Members of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Moscow celebrate international Azerbaijani solidarity day. 23 December 2014. Photo CC: Kaspiy.AZ. Some rights reserved.
Despite the economic crisis of the past two years, it’s still fashionable in Azerbaijan to take trips to “western” countries. A funny incident happened recently when a group of mid-rank government officials from Azerbaijan visited Berlin and Paris. Accompanied by an Azerbaijani who had lived for many years in the German capital, they took a stroll through the streets — and incessantly complained to their companion about the poor street lighting.
In their opinion, things weren’t much better in Paris. As they took a walk through the city centre in the evening, they could only find one brightly-lit building. They were proud to discover that it was the Azerbaijani cultural centre. Like many others founded across the EU and US, this cultural institute was a result of Azerbaijan’s official policy of diaspora-building. It’s a policy born of Azerbaijan’s decades-long struggle with Armenia for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which remains unresolved to this day. The Armenian diaspora is well-rooted and well-known in Europe and North America. In Azerbaijan, it’s seen as immensely influential and strongly united in solidarity. No surprise, then, that it became something of a case study for Azerbaijan’s own diaspora project.
