Azerbaijan, from backlot to front stage

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Baku's oil fields, the source of Azeri prosperity Keystone

President Ilham Aliyev and his wife, after receiving France's Legion of Honour Reuters

Flattened homes and forced expropriations were part of the scenery ahead of Eurovision Reuters

A member of the Müsavat opposition party arrested during a demonstration in March in Baku Reuters

Baku's Crystal Hall, site of the Eurovision Song Contest Keystone

Azeri duo El and Nikki, winners of the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest Keystone

A computer rendering of the Khazar islands, which should become the largest group of artificial islands on the Caspian Sea. Plans include the construction of a tower 1,050 metres high Keystone

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Thanks to its oil resources, the small Caucasian republic has seen its growth boom since independence in 1991. But while ambitious projects are launched to highlight progress, other problems lurk in the shadows.

After hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in a flashy new congress centre, the country plans to build a skyscraper more than a kilometre high southeast of the capital Baku.

The tower is part of a project to create a city of more than one million inhabitants spread over 41 artificial islands and which could cost $100 billion by the time it is finished in 2022. (Photos: Keystone, Reuters)