Azerbaijan is about the size of Maine or Indiana, but rich in oil and gas -- and dazzling in its political volatility. One figure who has managed to survive in this tumult is now resigning -- for reasons that are instructive to anyone interested in Russia's current problems in the region. PNS commentator Thomas Goltz, author of "Azerbaijan Diary" (M.E. Sharpe, 1999) is currently working on a book on ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet Caucasus.

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN -- He was known as the ultimate political survivor. Whether he was in or out, his ability to gauge the political weather in this city's always chaotic climate allowed him to survive three presidents, three acting presidents and regimes as different as the last Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Pan-Turkic ultranationalists, and the current kleptocracy of President Heydar Aliyev.

But now Vafa Guluzade, foreign policy guru of oil- and gas-rich Azerbaijan, is packing his bags -- or more specifically his famous collection of annotated history books and autographed memoirs -- and moving out of his office.

"This is how I decided," Guluzade explained. "I extracted the bones from two bowls of soup, subtracted the moisture from them, and then determined the number of rolls I should take. Of ten throws, nine told me to go. This is almost a statistical impossibility."

I first interviewed him back in September, 1991, on the very day the Azerbaijan Communist Party dissolved itself and the building turned from Party headquarters to the Executive Office of the President.

Guluzade has been threatening to resign. He could apply for work as a translator or counselor at the American embassy, or seek financial aid from wealthy Palestinian friends to support a run for high political office.

"Perhaps the best thing would be to get a job at an institution that could pay me a salary to think and teach--but not from, ah...those people."

"Those people" are the folks Vafa -- at least at first -- assumed had employed me in cloak and dagger affairs, people who would just love to pick his brain for his encyclopedic insider information.

The official reason for his departure is the standard, Soviet-style excuse -- failing health, need time to relax and write a book -- possibly on his role in the Middle East during the 1973 war.

But a more likely task would be to give the Azerbaijani side of the story about the war and negotiations with Armenia over the breakaway Azeri territory of Mountainous ("Nagorno") Karabakh -- a conflict that cost the lives of up to 35,000 (mostly Azeris), spawned over one million internal refugees (mostly Azeris) and left almost 20 percent of Azerbaijan (including Karabakh) under Armenian occupation before fizzling to an official cease-fire in May, 1994.

The conventional wisdom is that Guluzade's resignation is intimately connected to his displeasure, even rage, over the current stage of negotiations between Azerbaijan president Aliyev and Armenian president Robert Kocharian, the Karabakh leader (thus, technically, Azerbaijani citizen).

At their most recent meeting, sponsored in large part by the United States, in early October, the only news to leak out noted both sides recognized the need for "compromise" before the upcoming meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting.

"No, no, no --the timing of my departure has nothing to do with the OSCE, Istanbul or anything else," said Guluzade. "I have meant to resign for years, but there was always that next crisis. That prevented me because then everyone would say I resigned in protest.

"There will always be a next conference or next meeting about this unending crisis called our country. I just decided not to wait any longer."

Guluzade is blunt about the current tone of the Karabakh negotiations. "I can assure you we have offered the Armenians almost unimaginable concessions -- and they have offered nothing in return. Nothing!--because they cannot, because all of their decisions are not made in Armenia, but in Moscow."

Frustration over the Karabakh negotiations was not the only factor in Guluzade's decision. Indeed, he tends to agree with those who suggest that the population, except the so-called "radical" opposition, has long resigned itself to the loss of the territory that it, along with Armenia, claims as the very font and source of Azerbaijani national culture.

"No one cares about Karabakh anymore," he said wearily. "And apparently, no one really cares about reorienting ourselves toward Moscow, either."

That is the real nub of Guluzade's decision. Long known as a bitter critic of Russia's role in the south Caucasus -- he astonished many a western embassy last February when he called for a NATO airbase in Azerbaijan to counteract the Russian arming of Armenia -- Guluzade is baffled and disappointed by his country's silence toward the renewed fighting between Russians and Chechens.

"I have said it before and I will say it again. The people fighting against the Russian military both in Chechnya and Dagestan are freedom fighters, part of a Caucasus resistance that dates back more than 150 years, and will continue.

"I will go further. I will tell you right now that if that brave and courageous people in their tiny republic (of Chechnya) had not managed to defeat Russia in the 1994-96 war, Moscow would long have been back in Azerbaijan, making further trouble and trying to destroy our independence. Our debt to the Chechens is immense, huge--and yet not one voice in this government will speak one word of support or solidarity. Silence. I am ashamed, mortified. That is why I quit."

The French ambassador came to pay his respects. Later, he said "Vafa is not just an Azeri patriot--he is a man of the Caucasus." And a man of honor. But mainly a friend who liked to throw the dice.

They should build a statue for him, and top it with a brass windsock.