The Covid-19 quarantine was the biggest change I have ever experienced. It brought me great pain, but from this pain I was re-born.

Taguhi Mansuryan was not always an “other.” The 41-year-old beautician used to follow all “the rules” Armenian society demanded of her: she got married, she had a son—and she stayed with her husband even after he beat her.

Once a month the eight-page newspaper leaves Baku for the country’s south and is delivered to the community’s representatives to be disseminated in the villages.

Pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica, and many cuisines, including Georgian, enjoy its rich and versatile flavor. Pumpkins are more than just a food though – they are also a symbol of Halloween, a holiday celebrated mostly in America and Western Europe.

In the satirical novel Don Quixote, the chivalrous hero wanders the country charging in vain at windmills with his spear. Friends of Nigar Kocharli - who started out 15 years ago with $600 and now runs 20 Ali and Nino bookstores across Baku - ask her "why she insists on fighting her own windmills, not just by running her own business in Baku, but running it cleanly and honestly."

Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, has been on a rollercoaster since January 2015,  experiencing two devaluations which deeply affected people’s pockets. 

Religious billboards are a common locale in Nardaran, as are chadors, scarf-clad women, and clerics. The bastion of traditional Shia Muslims, the 8,000 people village is one of Baku’s 32 settlements, but the conservative atmosphere is a stark contrast to the modern glamour of Azerbaijan’s capital. The square, called among locals as “Imam Huseyn,” is the centre of religious celebrations, with hundreds of people converging to the town for the Eid celebration at the end of the month of Ramadan or the Ashura, a major commemoration in Shia Islam that marks the death of Imam Hussein in battle, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Words can harm more than actions, as Azerbaijan’s journalists know far too well; the list of reporters under the authorities’ radar gets longer by the day but publishing houses are not immune from their scrutiny.

Azerbaijani Turks are Iran’s biggest minority. Living mainly in the north-west of the country, in the region known as Southern Azerbaijan (or Iran’s North Azerbaijan), the 30 million-strong community make almost half of the republic’s entire population. Yet, the ethnic minority feels invisible, limited in its rights to affirm its identity and are pushed into the shadows - schools in Azeri Turkish are banned, so are media.

Azerbaijan does not stand out for its political activism - the few voices opposing the establishment are silenced, thus rallies are rare and gather small crowds.

Boarding the plane from Baku to Nakhchivan, the warnings in rare guide books are dispelled as we find no passengers stood in the aisles. Nor sheep, as some had joked in Baku.  The import of new Brazilian jets in 2013 mean that the journey is a more luxurious experience than you may be led to believe by Azerbaijani lore. But the warnings give an idea of the stereotypes and contradictions besetting the Azerbaijan’s exclave.

Heydar Aliyev’s face and name are seen throughout Azerbaijan -- from billboards and offices to a mosque and even an oil pipeline. But these are more than just images of a genial, elderly man or recollections of an Azerbaijani patriot. They are meant to show citizens how Azerbaijan defines itself.

Khanali Talysh knows well what the need to read in your own language is, and he is willing to travel and cover long distances to please it. Once a month the 77-year-old pensioner trek his way from his village of Qizilavar to the town of Masalli, in southern Azerbaijan, to get the latest issue of Tolishon sədo, the country’s only newspaper available in Talysh, Khanali’s language. 

The unresolved status-quo deeply affects people’s lives on a daily basis - posters of war heroes are plastered on shops’ walls, maps marking the lost territories are in all metro stations, and in schools pupils, commemorate the “homeland of Nagorno Karabakh” with poems and drawings. The no-war, no-peace state nurtures nationalism, run high, from the grocery shops to online chats.  

It used to be public devotion to Shi’a Islam that made the Azerbaijani village of Nardaran seem to residents like their own “small homeland.” 

Seventeen-year-old Rustam doesn’t rely on textbooks to learn about one of the most brutal clashes after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Instead, he has a more immediate source – his family’s 26-year-long struggle to find out what happened to his cousin in the 1992-1993 conflict with Tbilisi over Abkhazia.

The relationship between Gular’s family and her Armenian neighbors reflected the melting pot that was her overall neighborhood until the late 1980s.

Veteran female peace activist Arzu Abdullayeva shares her experience implementing peacebuilding projects with colleagues from Armenia, as well as neighboring Georgia and other countries.

Since Georgia lost control of Abkhazia in 1993, it has been increasingly difficult for the ethnic Georgians who remain there to maintain their language.

Due to the pandemic, life in Gali has become a daily struggle. T.B. lives in Gali. She collected the stories of people trying to survive in Gali and sent them to Chai Khana.