9.4 Personal Experiences - These Past Ten Years

Winter 2001 (9.4)
Page 26

Viewpoints
Personal Experiences - These Past Ten Years

Azer Ahmadov
We have a saying: "Better to have lived one day in freedom than 40 years in slavery." If the Soviet Union had not collapsed, I would be a citizen of the USSR, but that wouldn't mean sharing the same "equal rights" with the "elder brother" - Russia. I would not know one of the most precious things in the world - freedom of speech and democratic thinking. My spiritual world would not be as rich as it is today.

Since the establishment of the USSR, there have been a number of times when Azerbaijan lost territory to other republics. Even on the eve of the collapse of the USSR, the Soviet leaders unleashed a conflict that led to Armenia's hostile occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh with the help of Soviet troops. This is what I find the hardest thing to adjust to - the seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh.

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From Azerbaijan International (9.4) Winter 2001.
© Azerbaijan International 2002. All rights reserved.