Eldar Azizov: Baku and Moscow constantly exchange experiences

Yesterday, Baku Mayor Eldar Azizov arrived in Moscow on a working visit to participate in the International Municipal BRICS Forums. He told "Vestnik Kavkaza" about cooperation with the leadership of the Russian capital and the development prospects of Baku.

- Eldar muallim, how does the executive power of Baku currently communicate with the Moscow mayor's office?

- Cooperation between the authorities of Moscow and Baku has a long history. Today, it is developing intensively and covers a wide range of issues. We exchange experience, increase mutual awareness. For example, we are interested in how Moscow copes with the latest transport challenges, how reforms are carried out in this area.

Mutual visits of vice-mayors and leaders of Moscow to Baku have already become traditional. It is not my first visit to Moscow during the last 2-3 years. At each meeting, we discuss the most pressing issues, primarily those related to economic issues - utilities, transport, and so on. I think we need to move further in this direction.

In general, today's forum showed that in order to survive and live effectively, countries and cities must cooperate with each other and exchange experiences. This is the direction of the contacts between the municipal services of Moscow, Baku and other cities. This is a very necessary, important, interesting forum, and I think that it will give impetus to cooperation between cities and municipal authorities.

- What are the objectives of the new Baku General Plan adopted this year?

- The general plan is, above all, the main strategy for the development of the city. Baku is not an easy city, the distance from one end to the other reaches 138 km. Along this distance, the landscape and even the contingent change. And today's general plan reflects the reality that we have: it is based on the creation of several centers of the city of Baku.

Concentration in one place creates crowds and additional problems. Now this is typical for the central part of the city, and in order to relieve, a decision was made to make Baku polycentric. The project is already being implemented.

In general, Baku is developing intensively today. I always say that if a construction crane is working, it means that the city is developing - and in Baku, construction cranes have been working for almost 20 years. During the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, the necessary conditions for the development of national entrepreneurship have been created. Therefore, both Baku and our entire country have changed qualitatively. Azerbaijan has made a leap to a new qualitative level, and all these processes are before our eyes.

Today, Baku is also distinguished by the fact that it is a very safe city. You can walk at night without looking back. Baku is a comfortable city, where all the conditions for the development of tourism have been created. And today's general plan meets the requirements that are on the agenda. 

© Photo: Maria Novoselova/Vestnik Kavkaza

- What are the forecasts for the development of Baku? Will the population of the capital grow?

- I may surprise you a little, but along with maintaining a certain influx of citizens to Baku, we are also seeing an outflow of population from the capital. The fact is that thanks to the policy of President Ilham Aliyev, rapid, intensive development has begun in the regions. Agriculture is actively growing, preferential conditions have been created for this. People settle in the countryside. There are good opportunities there. People take loans and invest in agriculture.

As a result, the overpopulation of Baku is not going as fast as it should. In the future of the entire planet, the creation of megalopolises is predicted, when the city population exceeds 10 million residents. However,  there is no such prospect in Baku today.

Of course, Baku residents experience certain problems with transport, but this is also the result of intensive development and improvement of the standard of living. The growth of the standard of living in Baku is felt in everything, and thanks to the policy of President Ilham Aliyev, it has already increased significantly. As a result, there are no problems in the legal sphere, and the city is very clean, because people themselves take care of it.

Today, Baku acts as a creative and very clean city on the planet. It's not my opinion, but the results of the ratings of international organizations.