The Azeri Embassy

Nobody knows where anything is in Tashkent. It's not anyone's fault, I'm as directionally challenged as anyone here, but it's rather a result of state-sponsored efforts to promote all things Uzbek since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Incidentally, as I'm writing this I'm sort of watching a sports-talk TV show- just as bad in Russian as they are in English. Anyway, so the promotion of Uzbekism has, among many other things, involved the renaming of city streets, metro-stations and squares to names deemed more appropriate. Apparently some places have beeen renamed more than once with people using multiple names for the same place. For example, my office is on Abdulla Kahor Street however everyone still knows it as Zavodskaya, the old name. The naming combined with an almost total lack of street signs makes getting around a bit difficult.
For example, I need a visa for Azerbaijan. In a couple of weeks a friend and I are going to drive down to Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, head over to the Caspian Sea coast and take a ferry across to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. We can get the Turkmen visa at the border but have to get the Azeri visa before we arrive in the country.
So this morning, I found the embassy on a map (with new street names). I then went and talked to my boss who I knew had been there and she told me how to direct the cab based on landmarks. Of course though when I actually got in the taxi the driver just wanted to know generally what part of the city it was in and said he'd ask along the way. Only took two stops actually.
Got there and it was closed. Damnit. They've taken this week off for Navruz (a holiday in this part of the world marking the start of Spring). I did end up speaking to some guy behind the gate who said they'd be open next Monday and that I'd for sure be able to get the visa in one day. Hmmmmm.....