Azerbaijan, Asia travel resource.

Azerbaijan,Asia.

If you're looking for oil, good caviar or a jumping-off point for a trek into the Caucasus Mountains, this small country sandwiched between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea may be just the place. Baku is one of the region's more lively cities, a boomtown again after years of Soviet stagnation. The rest of Azerbaijan, however, remains largely underdeveloped, with a barren mountainous landscape, poor infrastructure and cumbersome post-Soviet bureaucracy. Azerbaijan isn't an easy place to navigate for the average traveler, but it's worth a few days on an itinerary of the region, if only to get a flavor of the entrepreneurial spirit thriving in the country as it seems on the verge of unlocking the economic potential of its offshore oil reserves. With the completion of a long pipeline in summer 2005, Azerbaijan's Caspian oil fields will be connected to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea -- despite the protests of environmental groups. Whether this project proves to benefit the citizens of Azerbaijan or Western interests remains to be seen.