Patriotism is an inner feeling of a person. If he is missing that, he is immoral.
Heydar Aliyev
Conference in Agstafa on improvement of Heydar Aliyev Centers in the republic
Republican seminar-conference was held on January 28 at Heydar Aliyev Center in Agstafa district by Section of the President’s Executive Office for Regional Administration and Work with Local Self-Governing Bodies, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Heydar Aliyev Foundation on organization of work of Heydar Aliyev museums and centers and improvement of their action.
Prior to the event, participants of the conference which was attended by deputy heads of city and district executive powers of the republic, Heydar Aliyev museums, heads of culture and tourism departments laid flowers on the monument of founder of modern independent state of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev.
Opening the event Zeynal Nagdaliyev, Chief of Section of the President’s Executive Office for Regional Administration and Work with Local Self-Governing Bodies, reported on the theme discussed.
He noted honoring the genius persons with exceptional role in its history every nation creates foundations, memorial complexes, museums ad centers dedicated to them. Everything concerning life and action of these persons is studied, protected as moral values and used to raise the growing generation in patriotic spirit. One of such persons who played important role in the fate of our people is Heydar Aliyev. His wisdom, activity and life is the pattern to everyone. Today, everyone should learn heritage, administration principles of great leader Heydar Aliyev, take benefit of them. One of the most effective ways to get this goal is creation of Heydar Aliyev museum-centers. Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which has assumed the honorable mission such as study, propaganda and delivery to future generations of the philosophy of the national leader’s life and activities, his scientific and theoretical heritage, ideology of Azerbaijanism, successfully acts towards this goal. The Foundation that implements projects in field of human health, education of the youth, propaganda of national culture, environment, social problems, lifting attention to children in need of special care, assurance of awareness of the world community of Azerbaijan’s realities and other spheres propagates and develops the ideas of national leader Heydar Aliyev. Rich exposition of the Foundation dedicated to Heydar Aliyev’s life and actions leaves deep impressions on everyone. As result of purposeful and consistent activity the Foundation has acquired great prestige in the republic and outside. President of the Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and ISESCO, member of Milli Majlis Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva has been awarded honor titles and prizes by a number of influential international organizations.
Zeynal Nagdaliyev valued Heydar Aliyev Foundation as a model for Heydar Aliyev museums and centers operating in the republic. Governed by experience of the Foundation these works are organized in high level in every city and district. As result of concern by the Foundation 51 Heydar Aliyev museums and centers have been established in the last years in Baku, cities and districts of the republic, 3 museums are about to be launched, construction of another 3 is to end. Creation of new museums is underway. Heydar Aliyev Center in Agstafa, Heydar Aliyev Science Center in Gazakh, Heydar Aliyev museums in Yevlakh, Lankaran, Shemkir, Ismailly, Gakh and Zagatala, Heydar Aliyev Museum-School in Yasamal district of Baku have become cultural, scientific and educational centers frequently visited by population.
Talking of defects in this field the rapporteur noted studies carried out show the existing potential of Heydar Aliyev museums is not sufficiently used. The main gal of this seminar-conference is to find out these defects, discuss necessary problems.
Classifying problems concerning Heydar Aliyev museum-schools into several groups Z.Nagdaliyev said a number of museums have e-libraries, while others consist of one room, one composition or exposition only. In such buildings constructed in base of projects not meeting the museum requirements there are no fund rooms for preservation of museum items, ventilation, fire emergency, signalization systems even.
He emphasized one of problems concerns contents of expositions. Using photographs of the great leader cut off from magazines as exhibit, displaying his biography published in ordinary sheets with a lot of orthographic mistakes is the result of indifferent attitude. Chronology in arrangement of photos is disordered sometimes and they are presented without comment. Urgent actions must be taken to eliminate such mistakes.
One of distinctive features of museums in the country must be exhibits on relations of the great leader with region where museum is located. Some museums have lack of such materials. Employees of museums must always look for new materials, exhibits and documents inside and outside the country. Persons the national leader personally met in cities and districts must be found, interviewed, these interviews must be recorded and filed. Unique pictures, documents and exhibits in personal archives of citizens, district organizations must be collected, copied to electronic resources and used in museums.
During his leadership in Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev visited almost all regions. His trips to cities and districts, meetings with citizens, events he attended, his speeches were posted on periodic press of those years. Our museums must use these rich resources. Special research groups must be created of intellectuals, teachers, senior schoolchildren of regions.
Speakers mentioned exposition must be presented in high level to visitors of the museum centers. For this we have to have a lot of educated museum employees with perfect idea of life and multilateral action of Heydar Aliyev, as well of politics, history and literature. Unfortunately, surveys carried out show there are lots of problems in this field.
Every citizen of Azerbaijan should be proud of being citizen of our independent state founded by our national leader. Every visitor of museum-center should know great leader Heydar Aliyev started fight for independence of Azerbaijan in the 70-80s of the last century when the soviet communist regime was very strong. And then Heydar Aliyev saw independence of Azerbaijan. Changing Azerbaijan to the giant building site, paying special attention to construction of large industrial objects, creating new educational centers, achieving rapid development of fundamental and applied sciences during his first leadership in Azerbaijan the national leader laid foundation of present and future progress. Every citizen of Azerbaijan should realize that if national leader Heydar Aliyev had not made his historical decision and returned to the power upon request of nation, Azerbaijan would face big tragedies. No economic development can be achieved today if public-political stability had not been created in the country, ceasefire achieved in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, ‘Contract of Century’ signed, constitution of independent Azerbaijan adopted, international projects such BTC realized. Therefore, museum-centers named after genius son of our nation Heydar Aliyev must be re-formed to deliver these realities to people.
Addressing the seminar-conference Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev talked about works done towards improvement of action of museums in Azerbaijan and duties in this field. He said yet in the 70s Heydar Aliyev rendered huge attention to improvement of museums in Azerbaijan, gave instructions, adopted decisions. Special decision was adopted on January 30, 1970 on the state of museums in the republic and actions to improve that. After coming to the power for the second time the national leader paid bigger attention to this field. As a result of this more than 200 museums function in our country at present. 14 of them are art museums, 7 literature, 12 history, 68 history-region, 5 battle glory, 43 house museums and 51 Heydar Aliyev museums. President Ilham Aliyev successfully continues the political line of the great leader in this sphere. Huge successes have been gained in Azerbaijan in the last years in this field. Tens of museums have fundamentally been repaired, high-level restoration works carried out in some of them.
Talking of Heydar Aliyev museums the Minister underlined some problems in this field and their solution, gave recommendations to managers of some museums complaining about shortage of employees of museums.
Executive Director of Heydar Aliyev Foundation Anar Elekberov talked of works done by the organization he works for, informed participants of measures taken thanks to intensive activity of First Lady of Azerbaijan, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and ISESCO, member of Milli Majlis Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva. He noted Heydar Aliyev Foundation renders every help for creation of Heydar Aliyev museums in cities and districts, providing them with exhibits, correctly defining their work. Employees of the Foundation often visit regions, give recommendations for formation of museums.
Head of Agstafa District Executive Power Elkhan Usubov expressed gratitude to the organizers for holding such an influential event in Agstafa.
Then, discussions were held on issues such help of archives, exchange of exhibits among museums, education of personnel, lack of documentaries on life and action of Heydar Aliyev.
Chief of Section of the President’s Executive Office for Regional Administration and Work with Local Self-Governing Bodies Zeynal Nagdaliyev summed up the seminar-conference.
After the event, participants viewed exhibition of handworks by 5 popular artists of Azerbaijan in the lobby of Heydar Aliyev Center. Each artist presented a work to the Center.