When I get back to the States, I’m not sure I’m going to know what to do without all of the reminders of Heydar. In Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, the country’s first President after the breakup of the Soviet Union, is everywhere. And I mean EVERYwhere. The main street in every town and village seems to be named Heydar Aliyev Prospekti. There are parks named after him. Statues of him. Billboards. Everywhere you look, it’s Heydar.
Heydar Aliyev died in 2003, but the country still celebrates his birthday. In early May each town holds a festival on a day close to May 9th. The festivals aren’t always held on Heydar’s actual birthday because everyone wants media coverage and only Baku has broadcast news, so they all kind of take turns. The festivals celebrating Heydar’s birthday remind me of the Rose Parade because everything is all about flowers. There are floral sculptures, flower contests, and entire parks are transformed for the day through the hard work of the people of Azerbaijan.
Last week I traveled to Agcabedi (Ag-juh-bed’-ee) to help my friend in her garden, and timed the visit to coincide with their Gül Bayramı (“goul buy-rah’-mih”)(Flower Holiday) celebrating Heydar Aliyev’s 91st birthday, were he still alive. We walked from her house to the Heydar Aliyev Parkı, about three or four kilometers in our black and floral outfits. We could’ve been smarter….it was really hot, even though we didn’t start walking until about 5:20. Too hot even for ice cream, if you can believe it. On the way, a man heard us talking and asked if we were Russian (because English sounds so similar?). We assured him that we were American and spoke no Russian, but did speak a little Azerbaijani. He continued to walk with us, apparently forgetting what we said, since he was talking more and more urgently in Russian about the defeat of fascism. Realizing we were in a no-win situation, we tried to ditch him, thinking we could take a side street to the park. We walked away, got to where we meant to turn and thought to ask the woman selling chickens if we could get to the park that way. No, she said, you have to go back the way you came. And wouldn’t you know it, our Russian-speaking friend had followed us. Some strategically-paced walking later, we got to the park without passing out (barely), bought some water and proceeded to check things out.
Crowds were swarming, so, keeping an eye out for my friend’s tutor (we were supposed to be meeting him and his wife), we ventured into the vast, unshaded main plaza to check out the flower exhibits. I think most of the towns and villages in Agcabedi Rayon were represented with vases of lilies and roses, as were the city’s schools. There were tributes to Heydar in floral form…photos with frames made from flowers and petals. So lovely.
My friend and I had been told by her tutor that the concert portion of the celebration would begin “after six.” We went to the concert area and every seat was taken, mostly by women and children. We wandered, looking for her tutor’s signature hat, and I made the mistake of glaring back at a young guy who was staring at me like I had three heads. Usually when I glare back, they realize they’re doing something inappropriate and look away, but oh no. This guy apparently misreads my glare and proceeds to follow us as we wander the concert area. (In the interests of precaution should anything go awry, I surreptitiously took his picture.) After about 20 long minutes, he finally got bored and split, but not before making me very, very uncomfortable in the process.
My friend and I finally decide to join other women and children sitting on the edge of the non-working fountain. It’s a great people-watching place.
I wanted so much to make a photographic study of the shoes the women and girls thought fit to wear to an event where they would be standing and walking for hours, but didn’t. I wonder sometimes about these women who wear high heels for hiking and walking; I think it’s actually pride….sort of a show of toughness, an unwillingness to admit that the shoes actually kill their feet. But I see it everywhere. I don’t know how they do it. But my friend and I had found seats and got to watch them, occasionally making small talk with the other women and girls near us. Then the peace that is people-watching was shattered.
Some men took objection to the fact that women and children were sitting on the edge of the fountain. I’m not sure if they felt it was disrespectful of us to be sitting on the edge of the fountain, if they didn’t think we were bright enough to have cleaned the dirt off before sitting down and were making our clothes unspeakably filthy, or if they just wanted to exert some authority over random women, but it was me they approached first. Naturally.
An older man came and told me I couldn’t sit there. I asked him why. He just repeated himself, saying I couldn’t sit there. Then he started gesturing to the other women and saying to them that they shouldn’t sit on this fountain. My friend and I, annoyed but unsure what to do, stood up. The other women started to get up, too. Then some younger women sat down again. Rebellion!! I looked at the men; they were talking to each other, perhaps about how women just have no sense of propriety, I don’t know. But then I felt a tap on my shoulder and one of the men kind of smiled and told me to sit. Other men were saying this wasn’t right and it went on and on, with women standing and sitting, popping up and down, all at the whim of these random men who decided they weren’t sure whether they liked what they saw or not. Finally, most of the women just kind of said, “to hell with it,” and sat. Which is about the time my friend and I decided to walk home.
We did stop for ice cream along the way. Thanks, Heydar, for another memorable gül bayramı.
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