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AZERBAIJAN, REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

A Former Soviet Union state in the eastern part of Transcaucasia, or Southern Caucasus, on the southwestern coast of the Caspian.  Azerbaijan has a common border with Russia and Georgia in the north, Armenia in the west, and Iran in the south. According to the State Statistics Directorate of Azerbaijan, the republic's population as of January 2006 was 8,436,400, ninety percent of them ethnic Azeris.

Turkic tribes, the forefathers of contemporary Azeris, started penetrating the territory now known as Azerbaijani in the 11^th century, gradually intermarrying with the indigenous population of the Caucasus and with people of Iranian stock. The first Irano-Azeri state appeared in the 16^th century,

By the end of the 19^th century, Azerbaijan's present capital Baku had become a major multi-ethnic industrial hub. In November 1917 Soviet power was established in the area, and the Baku Commune came into being. The summer of 1918 saw the start of Anglo-Turkish intervention, which brought the Musavat party to power. Musavatists actually introduced the term "Azerbaijan" to name the newly formed republic.

As independent republics sprang up to replace the one-time Transcaucasian domain of the Russian Empire, and as a result of attempts by Britain and Turkey to fill the geopolitical vacuum, the area became a venue for violent interethnic clashes, above all between Azeris and Armenians, which left numerous casualties and ineradicable mutual hatred.

The Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed on April 28, 1920, and two years later, on March 12, 1922, it joined the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, along with Georgia and Armenia. On December 5, 1936, it became part of the USSR as a constituent union republic, while the Transcaucasian Republic ceased to exist as an entity. In 1923, in the course of Transcaucasia's ethnic-territorial demarcation carried out along the lines of Stalin's "nationality policy," Azerbaijan received the territory of Nagorny Karabakh (populated chiefly by Armenians) and Nakhichevan.

In 1988, at the peak of democratic reform in the Soviet Union known as perestroika, with its attendant weakening of state power and Communist Party dominance, the separatist mood among the local Armenians in Nagorny Karabakh rapidly grew out of control. This triggered off a bloody interethnic conflict eventually erupting into the Karabakh War of 1992-1994. The war ended in the defeat of the Azeri army. In 1994, a group of CIS countries mediated a truce between Azerbaijan and Armenia. All attempts to achieve a permanent settlement of the conflict have so far proved futile - the situation is best described as a "frozen conflict."

In 1991, against the backdrop of the Armenian-Azeri standoff, the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed the republic's independence - that is to say, it formally left the Soviet Union.

At present Azerbaijan is a presidential republic. The president is elected by popular ballot for a term of five years; he appoints all government officials. The republic's highest legislative body is the single-chamber National Assembly elected for a term of five years, each constituency electing one member.

The first ever parliamentary election in independent Azerbaijan's history was held in 1995. The current body of members of parliament was elected in November 2005. Most of them are members of the pro-presidential New Azerbaijan party.

It must be noted that parties, elections, parliament, supposedly free media, etc. in this country are viewed by most analysts as mere trappings camouflaging a regular Oriental, autocratic, clan-based state which even has a hereditary head, President Ilkham Aliev, son of the late President Heydar Aliev. Azerbaijan was the first of the Former Soviet Union states to have an openly hereditary ruler.

Azerbaijan is an industrial country that also boasts diversified agriculture. Central to Azerbaijani economy are oil and gas extraction, oil-refining, chemical, machine-building, and mining industries, non-ferrous metallurgy, as well as various branches of food and light industry.

The growth rate of Azerbaijan's economy was for a few years among the highest in the world, which was largely due to increased extraction and export of hydrocarbons, and also to rising world oil prices. Starting in Augsut 2008, the global economic downturn affected Azerbaijan in much the same way as all the other producers of energy resources.

Azerbaijan exports products of chemical and fuel industries, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine-building, metal-working, light industry, etc. Among its imports are mostly finished products: tools, agricultural machinery, automobiles, clothes, and foodstuffs.

Azerbaijan's agriculture largely focuses on the production of wine, tobacco, vegetables, horticulture, animal husbandry and silkworm breeding. The main industrially grown crops are cotton, tobacco and tea. Early vegetable growing is well developed, as is subtropical fruit growing. The area of irrigated land totals 1,401,000 hectares (1990 data). Animal husbandry mostly goes in for sheep, dairy and beef cattle, and poultry.

Despite independent Azerbaijan's economic progress as described, its dependence on Russia, above all in terms of employment, remains extraordinarily high. Various sources put the number of Azeris living and working in Russia at about two million - that is, a quarter of Azerbaijan's entire population. Of these, more than a million are said to live in Moscow, but these figures are hard to confirm, as illegal migration is rife.

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