May
18th,
2010 - My gracious Peace Corping Zaqatalan host and I hopped on
a marshrutka and
made our way to the town of Balakan not far from the Georgian border.
This city's most dominant feature is the rather grandiose park
dedicated to Azerbaijan's late president, Heydar
Aliyev. This dude continues to be a phenomenon in a
creepy Heaven's
Gate cult sort of way. You cannot escape him. There are
large billboards of his likeness and monuments similar to the one in
Balakan plastered all across Azerbaijan.
They recently commemorated his birthday with a festival involving flowers. No one really even seems to know the name of the festival, a point I find rather amusing. Commemorating a dead president's date of birth is one thing (Washington, Lincoln, etc.) but continuing to mark his age (his bones just turned 87 by the way) starts to bridge the gap between a healthy tribute and North Korean Kim Il Sung nuttiness.
They recently commemorated his birthday with a festival involving flowers. No one really even seems to know the name of the festival, a point I find rather amusing. Commemorating a dead president's date of birth is one thing (Washington, Lincoln, etc.) but continuing to mark his age (his bones just turned 87 by the way) starts to bridge the gap between a healthy tribute and North Korean Kim Il Sung nuttiness.
