THE LAMENTABLE SHORE OF THE CASPIAN

Summer is over quickly as good things do not last long. However, for many people these "good things" do not last at all; not everyone has the chance to make the most of the blessings of this time of the year.

Traditionally the most affordable way to spend the summer in Azerbaijan has been a holiday on the coast, which fortunately is never far away. But more and more of us are turning away from a seaside holiday and there are several reasons for this.

The ecology of the sea has not inspired optimism for a long time and not everyone is brave enough to paddle in the grey waves of the Caspian. Moreover, until quite recently the sea belonged entirely to the people, but this has now changed radically. Now you have to pay for everything, and quite a lot at that, including recreation on a beach with all the conveniences. Of course, there are the so-called state beaches where entry is free, but they are in such an abandoned state that it's better to avoid them.

No such thing as a free lunch

Enterprising operators have grabbed everything they could and have been in charge of the beaches for some time. Unpleasant surprises lie in store for those who want to bask in the sun. You have only to walk or drive up to a fenced-off section of the coast for someone to come and meet you and demand payment for "using the sea". This will come as a surprise only to someone who has not been to the Abseron's beaches for a long time and who is relying on information from the Baku executive authorities. These authorities have been saying for a year that entry to any of the capital's beaches is free. However, that's not how it is at all. It is clear that the Baku city authorities are not able to stand up to the "beach operators". The result is a growth in the geometric progression of beaches that charge entry fees on the Abseron peninsula.

The Thousand and One Nights beach is one of the most popular today. The reason is simple. It is at Sixov, which means that it is closer to the capital. Entry for one person to this "eastern fairy tale" is one manat. A sun-lounger, table or shower costs more. 

This is not the small sum that it might first appear. Whole families come to spend time at the beach. In order to convince people that everything is done in accordance with the law visitors to A Thousand and One Nights are given a receipt of incomprehensible origin, which shows the name of some firm Qizil Qum (Golden Sands). We will not be wrong if we assume that this piece of paper is just handed out to calm the angry beach-goers who refuse to pay for the pleasure of a dip in the sea. But it turns out that the visitors are forking out to lie on dirty sand and bathe in a dirty sea. The small beach area is covered in rubbish. Leftovers, peel and personal sanitary products are mixed in with the sand. Of course, most of the blame for this unpleasantness lies with the holidaymakers who are too lazy to gather up their leftovers in a carrier bag and put it in the bin. The only advantage of A Thousand and One Nights is that it has a lifeguards' tower belonging to the Emergencies Ministry. Lifeguards are always watching the bathers, warning them not to swim beyond the buoys. There is also a first aid team at the beach.

Entry to the neighbouring Iceberg beach costs five manats. This sum includes use of a sun-lounger and showers. The cleanliness and hygiene situation scarcely differs from that described above. The picture is the same at almost all the other Sixov beaches that charge for entry.

However, there are still some beaches in Sixov that have escaped private ownership. But you have only to give them a cursory look to see that in this context the words "state" and "ownerless" are synonymous. 

The shore at the most popular free beach, Sixov Source, is so littered with broken glass and leftovers that it is dangerous to walk on it without thick-soled footwear. You get the impression that the rubbish has not been cleared from these places for more than one summer season. There are no lifeguards, changing rooms or other conveniences. Small businessmen have found refuge here and put up ugly booths of building blocks which sell tea and water. 

The beaches at Pirsagi are as popular as those at Sixov. It is no easy job to get to them as the surrounding area has been built up in such a way that you cannot get to the water. If by chance a free piece of land is left somewhere, builders will be working there, even at weekends, to put up a wall. The small piece of shore which gives citizens the right to a free dip in the sea is so badly littered that it is unpleasant to be there. There is no pleasure in recreation in such unsanitary conditions. There is a mountain of rubbish on the sand, decomposing in the summer sun. There are no parasols or showers. The only concession towards civilization was the so-called changing rooms, cobbled together from rusting sheets of tin. There is a beach which charges for entry just beyond the free beach. Entry costs two manats. Everything else must be paid for separately.

Baku has exclusive beaches which only the wealthy can afford to visit. But the sea here is as dirty as everywhere else. Entry to Amburan beach at Bilgah costs 10 manats per person on weekdays, 15 manats at the weekend. Far from every family can afford such luxury.

More dead than alive

You can understand the strategy of our businessmen who spend huge sums on building large beach complexes. You just cannot understand the strategy of those structures that are responsible for this sector and close their eyes to the obvious, multiple violations of the law. If several years ago the Caspian was the object of bargaining at the interstate level and the five Caspian littoral states could not agree on dividing it up between them, today it has become a real bone of contention between the nouveaux riches. In the hunt for their own profit the latter are ready to divide up the coast into dozens or hundreds of pieces and call this "private property". As a result ordinary people and the sea suffer.

The Baku executive authorities told us that a ban has been in place on privatizing the seaside strip for a long time. Charging for entry to a beach is, therefore, breaking the law pure and simple. Asked why this practice still occurs, the employees of the city's executive authorities gave us no answer. They did not encourage us with a plan for the revival of our beaches either. There simply isn't any kind of programme at present - "they may be drawn in up in the near future".

As for the sanitary situation, the general department at the mayor's office told us that this was dealt with by the Baku executive authorities' Department for Housing and Community Issues, but we could not get through to them. The executive authorities of Qaradag and Azizbayov districts, where most of the beaches are, refused to comment to us on the lamentable state of the beaches. Clearly the city authorities have nothing to be proud of.

The head of the Ministry for Ecology and Natural Resources' department for ecological monitoring of the Caspian, Latifa Huseynova, said earlier that another problem was the dumping of untreated sewage in the Caspian. 

"We went to the northern part of the Caspian, to Nabran and Xacmaz," Huseynova said. "There is no centralized sewage system here - completely raw sewage gets into the Caspian. Tests showed that the water is polluted in terms of many microbiological indicators. Despite the fact that this stretch of coast is one of the most popular holiday areas in the country, the shoreline itself is badly polluted with litter. Last year we cleaned up the coast. Sixty-nine lorries took waste away, although this is not the Ecology Ministry's job. The Sumqayit zone of the Caspian is also badly polluted. Despite the fact that most of Sumqayit's industrial enterprises stand idle today, the ecological situation in this area remains unsatisfactory. There is one piece of equipment to clean up the beach, but it hardly works as it was not repaired properly. It became worn out a long time ago. An aluminium factory worked here in Soviet times and it is the cause of around 70 per cent of the pollution here. Samples of water taken from the Sumqayit coast show that there should be no bathing on these beaches." 

On holiday with e-coli

In order to return Baku bay to an acceptable state, the Ministry for Ecology and Natural Resources has submitted to the government a project to clean it up. The institutions involved in the project will have to clean not only the seabed of the rubbish and faeces accumulated over decades, but tackle the question of oil and diesel lakes that have formed on the coastal strip.

The project envisages tackling the problem of taking the capital's sewage system further out to sea. It is possible that the bay will be clean by 2010 thanks to this project. But now, since untreated sewage waters are dumped at sea and their flow increases every year, bathing is completely forbidden at some Abseron beaches. Many of the capital's residents ignore the warnings, however.

A head of department at the Republican Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology, Ziyatdin Qazimov, said that under instruction No 11 of 30 May 2007 bathing is forbidden on the beaches of Azizbayov district and Sixov. "The republican centre regularly tests the sea waters and the results of the analyses do not inspire optimism. The content of intestinal bacteria on Sixov's beaches is 20 times higher than the permitted norm which could lead to an acute intestinal infection. No case of infection has been registered to date, but no-one knows what will happen tomorrow. The state of the water at the other beaches is also far from ideal. But bathing is permitted here. I know that despite our numerous warnings about the danger of bathing, people continue to ignore all bans. The centre cannot ban people from going to beaches and close down recreation zones in the risk area. Our job is to warn people and the rest is the work of the district executive authorities on whose territory the beaches are and the police. Only they can take substantial steps in this regard."

Ziyatdin Qazimov also mentioned the sanitary state of the beaches themselves and confirmed that the aforementioned department of the Baku executive authorities should be in charge of this. As for private beaches, these should reach agreement with the department which for a specific sum will clean up the beach area and take away the rubbish. Cleaning up the state beaches is also the concern of the housing and community department. 

It is common knowledge that the sea is able to clean itself, but it needs time to do this. Today it is using its last resources to "digest" the large amount of domestic and industrial waste which mankind generously gives it. But it should not be forgotten that its capacity is not endless and if this barbaric treatment continues, the Caspian will finally turn into a dead, littered sea. And our descendants will just have photographs and films to show its natural wealth.