Ministry of Culture is unable to allocate dignified premises for the establishment of M.E. Rasulzadeh House-Museum

January 2024 marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Mammad Emin Rasulzadeh, the founder and chairman of the National Council of Azerbaijan. The state marked the date with a "plan of events" without erecting a monument to the prominent Azerbaijani figure in Baku. However, there are monuments to poets and writers in the capital of Azerbaijan and outside Baku, which undoubtedly beautifies the cultural and historical landscape of the country.

Even worse, there is no Mammad-Emin Rasulzadeh House-Museum in Baku. The efforts of the public group "Rəsulzadə Ev-Muzeyi" ("Rəsulzadə Ev-Muzeyi" ictimai qrupu) headed by professor-historian Solmaz Rustamova-Togрidi, which applies to the executive bodies with a request to vacate Rasulzade's former flat for the establishment of a museum there, are met with various excuses.  For now, the public will have to be satisfied with visiting Rasulzadeh's virtual house-museum created by the company of businessman Vahid Mustafayev.

Note that the inauguration of the interactive virtual museum took place first on 1 February 2024 in Baku, at the "Second International Readings of Rasulzadeh" ("II Beynəlxalq Rəsulzadə qiraətləri"), then on 5 March in Istanbul, and on 6 March in Ankara, at the conference "M.E. Rasulzade and the Turkic World (M.Ə. Rəsulzadə və Türk Dünyası Konfransı ).

In this high-quality resource, under the genius music of Uzeyir Hajibekov, visitors can see in 360-degree perspective historical photos, documents, furniture, interior decoration of Rasulzade's flat.  It is possible to get copies of documents and photographs. The historical documents are cleaned by Artificial Intelligence method and are offered for free use to researchers, students - all those interested.
Professor Solmaz Rustamova-Toghidi answered Turan's questions about reasons for absence of a real, actual House-Museum of M.E. Rasulzadeh.

"The problem is the lack of available space.  Rasulzadeh's parental house in Baku was destroyed in the 60s, now the Nizami metro station is in this place.  The house in Novkhani village, where he was born, houses a kindergarten, and we did not apply for the premises. Our goal was to create a museum in Rasulzadeh's flat, which he occupied as the head of the Republic in the former Vorontsovskaya street, 15, now Islam Safarli street, 15 in Baku. However, this building is a hotel, everything inside has been destroyed and rebuilt as a hotel.

We are trying to find a proper room in the historical buildings nearby. On the same street, in the 13th house there is a room similar to Rasulzadeh's historical flat, suitable for creation of his Memory Museum.  This two-storey house is on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Culture and is quite suitable for our purpose, but in this case it will not be a House-Museum.  We had talks with the Ministry, then the Ministry's leadership changed twice.  So far there is no decision," the professor said.

Added to this can be that activists have collected historical items, books, documents in Azerbaijan and abroad, which can be placed in the House-Museum of M.E.Rasulzade. The unique collection is kept in Rasulzadeh House-Museum Foundation, National History Museum.  Solmaz khanym also informed that through the efforts of the public group the conferences "International Readings of Rasulzadeh" are held and "Rasulzadeh Research Centre" is functioning.

Professor Rustamova-Toghidi thanked Turan for interest to the efforts of the public group and asked, if there is no House-Museum, then to raise in the press the issue of at least installing a memorial plaque - bas-relief on the wall of the house at 15 Islam Safarli street, indicating the importance of this building in the history of Azerbaijan.

For two years the public group has been making this request to various instances; however, to no avail.