Xaçmaz - mid february

Invitation to Lucy’s hululu Hawaii birthday party took 4 of us to Xaçmaz, Friday evening after work. Traveling after work with people with different time schedules is never easy nor quick, so quite late we made it to the Titanic bus station (that’s not its name, it just looks like that). We were lucky to get the last seats on the last bus out. Some three hours later we arrived in town, another 15 minutes later at the house where the Hawaii party was in full swing.

Actually, full swing might be a bit much to say... most people there had been partying for a day or two allready, and were lounging, recovering, chatting or crashing. Nice to meet all the folks there though!

So- what about Xaçmaz? If you rely just on the travelers’ bible, there is not much to se in this town. The railway station, quite big and once the stop for all trains to and from Belarus, Russia and …. Is priced, but not much more is mentioned. The town, predominantly Lezgi has more to offer though. My highlights included the old Armenian church, now used as storage room for tables, chairs and the like, and the two old, rusty derailed wagons in the river. Apart from that, there is a funky animal statue park, and many mosaic structures, as this town competes with another to be the most pretty. Last but not least, the amount of Heydar Aliyev quotes surpasses many towns…