Over 3mln people visit Azerbaijan’s pavilion at Milan Expo

/By AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan’s Pavilion at the “Expo Milano 2015" international exhibition, which run from May 1 to October 3 in Italy, has become the country’s second successful project after the 1st European Games held in Baku this summer.

This remark was made by Director of the Heydar Aliyev Center Anar Alakbarov at the press conference on November 19, dedicated to the results of Azerbaijan's participation in the exhibition.

He said the national project entitled “Azerbaijan: A treasury of biodiversity” received a high appraisal among 54 pavilions by the Italian Government and was named the pearl of the Milan Expo.

During the six months, the national pavilion was visited by 3.25 million people, while about 23 million people in total attended the Expo 2015.

This is the first, such an interest seen toward Azerbaijan at international exhibitions, Alakbarov noted.

Some 300-man working group worked on the four-storey national pavilion, covering 1,800 square meters during 19 months, to glorify Azerbaijan's history and cultural heritage, rich environmental potential, richness of flora and fauna and rare biodiversity.

The first floor of the pavilion was called a "Symphony of voices", and presented information about Azerbaijan's history, culture and geography. The second floor – a "Symphony of colors" featured climate, landscape and biological diversity. The third floor, which was called a "Symphony of tastes" presented information and examples of national cuisine and organic foods. This floor also had sections "Discover Baku" and "Personalities of Azerbaijan", which gave opportunity to get interactively familiar with the country and its personalities from photos, maps and portraits of Azerbaijanis representing various spheres. The national pavilion also reflected the existence of 9 climate zones, and that the international organizations showed Azerbaijan as one of the 25 spaces of biodiversity in the world.

There was a restaurant on the terrace – 4th floor of the pavilion, which presented national cuisine and different concert programs.

The Azerbaijani Pavilion also won the “Towards a Sustainable Expo” award in "Best Design and Materials" category from the Italian Environment and Sea Ministry. The awards ceremony was attended by Italian Environment and Sea Minister Gian Luca Galletti and the Commissioner of the Government for Expo Milano 2015, Giuseppe Sala.

The national pavilion is planned to be installed in Baku Boulevard, after two-three-week reformation of engineering to ensure its resistance to Baku wind and snow.

Next Expo will take place in Dubai in 2020, while Kazakhstan’s Astana plans to host the International Specialized Exhibition Expo in 2017.

Azerbaijan still has not made a final decision about participation in these events, Alakbarov said.

Azerbaijan was among the first countries to meet the requirements set forth by the participating states since the initial phase of preparation for the 2015 Milan Expo, as well as in terms of the presentation of the Pavilion's format and content.

The World Expo was first organized in 1851. The World Expo is famous for the number of visitors and its scale and ranks third after the Olympic Games and World Football Championships for the number of visitors.