{"id":1492,"date":"2015-05-20T08:36:34","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T08:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1492"},"modified":"2015-05-22T09:16:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T09:16:44","slug":"families-living-in-poverty-in-the-shadow-of-azerbaijans-luxury-sports-stadiums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1492","title":{"rendered":"Families living in poverty in the shadow of Azerbaijan’s luxury sports stadiums"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n

As authorities invest heavily in hosting European Games, residents ask who will benefit from the event. Meydan TV report<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The story of one family overshadowed by Azerbaijan\u2019s multi-million pound games. Photograph: Jahangir Youssif\/Meydan TV<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gulnara Suleymanova and her family of five live in a wagon behind Baku\u2019s prestigious new sports stadium, built especially for next month\u2019s European Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn your way here, you might have seen piles of sand, that\u2019s where my husband sieves when there\u2019s no work,\u201d says Suleymanova, who is a cleaner.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s income is about 300 Azerbaijani manats (\u00a3184) a month \u2013 which is barely enough for food, she says.<\/p>\n

Theirs is the story of a family subsisting alongside the ambitious venues constructed for Azerbaijan\u2019s inaugural Games and generously funded by the state oil company Socar. The authoritarian president, Ilham Aliyev, a keen enthusiast of the Games, is said to have invested a total of \u00a36.5bn in sports venues and infrastructure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Organisers are also paying the travel and accommodation expenses of all 6,000 athletes competing in the event, a move condemned by human rights groups<\/a> as an attempt to whitewash the country\u2019s poor human rights record and endemic corruption.<\/p>\n

Last week the government extended the detention of award-winning investigative journalist who had written articles exposing state corruption<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Life in the oilfields<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Suleymanova, the glaring disparity between the luxury stadiums and her family\u2019s daily struggle raises important questions about who the Games will actually benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cold in the winter, and it doesn\u2019t matter how much you use the heater,\u201d Suleymanova says. \u201cIn the summer, it\u2019s terribly hot. We take water from the neighbour. Water, gas, electricity are all one big problem. When it comes to living, you have to experience it yourself in order to understand. It\u2019s hard to describe.\u201d<\/p>\n