Scales of trade, informal economy and citizenship at Georgian-Azerbaijani borderlands

Abstract

This story of petty traders seeking markets across the border between Azerbaijan and Georgia is typical for border regions and also for post-socialist economic formations. Azerbaijani traders were known during late socialism in the former Soviet Union (SU) as having a special inclination and even talent (if not disrepute) for engaging in petty trade and informal economy and for travelling to many parts of the Soviet republics, from Moscow to Vladivostok. Caroline Humphrey (2002, chapter 4) and Georgi Derlugian (2005: 150-154) write that Azerbaijani traders were specialized in trading certain agricultural products or sold illegal products such as alcohol during the late socialist era and immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (see also Yalçin-Heckmann 2010). In this paper we focus on their activities primarily across the Azerbaijani-Georgian border. Nino Aivazishvili has worked in a border region in Northwest Azerbaijan and Lale Yalçin-Heckmann has been studying petty-trade and scales of trade in Aʇstafa, a West Azerbaijani small town, also close to the Georgian border.