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The culmination of folk festivals of the month of Nowruz (Ancient Oriental New Year) are celebrated from the evening of 20 March in Azerbaijan, and the holiday fully comes into force on 21 March 2:45am with vernal equinox. However, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev celebrated the holiday on 19 March isolated in front of the cameras of AZTV, passing through a line-up of sham guards and making a speech before government members and MPs in the district of Maiden’s tower. Since morning, Old City was closed not only for the cars but also for the public, for whom the celebrations had not yet started, Azerbaijani information agency Turan writes.

“In past years Ilham Aliyev came into public, though under strict protection. He greeted his cheering compatriots in Youth Square, and traditionally smashed dyed eggs with the mythological characters Kyosa (sparse-bearded) and Kechal (bald). It remains unknown who and why consistently isolates the president from the people and from the national holiday. Ramiz Mehdiyev [head of the President Administration of Azerbaijan – editor’s note] used to be mentioned as the author of the isolationism but currently he is not that active. The logic of the president meeting the prepared public somewhere on something’s opening ceremony - like the opening of the renovated hospital in Mingachevir - with the topical speech about the devaluation of once stable national currency, is long understood; but what has Nowruz Bayram to do with that?” the information agency writes.

As Turan presumes, the president might have had his hasty motives to sooner have a rest from the bustle and tension of the ‘test year’, as he had called it. On 20 March, Saturday, he had already left Baku. The president’s speech was no less surprising.

“The speechwriters had apparently confused government party Yeni Azerbaijan’s congress with Novruz Bayram. Actually, the ceremony at the walls of the Maiden’s tower rather reminded of party officials and executives’ meeting. Although the president lit a fire there, the warmth that beams out of the fire Bayram Akhshami was not there for it was not made either in proper time or in proper place. Instead of warm words of Sympathy, Involvement, Solidarity, Creation, Rejuvenation, Love, Revival, Elevation, even though later, pondering before the TV, the population witnessed routine and utterly not festive statements about conspiracies, double standards, ‘devaluated’ Azerbaijan as an island of security surrounded with enemies, foes, wars and violence,” the article reads noting that the logic of Ilham Aliyev’s speech amounts to the self-isolation under the slogan “We have our own distinct way of development.”

It is also stated in the article that the speechwriters had included the example of ‘an anonymous corrupt transport project in the heart of Europe’ in order to enhance the effect of the president’s speech. But, as Turan writes, it is obvious that he referred to the Berlin airport, where ‘$1.5 billions had been salvaged.’

“Nevertheless, that hot topic is being discussed in German parliament and press. And which of the numerous corrupt projects is being discussed in Azerbaijani parliament? That is the difference,” Turan stresses.