ABOUT THE AZERI GENOCIDE

Numerous acts of genocide against Azerbaijanis, which for many years did not receive its deserved political and legal assessment, is one of the secret pages of our history.

After the Republic of Azerbaijan regained its independence, it has become possible to renew the objective picture of the past history of our nation. The truth which for many years was kept back, is getting disclosed and misinterpreted events are getting their real value.

The Gulustan and Turkmenchay agreements signed in 1813 and 1828 provided the legal ground for the partition of the nation of Azerbaijan and division of its historical lands. The occupation of the lands continued the national tragedy of Azerbaijan people. Within a short time, gross settlement of Armenians in the territories of Azerbaijan has begun. The occupation of Azerbaijani territories became an integral part of the genocide.

Armenians moved to Yerevan, Nakhchivan and Karabakh khanates have achieved to establish their administrative territorial unit of Armenian region despite their minority as compared to Azerbaijanis residing in the same area. This artificial division provided political reasons for the removal and annihilation of Azerbaijanis in their native lands. This was followed by propaganda of the establishment of the Great Armenia. In order to ensure the exculpation of the idea to establish this fictitious state in the territory of Azerbaijan, a wide-scale programme, aimed at the falsification of the national history of Armenians, was started. The distortion of the history of Azerbaijan and the whole Caucasus, formed an integral part of this programme.

The Mystery of the Maiden Tower

The Maiden Tower is a Baku landmark, a much loved symbol of the city and of Azerbaijan. It looms dark and enigmatic, looking out to sea from the southern edge of Baku´s old, walled city, the Icheri Sheher. The origins of the tower are shrouded in mystery - no-one knows for certain when it was built or what it was built for or even how it acquired its name Maiden Tower (Qiz qalasi). No written sources survive that record its construction or original function.

Baku historian Sara Ashurbayli calculated that the tower must have been built in the 4th to 6th centuries AD. This was because of the tower’s unusual construction, the difference between the stone used in the tower and the stone of the medieval city surrounding it and the various legends about the Maiden Tower.

Another group of researchers think that the tower was built in the 11th century. The reason is the inscription 14 metres high on the south wall of the tower which reads Qubbeye Masud ibn Davud in old Arabic script^[1]. Epigraphist Mashadikhanim Nemat studied the inscription and explained the word qübbə as qüllə or tower, so Masud ibn Davud would have been the tower’s architect. The architect of the 14th century Mardakan Tower, Abdulmajid ibn Masud, is thought to be his descendant^[2].

The Many Forms of Heroism

It was a beautiful house – 2 storeys – with grape vines that climbed over the balconies.... Address? We didn’t have an address; everybody knew our house near the river. There was a big garden with apple, pear and plum trees, and potatoes.... my father loved boiled potatoes, and rice soup.... One of the apple trees was very small; every year it had just 3 apples, and we were three children. The apples smelled of honeydew melons and one day I took a bite out of one of them, but I left it on the tree; my father asked, ‘Why didn’t you pick it?’

Yasemen Hasanova’s eyes are bright with the memories of her childhood home. She tells of the wonderful views from the upstairs window, of gazing out at the town up on the heights in the distance – that town’s lights against the night sky were a thing of wonder to a child. They often went up there in her father’s yellow Moskvich to take long walks. It was difficult to walk anywhere in our town. My father had so many friends and was very sociable; he loved to talk. Whenever we had to go somewhere my mother asked him not to stop and talk, or we would never get there.

Summer in Azerbaijan

Caspian Sea shore

As summer arrives in Azerbaijan, and the temperature in the capital city Baku soars, then the lure of the surrounding countryside increases exponentially. Even the smartest city folk jump into a car or bus at a moment´s notice, and head for the country´s beaches or forested mountains.

With the improving road system, travelling is fast becoming quick and comfortable; favourite destinations can be reached very easily indeed. Choose between a day trip or a longer stay, go wild camping in luxuriant meadows, or get pampered in 5 star world class luxury hotels, the choice is yours depending on just how close you want to be to nature.Because I like to travel in Azerbaijan, and have done for several years, Azerbaijani people often ask me where my favourite place is in their country. Maybe they secretly hope it will be the village home of a favourite grandparent! Faced with such a tremendous choice of destinations, often special to me for very different reasons, I try to visit each in turn, and with each visit try to explore just a little further than before. Travelling here always reveals special moments and, without exception, I feel totally privileged to be a guest in this most amazing country. A wonderful feeling results, both energising and uplifting. So please, take yourself out of Baku, and chill… You will return so refreshed that you can tackle the heat head-on.

The First Eastern Opera "Leyli and Majnun"

Uzeyir Hajibeyov and his wife Maleka in 1926

Leyli and Majnun was first performed on 12 January 1908 (25 January in the modern calendar). Ninety-five years later the opera remains a popular fixture in the repertoire of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Uzeyir Hajibayov made Azerbaijani opera history when he composed Leyli and Majnun. The opera is based on Azerbaijani mugam and folklore, which gives it originality and endears it to audiences.

Birth of an Opera

Shusha, 1898: a 13-year-old boy watches a dramatization of the story of Majnun at Leyli’s Tombstone. He is astonished at the performance of the amateur actors. That boy was Uzeyir Hajibayov. Remembering the occasion, the great composer wrote: "That performance affected me so much that when I came to Baku years later, I decided to write something like that." So, Leyli and Majnun was born in the heart of 13-year-old Uzeyir in 1898.

The opera’s first director was Huseyn Arablinski and its first conductor was Abdurahimbey Hagverdiyev, a famous Azerbaijani writer. All the parts were played by men, as at that time women were not allowed to perform on stage.

STONE TALE OF BAKU

They say even the walls help make a home… They are familiar and strong supports. They promise cosiness and safety. This can be said of both house and whole city walls.

300 years ago Baku was surrounded by a double set of walls on the landside, and a single wall separated it from the sea. Before joining the Russian empire, the city was practically fully enclosed within its fortified walls and surrounded by a deep moat. But Baku has “escaped” from the fortress, expanding beyond it and continues to grow. And the old part of the city, Icheri Sheher (Inner City) has remained a historic reserve, where people come to enjoy the silence, the gorgeous primeval architecture and to find out more about the roots. There are monuments to antiquity everywhere in Icheri Sheher- the mosques, baths and the simple houses. But even the walls that embrace the old city deserve special attention.

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich

Born on 27 March 1927 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Mstislav Rostropovich began musical studies in early childhood with his parents. His mother was an accomplished pianist, and his father a distinguished cellist who had studied with Pablo Casals. At the age of sixteen he entered the Moscow Conservatory where he studied composition with Prokofiev and Shostakovich. In 1945 he came to prominence overnight as a cellist when he won the gold medal in the first ever Soviet Union competition for young musicians. Thereafter, despite his continued battle with the communist authorities, he became one of the central figures of the music life there, for twenty five years inspiring Soviet cellists, composers and audiences alike.

Due to international recording contracts and foreign tours, Mstislav Rostropovich also came to the attention of the West. He recorded nearly the entire cello literature during this time and attracted an unprecedented large quantity of new repertoire for the instrument through his personal contact to composers such as Benjamin Britten, who wrote his Cello Symphony, his Sonata for Cello and Piano and the three Suites for Solo Cello especially with Rostropovich in mind. Other composers who have written for Rostropovich include Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Boulez, Berio, Messiaen, Schnittke, Bernstein, Dutilleux and Lutoslawski.

DID YOU KNOW THAT?

WELCOME!

We are greeting you with typical Azeri hospitality. 

We come from an extraordinary country called Azerbaijan. Some people say it is in Europe, others say it is in Asia. Well, both are right as one fourth of this little country falls into Europe and the rest into Asia. The country borders Turkey and Armenia in the west, Georgia and Russia in the north, Iran in the south and the Caspian Sea in the east. The sea is also extraordinary. It is called a "sea", but in reality it is the biggest lake in the WORLD.

You are going to find a lot of interesting facts about Baku and Azerbaijan here! Why read pages of boring stuff, you can learn much more in a few minutes! 

It is time to brief you on the wonderland Azerbaijan. 

TO THE MEMORY OF GREAT LEADER HEYDAR ALİYEV

NATIONAL LEADER OF AZERBAIJANI PEOPLE HEYDAR ALIRZA OGLU ALIYEV 

Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev was born on 10 May 1923 in Nakhchyvan City of Azerbaijan. In 1939, after graduating from the Nakhchyvan Pedagogical School he studied at the Architecture Department of the Azerbaijan Industry Institute (present Azerbaijan State Oil Academy). The incipient war impeded to complete his education. 

From 1941, Heydar Aliyev headed the department at the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Nakhchyvan and in 1944 was sent to work at the state security bodies. Heydar Aliyev, working since that time in the security bodies, from 1964 held the post of deputy chairman, and from 1967 chairman of the Committee of State Security under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and he was conferred the rank of lieutenant general. These years, he received special higher education in Leningrad (present St Petersburg), and in 1957 he graduated from the History Department of the Azerbaijan State University.

Kerim Kerimov - great Azerbaijani rocket scientist

Kerim Kerimov was born in the year 1917 in a Muslim family of an engineering background in Baku, Azerbaijan then part of the Russia. After graduation from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute in 1942, he continued his education at Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, where he committed himself to design and development of rocket systems. An expert in rocket technology, he worked during World War II on the inspection and acceptance of the famous Katyusha rocket launchers. His work was honored with the Order of the Red Star. After his  retirement in 1991 he worked as a Consultant to the Main Space Flights Control Center of the Russian Federal Space Agency. General Kerim Kerimov died March 29, 2003 in Moscow, at the age of 85.

Lotfi Zadeh

Lotfi Zadeh was born in Baku in 1921. His father was assigned as a journalist from Iran (Southern Azerbaijan). His mother was Russian, she was a physician. The first three grades of elementary school he went in Baku (from age 7 to 10). He was only child in the family.  In   childhood   when he was 10 he had gone through most of the classics-Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, Chekhov, Turgenev as well as world classics like Shakespeare. His family left for Tehran in 1931. He continued his education in english and graduated from the University of Tehran in 1942. He took Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York   1949. There he went on to teach Systems Theory.

King of Azeri Jazz-Vagif Mustafazadeh

Great  musician of the 20th century Vagif Mustafazadeh was born on March 16, 1940 in Baku. Vagif’s name was chosen by the renowned poet, Samed Vurgun, on the request of his mother. When he named this child Vagif, he didn’t know that this little child will become a great representative of Azerbaijani music in the future. Vagif’s mother was a musician, and love to music came from his family. He started to play the piano in his age of three. In 1963 he graduated from Baku State Musical Technical school named after Asef Zeynalli and a year later became a student of  Azerbaijani State Conservatoire.  At that times jazz music was banned in the Soviet society by Stalin. But all this couldn’t destroy little Vagif’s desire. As a child, he used to  listen to jazz on BBC broadcasts and sing Meykhana rhythmic poetry, which had also been banned, with friends.

In the year of 1965 he graduated the conservatoire and went to Tbilisi to lead the “Orero” musical ensemble. Later he created the “Qafqaz” (Azerbaijani for Caucasus) jazz trio at Georgian State Philarmony. After Stalin’s death Vagif began to play jazz compositions in concerts.By the early 1960s, people were finally becoming more comfortable with jazz and Vagif had started to gain a reputation even outside of Azerbaijan as a great jazz musician. In 1966, Willis Conover, conductor of the “Jazz Time” radio program, even went as far as to say, “Vagif Mustafazadeh is an extraordinary pianist. It is impossible to identify his equal. He is the most lyrical pianist I have ever known.”  

GENERAL INFORMATION

The geographical position

Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Southeast Europe/Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.

  

Climate

The  climate of Azerbaijan is influenced by cold arctic air masses of Scandinavian anticyclone, temperate of Siberian anticyclone, and Central Asian anticyclone. Azerbaijan's various landscape structure affects the ways air masses enter the country. The Greater Caucasus Range protects the country from direct influences of cold air masses coming from the north. It leads to the formation of subtropical climate on most foothills and plains of the country. Meantime, plains and foothills are characterized by high solar radiation rates. 9 out of 11 existing climate zones are present in Azerbaijan.  Both the absolute minimum temperature ( −33 °C/−27.4 °F ) and the absolute maximum temperature ( 46 °C/114.8 °F ) were observed in Julfa and Ordubad. The maximum annual precipitation falls in Lankaran (1,600 to 1,800 mm) and the minimum in Absheron (200 to 350 mm).

Azerbaijan-Land of Fire

Azerbaijan is a miraculous country with unlimited natural resources, centuries-old culture, history and ancient people, whose lifestyle presents a unique and harmonious combination of the traditions and ceremonies of different cultures and civilizations.

Azerbaijan is a geographical name. On the one hand this name is linked with the population, which lived in this region for thousand of years before our era, and who were mostly fire-worshippers. Local population considered that fire was their God and so they worshipped the fire. "Azer" means fire. The Turkic name "Azer" was used for this territory for a long time. The word "Azer" consists of two parts - "az" and "er". In Turkic languages, "az" means a good intention and a fate of success. Thus, the word "Azer" means "a braveman", "a brave boy", "the fire-keeper". The word "Azerbaijan" originates from the name of an ancient Turkish tribe, who resided in those territories.

Azerbaijan is one of the most ancient sites of humankind. The humankind was present here at every stage of their historical development. There were living settlements in Azerbaijan even at the earliest stages of humankind. Azerbaijan made its own contribution into the establishment of the current culture and civilization, progress and dialectics.

Honourable Way To The Victory

It’s already 4 years that Azerbaijan takes part on Eurovision song contest and has a chance to show its culture, music and traditions to the world. It was 2008 when Azerbaijan participated in Eurovision song contest side by side with huge European countries. Our country was represented by young singers: Samir Javadzadeh & Elnur Huseynov. They showed a great performance with the song “Day after day” which became very popular in all European countries in very short time. The main idea of the song was   struggle between angel and demon, based on ancient beliefs.  As our ancestry believed in the power of light and its triumph, our representatives showed it in this performance. And the victory of angel at the end is main idea of Azeri people to gain   victory in   every step.   Authors of the song were Zahra Badalbeyli and Govher Hasanzadeh.  The main part of the song consisted of Azerbaijani traditional music-mugham, that fascinated all Europe. Azerbaijan took 8^th place and it was very big achievement for us. It inspired us to gain victory in every sphere.