These days, staff correspondent of AzerTAc in the Arab Republic of Egypt, honored journalist of Azerbaijan Asya Hajizade is celebrating her 50th anniversary.
She has devoted more than a quarter of a century to the art of her life, being able to take a rightful place in the national press, and for more than 15 years she has been representing Azerbaijan far beyond its borders.
She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of the Azerbaijan State University named after S.M. Kirov (now Baku State University). Asya Hajizade was born into the family of the famous novelist Alibala Hajizade. The childhood of this curly green-eyed girl was spent in Kabul, where her father was sent as a military interpreter.
Later, when she studied at Baku school №53, she began to demonstrate her forcefulness and self-sufficiency, her teachers had to deal with it more than once. Sometimes they were simply puzzled by the creativity of this girl and some hidden inner strength in the ability to resist negativity in any form. "The best essay is written by Asya Hajizade!" the teacher of Russian language and literature, Valeria Vinogradskaya, would say loudly, entering the classroom. It was on the theme 'Farewell to school!' which was given to high school students on the eve of the final exams, in which Asya, a sixteen-year-old Soviet teenager, expressed her written protest (!) against the corruption and localism in the school.
In 1983 Asya entered the Faculty of Journalism of the ASU, in 1989 she began her career in the position of editor of the department of Sociological Research AzTV. Later, Asya also worked as an editor in the Baku studio on the Heberler news program, and until 1993 she held a post in the socio-political department of Azerbaijan State Television and Radio. In 1994, Asya Hajizade left for the Azerbaijani-Turkish news agency ATA (which later grew into the AvrAsiya newspaper), where she became the leading reporter in charge of the Office of the President of Azerbaijan, the Milli Majlis, the Foreign Ministry and SOCAR.
From that moment she showed her talent to delve into the essence of what is happening, to recognize significant things in the small, to find a causal link of times and events. Taking a mediatory role in many landmark political events in Azerbaijan from 1994 to 2001 by her publications, Asya Hajizade accompanied National leader Heydar Aliyev on foreign trips many times as a part of the president's pool.
Of course, her vibrant personality and professional intuition could not go unnoticed. In 1997, Asya Hajizade was invited to the post of special correspondent for Azerbaijan in the CIS Department of the popular Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, where she worked until 2002 until her appointment as AzerTAc staff reporter in Russia. Since then, a major milestone in her professional activity has begun, because in those years it was very important to objectively illuminate the real situation in Azerbaijan, which was in conditions of an information blockade, it was necessary to tell the truth about Azerbaijan to the world community without cuts, also through the Russian media.
We can say without exaggeration that Hajizade's professionalism was forged in the crucible of Nezavisimaya Gazeta. According to many foreign journalists, her publications gave the reader the opportunity to read objective assessments of the socio-political realities of Azerbaijan in those years. Asya Hajizade extensively covered all the foreign trips of President Heydar Aliyev, the internal and external policies of the country, the dynamics of the Karabakh conflict, the Contract of the Century, the news of the domestic economy, the oil strategy of Azerbaijan, as well as other key events of that period. It should be noted that in parallel she was a correspondent for the Panorama newspaper, where she continued to cover the political situation in the country, and at the same time she repeatedly appeared on the pages of various publications in Russia.
In February 2002 Asya Hajizade was appointed correspondent of AzerTAc in the Russian Federation. And that was exactly where she belongs – of accredited journalists are required special attention, responsibility, a non-traditional diplomatic approach, careful coverage of events and political and professional wisdom which, luckily, she has. From 2013 to the present Asya Hajizade has been the correspondent of AzerTAc in Egypt and still has a highly responsible approach to her journalistic mission.
In 2010 Hajizade was awarded the title 'Honored Journalist of Azerbaijan' by decree of President Ilham Aliyev. She is the author of a wide range of thousands of materials (mainly on political issues), written between 1989 and 2015: articles, interviews, analytical data, many of which are stored in the National Archives, her publications are available through the Google, Yandex and Rambler search engines.
One of the distinguishing features of Hajizade is the ability to easily find a common language with everyone. It is important to note that the art of communication is most needed for an international journalist. She could ask the most urgent questions, which were critical for clarifying the position of any country, at many international forums with the participation of a President. Once there was a meeting of the Caucasian Quartet with the participation of Heydar Aliyev, Vladimir Putin, Eduard Shevardnadze and Robert Kocharian at the press conference of the CIS summit in Moscow. Each party was allowed to ask only one question. Hajizade's question sounded like this: "What are the results of the meetings of the leaders of the Caucasian Quartet and what format and what principles should provide security in the region? If it's possible, the presidents of all four countries should speak on this subject!" At that time it was important to hear the views of all states that were party to the process and, despite the rather cheeky question of the Azerbaijani journalist, all the presidents were happy to answer it.
The diligence on the verge of obsession and endless demands on herself are the main qualities of Asya Hajizade, who is a bright personality, extraordinary and at the same time very friendly. Being a person of subtle and ironic mind, she is a very interesting companion, who admires people with a generous heart and at the same time she always passes someone else's pain through herself.
Asya Hajizade achieved success in international journalism by working hard. She was born harmonious, solid, purposeful, spiritually rich, and she was raised in a family of Azerbaijani intellectuals in this spirit. And, according to many, journalism is her true vocation, which determined the trajectory of her fate.
