Heydar Aliyev, preferred Armenian cognac to Azerbaijani one
Russian President Vladimir Putin presented to British Prime Minister David Cameron a souvenir: Armenian cognac of 42 years of aging. At the same time, the Russian president noted that Joseph Stalin gave Winston Churchill a similar cognac in 1945 at the Yalta conference of the Allied Powers.
In this regard, the Azerbaijani news agency "Haqqin.az" shared with a footage of Georgian TV channel "PIK", in which the Russian radio and TV presenter, writer and satirist Viktor Shenderovich tells the story of how Heydar Aliyev refused the Azerbaijani brandy at a party held in "Echo of Moscow" radio station and asked for an Armenian one.
According to Shenderovich’ story, in the summer of 1997, the chief editor of the radio station "Echo of Moscow" Alexei Venediktov managed to decoy Heydar Aliyev to live broadcast. The room for the reception was prepared "on the highest level, in order to treat the president of Azerbaijan after the program as the rules of hospitality require." For a couple of minutes before the arrival of the distinguished guest Venedictov asked his assistants whether everything was ready. They replied that everything was ready.
"And the alcohol?" Venedictov asked.
"Of course,” the girl replied, “Armenian brandy with five stars."
"You are kidding me?" Venedictov exploded. As Shenderovich noted he is "terrible in anger."
Viktor Shenderovich says that the assistants began to sweep the bottles of "Ararat" off the table and hid them in the most remote boxes. They managed everything on the last moment.
"While Aliyev and Venedictov were discussing the global geopolitical issues on air the assistants roamed in the streets of New Arbat in search of the Azerbaijani brandy. They found it in a doubtful stall, but it was not up to the quality issues. The politically correct bottles got their place in a few minutes before the end of the air" he says.
Shenderovich notes that Azerbaijani President came out of the studio and went to the table together with his entourage. He sat down, looked at the table, smiled with kindness, then picked up a bottle of Azerbaijani cognac and looked at it with more kindness. Then he looked at his people and commanded briefly: "Get out of everyone." And when everyone was gone, he asked Venediktov with a charming smile: "Is there no Armenian cognac there?"