and still hope for real reforms. no want to. stand with twelve now dead forming new unrest in the western part of the country. in a railway station in support of demonstrations in old town that began friday. the trial that sent to new york court rulings that provided material support to unchain a different nine eleven attacks in america critics however say tehran is not guilty on the verge of differently a pretext to them and i is iran under way. as the headlines up next who followed the story of another former soviet state as a show on to see how the country has developed since the collapse of the us a song that's in our special report. since ancient times this country has been called the land of fire there are places here when natural gas bursts out from under the earth mixing will soon soil before

exploding into flames. it's a miracle of nature there's nothing like it anywhere in the world national our country is called the land of fire. the first fortress tile is a pit here on the caspian shore in the twelfth century people build the houses inside the walls today this ancient district of baquba is on the nest goes world heritage list how does this not the aura of this place is so amazing it's so easy to spend hours here just breathing this air that blows in from the north of the through the in taking in the scenery the war. since gaining independence in one nine hundred ninety one azerbaijan has gone through two difficult decades it has overcome political turmoil after nearly descending into civil war and built a new basis for its economy.

so. to. say. i need you. to know that we had an underwater city there's. no engineers but. they found ancient rocks that. l. dug a similar a name. and now two of the most well known people in azerbaijan know that it says they did it just the. completely self-taught artists managed to exceed all expectations by taking first price at the euro vision song contest.

lately eldar have trouble avoiding fun seeking more to graphs or taking pictures with the. congressional races goes thank you we have some guests who are on their radios by journeys. of the. stomach so they will fit in the frame. of the day when the azerbaijani duet emerged victorious people flooded onto the streets of back. yes it was a big celebration it would have been really interesting to see how people reacted in front of their t.v.'s at home when they learned to meet my. friends universal when a new book where female were waving the azerbaijani flag from their car sunroofs it

was marvelous. so happy that. their legend has made its mark. on. the republic of us a by john is located on the southwestern shore of the caspian sea as a vision board is russia and georgia to the north to the west and around to the south it separates true the u.s.s.r. in nine hundred ninety one before the break up there was an ethnic conflict with. one of the most tragic events in azerbaijan history was when troops were deployed in the capital back in one nine hundred ninety. of the. time as a by john had a national liberation movement called the popular front the movement of staged mass protests around the country seizing government buildings when the situation got out

of control the authorities introduced a state of emergency on almost all of us a by chance terror trick on january the twentieth one thousand nine hundred ninety tanks and tobacco to restore order during the turmoil one hundred thirty seven people were killed. there a law for d.s. brother. was among the first victims. after they launched a flare the tanks came in and started firing. on the notice that ilham was not by my side and. he went down to the square to meet the tanks. he raised his arms up and said but don't fire them he said look these these people are unarmed for god's sake don't shoot. him from was mortally wounded some time later his pregnant wife took her own life all their relatives have left of them are family photos. for these and this is my brother and

threes are at their wedding. you know gun which is when i was putting the ring on her finger so. everyone who died in baquba in ninety ninety is buried at the city's alley of heroes. alofa dia rests next to his wife his mother and brother often come to the memorial cemetery. a son who dreams remains unfulfilled. every year on the last day of june as a by johnny's commemorate the dead couple. i

asked him to leave of who was elected the first president of independent azerbaijan route for two years during his term in office as head of a new state he was faced with many tough problems. i witnessed that period if the bag then all i could think about was how are we going to survive how are we going to pay for green iraq and everything else we were getting from russia ukraine belarus in kazakstan. we didn't have our own gold or foreign reserves or even a currency of our own and for we had absolutely nothing. today as a by john's international reserves amount to thirty five billion u.s. dollars the country gets its money from hydrocarbon exports it is estimated that the oil and gas supplies here will last for one hundred years.

the outskirts of baquba are home to the world's largest oil and gas terminal to have permission to open the pipe. it transports caspian oil to the mediterranean through the back to tbilisi j. hunt pipeline it is a boon for both as a by john and the european consumers of the other end who buy caspian oil. this is the b.b.c. pipeline which starts at sandwich i'll go through georgia and stop in turkey jihan port and this is the biggest pipeline in the caspian regio with the capacity of one point two million barrels a day. this is commonly acknowledged that azerbaijan knows a successful oil and gas development to the so-called contract of the century. it was signed in one nine hundred ninety four by then president gaydar father of the

present leader of azerbaijan. he invited about a dozen of the world's largest oil and gas corporations including b.p. exon new coil and amoco to develop as a by johns oil fields in the caspian sea nowadays azerbaijan is number one in the commonwealth of independent states in terms of per capita vesper. but that's the feel if it was for the door for work the government is doing all it can in these days to foil development production and transportation. so as to cater to multiple customers which are as a result we have great prospects there with the. german reporter hans you can bet has lived and worked in azerbaijan for twenty years he has witnessed all the changes bolton de azerbaijan has gone through.

as really. the menders income. solving income like that. what it can do. to put. forward. in business and. one of us a by john's major interests is in foreign investment and seeks to provide favorable conditions for foreign businesses in the city of gebal three hundred kilometers north of back to the piano factory can be found. coming from a family of piano makers turns left ring has shifted the production of his time on a belt and piano from germany to azerbaijan claims his business is the largest of its kind in all of asia. this model piano for one twenty one upright piano we have

two hundred thirty strings more or less. every strain is different as the other the length the diameter and is made by hand bellman used to be a european brand for over one hundred years until hans left rink left his home country for azerbaijan and took his entire business with him. here the work on the automatic automatically will think you know this because as my grandmother used to say always if you say in this case. they have to say be either and that's belgium piano.

it. downtown back in the caspian sea used to lap alongside the capital's full trust and home city until it eventually withdrew leaving the fortress rules exposed every day the keeper of his architectural relic crimes danger and fortifications that have enjoyed sieges. yet the. wall was erected in the twelfth century by shocks aton the for ourselves who did a lot of fortified the city inner city book remained an impregnable fortress that even the monk will spill to conquer in the thirteenth century new mothers yet that

was when the mungo lama encountered the so-called liquid fire which the defenders of back would douse their enemies heads with it took scientists a couple of centuries to figure out that it was simply burning oil. moving it's this thing here we can see the openings that we're used to poor oil down the wall. then the entire wall would be engulfed in flames and it would be impossible to climb out of the. old black who is considered a cultural treasure and is protected by unesco. when night falls the look of the city changes dramatically it's cafes and live music halls and can. use it comes says come head to enjoy azerbaijan's verio brand of jazz the music

combines eastern tunes with elements of the western musical tradition. jazz of old enough by john in the one nine hundred thirty s. it was pretty limited to in the soviet times but today it is she very popular once more. on the money it brings harmony it's wrong it puts you in a certain movement under folks many colors through that will give each person hears the music in different ways matter by genre he's considered jazz their own it's their national music styles lots of them. sainz a day was brought to back when he was a child twenty years ago his family fled from the atrocities of the nagorno-karabakh war. according to baquba records almost one million azerbaijanis were forced to flee back and armenia.

the ticking time bomb of the nagorno-karabakh conflict started with the dawn of the soviet union when armenia and azerbaijan became part of the u.s.s.r. for a long time there was no question about who controlled the region the war between the two states over nagorno-karabakh started at the end of the nineteen eighties after most come loose and its grip on the republics today nagorno-karabakh remains on recognized its main parties and amin is control but azerbaijan still considers nagorno-karabakh part of its territory. in time the refugees managed to settle down in their new homes. but. i remember the time when we arrived here we lived in her condition that there were two families to a house but we believed that we would get help and i want to thank the country providing us with a good home. to follow you by. now

. even though most refugees have managed to settle down they still hope to return home someday. but neither their matter how good it may be here homeland is then it's always better for a person to be where he was born is one of us i miss my homeland. despite the fact that twenty years of post i'm ready to return there right now. the new goal no karabakh conflict was frozen in one nine hundred ninety four after the two sides signed a cease fire in the idea of came to power peaceful negotiations started and the leader of managed to secure a cease fire zim in the president also tried to resolve the conflict peacefully conflict the civil in a bunch of. the negotiations between us by jan ona media are still ongoing with the

help of russia but the parties have not yet signed a peace treaty on the going to come back. in a feature vanno thomas republic is six hundred kilometers to the west of baquba one can only get to this as a bunch of enclaves surrounded by other countries but playing the highway across some menial has been closed while traveling never iran is far too long and expensive. there are heaps of an autonomous republic is located in the southern part of the transco casus it is a landlocked azerbaijan a enclave bordering on mania turkey and around the republic's population amounts to four hundred thousand people the republic is actively trading with iran and turkey archaeologists say the republic's capital of the hit chavan is one of the oldest cities in the east the first mention of the city dates back to fifteen thirty nine

b.c. . former president of azerbaijan. of was born here there is a street a square and a museum and his own. if they don't believe in his son they will come more always together. for there was his advisor home followed in his footsteps. in two thousand and three shortly before his death gaydar removed his candidacy from the presidential list in favor of his son.

not far from olives family estate is situated one of his lambs most sacred places as a coffee. it is even mentioned in the qur'an thousands of pilgrims from many countries come here to pray. for. lots of people visit this shrine that they want to feel close to our. people make their wishes here and ask god to make them come true. the keeper of the old city is coming from back to up to northern azerbaijan he is to meet with archaeologists. who has made a number of important discoveries. since you stupid we heard you found some new things new we can you show them to us we are always finding new things and it's. is conducting an excavation in the ancient city of. the city used to be the capital of caucasian albania

a state that emerged on azerbaijan's territory in the fourth century b.c. . so they're going to this is a very old site who was this man this man was a citizen of i don't know what he did we know he was a christian as he is buried in accordance with christian rights that the good i say this man is my ancestor are you snow yes absolutely. artifacts found in go could be similar to those in the ancient back who fortress archaeologists assure the people have lived here since the bronze age. ancient people living on the territory of us and by john were particularly respectful towards fire a source of light and heat plumes of gas have been burning here for centuries there was a place not far from baquba which is called burning mountain it slopers covered the tunnel flames it is not only land that burns and i suppose the temperature of the

water to meet the ground can reach seventy degrees it is used for treating people. in the miracle of nature there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world our country is called the land of fire even our water burns because it contains a lot of sulfur this water can treat many illnesses particularly bone diseases like osteoporosis and. t. plantations can be found three hundred kilometers to the south from back near the iranian border not far from the city of len qur'an five hectares of land belonging to the fama of his family has been in the tea business for fifty years now. so now we start gathering tea. please make sure that the tealeaves comply with the

same standards. to growing in the south of us by jan is a priority industry according to local scientists the t. grown on this land is chemically different to other kinds of tea it contains lots of tonnage sensual oils and caffeine. but the committee growing process requires a lot of effort including irrigation and fertilizers it's an industrial roman yana good and the final product depends on how well it has been taken care of. after their collected the tea leaves are processed at the factory once the leaves are dried and they're sort of taken by hand the result is different sorts of tea. inside we collect the three most tender leaves from the top of each plant we then use those leaves to make of ok. and now as you can see i'm in the

process of sorting believes. after they're processed the tea will be packed and is then ready to be drunk gov lost in the. village of sat on the outskirts of baquba the family of famous carpet we've heard over drinks azerbaijani tea every day even though she is ninety one years old she still remembers weaving carpets that were given as presents to kremlin officials. regime as you can see would cover the tea party with a towel it comes out stronger that way a very good mix thanks to that this tea can help us stomach or spared her problems the important thing though is that it gives you energy and puts you in a good mood. the minute version is grandmother of the family she is passing on her

knowledge of carpets to her grandchildren and their children minute verse ten year old granddaughter rock shunned guy over also wants to wave azerbaijani carpets when she's older but right now she's still a beginner. how to see a grandmother. by journey carpets are different from all other kinds of carpets and color they are produced differently too. in the old times as a by johnny carpets were called solid gold and priced accordingly even today the price of some handmade carpets can be as high as several thousand dollars. threaded the needle here. on the wall did i do it right the end of the needle and you pull it down.

nowadays citizens of azerbaijan's capital enjoy walking by the city see front. one side you can see the old fortress from the other oil platforms and caspian sea . here the past on the present have merged together fluidly.

breaking news on a russian oil rig off the country's far east coast capsizes during a storm with more than sixty people on board. fresh clashes flare up in western kazakhstan just days after a demonstration by oil workers ended with eleven people dead. the west and its allies mounting pressure on the syrian regime as russia fights to push through its draft resolution at the u.n. aimed at solving the crisis peacefully. plus the wait is finally over as russia has accepted as a police member of the world trade organization.