Azerbaijan was one of the first nations to give women the vote. But the crossroads of culture is sadly also a battlefield of politics. The explosive Caucus region is to the north, with Tchetchnya and Ossetia. Iran is to the south. Azerbaijan is still at war, albeit a cease-fire, with Armenia. Tolerance and acceptance have a lot to do with being able to eat well, work and discuss freely. 
You can see the report here:
http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/08/azerbaijan-a-forum-for-intercultural-dialogue/