Our Team



Our team is passionate about creating memorable experiences for you on your travel to the Caucasus. We plan our tours meticulously, bringing together our individual expertise and skills so that all that's left for you to do on your journey is enjoy your time to the fullest! We are also grateful to our enthusiastic local guides, generous hosts, responsible drivers, and perfect strangers we encounter on our trips for helping us make our vision of connected people and cultures a reality every single time.



Feride Buyuran

Chief Experience Designer, Tour Leader

Native of Azerbaijan and California resident, Feride Buyuran is on a mission to bring people together and connect cultures through compassionate communication and shared food. To serve this mission, in 2017 she founded Feride Buyuran Tours and set out to design full-immersion journeys to her birthplace, Azerbaijan, and neighboring Georgia. Through these unique experiences, Feride hopes to give people the gift of better understanding one another while savoring the best the region has to offer. Feride believes that sustainable travel she strives toward on her tours is rooted in mindfulness and that the value of a journey lies in moments lived and memories made. 

When she is in Azerbaijan, Feride traverses places near and far in search of new experiences to include in her next tour. Feride credits her enthusiasm for cultural research to her very first workplace, Azerbaijan International Magazine, where she worked as an editorial assistant at the turn of the 20th century. Feride’s passion for the cuisine of her homeland has been the inspiration behind her debut book, Pomegranates and Saffron: A Culinary Journey to Azerbaijan, which has won five prestigious awards, including Gourmand Best in the World.  

Feride has a Master’s degree in English Philology from the State University of Languages in Azerbaijan and a Master’s of Business Administration from California State University, Long Beach. She is fluent in English, Azerbaijani, Russian, and Turkish languages and has a working knowledge of Spanish. Feride enjoys singing, playing guitar, and dancing Flamenco.   

 



Natalia Golumb

Guide

Our friendly and enthusiastic guide Natalia Golumb has traveling and food as her biggest passions in life. She is excited to take like-minded individuals on eye-opening cuisine and culture tours across Azerbaijan. A graduate of Baku’s renowned Oil Academy with a degree in Economics, Natalia worked her way up as an International Relations expert in the banking industry, before taking a leap of faith into the world of food. She discovered the beauty of this path after traveling extensively in her native Azerbaijan and Europe.

Once she made up her mind, it didn’t take Natalia long to enroll in a local culinary school and to graduate with a chef’s diploma. That’s when she became active in the country’s ever-developing culinary field. Natalia's ardent passion for the art of food shows explicitly in her debut book Metbex Couture, which explores the contemporary gastronomic scene of Azerbaijan.


As an explorer of conscious eating, Natalia likes to research and understand ingredients and she sources organic products from Azerbaijan's countryside to make them accessible to city dwellers. She believes that food is the alchemy of love, and cooking can influence the emotions, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of people. Natalia speaks fluent English, Russian, and Azerbaijani. In her spare time, she enjoys drawing and painting.




Gani Nasirov

Guide

Baku’s rich history and architecture come alive with Gani, who has been instrumental in leading our Old City and downtown tours since 2018. His expertise and energy make him an invaluable asset to our team.



Gani was born in Azerbaijan’s Imishli region but grew up in Baku. He studied international relations at Baku’s Qafqaz (Caucasus) University and European Union-Russian relations at the University of Tartu in Estonia. He credits his alma maters for his knowledge of the geography, society, and politics of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus region. During two years as an assistant to general manager and translator at Gedebey Mine in western Azerbaijan, Gani became fascinated by the hidden and overt beauty and the rich culture of the region. This sparked his enthusiasm to explore the rest of the country and, fueled by a passion for travel, Gani became a professional tour guide in 2016.

Gani is a full-fledged travel blogger and his work has appeared in various local and international publications, including Visions of Azerbaijan Magazine and CNN Travel. Gani speaks Azerbaijani and English and is in the process of learning Russian and French. His interests include researching local stories such as urban legends and myths, food, culture, and architecture. Gani is also a soccer player with Baku's Bayil Rovers in Amateur League.