Azerbaijan One of the transactions I'm working on involves microfinance (2005 was declared international year of microcredit by the UN and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize went to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, who pioneered microlending). So this is what enables an institutional investment banker like me to visit interesting places like Azerbaijan (CIA, BBC) that are rapidly developing thanks to an oil boom but still leaves behind a large number of the population in poverty.

Unlike other western business people who might just visit Baku City, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the outskirts to witness 'grassroots' level lending. I saw a butcher who's $5,000 loan (incidentally, in many other countries, microloans will be truly micro at around $50-100) enabled him to buy more livestock and open another shop with his brother. Then there was a man who expanded his bakery operation with an additional oven and also build additional greenhouses to raise tomatoes.

My visit was a short two days so the impressions I gathered are first glimpses:
- Baku City is littered with sky scrapers under construction. The locals complain that there is no planning and the towers are going up like 'stone forests'.
- The city centre boasts shops selling international luxury brands and the boom is evident with well-dressed fashionable women strolling from shop to shop
- Outside of Baku City there were very few women and children on the streets. Groups of men seem to be loitering in street corners (unemployment rate is high).
- Oil and gas is evident on the landscape. Surface wells still pump oil (today's is mostly off shore) and there is an area where fire naturally occurs on the mountain side due to natural gas leaking out (there are fire temples in the area)
- Gold teeth are very popular
- Many unibrows!

  ¶ 12:43 PM