Johnny the Warlord

On the Aktau/Baku ferry, one of the passengers (Johnny) invited me to stay with him at his home in Masalli. Johnny is ethnically a Talysh, there are close to a million of them, they speak their own language, more related to Farsi than to Turkish like the Azeri language.

Along the way (Johnny gives me a lift, with his friend Sayid) we pass a speed trap consisting of two policemen hiding under a tree with a radar gun. Johnny stops and they exchange a few words. Later he tells me that they'd caught him speeding two days earlier and asked him for a 20 manat (30AUD) bribe to not take his license for speeding. He replied that he had two licenses with him, if they could catch him, they could have one of them.

At one point, Johnny turns to me:

Johnny: You want to take a bath? I know a great place where the girls give the best blowjobs, my treat.

Me: Maybe later.

Johnny: Or how about we go shoot some guns, have you ever shot a gun before?

Me: No.

Johnny: Good, if we find some time, we'll go shoot some guns. I have pistols and a rifle, if you want, an AK47.

Me: Tempting.

Johnny: How about to go to Iran, the border is thirty kilometres from my home.

Me: I don't have a Visa.

Johnny: No problems, I know people here to take care of it for you, pay a small amount of money and you can get one to go over there.

Me: Bribing my way to Iranian visa, tempting.

As we're approaching his town, we pull over and Johnny points out two car wrecks that were involved in a head-on. The driver of one of them died, Johnny was the first to arrive on the scene to watch the driver die. The driver was his twenty-two year old nephew, he'd shown me a photo of the car crash earlier on the ferry.

Next up, we take a photo with one of his towns cops.

Johnny: Lets take a photo with the pig Ivan.

Cop: *laughs nervously*

Johnny: Don't worry, it's only going on the internet.

Cop: No, please not on the internet.

Johnny: Shut up and smile, I'm joking.

*take the photo*

Johnny: I lied, it's going on the internet.

Drinking tea in his local chai-hana (tea house). The man on the left of Johnny is the uncle of Hadji, another of the passengers on the boat who walked/hitchhiked his way from Baku to Mecca. The man to my left is Sayid, who came with us from Baku and who took me around the sights of the area.

The following day after sightseeing in and around Linkoran, we're having lunch and copious amounts of vodka follow. Out of the four of us drinking, I'm the only one not driving. We approach a couple of cops on the side of the road and Johnny offers one of the cops a 5 manat bribe. The cop replies, you know we don't need your money Johnny. After some insistence the cop takes the money.

Me: What was the point of that bribe?

Johnny: We were out drinking. The cops would never think about hassling me for drinking, but now if they pull over the other two drivers, there won't be any problems for them.

Me: Why would they never think about pulling you over here?

Johnny: I'm well respected here, everyone knows me. I used to have an army and fight against the Azeri government. I was against our current president and in support of another man, because of this, we fought wars with the president. I've spent six years in prison because of this, but I've quit all that, I have a family now, a wife and children, they don't want me to die.

It's amazing to see how much the neighbourhood and his friends respect him. Irrespective of whether it's fear or admiration, his favourite restaurant always has a table ready for him, vodka food, everything.

It shows most in his five year old son's attitude. Not being used to not getting what he wants, he throws tantrums over anything that doesn't go his way. Hi bites, he spits and soon he messes with me. He spits on me once and I slap him across his face, hard enough to bring him to tears. When the kid inevitably runs to daddy, Johnny asks me what happened. I told him the kid had been spitting, I hit him so that next time he got the urge to spit, he'd remember the pain, I'd expect the same sort of discipline for my children. Johnny thanks me and tells me he's never had anyone have the courage to do that.

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