Today is the birthday of the first lady of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva. She has an interesting life, with its ups and downs. She has never chose the easy way. Everything she inherited from ancestors was multiplied, each opportunity was capitalized on.
Mehriban was born in a very respected Pashayev family: hew mother was a doctor of philological sciences, while her father was a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, and he grandfather was famous writer Mir Jalal Pashayev. Based on that, it would seem obvious that she would choose to study in humanities, or maybe follow her father's steps. And young Mehriban did decide to to that and study in medicine. First she enrolled into medical institute in Baku, then transferred to the Sechenov Moscow Medical Institute. At 19, she became daughter-in-law of a member of the Politburo of the Commonist Party's Central Committee, Heydar Aliyev.
At the age of 20, Mehriban and her husband, a graduate of MGIMO, Ilham Aliyev, had a daughter. They named her Leyla. Then they had a second daughter and son, and three more grandchildren. Her second daughter, Arzu, was born in a difficult period for the family: in 1987, Gorbachev told Heydar Aliyev to retire, after that Azerbaijan quickly descended into the Karabakh conflict, and Aliyev family couldn't leave Moscow. “After” doesn't mean “because of,” but the fact remains: their homeland was on fire, while their family was basically in exile. During the period of Perestroika Mehriban and Ilham worked in Moscow: Mehriban worked at the Moscow Research Institute of Eye Diseases, while Ilham was forced to leave MGIMO after his father’s resignation, accompanied by quick reorientation of officials from positive to negative: it turned out that at that time Ilham’s origin hindered his carreer more than it helped.
When the Popular Front lost power in 1993 after the Karabakh bloodshed, Heydar Aliyev was asked to return to power. This didn't mean safety for the family: just before that Aliyev spent several months in a military and information blockade in Nakhchivan - an exclave cut off from the main territory of the republic.
After coming to power, Heydar Aliyev was forced to continue fighting for many months. Karabakh conflict lead to more and more victims. In the end, Heydar Aliyev still managed to pull the country out of this extremely difficult situation - but he had to pass the Karabakh problem onto his son Ilham, who became president after the death of his father, in 2003. This conflict didn't end, and it can reignite any minute.
Is her husband's presidency a great opportunity? Yes. But Mehriban didn't see it as an opportunity to live in luxury. She is not only the first lady, she is the head of the Culture Fund, and after the death of her father-in-law, she is also the head of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.
This outstanding woman managed to avoid many mistakes and dangers, and now we're looking forward to seeing whether she will be able to overcome the most difficult obstacle in her live - temptation of power and success. Indeed, since 2017 Mehriban Aliyeva became the first vice-president of the Republic of Azerbaijan. And she understands that she can be blamed for any recession in the economy, any corruption scandal by the public. In a Muslim country, even in such soft and tolerant country as Azerbaijan, public opinion still puts forward a lot of demands, so Mehriban basically has to deal with the same amount of tasks as the president.
This is how Mehriban Aliyeva celebrates her anniversary. It's hard to find her at her own home home. She has no spare time for indifference, passivity, demagogy. She is an amazing person. And if someone wants to criticize her, before doing that he should be able to demonstrate at least half of personal qualities that she has.
