The Azerbaijani Embassy in Moscow held a mourning ceremony on the 21th anniversary of the tragedy of the Bloody January. The participants laid flowers to the list of victims and to the bas-relief of Heydar Aliyev who came to the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan in Moscow the day after the massacre to express his protest against the act ofviolence by Soviet authorities against his people.
At the beginning of the event a minute of silence honored the memory of the dead. Opening the mourning event, the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia, Polad Bulbuloglu, gave a brief introcution into the events of Bloody January, adding that this tragic date will always live in people's memory and should be a lesson for the future generations. The Ambassador stressed that the country's leadership attaches great importance to this event which is celebrated annually on the state level. After describing the atrocities of Soviet troops against the Azerbaijani people and the difficulties connected with the information blockade, the ambassador stressed that this tragic event was, at the same time, a turning point in the history of Azerbaijan. He also said that Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani people do not identify the January events with the current Russian leadership and the Russian people, with which Azerbaijan has old neighborly relations.The event was attended by the diplomats from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Sudan, Mali, as Turkey, Ukraine, Mauritius, Zambia, Moldova, Paraguay, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
