First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva has been awarded the Order of the saint Equal to the Apostles Duchess Olga of the 2nd Degree, a high order of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The order was conferred to Mehriban Aliyeva by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia for her support of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as her outstanding contributions to strengthening friendship between Russia and Azerbaijan.
Mehriban Aliyeva said that authoritative international forums are regularly held in Baku aimed at creating mutual understanding and mutual respect: "In 2010, with your high participation in the capital of our Motherland, the World Summit of Religious Leaders was held. In 2006, the 7th Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations was held in Baku. On December 21 of this year there was a forum dedicated to the "Year of Islamic Solidarity" and the theme of this forum was again the creation of a dialogue between peoples, between representatives of various religions. Taking this opportunity, I want to express my deep gratitude to you for your message to this forum and for the high representation of the Russian Orthodox Church."
Mehriban Alieva said that Azerbaijan is a country that highly respects its roots, its traditions, its history. "But, at the same time, we are a country open to the world. We want to build friendly relations with other states and other countries, and relations between Russia and Azerbaijan are built today on the basis of good-neighborliness, mutual respect and friendship. Azerbaijan and Russia are strategic partners, and our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere occupies a very important part in this partnership, of course. We have a huge layer of common cultural heritage, and our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere was formed in those years when Azerbaijan and Russia were still part of one state. It is very gratifying that after the restoration of independence, Azerbaijan not only has not lost, but, on the contrary, has multiplied this potential," she stressed.
"Today in Azerbaijan there is an inexhaustible interest in the great Russian literature and culture. In schools, the study of the Russian language is fully preserved. We have 300 schools in the country, even more than 300 schools, where the educational process takes place entirely in Russian. In the capital there are the Azerbaijan State Russian Drama Theater, Baku Slavic University. The trend of opening branches of the leading Russian universities in Azerbaijan - we have a very successful branch of the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov, a branch of the First Moscow Medical University named after Sechenov - this is another example of our successful cooperation. We have very warm, friendly relations with the Astrakhan region. This is our friend, this is our neighbor and here is a great example of successful cooperation. Of particular importance to us is the discovery, the erection in 2013 of a monument to Saint Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. The best Azerbaijani artists and architects worked on the creation of this monument. Within a year they created a magnificent monument, which expresses our deep respect for the Russian Orthodox Church," APA cited her as saying.
