DEVOTED TO A BRIGHT MEMORY

The 90th anniversary of the birth of Azerbaijan's former leader Heydar Aliyev, which has been extensively celebrated throughout the country, has provided a launchpad for various public and cultural events. Each organisation, enterprise and complex has tried to arrange not only celebrations and festive events, but also to promote charity and public events. Throughout the years of his leadership of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev he aimed at developing the republic as a whole, improving the standard of living of every citizen and tirelessly showing concern for the country and its population.

In this connection, the events arranged by Bakielektrikshabaka to mark Heydar Aliyev's birth anniversary are particularly important, such as giving blood for people suffering from thalassaemia (Cooley's anaemia), arranging an amateur football tournament, an art contest for young artists and a conference devoted to "Heydar Aliyev, the creator Azerbaijan's independent power grid".

The name of Heydar Aliyev is inseparably linked with the development of almost all branches of Azerbaijan's economy. As regards the power-engineering sector, it is thanks to the promotion of power station construction by Heydar Aliyev back in the early days of his leadership that today's republic has become an exporter of electricity rather than an importer as it was previously. The former president was responsible for the expansion of the power grid in the capital Baku, for the construction of new substations such as Absheron, Khyrdalan, Mushfig, Nizami, Govsan, Binagadi, No. 205, 203 BTK, ETK-4, Radiozavod, Hazi Aslanov, BMKZ, Yasamal-1, Daglyg, etc. According to the chairman of the Bakielektrik-shabaka board, Baba Rzayev, after he returned to power in Azerbaijan in 1993, Heydar Aliyev paid particular attention to the development of the country's power-engineering sector; thanks to the modernisation of the power grid on his orders, the capacity grew from 4,503 Megawatts in 1990 to 4,933 Megawatts in 1998.

Approximately 3,500 Megawatts of generating capacity and 70,000 km of power transmission lines went into operation in Azerbaijan's power grid on Heydar Aliyev's personal initiative and under his direct leadership during his two terms in office. The generation of electricity, moreover, grew by 1.8 times from 12,027m Kw/hrs in 1970 to 21,286m Kw/hrs in 2000.

These achievements in the generation and provision of electricity in Azerbaijan were discussed at the "Heydar Aliyev - creator of Azerbaijan's independent power-engineering system" conference at Baki-elektrikshabaka. The conference was attended by representatives of leading electricity companies working in the country such as Caspian Energy Engineering, Legrand, Tyco Electro-nics, Bauer, Schneider Electric, SCS among others, as well as by the heads of local companies, representatives of educational establishments and public organisations.

The speakers at the conference, which was held at the company's Learning Centre cited various examples of the part played by Heydar Aliyev in establishing he state of Azerbaijan, its economy and prosperity and emphasised the efforts he had made to promote the country's power-engineering sector. Then a documentary film made by the Bakielektrik-shabaka staff was shown, which contained extremely rare and interesting footage and photographs taken during various years of Heydar Aliyev's life and devoted to his career and work to boost Azerbaijan's prosperity.

Those attending the conference took great interest in the accounts of incidents in Heydar Aliyev's life shared by the first deputy chairman of the Bakielektrikshabaka board, Zaur Guseynov. In a survey conducted by Russia's Moscow Echo (Ekho Moskvy) radio station Heydar Aliyev was among the top names to be proposed as "Genius of 2012". "When you learn about his life, you start to understand that, besides being a brilliant diplomat, with an analytical turn of mind, a talented leader and an accomplished speaker, Heydar Aliyev also had a splendid sense of humour," Zaur Huseynov stressed.

Social and cultural events

As mentioned above, Bakielek-trikshabaka has conducted a number of very interesting and important humanitarian campaigns and social and cultural events to mark the 90th birth anniversary of Heydar Aliyev.

The "People's Health" principle should first and foremost be the cornerstone in any company. The Ba-kielektrikshabaka staff were adhering to this humane principle when they conducted a voluntary blood-donor campaign for people suffering from thalassaemia. 

Besides this, young people took a great interest in the amateur football tournament arranged on 13-21 April among youth teams from different Baku districts and settlements around the city. The tournament was held at the Zira sports complex in the Xazar district of the city with the involvement of the AFFA (Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan). Speaking at the opening of the tournament, the head of Bakielektrikshaba-ka's directorate of human resources and services, Tarlan Dadshev spoke about Heydar Aliyev's activities and noted that, thanks to the strategic policy pursued by President Ilham Aliyev, our country has achieved great heights in different fields, in particular in sport. This has been clearly confirmed by the success of our sportsmen at different competitions, especially by the gold and silver medals they have won at the Olympic Games. 

Eight teams played in the tournament, with the final taking place between the Hovsan and Zira teams. This turned out to be interesting. In spite of going to extra time, the match ended in a draw, so the outcome of the match was decided by penalties. This resulted in a 4:2 win for the Zira team, so they won the cup. Hovsan naturally came second, and Sabuchi third. The tournament's organising committee named the best goalkeeper, the best player and the best striker. It should also be noted that the players who occupied the first three places were awarded a certificate and prizes of money by the organizers.

The art competition featuring oil paintings, drawings and works of applied decorative art  by artists in the 18-35 age group was also a highlight in the country's cultural activities. It was organised by Bakielektrikshab-aka at the Sattar Bahlulzada Central Exhibition Hall and was given the name "Heydar Aliyev - the architect of independent Azerbaijan". Speaking at the art competition Bakielektrik-shabaka's head, Baba Rzayev noted the importance of the event: "It is the main obligation of our staff to provide the population with electricity, but supporting talented young people in the country is just as important. I think we have managed to do this. These works of art will embellish our enterprise's museum in the future."

Tahir Salahov, People's Artist of the Republic of Azerbaijan, expressed his satisfaction with the young artists' exhibition: "This remarkable event has been held to celebrate the anniversary of a person who sincerely believed in the talent of the Azerbaijani people, who was a patron of the arts and loved poetry, music and art. Moreover, Heydar Aliyev referred to artists as the most self-sacrificing people, who did not receive stormy applause and sometimes only earned recognition, when it was, alas, too late for them to know about it."

Forty-eight works of art were displayed at the competition, 24 of them in colour, 24 drawings and 11 works of decorative applied art. The works reflected Heydar Aliyev's efforts to boost Azerbaijan's prosperity, sustain its independence and concepts of socio-economic development, especially its oil strategy.

The winners were chosen for their professional skills, their artistic approach to ideas and subjects, naturally on their portrayal of real events. The jury awarded the first places to the artist Ayan Aziz (for the work "My Azerbaijan"), Turan Muxtarzada ("Heydar Aliyev"), and Nizar Mammadov ("Symphony"). After the exhibition, the works are to be displayed in the picture gallery of the Dolmabahce Palace Museum in Istanbul and then at various galleries in Germany.

To put it in a nutshell, the events arranged by Bakielektrikshabaka have shown the correctness of the strategic policy pursued by Heydar Aliyev, aimed at supporting the development of sport and culture in Azerbaijan. This is one of the best ways of preserving the memory of Azerbaijan's former leader.