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Last weekend, the magazine New York Times published Peter Savodnik’s article about Baku’s ambition to become a new hub for the global 1 percent, focuses on Khazar Islands, a $100 billion megadevelopment being built on the Caspian, and the headline flicks at the development’s target audience — celebrities and, mainly, people who want to be celebrities.

The question was raised whether could Kim Kardashiam even if she wanted to actually come to Baku?

“But these assumptions shouldn’t belittle the tensions that still exist between Azeris and Amernians. The first time I asked Ibrahimov about the Armenian question, we were in the back of his Rolls, and he said: “Armenian people cannot buy here. I will never sell to Armenian people. My generation will never forget,” the article said.

That’s what he’s supposed to say — it’s what the state wants him to say, because it distracts Azeris from the problems facing Azerbaijan like poverty and a lack of potable drinking water by focusing on the shared enemy that is Armenia, the writer says and notes that position of the head of the Azerbaijani corporation is the perfect Soviet-propaganda-speak — a sign that Azerbaijan may not look like it used to but, underneath all the glass and steel and neon lights, it is still an authoritarian state. But one that’s now open for big business.