Ceremony of handing over of about 2,000 books as gift from the Pushkin Library to Heydar Aliyev Foundation was held

As Trenf reports, opening the ceremony, president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, MP Mehriban Aliyeva noted, the year 2005 entered into the history with a lot of important events, one of which was the Year of Azerbaijan in Russia. The year 2006 is announced the year of Russia in Azerbaijan and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation carried out the first event from this cycle on the eve of its opening, handing over books from the Pushkin Library to the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

According to Mehriban Aliyeva, it is real and truly belle letters and scientific literature, without which it is impossible to imagine not only education or science, but the life of the society in general.

President focused a special attention on the text-books, the number of which constituted over 800 books. According to her, the issue of making up quite new type of text-books ripened in the new independent states and the Russia's Pushkin Library was one of the structures which actively supported and was involved in the development of this program. This problem is very actual today in Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva underlined.

President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation voiced also hope that we would become witnesses of the Azerbaijan book-publishing revival. The commencement of this process she called a large-scale project which had been implemented in the country during two years– publishing of classical and modern Azerbaijan and foreign literature in the Latin graphics.

??hriban Aliyeva noted also, under the presidential decree the Education Ministry, an individual program on text-books, which will cover all high school profiles, was developing. "Undoubtedly, the Russian experience, and, in particular, the experience of the Pushkin Library is very valuable for us in the program implementation", she noted.

Mehriban Aliyeva stressed also, "Azerbaijan is probably, the only country on the post-Soviet space today, where education is maintained in the Russian language to a large extent". According to her, the Slavonic University, which trains specialists practically in all Slavonic languages has been functioning in the country for many years.

"We are proud today, that we managed to preserve cultural field of the great Russian literature, which, undoubtedly, is the cultural bridge between Azerbaijan and Russia", she stated.

"A book is the most reliable and kind Ambassador in relations between various states", the Pushkin Library general director Mariya Vedyapina said in a statement while addressing the ceremony. According to her, handing over books will become preamble for the opening of the Year of Russia in Azerbaijan. "The main thing is not to lose interest to each other, once there is such interest we will always help gladly", she noted.

President of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Mahmud Kerimov appreciated this gift as respect to the Heydar Aliyev memory and the Azerbaijan culture. He noted the especial the necessity of these books for Azerbaijan, where thousands libraries and millions of books had been burnt down at the result of the Armenian aggression.

It should be noted the books published at the highest polygraph level cover history, culture, literature, science, technology, economics and are designed for a wide range of readers.