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The Azerbaijan Navy is the naval component of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces operating in the Caspian Sea. The inception of Azerbaijani Naval Forces dates back to August 5, 1918 when the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic established the navy force on the basis of the Russian Imperial fleet deployed in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. The navy had 6 ships. After the establishment of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan, the navy was transferred to be under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Navy. In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Azerbaijani fleet of the Soviet Navy was divided between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation. In July 1992, the Azerbaijani ships were put into operation under Azerbaijani Flag in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. According to the Presidential Decree of Heydar Aliyev from 1996, August 5 was declared the Day of Azerbaijani Navy. As of today, the Azerbaijani Navy is considered the second strongest navy in the Caspian Sea after the Russian fleet.
Jane's Fighting Ships said in their entry for the Azeri Navy in their 2001–2002 edition that 'the Coast Guard was formed in July 2002 with ships transferred from the Caspian Flotilla and the Border Guard. By 1995 overall control had been resumed by the Russians in order to provide adequate maintenance and support. The aim is to be independent again in due course. It named the navy's commander at the time as Captain Rafig Asgarov. Currently, the navy is led by Vice Admiral Shahin Sultanov.
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Azeri SS Volunteer Formations were recruited from prisoners of war, mainly from the USSR, and also from the countries annexed by Soviet Union after 1939. They were organised to fight against the Soviet Union on the side of Nazi Germany. Between November 1943 and January 1944, there was a series of meetings between Meyer-Mader and Muslim volunteers. As a result of these meetings, on January 4, 1944, it was decided to form the Ostmuselmanisches SS-Regiment. At the same meeting, it was decided to disband the following Wehrmacht battalions who would serve as a basis for a new platform: 450th, 480th, 782nd, 786th, 790th, 791st and I/94th Turkestanische battalions, Aserbeidschanische 818th and Volga Tatar 831st. Many of the volunteers deserted at this time, and the 818th defected to Polish and Ukrainian resistance movements in 1943.
Furthermore, at the same time, Meyer-Mader made several visits to prisoners of war camps and called for volunteers to join the new Muslim SS legion. The recruits were not only Turkestani, but also Azeri, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tadjik. By the end of January 1944 he was able to recruit three thousand volunteers who were concentrated in Poniatova. To increase the staffing regiment, dozens of German officers and non-commissioned officers were transferred there. Nevertheless, it was a very slow process, mainly due to lack of equipment, including uniforms and even shoes. Therefore, the October 1944 deadline, which Himmler appointed for the deployment of divisions in the regiment there were only four thousand people who had been formed into three battalions.
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The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is a landlocked exclave of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The area that is now Nakhchivan became part of the Safavid dynasty of Iran in the 16th century. In 1828, after the last Russo-Persian War and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the Nakhchivan Khanate passed from Iranian into Imperial Russian possession. After the 1917 February Revolution, Nakhchivan and its surrounding region were under the authority of the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the Russian Provisional Government and subsequently of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the TDFR was dissolved in May 1918, Nakhchivan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Zangezur (today the Armenian province of Syunik), and Qazakh were heavily contested between the newly formed and short-lived states of the Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA) and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). In June 1918, the region came under Ottoman occupation. Under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottomans agreed to pull their troops out of the Transcaucasus to make way for British occupation at the close of the First World War. In July 1920, the Bolsheviks occupied the region and on July 28, declared the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with "close ties" to the Azerbaijan SSR, beginning seventy years of Soviet rule. In January 1990 Nakhchivan declared independence from the USSR to protest against the suppression of the national movement in Azerbaijan, and became the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic within the newly independent Republic of Azerbaijan a year later.
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is an autonomous area of Azerbaijan, governed by its own elected legislature. The region continues to suffer from the effects of the Armenia-Azerbaijan War, and its Karki exclave has been under Armenian occupation ever since. The administrative capital city is Nakhchivan.
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The art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs combines poetry, storytelling, dance and vocal and instrumental music into a traditional performance art. This art is one of the symbols of Azerbaijani culture and considered an emblem of national identity and the guardian of Azerbaijani language, literature and music. Characterized by the accompaniment of the kopuz, a stringed musical instrument, the classical repertoire of Azerbaijani Ashiqs includes 200 songs, 150 literary-musical compositions known as dastans, nearly 2,000 poems and numerous stories. Since 2009 the art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In Azerbaijan, ashigs' style of performance differ in the specific characteristics of local creativity. For example, each ashig representing the regions of Ganja, Kalbajar, Gazakh, Tovuz and Borchali markedly differ in their individual skill and cherish traditional ashig art.
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following Ell & Nikki's win at the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, Germany with the song "Running Scared" — marking the first time that the country had won the contest. The contest was held at the newly constructed Baku Crystal Hall, with semi-finals held on 22 and 24 May 2012, followed by the final held on 26 May 2012. Forty-two countries competed in the contest — one less than the record number of 43 set at the previous contest, with Montenegro returning for the first time since 2009, and the withdrawal of Armenia due to security concerns in relation to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, and Poland due to financial concerns.
The contest was won by singer Loreen from Sweden with the song "Euphoria" — written by Thomas G:son and Peter Boström, the song scored a total of 372 points. Russia finished in second place, with Serbia finishing in third. They were followed by the host country, Azerbaijan, which reached the 4th place. Albania finished 5th, achieving its first top 5 placing. Germany, Italy and Spain were the three members of the "Big Five" that managed to rank within the top 10, finishing in 8th, 9th and 10th places respectively.
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Shaki is a city in northwestern Azerbaijan, in the rayon of the same name. During 1850–70, Shaki became international silk production centre. More than 200 European companies opened offices in the city, while silkworms to the tune of 3 million roubles were sold to them in a year. Shaki possesses a small silk industry and relies on its agricultural sector, which produces tobacco, grapes, cattle, nuts, cereals and milk. The main production facilities of Shaki are the silk factory, gas-power plant, brick factory, wine factory, sausage factory, conserve factory, and a dairy plant with its integrated big scale Pedigree Dairy Farm.
Shaki hosts a wealth of historical museums and some of the most important in the country. The Shaki History Museum is one of the main museums, considered one of the most important for artifacts of the Khanate period. As of the 18th century, five big Caravanserais (Isfahan, Tabriz, Lezgi, Ermeni and Taze) were active in Shaki but only two of them have survived. The upper and lower Caravanserais were built in the 18th century and used by merchants to store their goods in cellars, who traded on the first floor, and lived on the second. Both Caravanserais includes view of all convenience and safety of merchants and their goods.
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Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Azerbaijan face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in Azerbaijan since 1 September 2000. Nonetheless, discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity is not banned in the country and same-sex marriage is outlawed.
In 2016, the ILGA ranked Azerbaijan as the worst place (49 out of 49) in Europe to be LGBT, citing "a near total absence of legal protection" for LGBT individuals. In 2017, ILGA-Europe again declared Azerbaijan the worst country in all of Europe for LGBT rights, with the country receiving a final score of 5%. In September 2017, reports emerged that at least 100 members of Baku's LGBT community were arrested, ostensibly as part of a crackdown on prostitution. Activists reported that these detainees were subject to beatings, interrogation, forced medical examinations and blackmail. LGBT people face high rates of violence, harassment and discrimination.
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Novruz in Azerbaijan is a traditional holiday, which celebrates the New Year, and the coming of Spring. When Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, celebration of Novruz was generally unofficial, and at times even prohibited. Currently in Azerbaijan, Novruz is treated as an official public holiday. In accordance with Article 105 of the Labour Code of Azerbaijan passed in 2006, workers receive five days off for Novruz. After neighbouring Iran, Azerbaijan hosts the longest observance and number of public days related to Novruz, with thus a total (including weekend) of 5 days.
Usually preparation for Novruz begins a month prior to the festival. Each ofit si fakef the four elements and called accordingly in Azerbaijan. Each Tuesday people celebrate the day of one of the four elements - water, fire, earth and wind. People do house cleaning, plant trees, make new dresses, paint eggs, make national pastries such as shekerbura, pakhlava, shorgoghal and a great variety of national cuisine. Wheat is fried with kishmish (raisins) and nuts (govurga). As a tribute to pre-Islamic Zoroastrian beliefs, every Tuesday during four weeks before the holiday children jump over small bonfires and candles are lit. On the holiday eve the graves of relatives are visited and tended.
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Neft Daşları is an industrial settlement in Baku, Azerbaijan. The settlement forms part of the municipality of Çilov-Neft Daşları in the Khazar raion. It lies 100 km (62 mi) away from the Azerbaijani capital Baku, and 55 km (34 mi) from the nearest shore in the Caspian Sea. A full town on the sea, it was the first oil platform in Azerbaijan, and the first operating offshore oil platform in the world, incorporating numerous drilling platforms. It is featured in Guinness World Records as the world's first offshore oil platform.
The settlement began with a single path out over the water and grew into a system of paths and platforms built on the back of ships sunk to serve as the Neft Daşları's foundation. The most distinctive feature of Neft Daşları is that it is actually a functional city with a population of about 2,000 and over 300 km (190 mi) of streets built on piles of dirt and landfill.
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Molla Nasraddin was an eight-page Azerbaijani satirical periodical published in Tiflis (from 1906–17), Tabriz (in 1921) and Baku (from 1922–31) in the Azerbaijani and occasionally Russian languages. The magazine was "read across the Muslim world from Morocco to Iran". It was edited by the writer Jalil Mammadguluzadeh (1866–1932), and named after Nasreddin, the legendary Sufi wise man-cum-fool of the Middle Ages. Columnists wrote articles that "boldly satirized politics, religion, colonialism, Westernization, and modernization, education (or lack thereof), and the oppression of women".
The periodical was founded by Jalil Mammadguluzadeh, a famous Azerbaijani writer, and Omar-Faiq Nemanzade, a prominent educator publicist and writer, published by Geyrat Publishing House owned by both. The name "Molla Nasraddin" was inspired by the 13th century Muslim cleric Nasreddin who was remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. The main purpose of the magazine was to satirically depict various social phænomena, such as inequality, cultural assimilation, and corruption; and to ridicule backward lifestyles and values of the clergy and religious fanatics.
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Yanar Dag (meaning "burning mountain") is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan (a country which itself is known as "the Land of Fire"). Flames jet into the air 3 metres (9.8 ft) from a thin, porous sandstone layer. Administratively, Yanar Dag belongs to Absheron District of Azerbaijan.
Unlike mud volcanoes, the Yanar Dag flame burns fairly steadily, as it involves a steady seep of gas from the subsurface. It is claimed that the Yanar Dag flame was only noted when accidentally lit by a shepherd in the 1950s. There is no seepage of mud or liquid, which distinguishes it from the nearby mud volcanoes of Lökbatan or Gobustan. On the territory of Yanar Dag, State Historical-Cultural and Natural Reserve was established by the Presidential decree dated 2 May 2007 which operates under the control of State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan. After major overhaul between 2017-2019, Yanardag Museum and Yanardag Cromlech Stone Exhibition were launched in the area of the Reserve.
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Kurds settled what is now Azerbaijan in waves at various times beginning in the ninth century. By the tenth century, Ganja and its surroundings were ruled by the Shaddadids, a Kurdish dynasty and the most powerful Kurdish clan of the South Caucasus, that latter also extended its control over present-day Republic of Armenia.
According to Russian and later Soviet ethnographer Grigory Chursin, another wave of Kurdish immigration in western parts of modern Azerbaijan may have taken place in 1589, at the time of the Ottoman–Safavid War, when "victorious Safavid soldiers" chose to stay in the conquered lands. Safavids resettled Shi'a Kurds where borders of the historical regions of Karabakh and Zangezur met. In the eighteenth century, many Kurdish tribes had formed tribal unions with Azeris in Karabakh lowlands. Nineteenth-century Russian historian Peter Budkov mentioned that in 1728, groups of Kurds and Shahsevans engaged in semi-nomadic cattle-breeding in the Mughan plain applied for Russian citizenship.
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Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 56 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Nakhchivan to Baku operated by Azerbaijan Airlines which crashed on 5 December 1995, killing 52 people. The aircraft servicing the flight, a Tupolev Tu-134B-3, experienced engine failure while climbing. The pilots performed a forced landing that required a sharp right turn to avoid an apartment block. The aircraft crashed in the south-western outskirts of Nakhchivan, 3,850 m (2.39 mi) from the airport runway. The crash became Azerbaijan Airlines' deadliest accident and the sixty-first hull loss of Tupolev Tu-134 overall. The airline no longer operates the Tu-134.
The Tu-134B-3 involved in the accident, (c/n 63383), was manufactured on 28 August 1980 and was powered by two Soloviev D-30 turbofan engines. The aircraft had flown 27,500 hours of its 35,000 flight hour life before the crash, was last serviced on 25 July 1995, and an unspecified repair was carried out on 30 March 1993.
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Chess is one of the most popular sports in Azerbaijan, where it is governed by the Azerbaijan Chess Federation (ACF). On May 5, 2009 Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, who is also the chairman of the National Olympic Committee, signed an executive order initiating a state-supported chess development program, covering the years 2009–2014.
Organized chess began in Azerbaijan shortly after the creation of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1920, and the game soon became widespread. The first chess column appeared in the newspaper Bakinsky Rabochy in the early 1920s. In 1923 the first Baku championship took place, won by brothers Vladimir and Mikhail Makogonov. In 1924, a conference of Komsomol (Young Communist League) and trade unions set about promoting chess, leading to the participation of Fedor Duz-Khotimirsky and Nikolai Grigoriev in a tournament in Baku. Towards the end of the 1920s, a number of strong young players emerged, including the Sarychev and Danilov brothers, O. Rostovtsev, N. Doktorsky, K. Selimkhanov and A. Bilibin. Lectures and simultaneous exhibitions stimulated interest in chess in Azerbaijan. On May 2–3, 1929, a match between teams from Baku and Tbilisi was held on 8 boards in Baku. In 1934 the first Azerbaijani Championship took place. This was won by Selimkhanov, who in 1935 became chairman of the Azerbaijan Chess Organization.
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Iblis is a verse play (verse dram), tragedy in four acts of an Azerbaijani poet and playwright Huseyn Javid, written in 1918. Ideological credo of Javid is revealed in the play, a mysthic flaw is strongly expressed and the poet's thoughts about a problem of human's happiness followed by the imperialistic war are reflected in the poem.
Initially the tragedy was staged in 1920, by Abbas Mirza Sharifzadeh. It is noted that, at the beginning of the 1920s the play had a great success. “Iblis” is considered as the first verse play of Azerbaijan, which was put on the stage. It is also noted that the play is significant not only for its complex philosophic character, and also for a romantic style.
The play was published in 1924, for the first time. Later, it was published in 1927, 1959, 1969, 1982, 2001 and 2005. In the Small Soviet Encyclopedia of 1931, the work was called a poem. It is considered one of the best plays of Huseyn Javid.
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Gasimushaghi carpets are Azerbaijani pile carpets of the Karabakh school of the Jabrayil group. Like other carpets of Karabakh’s carpet weaving school such as “Khanlig”, “Bahmanli”, “Garagoyunlu” and “Talish”, Gasimushaghi carpets also are dense, with high level of knots, soft and light. Turkbaf knot is considered the basis of Gasimushaghi carpets.
The name of this carpet is related to the Şamkənd, Ərikli, Kürdhacı, Chorman and Shalva villages of the Lachin Rayon of Azerbaijan. In 2007, an exhibition of Caucasian carpets was held in Prague. Some Czech representatives became familiar with some Azerbaijani carpets of Karabakh School and after a while the Czech Republic released postal stamps with the picture of Gasimushaghi carpets with an inscription saying “Karabakh carpets in the 19th century”.
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Holy Savior Cathedral is an Armenian Apostolic cathedral in Shusha (Shushi), in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). It is the seat of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Built between 1868 and 1887, the cathedral was consecrated in 1888. It was damaged during the March 1920 massacre of Armenians of the city by Azerbaijanis and experienced a decades-long decline, well into the Soviet period. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War Azerbaijan used the cathedral as an armory to store hundreds of missiles. It was restored in the aftermath of the war and reconsecrated in 1998. A landmark of Shusha and Karabakh, it has become an icon for the Karabakh Armenian cause. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) high, Ghazanchetsots is one of the largest Armenian churches in the world.
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The Sack of Shamakhi took place on 18 August 1721, when rebellious Sunni Lezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi (in present-day Azerbaijan Republic). The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked. The deaths of Russian merchants within Shamakhi were subsequently used as a casus belli for the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723, leading to the cessation of trade between Iran and Russia and the designation of Astrakhan as the new terminus on the Volga trade route.
By the first decade of the 18th century, the once-prosperous Safavid realm was in a state of heavy decline, with insurrections in numerous parts of its domains. The king, Sultan Husayn, was a weak ruler, and although personally inclined to be more humane, flexible, and relaxed than his chief mullah, he went along with the recommendations of his advisers regarding important state decisions. He reigned as a "stationary monarch", preferring, apart from the occasional hunting party, to be inside or near the capital of Isfahan at all times, invisible to all "but the most intimate of courtiers". Having seen not much more of the world than the harem walls, he had quickly fallen under the spell of the leading ulama, most notably Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi.
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The Catholic Church in Azerbaijan is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. There are about 570 local Catholics in the country as of 2016. Azerbaijan is covered entirely by a single Apostolic Prefecture – Apostolic Prefecture of Baku – since 2011. The community is served by seven Salesian priests and two friars. In addition, there is a mission of the Missionaries of Charity.
Christians have been present in Azerbaijan since the first century AD. Starting from 1320, Catholic missionaries such as Jordanus and Odoric of Pordenone have visited what is now Azerbaijan and have established missions mostly in large cities. In the fourteenth century in Nakhchivan alone, there were 12 missions led by Dominicans, Capuchins, Augustinians, etc. In 1660 Superior of the Capuchin Mission at Isfahan, friar Raphaël du Mans reported Catholic parishes functioning in Baku and Shamakhi. Jesuits arrived and set a mission in Ganja in the 1680s.
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Black January was a violent crackdown on a civilian population of Baku on 19–20 January 1990, pursuant to a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev and Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov asserted that military law was necessary to thwart efforts by the Azerbaijani independence movement to overthrow the Soviet Azerbaijani government. According to official estimates 147 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, 800 people were injured and five people went missing. However unofficial number put the number of victims at 300 dead. Later on, in 1995 Gorbachev apologised to Azerbaijan by stating: "The declaration of a state emergency in Baku was the biggest mistake of my political career."
In a resolution of 22 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19 January, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression. Black January is seen as the rebirth of the Azerbaijan Republic.
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Boyuk Zira is an island in the Caspian Sea. It is one of the islands of Baku Archipelago located in the Baku bay near Baku city. Nargin Island is part of the Baku Archipelago, which consists of the following islands: Boyuk Zira, Dash Zira, Qum Island, Zenbil, Sangi-Mugan, Chikil, Qara Su, Khara Zira, Gil, Ignat Dash and a few smaller ones. Boyuk Zira is the biggest island that separates the Bay of Baku from the sea south of the Absheron Peninsula. It has a length of 3.1 km, and a width of 900 m. The northwestern side of the island is vertical and steep. There is little vegetation. Caspian seals, sturgeon, and numerous types of birds, such as teal ducks, herring gulls, and grebes are some of the species that can be found on and around Boyuk Zira Island.
Most of the names of islands in the Baku archipelago, including Boyuk Zira, were changed by the Russians and partially by Cossacks, who appeared in the Caspian Sea region in the 17th century. Boyuk Zira was also called Nargin, which is related to the name given by Peter the Great. The shape of this island reminded the Russian emperor of the island Nargen (now Naissaar) near Tallinn in the Gulf of Finland.
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The Ismailiyya Palace (Azerbaijani: İsmailiyyə Sarayı) is a historical building that currently serves as the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. It is located on Istiglaliyyat Street in Baku. The palace was constructed for the Muslim Charity Society by Józef Plośko at the expense of the millionaire Musa Naghiyev in commemoration of his deceased son Ismayil, and was named Ismailiyya after him. Construction began in 1908 and ended in 1913.
The building of mosques is appointed to be in a place called "Gapan Dibi" in the center of the city. Although it was initially planned to build a garden with fountains surrounding the mosque, the Christian clerics, who had great influence in the period of the Russian Empire, prevented the construction of such a mosque near the Alexander Nevski Church, which is called the Golden Church (Qızıl kilsə).
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Azerbaijan competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's sixth consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics in the post-Soviet era. The National Olympic Committee of the Azerbaijani Republic fielded a team of 56 athletes, 42 men and 14 women, across 18 sports at the Games. Azerbaijan made its Olympic debut in four sports (archery, slalom canoeing, track cycling, and triathlon).
The Azerbaijani roster featured 36 rookies and 20 returning Olympians. Of the returnees, nine of them won Olympic medals in London, including defending wrestling champions Toghrul Asgarov and Sharif Sharifov, freestyle wrestlers Mariya Stadnik and Yuliya Ratkevich, four-time kayak sprint medalist Inna Osypenko-Radomska, who represented her native Ukraine at four previous editions (2000 to 2012) before transferring her allegiance to Azerbaijan in 2014, and boxers Magomedrasul Majidov (super heavyweight) and European Games champion Teymur Mammadov (light heavyweight), who was selected by the committee to lead the delegation as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
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Shirvan National Park is a national park of Azerbaijan. It was established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, on July 5, 2003 within the territory of Salyan Rayon administrative districts. Its surface area is 54,373.5 hectares (543.735 km2).
The Shirvan National Park was established on the base of the Shirvan State Reserve founded in 1969 and neighbouring areas. The reserve‘s activity is focused on the protection and reproduction of the Goitered Gazelle (Gazella sulgutturosa), waterfowl birds and typical plant biotypes of the Shirvan Lowland. The area is 25800 hectares, of which 3500 hectares are water reservoirs. The territory of the park used to be at the bottom of the Caspian Sea and at present it is an accumulative plain, which is 20–25 m below sea level with a slight increase in the relief westwards. In terms of climate the park lies in an area of moderate warm semi-desert and arid steppe. Summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and dry.
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Palace of De Boure is a palace built by order of Leo De Boure, one of the oil millionaires of Baku in the XIX century and the business manager for Baron Rothschild's company. The palace is located on Niyazi street (formerly Sadovaya) facing Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall. It was built on the project of architect Nicholas von der Nonne in 1891–1895.
On February 26, 1888, Leo De Boure (1840–1889), the oil magnate, founder of "Caspian Partnership" Joint Stock Company and millionaire appealed to the Baku City Council for approval of two-storied stone palace plan, which he wanted to build. On April 18, 1888, an agreement on allocation of 700 square meters of land was obtained on Sadovaya Street (present Niyazi Street). On August 26, urban engineer Nicholas von der Nonne and city architect, construction engineer Anton Kandinov confirm the plan of the palace. But architect A. Kandinov does not have the signature in the architectural project of the palace, and Nicholas von der Nonne is considered the only architect of the palace. On August 31, 1888 project of construction of the palace was approved by the Mayor of Baku, Stanislav Despot-Zenovich and member of the executive board, L. Nikulin. Soon the construction work began.
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The Khojaly Massacre, also known as the Khojaly tragedy, was the killing of at least 161 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. According to the Azerbaijani side, as well as the Memorial Human Rights Center, Human Rights Watch and other international observers the massacre was committed by the ethnic Armenian armed forces, reportedly with help of some military personnel of the 366th CIS regiment, apparently not acting on orders from the command. The death toll claimed by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. The event became the largest massacre in the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Western governments and the western media refer to it as the "Khojaly massacre", "Khojaly tragedy" or the "Battle for Khojaly". Azerbaijani sources occasionally refer to the massacre as the "Khojaly genocide" (Azerbaijani: Xocalı soyqırımı) and the "Khojaly tragedy" (Azerbaijani: Xocalı faciəsi).
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Khinalug is an ancient Caucasian village going back to the Caucasian Albanian period. It is located high up in the mountains of Quba Rayon, Azerbaijan. It is also a municipality in Quba Rayon, which consists of the villages of Khinalug and Qalayxudat. It is located just south-west of Quba in the middle of the Greater Caucasus mountains that divide Russia and the South Caucasus. Khinalug is also the highest, most remote and isolated village in Azerbaijan and among the highest in the Caucasus. The weather changes dramatically during summer and winter, ranging from −20 °C to 18 °C. Khinalug has a population of about 2,000 people. This small group of people speaks the Khinalug language, which is an isolate within the Northeast Caucasian language family, although many speak Azerbaijani as well.
Khinalug was included on the World Monuments Fund's 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites due to concern over the building of a road between Khinalug and Guba. The listing is not intended to criticise potential tourist and commercial activity in Khinalug, rather it is intended as a warning that new development should not come at the cost of the site's essential, historic character.
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The Declaration of Independence of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanın İstiqlal Bəyannaməsi) is the declaration of independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic from the Russian Empire. Azerbaijan was proclaimed independent in Tiflis on 28 May 1918.
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was founded by the Azerbaijani National Council in Tiflis on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Muslim representation in the defunct Transcaucasian Seim had constituted itself into the Azerbaijani National Council, and on May 28, 1918 proclaimed that a new nation was born. So far only a geographical reference, Azerbaijan now became the name of a state, and some 2 million people, called variously Tatars, Transcaucasian Muslims and Caucasian Turks, officially became Azerbaijanis.
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The Battle of Goychay was a series of clashes that took place from 27 June to 1 July 1918, between Ottoman–Azerbaijani coalition forces led by Nuri Pasha and a coalition of the Soviet 11th Army and Armenian Dashnak forces. The initial battle ended on 30 June, but minor clashes continued until 1 July. Despite being outnumbered six to one, the Central Powers were able to defeat the Armenian–Soviet forces before they reached Ganja, the headquarters of the Ottoman Islamic Army of the Caucasus. The Ottoman–Azerbaijani forces seized control of the lands from Goychay to Shamakhi. Armenian–Soviet rule in the region ended as a result of the battle.
The Shaumian-led Baku Commune decided to launch a military operation to prevent the Ottoman Army from recovering in Ganja. The commander of the Military and Maritime Affairs Committee of the Baku People's Commissariat Grigory Korganov signed an order on 4 June 1918 asking the Red Army to take action. He gave instructions to the Armenian–Bolshevik–Russian forces to capture the plain up to Yevlakh and seize the Yevlakh bridge. On 6 June, Armenian and Russian–Bolshevik troops set off from Baku to Kazi-Magomed (modern-day Hajigabul). They pillaged Kazi-Magomed and using fire razed the surrounding villages.
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