50 Cultural Facts of Azerbaijan

1.  Bread is never thrown away. If someone sees a piece of bread on the ground, they will pick it up and place it on a higher platform, for example, fences, window sills, stair rails.
2.   Men will always give their seats to women on the bus.
3.   Bathrooms are split into two rooms: the hamam (shower) and the tualet (toilet.) Sandals are always worn in the hamam.
4.  Tea is always drunken with cubes of sugar or candy.
5.  Tea is thought to be healthier than water because water will either make you fat or sick.
6. When you go to someone’s house, you are always served at least one cup of tea.
7. Guesting (a term coined by PCVs) consists of going to someone’s house, drinking tea with them, sharing a meal, drinking more tea, watching Turkish soap operas, teaching their kids several words in English, maybe playing some games with them, meeting their extended family, and possibly offered the option to stay overnight.
8. On average, guesting is a four hour activity with the minimum lasting two hours and the maximum lasting days.
9. Bringing a small gift, such as chocolate, is a cordial offering for guesting. However, your hosts will never open it and share it with you.
10.  Being overweight is thought to be ugly, but if you become thinner, they think you’re not eating enough and become concerned for your well being.
11.  Women are typically incredibly skinny until they are married. Once they are married, it’s the time to gorge.
12.   The only people who exercise in this country are adolescent boys and young men. The boys play football all afternoon and the young men are soldiers.
13.  Shoes are never worn in the house.
14. Shoes are always spotless.
15.  In the winter the roads are covered with at least one inch of mud from the rain.
16. The everyday clothing for males between the ages of 8 and 30 are dark, tight jeans, black shirts, and thin, black, down jackets, and black pointy dress shoes.
17.  For men over the age of 30, the day to day dress is a suit.
18.  In the home, men wear dress shirts and track pants.
19.  For young girls aged 8-30, the day to day wear consists of dark fitted denim, black high heels, and camel or black short trench coats.
20.  For women older than 30, they wear long mid calf black skirts, black boots, black leather jackets or dark brown faux fur jackets.
21. For women of all ages, “house dresses” are worn in the home. These are long, terry clothed material, zippered house robes with neon colored trimmings often decorated with cartoon animals or misprinted English words.
22. With the exception of the hottest months of summer, socks are always worn in fear of becoming sick.
23. There are more hair salons for men than for women.
24. Only men drive cars.
25.  Driving requires the full spectrum of senses. Honking is the strategy to alert people of your presence.
26.  Ladas account for the largest percentage of cars here. Mercedes is the second most popular.
27. Both are made into taxis.
28.  In most places, taxis are 1 manat to get anywhere in town.
29. Women are not allowed to sit on the bare floor because it will freeze their ovaries.
30.  After a couple is married, the bride moves in with her husband’s family.
31. If the couple lives in a different city than the family, the woman lives with the husband’s family for the last couple months of her pregnancy until the 40^th day birthday of the newborn.
32. On the 40^th day after a baby is born, the family holds a party and breaks a large sugar mold to share with family and friends.
33. When there is any kind of celebration, a birthday, an engagement, a newborn, chocolate is brought by the person celebrating to share. For example, children bring chocolate to teachers and classmates on their own birthday.
34. New Year’s is celebrated like how we celebrate Christmas due to the Russian Orthodox influence upon a Muslim country. Therefore, Santa Claus comes to Azerbaijan on the 31^st and not the 25^th.
35. The language of Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani which is closely related to Turkish. However, most older generations speak Russian from the days of Soviet Rule. In fact, Cyrillic was adopted as the alphabet but was changed a little over 10 years ago.
36. People only listen to music and TV at one volume: Loud.
37. Forks, spoons, and fingers are the only utensils used for eating. Meat is picked off bones with fingers. There is usually only one butter knife in every house and if placed on the table, shared by everyone.
38. Amongst women, nothing discussed is off limits.
39. Arranged marriages between cousins are not uncommon.
40. Gold caps are used for all dental issues.
41. Everyone has a cell phone and multiple SIM cards.
42. When an Azerbaijani knocks on your door, they will do it repeatedly for about 5 minutes until you answer the door or realize that you are not home.
43. When an Azerbaijani calls you and you do not pick up, they will call you 10 more times immediately after that.
44. Popular TV programs are soap operas, usually coming from Latin America, dubbed in Turkish. Currently the most popular one is set in Brazil and India to portray multiculturalism interacting with each other at its best.
45. Most Azerbaijanis have not travelled outside of their home town except to go to the capital, Baku. However, when you mention a region they will tell you all about the one thing that it is famous for. For example, my region, Neftchala is famous for its fish therefore I must eat a lot of fish. Lenkeran is known for its lemons and Quba is known for its apples. I’ve never bought fish here.
46. If you tell an Azerbaijani of any future plans, great or small, the response is always Inshallah, God willing or Allah Qoysa, If God Allows. And anything good in your life is received with an Allah Shekur, Thanks to God. 
47. Small talk happens in this sequence of sentences and questions. (Literal translations) Hello. How are you? What do you have? What don’t you have? You’re good? Good. Yourself is good? Good. Thank you. Safe travels. This entire conversation usually happens without stopping and within 30 seconds shouted along the street.
48. When asked “How are you?” The typical answer is “Thank you.” I guess there just isn’t time for “I’m good” or “I’m ok.” But they do have the time to say “thank you” at least twice.
49. Since it is winter, an extra question is added to the basic small talk. It happens after around “What don’t you have?” The question is “Do you have gas? You do? Thanks to God!”
50. After you shower, someone will say to you “Hemishe temizlikde” which loosely translate to, Always be Clean.

 **Bonus: When you greet someone, if they are the same gender as you, you kiss them on their cheek once, sometimes twice. Men will shake hands at the same time as the kiss. If it's someone of the opposite sex, depending on the degree that you know them, you might just say hello, shake their hand, or kiss them on the cheek as well. Azerbaijanis don't hug in the American sense.

Most of these are just part of everyday life for me. It took me two days to finally fill a quota of 50. Really, what’s strange anymore?