The oilmen and the orphans

But it is in one such pub, run by a Middlesbrough oil worker, that I am told about the hidden side of Azerbaijan - the orphanages that are home to hundreds of abandoned children.

When he is not building oil and gas platforms for the Caspian Sea, engineer Terry Robinson runs The Garage bar. The 42-year-old, from Brambles Farm, Middlesbrough, has raised more than ?100,000 for good causes, including Saray Orphanage.

Terry works alongside his brother Craig, 38, and their cousin Mick Connelly, 43. They are among the many who have been lured to Azerbaijan by big wages. A welder can earn nearly ?60,000-a-year - more than double what he would earn in the UK - and the money is tax-free.

But Terry and his pals are tired of British oil workers being portrayed as greedy, drunken characters chasing local women. He is keen to show how hard he and his colleagues work and how many have used their spare time to renovate the orphanage.

Terry's friend and fellow oil worker, Akif Askerov, drives me out to Saray. He speaks good English, his accent peppered with a Teesside twang. Once at Saray, we pull up outside the large, white, four-storey building and are instantly mobbed by dozens of youngsters - all clearly disabled.

Inside the orphanage, we meet Serkhan Valeh, who at 13 is unable to speak other than to make groaning noises. His arms are pinned to his side with a sheet in a crude, home-made straitjacket. Rahila Hasinova, the nurse in charge of the orphanage, explains how the jacket is needed to keep him safe. Serkhan has cerebral palsy and would hurt himself if his arms were free.

The other children laugh and scream hysterically, some rocking backwards and forwards as Rahila tries to calm them down. These are just some of the 160 children in Saray Orphanage.

Rahila explains how the orphanage was built in 1974 after concerns about the high number of children being born with conditions such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida and Down's syndrome. While the staff work hard to care for the orphans, the children sleep eight to a room and there is a strong smell of urine. Some are unable to walk and have to use their arms to drag themselves along the floor.

The economy of Azerbaijan may have grown 34 per cent last year, thanks largely to a consortium of oil companies investing ?10bn, but behind the country's new-found wealth are the apparent victims of the old, Soviet chemical industry. According to scientists, these children were born brain damaged due to the pollution. Most of the children are from the nearby town of Sumqayit, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Sumqayit was the biggest petro-chemical centre in the Soviet Union. Built on the orders of Stalin in the 1930s, the town grew from a population of just 6,000 to around 350,000. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the country's independence in 1991 opened Sumqayit to the outside world and environmentalists revealed the high levels of pollution. In 1992, the government of Azerbaijan declared Sumqayit "an ecological disaster zone".

In 2004, a report by Azerbaijan's Ministry of Health claimed 30 out of every 1,000 children in Sumqayit were born with defects. Of those, three of every 30 had Down's syndrome - around three times the rate of Britain.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has tried to establish a link between the pollution levels and the health of people in Sumqayit. One report estimated there were 200,000 tonnes of "mercury sludge" dumped around the town. The report claimed mercury, which had been used to make chemicals, may have leaked into water supplies. Mercury poisoning can damage babies in the womb.

Rahila, who has worked at the home for 23 years, earns just ?20 a month. She says: "I cannot say for sure why the children are ill but many people say it is because of the pollution. I work very hard. We get used to it now but it was difficult before. As a mother myself, I feel very bad. I have three children myself. I feel very sad when I see these children. If I could, I would give them anything they want.

"Their parents bring them in because they can't afford to look after them. Some parents come in to see them once a week, others once a month, but some never visit their children. Some have been abandoned by their parents totally.

"Once every two weeks, they get to go to the seaside or a concert. When the people see the children, they sometimes stand and cry because they cannot handle seeing children who are so badly disabled."

If conditions seem cramped now, Rahila claims they are much better than they were. "Things are not as bad as they used to be when the factories were open," she says. "There were 400 children in the orphanage ten years ago. The government pays for the orphanage but the charities pay for the refurbishment. We're really grateful for everything Terry and his friends have done for us."

That night, back in The Garage bar, Terry explains how the regulars have formed a club called the Black Eye Patch Fraternity to raise money for the orphanage. Terry also pesters big companies to match the money raised by the workers. More than ?100,000 has been donated so far.

"Much of that money was used to refurbish the orphanage and we even went up there and did some of the work ourselves. I tiled the bathroom," says Terry. "It was in a right state and it's good to see the children can now get washed in a nice clean environment."

Together, Terry, Craig and Mick have spent more than 45 years working for Rigblast and have travelled all over the world. They have amassed a number of stories such as in 2000, when Terry and Craig were caught up in a massive earthquake which hit Baku.

"We were six floors up and it was around 10pm. We were sat having a meal," says Craig, who has a wife and six children back in Middlesbrough.

"The table started shaking and I thought it was Craig kicking it. Our friend told us to get out. When we got on the stairs, it was like walking on jelly. There were families coming out onto the stairs and we had to go down 12 flights to get out into the street. There were stones and roof slates falling from buildings."

Mick works as a supervisor in charge of quality control. Back home in Middlesbrough are his wife Jose and daughters Louise, 19, Natalie, 15 and Shauna, eight. Like many North-Easterners, he says he's in Azerbaijan for the money.

Although Terry loves living and working in Baku, he plans to return to Britain one day. "I was born in Middlesbrough and I'll die in Middlesbrough," he says.

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