All posts tagged: heydar aliyev

*InstArchive* on Instagram

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I’m trying something new because I’m American and tradition is boring we are made to think/believe/made to think is make believe. Everyday on my Instagram (@amandarivkin) I am posting a new image from my archive that is paired with a bit of “on this day in world history”. It’s how I’m taking it to the streets, building the ol’ personal brand, sharing my love of history, and finding meaning in my own work. It’s only a few days old but already we’ve been to Davenport, Iowa; Baku, Azerbaijan; Reyhanli, Turkey and today Spotsylvania, Virginia. Czech it out! MAY 9: On May 9, 2012, Obama announced his support for gay marriage in a television interview with Robin Roberts. In this image from my archive, witness Connie Fuller, 39, takes a picture of Rock Island, Illinois couple (l-r) Curtis Harris, 50, and Daren Adkisson, 39, after they picked up their marriage license first thing in the morning at the Scott County Recorder’s Office the first day same sex weddings are legal across Iowa in Davenport, Iowa on …

BBC World Services (Russian, Turkish and Azeri): Today is The 90th Birthday of National Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev (And Also the Much Lesser Known “Azerbaijani Flower Day”)!

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Today is the 90th birthday of a certain Heydar Aliyev, the Ümümmilli Lider (“National Leader”) of Azerbaijan, the former KGB chief, leader of Soviet and independent Azerbaijan, and the father of the current President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. In other words, today is very, very important in Azerbaijan. There are great celebrations in Azerbaijan – and around the world as this video from the Washington Mall shows. In anticipation of today, Leyla Najafli, a reporter for the BBC gave me a ring to ask me about my work “Heydaristan,” an accidental exploration in the endurance of iconography. My words to her have been translated and appear on the sites of the BBC World Service in Azeri, Russian, and Turkish. But what did I say in the English? Thanks to my friend Maria for the translation back from the Russian: “Heydaristan” Photojournalist Amanda Rivkin, working in Baku, decided to make a photo essay dedicated to the Aliyev personality cult. It’s called “Heydaristan”. The Aliyev personality cult is somewhat different from the various others in modern history. …

Young Explorers’ Grant Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Photo Essay Published On National Geographic Website

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Pictures: At Five Years Old, BTC Pipeline Moves Oil, Culture National Geographic June 10, 2011 A New World Unveiled Photograph by Amanda Rivkin The landlocked Asian nation of Azerbaijan forged a powerful connection to the West five years ago with the first delivery of oil through one of the most ambitious energy projects of a generation—a $4.2 billion, 1,100-mile (1,800-kilometer) pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. When the deal was originally struck in 1994 for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline, the late Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev called it “the Contract of the Century”—the first time a former Soviet state had signed a deal for its oil to reach international markets without going through Russia. It was also hailed as a major policy success for the United States, which had engaged in years of intensive diplomacy to build an avenue for Caspian oil wealth that did not rely on Moscow. (Related: BP’s map of the pipeline route) The BTC has the capacity to deliver 1.2 million barrels of oil per day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan …

The Best in WikiLeaks Cablegate Coverage from News Sites Around the World

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December 2, 2010: “El ‘antiamericano’ Garzón tuvo especial seguimiento,” El Pais [in Spanish] Published under a headline on the homepage of the website, “El ‘antiamericano’ Baltasar Garzon” – photographs of Baltasar Garzon on Amanda Rivkin PhotoShelter archive. “Mafia Analogy for Aliyev Dynasty: Ilham Aliyev and Corleone Brothers (Wikileaks),” AzeriReport ” In US diplomatic cables newly released by Wikileaks, Aliyev clan’s rule over Azerbaijan is compared to mafia, specifically to the Corleones family in the famous ‘Godfather’ movie series. Ilham Aliyev himself ‘described alternately as a mix of “Michael” and “Sonny.”‘ Maintaining ‘a clever, realistic foreign policy’ that he inherited from his father, he reminds of the cold-calculated alliance builder Michael Corleone. But his domestic policies, with crude retaliation against even minor challenges to his authority and criticism, resemble the ‘brash, impulsive’ Sonny Corleone.” related posts: “Mafia Analogies for the Aliyev Family in WikiLeaks/U.S. State Department Cablegate: Is He Michael or Sonny?” Includes links to relevant background articles and blog posts to understanding the Aliyev/Corleone cable: “Donkey Video,” Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade/OL! “Shown Trial,” Fortnight …

Mafia Analogies for the Aliyev Family in Wikileaks/U.S. State Department Cablegate: Is He Michael or Sonny?

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The ongoing flood of U.S. diplomatic cables released by the online repository of leaked government and corporate documents Wikileaks known as “Cablegate,” has led to the release of a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baku using a mafia analogy of the Corleones from the popular “Godfather” movie based on the Mario Puzo novel of the same title questioning whether Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is like Michael or Sonny and rendering father Heydar essentially Vito. The cable makes two passing referencing to Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, released from prison a little less than two weeks ago after serving several months each on trumped up charges of hooliganism most observers said was little more than a ruse following their satiricial video, dubbed the “donkey video”: Commenting on the GOAJ’s harsh reaction to the YouTube “donkey video” (Reftel A), –––– quipped to the Charge that what one must understand about Aliyev, “He’s not Michael Corleone, he’s Sonny.” Recently in Fortnight Journal I wrote of this video in an article entitled, “Shown Trial”: Milli’s great crime against …

Shown Trial: Emin Milli and the Future of Azerbaijan

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Shown Trial Fortnight Journal November 26, 2010 What happens to the Vaclav Havels of the world when their velvet becomes bloody? Azerbaijan, after its 2005 push for openness and reform in government, found itself somewhere among Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968 and Poland in 1981. A human tragedy began; replete with obligatory (in the post-Soviet world) sideshows, show trials, political arrests and imprisonments of intellectuals—followed by their occasional, conditional release. When I met Emin Milli, one such Azeri prisoner of conscience, he was on leave from prison in Azerbaijan this summer for one week to attend his father’s funeral and mourn his passing. He sat with his wife, Leyla, and mother, Natella, in a cousin’s home, surrounded by friends and family in the village of Boyuk Oyrad, in his native Neftcala region of Azerbaijan. Leyla would later remark to Radio Free Europe how unfortunate it was that “someone had to die, so that we may talk.” Among such circles of dissent, history has provided for the emergence of several archetypes. Some dissenters are reluctant …