{"id":9764,"date":"2019-07-18T15:57:38","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T11:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aba.az\/?p=9764"},"modified":"2019-07-18T15:57:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T11:57:40","slug":"azerbaijan-as-experienced-by-vladimir-vasic-the-secretary-general-of-the-association-of-serbian-banks-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/azerbaijan-as-experienced-by-vladimir-vasic-the-secretary-general-of-the-association-of-serbian-banks-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan as Experienced by Vladimir Vasi\u0107, the Secretary General of the Association of Serbian Banks (PHOTOS)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I would like\nto see a traveller suddenly teleported to Azerbaijan<\/strong>,\nor to its capital, Baku<\/strong>. It would be\ninteresting to see if this traveller would recognize the place, the country and\nthe culture they found themselves in, said Vladimir\nVasi\u0107, Secretary General of the Association of Serbian Banks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are his\nimpressions from this trip:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first\nimpression of Azerbaijan concerns its versatility,\ndiversity in every form<\/strong>. Geographically, historically and culturally, this\ncountry on the shores of the Caspian Sea is somewhere between Europe and Asia.\nLocated south of the Caucasus, it is obvious that a lot of effort has been\ninvested to show how it belongs to the Old Continent. This is reflected in the\nfact that local athletes often participate in European championships, and that the\nEuropean Games and the Eurovision Song Contest were held here, as well. Because\nof its proximity to a lake and the countless canals, some say that Baku reminds them of Venice<\/strong>. This\nsimilarity is, in fact, not accidental. It is a city’s investment in a project\nthat imitates this Italian city in downtown of Baku, with even hardworking gondoliers\npresent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile,\nthe Caspian lake, the largest in the world (for comparison, its surface area is\nroughly equal to the territory of Germany or Norway), and due to the salinity\nof the water known as the Caspian Sea, it is one of the symbols of this\ncountry. It is said that it holds more than 40% of all lake water on Earth and it\nis the foundation of the famous Caspian Basin, one of the largest global oil\nand gas fields. Oil is really “the be-all end end-all” in this\ncountry on the East coast of the Caspian Sea. It is interesting to note that\nBaku is the first city in which oil was exploited, even back in the middle of\nthe 19th<\/sup> century, and that even the famous Nobel brothers had their\nown oil company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azerbaijan is\na land of glorious history, a territory where civilisation has been developing\nsince ancient times. It had a tumultuous history, including recent events such\nas the Soviet intervention and later years of struggles for the supremacy of\nvarious religious, military and national groups. National differences, and especially\nrecent conflicts and wars, have been described by writer Khaled Hosseini<\/strong>, and millions of his sold books made Azerbaijan much more famous worldwide<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With such a\nhistorical and cultural background, I was not surprised to see a very diverse cuisine.\nSome would say that it could be compared\nmostly with the Turkish cuisine, but I would say that it is entirely unique and\nreally interesting<\/strong>. And the most important thing when it comes to the\ncuisine: we have been welcomed by extremely hospitable hosts and the cleanliness\nwas astounding. Perhaps it is a prejudice when we travel east, but the orderliness of these people is truly\namazing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work in\nthe capital of Baku had to do with the mentioned efforts of our hosts to be\npart of the European family. Namely, the Association of Serbian Banks\nparticipated in the regular meeting of the associated members of the European\nBanking Federation (EBF). We discussed current developments in the banking\nsector, as well as important political changes and the elections in the\nEuropean Parliament. The Association of Serbian Banks once again presented our\nbanking system to the international public. I have to point out that during our\nstay, Danica Veinovi\u0107, the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of\nSerbia in Baku, provided us with her genuine and full support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you add the feeling of total security<\/strong> to these\nwonderful impressions, then we can truly say that it is worth visiting Baku,\nwhich is also called the City of the Wind, and Azerbaijan, also known as the Land\nof Fire. Both well deserve their nicknames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here you can see the photos from this exotic journey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I would like to see a traveller suddenly teleported to Azerbaijan, or to its capital, Baku. It would be interesting to see if this traveller would recognize the place, the country and the culture they found themselves in, said Vladimir Vasi\u0107, Secretary General of the Association of Serbian Banks. Here are his impressions from this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aba-xbrlri"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9778,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions\/9778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aba.az\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}