By Vestnik Kavkaza
10 years ago the military engineer, expert in development and integration of space-rocket technology, one of heads of the Central Engineering Research Institute on mission control, Lieutenant General Kerim Kerimov diesd.
He was born in Baku in 1917 in the family of engineer Abbas-Ali Kerimov, a graduator of the St.-Petersburg Institute of Technology. Kerim Kerimov had been working for the Defense Ministry for 20 years, participated in preparation of the first human flight to space, integrated missile-space complexes Zenit. In 1966 Kerimov was appointed the chairman of the State Committee on Piloting. During 25 years of working in the Committee Kerimov had to find out reasons for disasters and accidents and made risky decisions.
“When I met him for the first time, he certainly talked about and of course drew us to the problem of space, space programs,” Agadadash Karimov, the chairman of the Union of the Moscow National Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis, remembers. “He very much wanted that Azerbaijanis would not remain uninvolved like before and that Azerbaijan would become one of the participants in the development, building of space in Baku. I know only five plants that worked for the space programme, producing various parts, assemblies, electronic components. I think that there is also our contribution.”
“General Kerim Alievich Kerimov was someone who in his work consolidated all the scientific community, all the leadership in the country that worked in the aerospace industry, in the aerospace sphere,” Asif Maharramom, the president of "AzerRos", says. “I am the Deputy Director General of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Engineering and in the last year of his life I worked with Kerim Alievich. Today I want to say with great pleasure that every Azerbaijani can be proud that we have such a person as Kerim Alievich Kerimov in our minds, in our hearts, in our memory and in our understanding.”
“Kerim Alievich not only was an outstanding military man, but also was involved in such matters that brought discoveries to the world. This man was a great representative of the intelligentsia,” Eldar Guliyev, honourable representative of the Higher Attestation Commission, says. “When I got to know him better, when I saw his book, when I met his beautiful daughter, his family, I realized that these people have refinement in their blood. He was the leader of the world's first weather satellite, he oversaw the work of the world's first military spy satellite. For 25 years he led a unique organization, an aerospace system engaged in manned space missions. Each launch, each action that was a new were new steps in the development of science in the world.”
“The attitude of Azerbaijanis to him always touched him,” Surya Kerimova, the daughter of Kerim Alievich Kerimov, remembers. “He himself had not visited Azerbaijan for a long time, lived all the time in Moscow, and suddenly there was the attention of his countrymen. It helped him to live a lot.”
