Caspian Sea

Made it to Baku on the Caspian Sea. Oil laps with the waves on shore. Baku is the shiniest, most well-manicured city I've ever seen. Expensive luxury brand store fronts line every city center avenue. 

All the big western fast food giants - McDs, BK, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. - have built palace restaurants to their brand (but the food is still the same). 

Almost all of the expats work for big oil. According to a Russian owner named Katya of the popular expat bar Pivnushka Beer House, 70% of workers are Scots, 15% Americans, 15% English. We were the first American tourists she's seen. She offered us Budweiser, we drank EFES Turkish Pilsner.

Women wear western clothes and all seem to have thick dark eye makeup. No one wears shorts. The men are either pristine bureaucrats or sweaty workers. 

Outside the center however, living looks rougher, shabbier and sometimes desperate.