"Let's go!"

Today is the day Russia celebrates the Soviet holiday  --Cosmonautics Day, commemorating the first human space flight. On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin uttered the historic "Let's go!" and stepped into outer space.

30 years later, on the same day, the "Turan News Agency" received official permission to enter the information space for the first time. As the first independent news agency of Azerbaijan, the "Turan Agency" was established on 5 May 1990, the day of the Soviet Press. The date of establishment was chosen deliberately and was a challenge to the  freedom of speech to communist ideology. However, subsequent information work was illegal from the point of view of the then legislation.

In Azerbaijan, the media registration was handled by the State Press  Committee, which responded to all requests for registration by the agency with the wording "Wait". Neither yes nor no.  In the end, I had to resort to an ultimatum. In early April, I went to the chairman of the State Committee, Haji muallim, and categorically stated that if the agency was not registered, I would write to Gorbachev: "You are violating the "Glasnost policy."   "No need for that," replied the anxious chairman.

On 12 April I was informed that I could pick up the registration certificate. On the same day I received it with a reservation that the agency can disseminate information only within Azerbaijan, so to say in the near-earth orbit. But we, entering the international information space, broke through this restriction on a daily basis, from the day I returned to the agency with the certificate in my hands and loudly declared "Let's go!".