The current state of Baku is worth paying attention to. The unbearable crisis of oil trade has led the people to absolute disappointment and despair. The change is already tangible and lamentable – last year’s happy and almost carefree people resemble a wandering frightened flock of sheep today. All classes feel the pressure of losses suffered by oil producers this year and no individual is free of the burden of both the present and the future troubles. However, the picture of the working class – labors, craftsmen, salesmen – is the saddest and unhappiest;
the stoppage of many photogenic factories’ and mines’ operation has left hundreds and thousands of working hands without any occupation and means of living. The cultivators who have means of living to a certain extent try to leave the country at once and those who don’t have wealth are compelled to stay with dashed hopes in Baku, where they are compelled to take thousands of acceptable and unacceptable measures to overcome hunger. One is moved looking at the thin and skinny faces of these unfortunate creatures who express now deep sadness, now disappointment and now unequivocal determination… hunger makes a man become immoral, makes him a criminal, leads him into an abyss… oh, bitter truth, till when will you exist…? The criminal labyrinth that is called Baku is pitiless and merciless – God, only God knows how many innocent, fresh and working forces it kills in its deadly clutches called oil industry every year and how many outcast victims that absolutely real hell leads into an abyss and devours. Those hundreds of outcasts deprived of the motherland’s consolation who have migrated and don’t stop migrating with high hopes into that dark Tartarus now too deserve deepest sympathy and serious reflection. What makes those outcasts leave their motherland, free village air and migrate into those centers of patriarchal and moral diseases? What means can be employed to stop that dangerous disease called migration from spreading…? These are the biggest questions that deserve the attention of every smart and intelligent man. However, is that attention paid to them… unfortunately, very little or no attention at all.
ALEXANDER SHIRVANZADE
1882
