Azerbaijan Away - Saturday 9th October 2021

davereilly wrote: gspain wrote: Borussia wrote: Did they stamp your passports on the way in? Might make things interesting if we draw Armenia in the Nations League. No issue either way.  Loads of tourists do both countries and Georgia in between.  the only problem is if you visit the disputed region but that is unlikely and even if you did I'm not sure how they'd know.   Exactly. When we were filling out Visa applications they asked if you had ever been to Nagorno-Karabakh without approval of the Azeri government. I imagine if you said that, then your application was rejected immediately. AFAIK (but not sure) Nagorno-Karabakh stamp your passport, so maybe that's how they would know, although if you had a new passport then they probably could not know. Out of interest, anyone who went to Baku and had an Armenian stamp in your passport, did that cause any issue? I know we were all let in, but curious to see if they held you up for a while because of the stamp.

gspain wrote: Borussia wrote: Did they stamp your passports on the way in? Might make things interesting if we draw Armenia in the Nations League. No issue either way.  Loads of tourists do both countries and Georgia in between.  the only problem is if you visit the disputed region but that is unlikely and even if you did I'm not sure how they'd know.

wicklowrunner wrote: irishmufc wrote: ScaryEire wrote: Great trip as the match performance and result crowned it! Only down side was the chap who had his tricolour ripped by one of the many guards at the turnstile! Unbeknown to the flags owner, our hosts are “at war” with their neighbours Armenia. The chap adds a new country’s badge to his tricolour once visited with an Armenian badge among his collection.Don’t think he’ll be adding an Azerbaijan badge! Bit over the top mr policeman but maybe also a lesson to us all?! All the Azerbaijan flags on the Baku building balconies were in a mark of respect to their war falling. Fair enough but the Irish flag owner meant no disrespect yet the guard took offence. Still, excellent trip. It was excessive by the Azerbaijanis but the war/conflict made international news last year so Its surprising someone wouldn't have at least some ounce of awareness of it or their ongoing issues with Armenia.  It does no harm in future to read up on any of these out of the way destinations should we draw their teams again like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia etc as you could inadvertently cause offence without realising it.    They hate the Armenians. Was on a tour on the Sunday. Our guide was talking about Turkey and the EU. I said one issue is the refusal to apologise for the Armenian Genocide. He hardly acknowledged my comment.

wanderer wrote: Borussia wrote: Did they stamp your passports on the way in? Might make things interesting if we draw Armenia in the Nations League. Yeah they did but appearently that's not an issue

irishmufc wrote: ScaryEire wrote: Great trip as the match performance and result crowned it! Only down side was the chap who had his tricolour ripped by one of the many guards at the turnstile! Unbeknown to the flags owner, our hosts are “at war” with their neighbours Armenia. The chap adds a new country’s badge to his tricolour once visited with an Armenian badge among his collection.Don’t think he’ll be adding an Azerbaijan badge! Bit over the top mr policeman but maybe also a lesson to us all?! All the Azerbaijan flags on the Baku building balconies were in a mark of respect to their war falling. Fair enough but the Irish flag owner meant no disrespect yet the guard took offence. Still, excellent trip. It was excessive by the Azerbaijanis but the war/conflict made international news last year so Its surprising someone wouldn't have at least some ounce of awareness of it or their ongoing issues with Armenia.  It does no harm in future to read up on any of these out of the way destinations should we draw their teams again like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia etc as you could inadvertently cause offence without realising it.

Yup 

ScaryEire wrote: Great trip as the match performance and result crowned it! Only down side was the chap who had his tricolour ripped by one of the many guards at the turnstile! Unbeknown to the flags owner, our hosts are “at war” with their neighbours Armenia. The chap adds a new country’s badge to his tricolour once visited with an Armenian badge among his collection.Don’t think he’ll be adding an Azerbaijan badge! Bit over the top mr policeman but maybe also a lesson to us all?! All the Azerbaijan flags on the Baku building balconies were in a mark of respect to their war falling. Fair enough but the Irish flag owner meant no disrespect yet the guard took offence. Still, excellent trip.

Great trip as the match performance and result crowned it! Only down side was the chap who had his tricolour ripped by one of the many guards at the turnstile! Unbeknown to the flags owner, our hosts are “at war” with their neighbours Armenia. The chap adds a new country’s badge to his tricolour once visited with an Armenian badge among his collection.Don’t think he’ll be adding an Azerbaijan badge! Bit over the top mr policeman but maybe also a lesson to us all?! All the Azerbaijan flags on the Baku building balconies were in a mark of respect to their war falling. Fair enough but the Irish flag owner meant no disrespect yet the guard took offence. Still, excellent trip.

Edited by ScaryEire - 13 Oct 2021 at 3:27pm

We needed PCR tests for the flight back to Dubai. The fella who was looking after our Air BnB organises it over the phone. Gives the person specific instructions; "only negative results"