"LOVE FOR BAKU VIA THE STOMACH"

Imagine a citizen of Baku travelling around the world and finding fault with everything. The names of exotic wines remind him of Azerbaijani ones, and "they don't know how to make kebab here". Whatever they do is not right - not the way we do it, and not Azerbaijani. You will understand immediately the subject of Rovsan Asgarov's book. It was launched in Baku recently. The publication was, however, first presented to the public one week previously - at the Moscow international book exhibition.

"Strano(V)edeniye" is the first book by this fledgling writer and it is written in the currently fashionable style of a  travelogue - from the English word "travel". This form usually consists of comments made by well-known people on their travels.

"But my main purpose was to talk about Azerbaijan and Baku in the context of other countries, so that readers would wish to come here. If just one in a hundred readers is inspired to come to Baku, I will regard my mission as accomplished," Rovsan Asgarov said in an interview with our magazine. He observed that one of Moscow's major publishers, Ripol-Klassik, had supported his project.

Rovsan admits that he had not thought of writing books and had posted his notes on his own Internet blog - "this is a side effect of literacy, you want to register your impressions for yourself and your friends". Suddenly, a proposal comes to collect his travel notes and publish them as a separate book. So the book brings together notes made over the years with one main theme: to study people's character through their cuisine.

"We are what we eat and people's character manifests itself in their cuisine. Azerbaijani cuisine is generous, abundant, delicious and varied. Our people are generous and open in the same way. We are a mixture of different cultures and nationalities. Another aim of the book is to show that our national dishes bear comparison with those of French, German and English cuisine and are sometimes even more delicious. I am not talking simply about particular dishes and I do not include recipes here, I describe various situations and amusing moments through the character of national dishes. I compared various cultures. For example, Japan is dispersed, consisting of several islands, which is why some recipes are served up in separate dishes. Russia covers a large area, like a pancake, and this is reflected in their national dishes," says the author.

Malaysia, Japan, England, Denmark, Germany, Russia, France and Spain all provide a background for Baku which is described by Rovsan lovingly, but with restraint. "They say that films, like books, are really about love. In this sense, I can say that my book is about my love for my home town. It is love through our national cuisine."

A person who begins to write never stops. The publisher enjoyed working with Rovsan Asgarov so much that they suggested he should write a love story. The author agreed. So we will soon see an Asgarov love story on the book shelves.