A first for the Pope; hotel stay during Baku tour

The smiling and only slightly overwhelmed general director, Vugar Mirzoyev, could hardly believe his luck. The Pope selected his inn over three five-star hotels and plenty of other posher places than his own.

Vatican officials chose it following a careful inspection of the options in the capital of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan. ‘‘When the people came from the Vatican we didn’t quite understand they’d want him to stay here,’’ Mirzoyev said in the small office of his clean and comfortable hotel on Monday. ‘‘When they said they’d like him to stay here we were very surprised.’’

The friendly and excited staff seemed unsure how to react to the visit of their most famous guest after four years in business.

Mirzoyev acknowledged he would probably put a small memento in the Holy Father’s room — following the example of Air Kazakhstan, which has a smart plaque identifying the seat of an airbus on which the Pope flew from Rome to Astana last year.

‘‘Of course I’m proud,’’ he said.

The Pope may have to go back one day. As the hotel’s English-language brochure put it: ‘‘High standard of services at very competitive prices will simply force you to come to us again.’’

By far the most-travelled Pope, John Paul is to visit Bulgaria after leaving Baku, on the second part of the 96th trip of his 23-year pontificate. Though officially living in a secular state, the eight million people of Azerbaijan are overwhelmingly Muslim, with only a few hundred registered Roman Catholics.

(Reuters)