Annual sitting of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors

Annual sitting of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors took place on 3 March 2005. President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Mehriban Aliyeva attended the sitting.

Mehriban Aliyeva addressed the sitting:

- First of all, I would like to express my pleasure of being here. As you know, it is for the first time I’m participating in this meeting and I’m glad to be with you - the UNESCO family.

Today, I would like to brief you on a number of projects aiming to preserve cultural heritage I’ve been involved since September 2004 as a goodwill ambassador.

Our project covers mugham, our national music, and its various fields. In general, we have been working on over 10 projects. Some of them have already been completed, some are in the process of implementation. And a number of others are projected for the near future. Let me talk about a recently completed project – cleaning and rerecording of music pieces of early recordings of Azerbaijan’s mugham performers. Originals of a number of them we had to look for abroad. Nevertheless, we were successful and could copy them into CDs. I would like to present a set of music to you. I’m hopeful you would enjoy listening to this music. Moreover, we are planning to publish a series of books about famous khanendehs (singers) and mugham philosophy.

We have mainly been focused on one important issue – creation of an International Mugham Centre in Baku. By creating this music centre, we wanted not only musicians, but also music lovers to come here and listen to music, hold discussions on our traditional music, and that elderly artisans share their experience, knowledge and professionalism with new generation. We hope this centre will become a melting pot for people from different countries, and it will be another step forward to preserving the world’s cultural heritage.

In conclusion, I want to say that Azerbaijan is proud of having close cooperation with UNESCO and is always ready to be a part of its worldwide projects. I’m proud of being together with you. Looking forward to welcoming you to Azerbaijan in the near future. Thank you very much!

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	Mahammad Fuzuli Mahammad Fuzuli’s name has been eternally written in the Azerbaijani history as an eminent poet, thinker, translator and one of the founding fathers of the Azerbaijani literary language.
	Fitneh Bahram Shah was a skilful hunter. Each time after hunting, he would brag about his courage. The Shah had a beautiful odalisque (female slave) named Fitneh.
	Rainbow Rainbow is one of the most beautiful events in nature. It consists of such main colours as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, sky-blue and violet.
	Great philanthropist The father of Hajji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev was a shoe-maker. By this profession, he earned a living for his family. By the time Zeynalabdin was 10, he asked his father to find him a job.
	Gobustan Gobustan is located near Baku city. It is over 15 thousand years old. In pictures drawn on Gobustan rocks, the life and thoughts of our ancestors are depicted.

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