The Institute of Geography named after acad. H Aliyev of the MSEAR marked the 35th anniversary of the tragedy of January 20.

First, a minute of silence was observed in honor of the memory of our heroic sons and daughters who died for the Motherland.

The executive director of the institute, PhD, associate professor Zaur Imrani noted that the events of January 20, in addition to being a tragedy, were imprinted in memory as a true chronicle of the heroism of our people. This date has been celebrated in our country for 35 years. This is how it should be: those who forget history have no future. Our duty is to study history and draw conclusions from it.

Calling January 20 the day of heroism of our people, the chairman of the trade union organization of the institute Kamran Ramazanli noted in his speech that the sovereignty of our homeland was restored thanks to the heroism of our people. He noted that the heroic history of our people began before January 20 - from the moment of the formation of the National Liberation Movement, and therefore 1988 was declared the year of the People. Finally, the day of the capture of Shusha - our Victory Day - is also the result of the heroism of our people. Today, Azerbaijanis living in different countries of the world celebrate and promote the date of January 20. It is the duty of each of us to keep in memory the valor of our people and the difficulties they endured. Although our people suffered many sacrifices, this happened in the name of the sovereignty of our country. This once again proves that our people are freedom-loving, courageous and heroic people!

Then the head of the department, PhD in geography Habil Haqverdiev and PhD in geography Solmaz Rzayeva, leading researcher, DSc in geography Stara Tarikhazar and senior researcher, PhD in geography Natig Babayev shared  their thoughts and memories of the bloody January events in their speeches.