Last month Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center of Internet and Society, gave a lecture on how his “cute cats” theory of the internet applies to the Arab Spring. For those of you unfamiliar with the theory, Cory Doctorow sums it up in an rapturous review of the talk in the Guardian:

Zuckerman’s argument is this: while YouTube, Twitter, Facebook (and other popular social services) aren’t good at protecting dissidents, they are nevertheless the best place for this sort of activity to start, for several reasons.

First, because when YouTube is taken off your nation’s internet, everyone notices, not just dissidents. So if a state shuts down a site dedicated to exposing official brutality, only the people who care about that sort of thing already are likely to notice.

But when YouTube goes dark, all the people who want to look at cute cats discover that their favourite site is gone, and they start to ask their neighbours why, and they come to learn that there exists video evidence of official brutality so heinous and awful that the government has shut out all of YouTube in case the people see it.

Doctorow goes on to claim that the everyday use of social media technology leads to a sort of inadvertent activism. Accustomed to sharing apolitical content online, citizens use the same technology to post evidence of state atrocities:

The first thing that comes to mind after you capture a mobile phone video of the police murdering a family member isn’t “Let’s see, I wonder if there’s a purpose-built activist tool that I can use for distributing this clip?” Rather, the first thing that comes to mind is, “I’d better post this on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter so that everyone can see it.”

In Zuckerman’s view, the rote relay of controversial content enables revolution, as it provides a way for citizens to air their grievances (before the state censors them) and inflames their curiosity and rage (after). Zuckerman is careful to refrain from labeling the internet as some sort of miracle medium, instead inscribing its power to its very banality: it is a social platform, but one that turns political as revelations of state crimes enter the social sphere. He claims that this is what happened during the Arab Spring.

Zuckerman’s theory is a refreshing alternative to the common caricature of internet users in authoritarian states as revolutionaries in waiting. But it suffers from a fallacy that plagues much of internet scholarship: studies of the effectiveness of the internet in fomenting revolution are usually limited to where the internet was effective, because those successes, by definition, are the ones we know. The “failures” – the many countries where the circulation of evidence of state crimes through social media prompts no change in state practices, and in some cases, dissuades citizens from joining activist causes – tend to go unmentioned. They are, I suspect, more the norm than the exception, and they have proven the rule in former Soviet authoritarian states.

Why has online activism in Central Asia failed to inspire the kind of public support we see in the Arab world? That is a big question, one that would benefit from the sort of long-term ethnographic examination that is sorely lacking in study of the internet, as fellow Berkman researcher Jonathan Zittrain has noted. I suspect the answer lies less with problems unique to the former Soviet Union than it does with a central assumption of the “cute cats” theory: that the exposure of wrongdoings inspires people to make things right. In authoritarian states, the circulation of state crimes often serves to confirm tacit suspicions, and in some cases, to reaffirm the futility of the fight. Fear, apathy, cynicism and distrust as are as common reactions to these quasi-revelations as are outrage and a desire for change.

This is not to say that the internet is not important. In many states, it is the only medium through which state brutality can be exposed. But the reception to online media varies as to the political culture of the people involved. The following cases speak to greater problems of trust, fear and apathy in post-Soviet political culture – problems that the internet does not solve, but often exacerbates.

The “donkey bloggers” of Azerbaijan. In 2009, activists Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada were arrested after posting a satirical video of government corruption and wastefulness on YouTube. The case attracted international outcry as well as intense attention among the frequent social media users with whom Milli and Hajizada socialized online. Yet in the aftermath of the case – both activists were released in November 2010 – support for political protest decreased among frequent internet users, as a forthcoming article I co-wrote with Katy Pearce for the Journal of Communication makes clear. Why did this happen? At the time of the case, Azerbaijan, unlike many other former Soviet states, had an open internet, all the better with which to publicize the horrifying repercussions of using the internet for political purposes. The online publicity surrounding Milli and Hajizada’s plight did not inspire citizens to rise up, but to rethink the risks of participating in online activism.

The Osh events. The June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan was documented online from the moment it occurred: witnesses posted updates on Twitter and Facebook; observers uploaded their photos and videos to LiveJournal and YouTube; and Kyrgyz websites were awash in commentary – much of it speculative, accusatory, and inflammatory. As I noted in 2010, online coverage of the events constituted “a catalogue of sins, searchable and accessible, impervious to the human desire to move on”. The circulation of state and citizen atrocities through social media networks like Facebook and Twitter heightened a sense of futility surrounding the government’s capacity to intervene, and the population’s ability – and desire – to forgive.

Zhanaozen. “Kazakh Spring” is the “fetch” of Central Asia: try as you might, it’s just not going to happen. This is not to say the bloodshed in Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan isn’t horrifying or important: it absolutely is. But there is no indication that the intense online discussion of the events, and circulation of videos showing police brutality, is going to lead to Arab Spring-style unrest. Instead, Zhanaozen reveals the extent that Kazakhstan’s authorities will go to make those who document the state its next target. It also highlights the diversity and contentiousness of online media among both Kazakhstani and Western audiences. Much as Zuckerman predicted, the videos from Zhanaozen have been widely circulated through social media, but their reception is far from uniform. As in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, news reports are viewed with skepticism, the motives of those both involved in the issue and reporting it are relentlessly scrutinized, and the risks to those who engage in political pursuits (even pursuits as banal as posting a video online) are all too clear.

Effective use of social media in authoritarian states is not only a matter of circumventing government censorship, but of securing and sustaining citizen trust. Both Zuckerman and Doctorow have spoken at length about the need to create tools that are safe and effective for activists, and their efforts are admirable. But the development of tools through which corruption and brutality can be exposed leads to an uncomfortable question: and then what?

Xandra Kayden, a senior fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, is unhappy with RFE/RL:

There is something weird and rather disturbing about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) – a U.S.-funded media outlet that is famous for broadcasting information during the Cold War to support our friends and undermine our enemies – attacking an ally over our mutual enemy, radical jihadism…

If there were ever a nation wary of terrorism in that part of the world, it is Azerbaijan. It is both too close to Iran culturally and too far apart from it in temperament, desire and fundamentalist religious commitment. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been vehemently and relentlessly attacking Azerbaijan for closing mosques that preach Islamic fundamentalism, banning head scarves in public schools and imprisoning radical clerics. It is perhaps also worth noting that the ban of head scarves in schools was based on addressing socioeconomic issues and not based in religion. While it may have gone a little further than some nations with large Muslim populations in Europe, it does not have a majority population of “others” who can overwhelm the development of terrorism by its sheer existence. On the other hand, it does have a population that is quite mindful of the dangers – especially to women – of a radical takeover. Fighting back is a lot harder for a nation to do once a foothold has been gained, as we have seen in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And so on (you get the point, but do read the whole thing to make sure I didn’t miss some nuance somewhere). Xandra seems to misunderstand the role of RFE/RL: yes, it was meant to be pro-American propaganda, to an extent, but it was credible in the former Soviet Union—and now, not coincidentally, inside Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan—because of its ability to criticize U.S. and allied policies. In fact, it was the remarkable ability of RFE/RL journalists to maintain their editorial independence despite funding from the U.S. government-funded BBG —something not afforded the actual propaganda outlet Voice of America—that gives RFE/RL its value.

So in that sense, Xandra’s argument is a bit off, as it rests on an incorrect assumption about the purpose, role, history, and behavior of RFE/RL journalists. By her logic, the RFE/RL reporters who criticize Pakistan’s policies in the NWFP, or who highlight Kyrgyzstan’s continuing issues with ethnic clashes, are similarly engaging in the undermining of allied Muslim countries. It is terrible logic, in other words.

Xandra is also wrong to react against criticism of Azerbaijan. The Azeri government has a history of attacking the institutions of free speech and lashing out at legitimate opposition figures through false claims of libel, defamation, and stirring rebellion. The government has a nasty habit of imprisoning political prisoners. Furthermore, the government is not shy of using threats of violence when it confronts those preaching a religion it dislikes.

This is the government Xandra Kayden is defending from mean old RFE/RL pointing out that banning the headscarf—not a “socioeconomic move,” as she says, but a very obvious move to limit Muslim freedom of expression (a move which, not coincidentally, happens to be a major recruitment tool for Islamists)—is a really bad idea. “U.S. foreign policy and concerns are certainly not served by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in this instance,” she claims. This is clearly not true: everyone is better off if RFE/RL is allowed to maintain its editorial independence, and can criticize oppression even in U.S. allies.

So what gives?

Xandra routinely attends meetings organized by “The ELS Independent Research Center” (Google it if you wish; I got repeated warnings of the site being infested with malware and declined to risk seeing what they have to say). Best I can tell, ELS is an Azerbaijani government-funded NGO which conducts exit polls for elections—they reported, quite rightly, that the 2010 elections were all pro-Aliyev.

Here’s the thing, though: the OSCE agreed that the technical conduct of the election was mostly okay, except for some candidates who were intimidated to drop their opposition. But ODHIR also reported that there was substantial suppression of the opposition, a suppression of alternative voices during the campaign process, and an undemocratic domination of the ruling party.

So the election wasn’t great, and Xandra Kayden has financial ties to a government-funded NGO. That’s bad as far as it goes, but Xandra is also a major figure in the League of Women Voters of America. It would make sense, after some consideration that she would react against a negative portrayal of a headscarf ban, as many American women simply don’t believe that a Muslim woman could ever make a free and un-coerced decision to cover her head. Also, the LWV has a habit of liaising with Azerbaijani government-funded advocacy groups to promote the “voting” that accompanies elections.

Of course, none of this is especially nefarious, except for Xandra Kayden’s negligence to reference her substantial ties to the Azeri government in her bio at the end of her op-ed. It is important context when gauging the credibility of her defense of the Aliyev regime’s attempt to suppressing the religious liberties of Azerbaijani citizens. When contemplating why she’d lash out at a respected news organization like RFE/RL to defend a man universally considered a tyrant, who runs a country no one thinks is free or even very functional, I sure would like to know she’s just the latest of a long line of American intellectuals (and Andrew Brietbart) the Azerbaijani government had funded to produce a more positive impression of the country in the public here.

By not disclosing her financial and other ties to the government in Baku, Xandra Kayden is misleading the Washington Times’ readers into thinking she represents an objective, academic assessment. She does not. Xandra Kayden has a vested interest in defending the Azerbi ban on headscarves, and she should have stated that when writing about it publicly.

Here at Registan.net, we’ve almost made it a sport to poke fun—sometimes gently, sometimes not—at the ridiculous antics of the family members of the Former Soviet Union states. It should come as no surprise that many of the dynasties currently choking Central Asia are, in fact, rotten to the core… though, as Steve LeVine points out, the Wikileaks cables give us some depressingly precise details:

The cable, sent January 27 by Charge Donald Lu, is an impressive profile of Aliyeva. One section relates a story regarding her “substantial cosmetic surgery.” During a 2008 visit to Baku by Lynne Cheney, the wife of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, the youthful-looking Aliyeva and her two daughters mingled with White House, U.S. embassy and security staff while they awaited the arrival of the Cheney vehicle. “Which one of those is the mother?” a puzzled U.S. Secret Service agent asked of his colleagues, referring to the three Aliyeva women. No one could figure it out on sight, before one finally decided, “Well, logically the mother would probably stand in the middle.” On the other hand, Lu found a downside to the facelift: “On television, in photos, and in person, she appears unable to show a full range of facial expression.”

Oh, snaps. Steve goes on to detail some digs taken by Tashkent-based diplomats at our favorite social punching bag, Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s dictator, Islam Karimov. It’s all pretty standard stuff—outrageous acts of vanity, hints and the occasional outright example of shocking thuggery propping it up, floating on a veritable sea of corrupt-to-the-core business deals enriching single families at the expense of their entire countries.

It’s easy to go overboard with this stuff. Yes, these are bad people—not just the worst sort of tacky post-Soviet new money but capricious, petty, and even violent criminals in many cases. But there’s no need to exaggerate, which is all too easy to do if you’re not careful. For example, Der Spiegel ran a story similar to Steve’s, claiming to detail shocking examples of American-coddled excesses in places like Kazakhstan. The problem, as Christian Bleuer notes, is that big chunks of it are, in essence, faked.

Let’s not forget the U.S. isn’t the only country actively trying to secure its access and influence in the region. The Wikileaks cables also detail French companies (abetted by French diplomats) indulging the excesses of Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, for example (whose excesses are, sadly, not so different from his predecessor’s). So America, while possibly the most visible, is not the only Western country feeding into the familial excesses of Central Asia.

So yes, let us wring our hands that foreign policy involves dealing with bad people; but please—maintain a little perspective too.

(Before you even start: this does not prove the “value” of Wikileaks. None of this is new, at all, for long-time watchers. All Wikileaks provides is a convenient hook for talking about it again. Nothing more, nothing less.)

…because he just decreed that the Azeri people’s debt to the state owned gas company is kaput.
Wait, did I say “decreed”? I guess this isn’t a vote thing after all. It’s just Caucasus economics.

Aliyev looks great to his people (and his parliament). He gets to be a father of the people just like his dad. And considering that all he really did was creatively title a tax break, its a pretty solid PR win. Eternal Remont says as much in less words.

It’s nice to see that Azerbaijan, for all of the freedom-of-press issues and single-track-economy issues at least ostensibly has Azeri folks’ interests in mind. Even though I enjoyed my time in Azerbaijan myself, every time I think of the country now I think of Carpetblogger, who is hardly an Aliyev mouthpiece. But as much as Azerbaijan has gotten ragged on pretty often in the past, it is an actual country with an actual economy. It is far more like the countries to the west of it than it is to the ones on the other side of the Caspian, I would wager. It even has a national book! Written by one of the more fascinating men I’ve read about (Lev Nussinbaum has a better reason to hate Communism than you do: Stalin slept with his mom).

So there is something definitively there to get punditized. Aliyev’s annulling of Azeri debt probably has investors in Azeri industry (read: BP) disgruntled, and it looks more like real governance than anything else going on between the Black and the Caspian. So there’s something that could be responsibly discussed, which beats things like “zOMG! Circassians are a threat to Russia and thus must be looked at like Chechens or maybe like Ossetians or was it more like Georgians!”

Let’s try something different today. A big part of some folks’ frustration with getting involved in Central Asian happenings is that they have a difficult time jumping in to the deep-end of the subject matter that gets covered here. To remedy that, I’m going to try to explain some trends in energy policies within Central Asia…using lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.

The Man in the Coon Skin Cap / In the big pen / wants eleven dollar bills / you only got ten
Any of the large energy projects that are going to, by definition, require a whole lot of investment. None of the -stans would be able to drum up enough capital by their own governments alone. They are all just branded as more-or-less inept, blundering, kelptocracies by people who are ignorant of the area. And this won’t change without the opportunities that real investment will afford. But the IMF-esque sources of money tend to come with the sorts of conditions that can cripple a developing country. Check that link…note how the astute writer notes that Central Asia is between South Asia and East Asia. Unfortunately, the IMF has really put the screws to the folks they want to help. In their 2009 projection, they note that “In contrast [to the rest of the countries], Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are projected to register robust growth in 2009…” So the three countries with the least IMF support are the ones weathering the global depression the most. Hmm. Fortunately, China, India, the Aga Khan Foundation, and Iran would be more than ready to fund projects that the IMF won’t.

Maggie comes fleet foot / Face full of black soot / Talkin’ that the heat put / Plants in the bed but
China’s pollution is pretty much the stuff of legends at this point. Any project they get a part of in Central Asia will likely be gargantuan, but it’ll also lead to who-knows-what sort of consequences. I’m actually returning from an energy conference where one of the keynote speakers praised that “China is a country run by engineers while America is a country run by lawyers.” That statement can be parsed in many ways, but it does sort of explain some of the more awkward parts of China’s Central Asian policies. Who knows what would happen if policies like that started happening in the Fergana Valley. But as glaciers melt and the Fergana becomes that much more fertile, especially relative to the rest of Central Asia), it could become the Next Big Economic Region.

You don’t need a weather man / To know which way the wind blows
OK, this is sort of a stretch, lyrics-wise, but Central Asia is home to some of the flattest stretches of the flattest land on Earth. As such, it makes a pretty good sandbox for emerging wind-power technology. Mongolia has gotten a pretty decent start, but its a country with low energy usage…it can support those sort of possibilities. It will be really interesting to see what happens with Uzbekistan’s experimentation with wind power. It’s another country that is a pretty big energy importer (as well as water importer) for the region that badly needs to diversify. Wind power is too expensive to be practical now, but I’m open to anyone who could prognosticate the future of wind power in Uzbekistan better than I. Again, depending on the practicality of wind power, it could become just as important as hydropower is for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Any frame of energy independence for the steppe states would seem to change future relations between the water importers and exporters as related to dam-building.

Lookin’ for a new fool / Don’t follow leaders / Watch the parkin’ meters
Carbon Sequestration is the new big thing in the energy world. Or at least was at the energy conference, which was led by Big Coal…sequestration allows them to keep doing what they are doing without any changes, just burying stuff and hoping it will go away (just plants are not enough to sequester the sort of CO2 being thrown up there). But even experts are skeptical about it, mostly because nobody has any clue whatsoever at what the long-term effects are of shoving noxious gasses far underneath the surface. Central Asia is a long way from US Voters, though, and projects like this get serious consideration…because what’s the Tien Shan from New York? If the opportunity comes to get a sweetheart deal from some corporation in exchange for the opportunity to do carbon sequestration in the Kazakh or Turkmen gas fields, I would be skeptical, to say the least. Unless this turns out wonderfully or something.

The pump don’t work / ‘Cause the vandals took the handles
It’s not related to Central Asia per se, but it’s worth quoting John Robb‘s fuzzy math at length:

ROI (return on investment) for Nigeria’s MEND. Four years of attacks that disrupted one million barrels a day of production (on average) = ~ 1.4 billion barrels disrupted. Direct costs at an average price of ~$70 a barrel and a $20 extraction cost to Nigerian kleptocrats and their corporate allies = $70 billion. Impact of the loss of 1 m barrels a day on the world, assuming a ~$10 premium due to the loss and ~80m barrels a day of global output = $800 m a day or $1.17 trillion. Loss of global economic output due to the premium = ~.5% of $50 trillion global GDP = $0.75 trillion. Total cost = ~$2 trillion. Cost of attacks = ~$1 m. ROI = 200 million %.

ROI = Return on Investment. MEND essentially costs the global economy $200,000,000 for every $1 they spend. I’m sure that the Taliban/Haqqani/IMU/what-have-you have numbers similar to that in their accounts…maybe I should just ask Abu Walid al Masri. At that rate of return, this is less of an insurgency, more of a social and economic revolution.

So hopefully that’s some stuff to chew on, and it should be enough fuel for many blog posts down the road. But one of my favorite quotes about historiography is Philip Roth’s “The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.”

The study of Central Asia is just so fascinating because there are so many open-ended questions that could be answered in a hundred different ways. The young people (myself included) of all educational, ethnic, national, or whatever backgrouns who are getting in on the bottom floor now have the opportunity to do incredible things in the region.

The NYT carries a story today about two Azeribaijani bloggers arrested this week on charges of “hooliganism” apparently in retaliation for a politcally charged satirical video they produced last month featuring a donkey giving a press conference.

English subtitles were kindly added to the video for all to enjoy (but not the postscript: can anyone offer a translation for that?). It’s pretty funny stuff. According to the NYT article, the project responds to a minor political controversy about importing donkeys from abroad. Watching the video, though, that’s clearly only the beginning of issues parodied–they also hit things like petty theft from airport officials and the rights of individuals to set up NGOs, not to mention the state of human rights laws broadly. It seems more likely that Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, the video’s creators, were arrested for more than their take on the country’s livestock import policies.

Anyway, the video is funny, and it clearly links itself to a tradition of winking political satire of the Soviet era with music from one or the other of the famous Soviet-era “slapstick” movies (I think it’s either Kavkazskaya Plennitsa or Dzhentelmeni Udachi, the soundtracks are pretty similar, anybody know??). These films were sharp-edged parodies of the absurdities of Soviet life in a form just silly enough to slip past the communist censors–but apparently a German-speaking donkey just isn’t silly enough for democracy. Details are a little sketchy on the grounds for the two bloggers’ arrest, but if the Azerbaijani regime seriously can’t handle a video of a guy dressed in an oversized animal costume playing a violin it can’t be a good omen for freedom of speech on the interwebs in Central Asia Eurasia.

UPDATE (Friday, 17 July): Steve Levine has written a post on this as well with more detailed information.

Over at Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating assesses Azerbaijan’s NATO membership chances to be decent compared to other candidates’ which is kind of like the analytical equivalent of Evel Knievel attempting to jump Snake River Canyon. It’s a bold argument, but I’m playing the part of ABC Sports here and not buying it.

Keating jumps off from a EurasiaNet story on Azerbaijan’s NATO prospects in which an alliance official says that Azerbaijan is potentially a more attractive member than Georgia or Ukraine and may join before either of them. What Keating comes away with is that Azerbaijan’s prospects are better than Georgia’s or Ukraine’s because it has never expressed too much interest in joining, and that not trying too hard to join might be the easiest way to gain entry. This is absurd.

There are enormous obstacles to Azerbaijan becoming a NATO member. In fairness to Keating, he recognizes that these obstacles exist. But the downsides of bringing on Azerbaijan make it about as unattractive a member as either Georgia or Ukraine. The biggest difference is that because Azerbaijan hasn’t talked too much about wanting to join, Russia hasn’t spilled any bluster over bringing Azerbaijan and NATO members haven’t spent any time talking about how bad it would be to make Azerbaijan a member.

Guess who wrote this:

While there are no Starbucks or Crate and Barrels in Baku, the city’s 2-million-plus residents experience a life radically more American than Saudi. Soviet aesthetics and mannerisms still dominate, yet materialism rears its Bulgari-ed head.

“Tropic Thunder” and “Hellboy II” play in the local multiplex down the promenade from Cafe Mozart, where foreigners and natives take in ample beer, cappuccino and Wi-Fi to the wee hours. Unfinished high-rises punctuate Baku’s dusty skyline, while Mercedes and Range Rovers compete with Russian Ladas on her hilly roads.

The smell of oil is in the air.

This is Andrew Brietbart, writing in The Washington Times. His report is remarkable for reasons beyond this excerpt, which is noteworthy for it’s sheer generic-ness (that could describe almost any city in the West… even some in Saudi Arabia). No, it’s remarkable because of the sheer number of admissions of ignorance:

• “Early last Monday, I landed in the capital city of Baku knowing little more than the country’s Wikipedia entry.” (He then proceeds to paraphrase that Wikipedia entry.)
• “I soon joined forces with one Dutch and seven American journalists on a “fact-finding” trip sponsored by the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy.”
• “(Should I know something about Nagorno-Karabakh? I recall similar ugly pangs in the ’90s as Bosnia-Herzegovina began to become an American problem. I was actually relieved they got my name wrong.)”
• “Independent war correspondent Michael J. Totten and National Review’s Rob Long joined me one night in a discussion on an hourlong news program. The topic? Nagorno-Karabakh. Out of necessity, we changed the subject to journalism.”
• “Azerbaijan is an under-praised ally of the United States, having granted the U.S. military access to Iraq via its vital airspace, and it has 150 troops assisting coalition forces guarding the Haditha Dam.” (Look at an actual map from, say, that Wikipedia page, and you’ll see you’d have to fly over Iran to get there.)
• “Every time I was given more information, I felt less informed.”

And why bother doing any research at all about a place before you go? This amounts to, “Baku is wealthy, Azerbaijan has oil, and my hosts told me a lot about their country.” And he got paid to write this dreck (in the Washington Times, but still). And Michael Totten links to it! If this is all Totten’s reporting amounts to, I am going to seriously reconsider my respect for him.

I’m listening to a CD of Rashid Behbduov right now. Who, you ask? Don’t feel bad, I had never heard of him either. My boss just walked into my office and offered the CD to me, describing it as “old-timey Azeri music.”

According to his entry on Wikipedia, Behbudov was born in Tblisi in 1915 and became a prominent pop singer in the post-war years. He was very popular not only in Azerbaijan, but also in Turkey and Iran (as well as India and South America, bizarrely).

The music is…interesting. Of course, I can’t understand a word he’s saying, but I guess it’s relatively similar to American crooners like Dean Martin, Sinatra, etc. Not exactly my cup up tea, but if the wiki entry is to be believed (it kind of reads like a translation from promotional materials, so I’m a little skeptical) he was quite the star back in the day.