By Phil Roberts, 2025
The Azerbaijan national government had established the country’s first national park a few months before my ABA-CEELI assignment began in Baku in the spring of 2004. During my travels to see many parts of that country on my days off, I happened to tour an area that was soon to become another national park. A reporter from the city’s widest-circulating Azeri-Russian newspaper learned of my travels and discovered that I was from Wyoming, home of Yellowstone, America’s first national park. She interviewed me about America’s national parks and, on learning that I also taught environmental history, asked if I’d compare their histories. Even though it was not part of my assignment, I was happy to talk about it. The resulting published interview, with this picture taken of me in that area to be a national park, ended up as their front-page feature later that week! I couldn’t read Azeri (or Russian) but it must have been a good story because the environment minister soon asked me to visit with him about national parks. Definitely a flattering opportunity, made possible by the unique fact that I was from the state where Yellowstone was located! (Pictured: me, in what became, that August, Altyaghach National Park. photo taken by an ABA-CEELI colleague, June 2004)