Alexander Sedov: Baku is an oriental tale

Baku is distinguished by its incredible beauty and recalls an oriental fairy tale, the director of the Museum of the East, Alexander Sedov, shared his impressions with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza during the opening of the exhibition of  People's Artist of Azerbaijan, Farhad Khalilov, at VDNKh.

Sedov said that he was born in Azerbaijan. ‘’My parents were building a hydroelectric power station in Mingachevir, and I was born there. When I was two and a half years old my parents moved back to Moscow. So, actually, my memories about Azerbaijan at the beginning of the 1950s are not minimal, there are no memories at all. And many years later, for the first time three years ago, I visited Baku and was shocked by the beauty of this city. It's just like some kind of an oriental tale. I am an archaeologist by profession, dealing with the Middle East, perhaps, I have been in all the countries of the Middle East, but Baku is something phenomenal, it’s like nowhere else, it is difficult to imagine and to see such a beauty. It is one of the cities where I would love to live,’’ he said.

Alexander Sedov also talked about other joint projects with Azerbaijani representatives of culture. "This spring, our museum held an exhibition of Abbas Kazimov. And in November there will be the second part of the exhibition of Farhad Khalilov. In addition, this fall we will host an exhibition of another Azerbaijani artist, so that this year we will have held a series of exhibitions of Azerbaijani artists," the director of the museum of the East said.

According to him, over the past two years the museum has held exhibitions in Azerbaijan twice. "Three years ago there was an exhibition of Japanese prints. In December of last year and January this year, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation held an exhibition of miniatures of the Babur-name manuscripts, one of the jewels of our collection, and it was an excellent exhibition, which was wonderfully organized by our Azerbaijani colleagues. A beautiful catalogue was published, also with the help of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, for which we are very grateful,’’ Sedov shared his impressions.