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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAKU 000529 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CARC AND DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/01/2019 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM PHUM AJ
SUBJECT: AZERBAIJAN'S SECOND CITY A MICROCOSM OF DIFFICULT 
POST-SOVIET TRANSITION 
 
Classified By: Political-Economic Counselor Robert Garverick, Reasons 1 
.4 (b and d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:   Ganja, Azerbaijan's historic capital and 
second largest city, has experienced economic stagnation 
since the end of the Soviet Union.  Endemic corruption and 
brain drain have exacerbated this decline.  There is little 
hope that reform will come through involvement of opposition 
politicians, who are largely uninspiring and have little 
scope to conduct activities.  There continue to be a small 
number of NGOs, however, who are actively working to bring 
change to the city, and it is largely through their efforts 
that any reform is possible.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (C) Ganja is Azerbaijan's second largest city, and the 
commercial center of the western half of the country.  The 
city was the original capital of the Azerbaijan Democratic 
Republic when it was founded in 1918, and the original 
parliament building now forms the center of Ganja's 
Agricultural Academy, one of the better universities in 
Azerbaijan.  Despite Ganja's importance, there remains no 
good road between Baku and Ganja, so the trip between the two 
remains an arduous six-hour journey.  Poloff visited Ganja on 
June 16-17 in order to assess the political and 
socio-economic climate of the city in advance of the year-end 
municipal elections. 
 
Economy and Corruption 
---------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) All poloff's interlocutors in Ganja brought up the 
economy as the city's number one problem.  As Nushaba 
Mammadova, prominent historian and editor of Ganjabasar 
newspaper explained, in the Soviet period Ganja had over 80 
major factories, in addition to being a center for 
agricultural production.  After independence that number 
decreased to two - a car assembly plant and an aluminum 
factory.  Mammadova explained that this caused a permanent 
economic crisis in the city, with an estimated unemployment 
(or under-employment) rate of 70 percent.  Mammadova and 
others explained that much of the city's population has left 
for Baku or other countries, particularly Russia, to find 
work, and the rest of the population now exists on 
remittances.  In a further blow to the city's economy, the 
aluminum factory closed in April, laying off approximately 
3,000 workers, according to Jahangir Amirkhanli of the 
Musavat Party branch in Ganja. 
 
¶4. (C) As elsewhere in Azerbaijan, Ganja residents also point 
to corruption as a major problem for the city.  With both 
USAID and OSCE funding, Sevinj Mammadova runs a legal 
advocacy center in Ganja for victims of corruption, part of 
Transparency Azerbaijan.  According to Mammadova, the 
corruption problem is getting worse in Ganja, as her center 
sees more complaints than it used to.  According to 
statistics she provided, the center received 330 corruption 
complaints during the first three months of 2009, which was 
slightly lower than normal due to their office moving 
locations.  Far and away the most prevalent forms of 
corruption are in the judicial system, with 
non-implementation of court decisions and biased 
judges/prosecutors being the most common complaints. 
Mammadova also explained that corruption in healthcare and 
education are also top complaints. 
 
Media Climate 
------------- 
 
¶5. (C) Poloff discussed the media environment in Ganja with 
the editorial staff of the city's only independent newspaper, 
called Ganjasabar.  This paper is supported in part by the 
National Endowment for Democracy.  Editor Mammadova stated 
that she believes the only reason they are allowed to 
continue their work is that she is a respected member of 
Azerbaijan's intelligentsia, and she was responsible for 
getting the name "Ganja" returned to the city during the 
Soviet period (Note: The city was named Elizavetpol under the 
Tsarist system and Kirovabad in the Soviet time.  End Note.) 
Still, Mammadov reports that their offices were raided by the 
Ministry of National Security in 2007.  She says her 
newspaper prints 3,000 copies weekly, and aims to deliver the 
notion of being independent to the population.  While 
 
BAKU 00000529  002 OF 002 
 
 
opposition newspapers are available in Ganja, Mammadova says 
they are not on display * sellers "know who reads the 
opposition papers" and bring the papers out for them. 
Internet is available in Ganja, but remains slow and 
expensive.  Outside of the media, Mammadova and her staff 
report that the democracy and human rights situation remains 
poor in Ganja *opposition political parties are not allowed 
to operate and no more than 4 or 5 people are allowed to be 
in a tea house at once. 
 
Opposition Parties 
------------------ 
 
¶6. (C) Poloff requested meetings with local ruling party 
officials, but after many phone calls these officials 
declined the meeting request.  Poloff did meet with the only 
active opposition leaders in the city- Jahangir Amirkhanli of 
the Musavat Party and Bakhtiyar Alizada of the Popular Front 
Party.  The men stated that there is no political space for 
their activities in Ganja.  Neither party currently has an 
office in Ganja. Amirkhanli reported that his party was run 
out of an office it had in 2008, which had been supported by 
the National Democratic Institute, after police raids. 
Amirkhanli stated that he had lost his job at Ganja State 
University in 2003 due to his political activities, and his 
case is now being considered by the European Court of Human 
Rights. 
 
¶7. (C) Despite all these complaints, however, the two men had 
difficulty articulating any particular policies they would 
enact that would be different from the current government. 
When questioned on how they would solve the Ganja's economic 
problems of which they had extensively talked, the men 
responded that "experts in Baku make the parties' economic 
policies."  The men also stated that their parties plan to 
cooperate on the year-end municipal elections, but had no 
definite plans on how this cooperation would proceed. 
 
Youth and the City's Future 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) All of poloff's interlocutors in Ganja, including both 
students and adults who work with students, explained that 
most young people want to leave Ganja, due to poor 
educational and career opportunities.  Students learning 
English at the American Center in Ganja asked numerous, 
detailed questions about how they could study in the U.S.  At 
the Open Society Institute's Education Center, Director Hasan 
Huseynli explained that he could think of only a couple young 
people who had studied abroad, in the U.S. or elsewhere, and 
then returned to Ganja, and these people only did so for 
extreme family reasons.  Huseynli saw these educated young 
people as the only chance to bring change to Ganja and to 
Azerbaijan in general, but did not know when or how this 
could happen. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. (C) Ganja is a microcosm of the multi-layered problems 
experienced by Azerbaijan during its transition away from 
Soviet models.  The loss of Soviet subsidies for industry, 
the lack of government or private investment in new 
industries, and the extreme level of corruption have led to a 
stagnant economy, giving little hope to the city's young 
people.  On top of economic concerns, the authoritarian 
tendencies of the local government prevent innovative or 
alternative forms of thinking.  The subsequent brain drain 
from the city exacerbates these problems.  Yet glimmers of 
hope for the city exist in the NGOs that continue to work on 
reform and some of the bright young people who refuse to give 
up on bringing change. 
DERSE