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Dear friends,
The year of 2012 will be remembered as the year of the Eurovision Song Contest in
Azerbaijan.
Our country, bridging various cultures for centuries, hosted the popular Eurovision Song
Contest with the history of good 57 years. The music promoting dialogue and mutual
understanding brought together representatives of various nations irrespective of ethnic
origin and confession, this time in our native city of Baku.
This pan-European music festival was presented in an astounding way to hundreds of
millions of viewers from the ancient land of Azerbaijan known for its contribution to the
treasury of the world musical heritage. In the meantime, the Eurovision Song Contest
presented a unique chance to better promote Azerbaijan throughout the world and
to introduce the country’s past and present to the contest participants and numerous
guests, thus creating an image of Azerbaijan to be cherished in the years to come.
We opened our hearts to visitors from all over the world cordially welcoming them in this
old Land of Fire, so that they got a great chance to discover Azerbaijan. I hope that any
visitorwhohadexperienced themagnificence of Baku combining centuries of historywith
ultra-modern image, and the sincerity of our people got a special sentiment towards our
culture and our nation. This love was won by someone’s hard work, someone’s support to
the project, or someone’s mere smile and positive attitude. So I’d like to hereby express
by most heartfelt gratitude to each and every of you for this valued support. I believe the
sweetest memories of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will be cherished by both our
people and visitors forever.
Mehriban Aliyeva,
President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation,
Chairperson of the Organizing Committee of
The Eurovision Song Contest 2012