He backtracks to the next cit up the road, Lankaran. The minibus is bypassing the town, so he gets dropped off at the edge and hikes in, passing what looks like a tea processing plant, across a river and into the town.
 
Lankaran has a very laid back feel, with no really dense core . Instead, there's a huge, nicely trimmed park/plaza in the center with monuments to the soldiers and of course, as in all Azerbaijani towns, a monument to Heydar Aliyev, the first ruler of Azerbaijan after its independence from the Soviet Union.
 
He wanders around the town a bit, past its dilapidated train station... past a somber memorial to a massacre committed by the Armenians during the war in the 90s. 
 
Sevaral times in his struggles to converse with people, the subject of Armenia comes up, people are eager to tell about the atrocities committed by them against the Azeris.
 
Probably in Armenia, we'll be hearing the other side of the story.
 
He'd looked online and found one hotel in town, but when he finds it, he's told that it's full--and gives him directions to another hotel. After a bit of wandering through a scrappy market area, wondering what plan B and C will be, he finally finds the other hotel--which is surprisingly cheap. He happily drops off his things, and heads out to explore the town in a more relaxed manner.
 
Back in the main plaza, he meets a fellow who speaks good English--which he's happy for . It's hard to find an English speaker here.
 
The man is actually part Russian, and seems to have some Mongol ancestry, and he explains to the frustrations of the new generation.
 
"There used to be 7 factories here in Lankaran providing work for people. Now there are none. The government has been building big parks in all the cities--but we don't need parks... we need jobs!"
 
It seems to contradict what the Traveler had been taught about the evils of communism versus the wonders of capitalism... Here it seems that under communism there was a functional economy here in Lankaran--and now there is pretty much no future for the next generation of Azerbaijanis.
 
"The only real option for us is to go look for work in Russia" the man says.